Learning Gap: Why Our Schools Are Failing And What We Can Learn From Japanese And Chinese EducIt is no secret that American education is in crisis. Our children lag behind students in other countries--and they are losing ground. In The Learning Gap, Harold W. Stevenson and James W. Stigler put this crisis in perspective by comparing teachers, parents, children, schools, and educational practices in the United States, Japan, Taiwan, and China. Based on five major studies, funded by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation and featured on the front page of The New York Times, this is the first comprehensive account of what works in elementary education and what doesn't--and why. The authors analyze the role of standardized tests, tracking, special education, class size, money, classroom discipline, textbooks, and parental involvement and arrive at some startling conclusions that will drastically alter our understanding of the problems and possibilities of our schools. Television is not to blame for children's poor performance nor are underpaid or poorly trained teachers. And contrary to prevailing opinion, class size should be increased, and children should not begin academic preparation in preschool and kindergarten. Most important, the authors show that parental involvement is critical to children's learning and that schools should reward individual effort rather than emphasize innate ability. Bringing a clarity of purpose to the debate on education that is missing from the schools themselves, The Learning Gap is a landmark study that will shape the educational agenda of the future. |
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The learning gap: why our schools are failing and what we can learn from Japanese and Chinese education
User Review - Not Available - Book VerdictStevenson (psychology, Univ. of Michigan) and Stigler (psychology, Univ. of California, Los Angeles) offer a comparison between American (Chicago, Minneapolis) and Asian (Taiwan, China, Japan ... Read full review
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Very useful, helped me with an education paper.
Contents
Preface to the Second Edition | 5 |
Preface to the First Edition | 7 |
Introduction | 13 |
Academic Achievement | 28 |
Childrens Lives | 52 |
Socialization and Achievement | 72 |
Effort and Ability | 94 |
Satisfactions and Expectations | 113 |
The Organization of Schooling | 130 |
The Profession of Teaching | 156 |
The Practice of Teaching | 174 |
Defining the Solution | 200 |
Endnotes | 225 |
For Further Reading | 233 |
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Common terms and phrases
activities age of innocence Ameri American children American classrooms American education American elementary school American mothers American parents American Psychological Association American schools American students American teachers Asia Asian children Asian classrooms Asian schools Asian teachers asked attention average behavior believe Chicago chil children spend children's academic achievement China Chinese and Japa Chinese and Japanese cities compared concepts cram schools cultures curriculum desk discussion dren effort elemen elementary school children example expected families fifth fifth-graders first-graders goals high school homework important individual innate ability instruction interaction Japan Japanese and Chinese Japanese children Japanese mothers Japanese teachers kindergarten large number Learning Gap Lei Feng lesson math mathematics ment Minneapolis models national curriculum nese observed opportunities peers percent practices preschool problems reading result schoolwork scores skills social society solutions spent Stevenson Stigler Taiwan taught teaching techniques television tests textbooks tion United workbooks
Bibliographic information
| Title | Learning Gap: Why Our Schools Are Failing And What We Can Learn From Japanese And Chinese Educ A Touchstone book |
| Authors | Harold Stevenson, James W. Stigler |
| Contributor | James W. Stigler |
| Edition | illustrated, reprint |
| Publisher | Simon and Schuster, 1994 |
| ISBN | 0671880764, 9780671880767 |
| Length | 236 pages |
| Subjects | › Education / Classroom Management Education / Elementary Education / General |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |