Catching Up or Leading the Way

[Dennis O'Connell]

Hello Andrew!  In my years as an educator, I have seen the US trying to model itself after places like Finland, China, and Japan.  Basing things only on test scores, it looks like America is falling behind!  For a different perspective on this, I have enjoyed the writings and speeches by Yong Zhao.  His book "Catching Up or Leading the Way" in some ways turns things upside down.  He tries to show what is right about American education and why countries like China and Japan send people here to study our system to mimic it back in their own countries.  He points out that creativity and inventivenesss is alive and well in our country and that our education system does the least damage of the major nations in taking this imagination away from kids.  I recommend his book for an alternative perspective.