American Education System Versus Asian Education System Essay, Research Paper

American Education System versus Asian Education System

Today the American education system is no longer the best in the world.

With declining test scores and poor academic achievement, people have questioned

whether our current educational system is working for us? On the other side of

the Pacific, the situation is totally different. Students of Asian countries

achieve higher academic achievements, and they rank at the top on math and

science tests. If their educational system is better than the U.S system,

should we adopt their educational system or not?

America the land of opportunity, which is famous for its democratic

society and unique culture. People in America like to be free, to do whatever

they want to do without any restrictions. This belief is reflected in the

American educational system. In American schools, teachers and students are at

the same social level. Students are encouraged to exchange their own opinions

with the teacher. From an early age, students in the American educational

system have been taught that they have the ability to achieve whatever they want

to be, but rarely have been told how they can achieve their goal. This is

because in America there are so many ways to achieve one’s dream.

Because of this belief in natural born ability in the land of

opportunity, students receive very little pressure in school, so whatever they

do in school is totally based on their personal beliefs. If a student wants to

be successful he or she can study very hard and get in to a very good college.

On the other hand if a student doesn’t have any self control and just wants to

get school over with, it is OK too, because nobody cares. The advantage of this

kind of educational system is that , it really developes student’s individual

thinking skills, they are encouraged to try out different options to achieve

their goal. For example Bill Gates, who dropped out of college, started his own

company, now he is one of the richest man in the world. That bad thing about

this system is that not that many students don’t have the responsibility to get

good grades or become successful many believe that even if you don’t have a good

education you can still get a good paying job. That’s why many students in

school are doing poorly on their school work.

In Asian countries, the cultures and social standards are totally

different from the U.S. In those countries most of their values are based on

Confucius which heavily stresses education and group values. One’s social

status is based on their education level. Starting from elementary school,

students have been taught that if you want to be successful in life you must

have a good education, any other way is considers inappropriate. In the Asian

school systems, educators rank students by their scores. So, if your rank is

high you are a good student and you will have a good chance to get into a good

school. If your rank is low then you are a bad student it is a sign of your are

going to be a looser. Nobody cares if you are talented or not. Under these

pressures, students compete hard with other students. They study five hours a

day just trying to gain more points on a test so they can get into a higher rank.

In school, teachers try to stuff more knowledge into students so their class

can be better than other class in the School. Schools set stricter rules so

their students can be better than the students in other schools.

Through these efforts of setting high standards it’s no surprise that

Asian students rank at the top of academic achievement. The advantage of this

kind of system is that the school systems can provide the society year after

year with high quality personnel with the same academic standard, although most

of those students are that creative, because they are not allowed to do much

free thinking in school. Free thinking is considered a waste of time.

In reality, a person must be very creative on a job otherwise he or she

will be replaced by someone in no time. Because the American educational system

allows and encourages free thinking in school, U.S is still the #1 in innovation

and scientific research. If the U.S adopts the Asian educational system it’s

probaly going to be in confilict with the constitution on the issue of freedom

of speech. Because of this, I think the current educational system is well

suited for America.