Sorry for the close proximity of both my blog posts, but now that I've started to look at all of them, the ideas have begun to flow.
As some of you know, I went on a short 3 day trip to Yosemite National Park with my family this past week. We do this every year, but this year was a bit different. We didn't get to stay in the campgrounds, we ended up in Camp Curry, which is just a collection of cabins for rent. It allows everyone to mingle more easily, and the temorary residents of this little village get to know each other pretty well over the course of their stay.
I came upon a family from Amsterdam, Holland. It was a father, Petur, with his two sons. One was 15, the other 11. While my parents talked to Petur, I made conversation with the older of the two sons, Sebastiaan. His English wasn't incredibly good, but as we mulled over what his life was like back home, I came upon a realization: he knew about as much or more about the world around him (just from public school) than most 19 or 20 year-old people in the US do.
He could just about relay to me political information about the world over.
From my observation, Holland's laws and educational system seem to revolve around giving young people adult resonsibilities early on, and they aren't given such a chance to be a "stupid teenager." Because of this mindset, they move on from general studies early in their high school careers, and begin training in a specific direction: their strengths. Students are separated into what they are good at doing. If they excel in reading and writing, they go to a school for those classes. Math and science have other particular schools, with different academic levels for each subject. The way it is broken down in his country seems to make so much more sense to me than what we do here. It helps all of the students gravitate towards their natural talents.
At 15 in Holland, he is studying Greek, Latin, and Aerospace technologies.
He can also drink beer in a year.
Funny, huh?
Instead of panicking about how we're a nation falling back academically, why doesn't the US start observing how Europe is doing things?
From what I've seen (not just from Sebastiaan, but talking to a variety of people from all over the world in Yosemite), foreign teens pay attention.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Thank you for posting this!! Referring back to the last blog I wrote, I think it would be nice if adults took necessary action to remedy this issue of poor education.
Right now, all they're really doing is saying we're stupid and that's why we're falling behind. Stop complaining and try fixing it.
I had a similar experience when I met Louise, a girl from France. I felt a little embarrassed after talking with her...
I have always found education extremely interesting and it seems that they have found a system that works well for them. I would definitely be interested in specializing language arts and science; however I think it would be extremely to institute such a program as this seeing that people are so set in their ways.
Post a Comment