People who hate on the US education system should try somewhere else's (or, why I'll defend the US education system to the death!)

This post may seem to have nothing to do with old Rammers (my affectionate name for the town I find myself in these days), but it does, so stick with me.

There's a lot of talk out there about how the US education system is a big failure. Systemically, it may well be-- all those dropouts, all that illiteracy, all the incompetent teachers and kids graduating who can't even spell their own name, etc. Fine. I hear that. But pedagogically, I still think it kicks the ass of most other school systems out there. Here's two examples of why:

Scene 1: Kristen's 11th grade French Literature class, Rennes, France:

(trans. from the French)

Professor: What does this poem mean?

[long, awful pause]

Kristen: Um, I think the poem [Kristen gets cut off]

Professor [screaming]: You?! You don't think! The author thinks! You just tell me what he was thinking!!

Kristen: ah, ok, ah...well, the author was describing the feeling of coming home after war, after being away for a long time.

[another long, awful pause where the professor is not acknowledging Kristen's comment nor looking at Kristen]

Professor: Blue is the sky. The sky is blue. What is the difference?

[classmates given Kristen quick empathetic looks while the Professor continues maniacal yet impressive rule of the class]

~

Scene 2: Kristen's soft serve ice cream man across from her apartment, Rabat, Morocco:

(trans. from the Arabic)

Kristen [carrying bowl]: Hi Mohammad [skipping 10 minute God bless you and your grandparents exchange to save reader time], hey, how much does one ice cream cone cost?

Mohammad: 3 Dirhams

Kristen: Great, could you swirl like, three ice cream cones' worth of ice cream in here? It's my roommate's birthday and we need ice cream for the cake.

[Mohammad takes out an ice cream cone and starts swirling ice cream into it]

Kristen: oh, no, no, like, in the bowl. Without cones.

Mohammad: Without cones??

Kristen: Yeah, you know, just three cones' worth. You judge. Just swirl in here [trying to hand over bowl]

Mohammad [balking]: No...I can't do that. It must be on the cone.

Kristen: But Mohammad, I don't want the cone.

Mohammad: No, I cannot without the cone.

Kristen [sighing]: Fine.

Mohammad then takes three separate cones, swirls them up, and hands them to Kristen, who dumped them in the bowl and hands back the cone, much to Mohammad's great chagrin.

~

Maybe this is my latent disregard for the French coming into play, but Jesus, people, learn how to think outside the box a little! God Bless Madame Heurtain, but somewhere in between the English class I took in my fancy American high school where someone said that "Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening" reminded them of Santa (unacceptable) and Madame Heurtain's iron fisted literary analysis lies the right path. And that Morocco example...Lord. That guy destroyed me. It was shocking-- he just could not conceive of not using the damn cone. So much passive transmission and memorization makes Mohammad a dull man.

I see that often here-- the inability to do that higher order thinking. Creativity, none. It's no one's fault-- they can do math in circles around your average American but struggle to come up with basic creative solutions. Just the way the education system trains the brain, I guess.

So, don't hate too hard, America haters. Yeah, it needs some serious fixing, our education system, but at least it aspires to teach you how to think. Not what to think. Humanism puts it best: the well-made head, not the well-filled head.