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What are parental and community
attitudes toward their kids' education? (An article published a few years ago -
which I don't have at hand - suggested strongly that most American parents
suffered from the 'Lake Wobegon effect' - i.e., they believed that their kids
and their schools really were pretty much above average in spite of hard
evidence to the contrary, and hey, if it ain't broke, why fix it? or why get
involved to improve it if it's already good? American parents were also far
more likely than their Asian counterparts to believe that success comes from
innate ability rather than from hard work - and the results speak for
themselves, in my estimation.) Is education valued in the cultural 'soil'?
(My Thai students, for example, come here with a pretty good handle on basic
physics, even though they learn under methods many of us would find philistine -
rote memory, no lab work, etc. - but I get the feeling that education is valued
much more highly in Thai culture than it is here, so the kids there end up
learning well.) And, incidentally, my impression of the European model is that
it is less like the 'integrated science' schemes kicked around on phys-l than
it is like taking ten half-credit courses (instead of five full-credit ones)
during one's high-school career - but that opinion may be based on too small a
sample.
Nick
Nick Guilbert
Peddie School
Hightstown, NJ
nguilber@peddie.k12.nj.us