Education in schools US versus other countries

In chapter 11: The Development of Academic skills, Siegler and Wagner explain how children acquire basic educational skills such as writing, reading and arithmentics. They state that "children's educations, as well as theories of cognitive development, depend on the mutual influence of intra- and extra-classroom factors." Children not only learn in school but also learn by their social interactions. Family is a big influence in the development of cognitive skills.

In the U.S. children are expected to learn fast and more emphasizes is given on the amount that is learned rather than teaching at a slow pace with greater understanding on one topic rather than a lot. The U.S. where everything moves fast and where everyone expects to get a fast response with everything they do, education is not at the same level compared to other countries. The U.S. fails when it comes to education and a study conducted by the UNICEF, shows that from 24 nations the U.S. was ranked 18 in terms of relative effectiveness of its education system.

I asked myself, why is that one of the richest countries in the world, where a lot of money is put into education, where primary education is free and where class sizes are not too big, why is it that students in grade school perform worse than other countries?

I did some research and found that one of the main reasons why the US is ranked lower than other countries is because here we focus on procedure learning meaning that we teach many things at once while not really focusing on one particular thing. For example when children are taught to add fraction, they are taught how to do it but not much emphasizes is put in the actual concept of fractions. In other countries emphasizes is given on understanding what fractions really are and they tend to break topics in more depth, teaching less but in more depth can help children understand and gives them the opportunity to rehearse what has been learned and is easier to encode into long term memory.

Another big problem that I think we should address is the time parents spend with their children. Parents are usually away from home and children are left by themselves sometimes unattended and with little parental supervision. These children end up doing other things rather than their homework and when parents come home they are often times too tired or not interested in helping their children. In other countries education is a priority for children. Maybe parents should take aside a few hours for their children to do homework because children not only learn in classrooms but also learn by doing homework. Parents play a big role in children's performance in school. I think parents should teach their children to study and should force them to spend a few hours each day doing some educational activity in order to learn good study habits.

I was born in Peru and went to school both here and there. I remember always being behind my classmates when I moved from the US to Peru, but when I would move back here after spending some time in Peru, I would perform better than my American classmates. It is very surprising for most people since Peru is a third world country but I know for a fact that education there and in other countries is better than in the US.

I also see the difference in the way parents push their children to excel in other countries. In other countries where education is not as available as here, parents tend to push and spend more times with their children doing homework. Students tend to show more ambition and motivation because often times they are rewarded in schools for their performance. There is greater competition to excel in other countries while in the US students tend to have less ambition to excel. Perhaps I am wrong but from what I have experienced , education in the US is not so good unless a child goes to a private school. Not until college does education in the US excel compare to other countries but perhaps we should try to focus more on early education rather than just in universities.

Hopefully some education programs can be developed to improve education in the US and hopefully public school will have the same level of education as private school. I think we should focus on children's education more now because they are the future of our country.