The Learning Gap--Stevenson and Stigler

Stevenson, H., & Stigler, J. W. (1994). The Learning Gap: Why Our Schools are Failing and What We Can Learn from Japanese and Chinese Education. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Another recommended reading along the same lines and very much related to the TIMSS study is the work of Stevenson and Stigler comparing eastern and western education systems.

A seminal work is "The Learning Gap: Why our schools are failing and what we can learn from Japanese and Chinese education"

In this work eastern education systems are really painted in a very favorable light. they can do no wrong. while almost all the points made in this book resonate powerfully for me it also makes me ponder the romanicism many of us, myself very much included, have for eastern education systems. i guess they do really do many things right.

In this book they also note the value of comparative studies in order "to make the familiar strange"...

"Having compared teaching, parenting, learning and academic achievement in several very different cultures, we found the most exciting revelations not in what we discovered in Asia, but in what was revealed in the United States. Despite the fact that we have spent all our lives in this country, we, as is likely true of most Americans have never really understood the consequences of many American beliefs, attitudes and practices until we began our studies in Asia...we have experienced the thrill--and the distress--of discovering new attributes of our culture." p. 17

even in this book written over a decade ago Stevenson and Stigler point out the lament of the Japanese and the Chinese that their education does not foster enough creativity, and is too competitive. I guess not much has changed!

"Although the United States is among the countries expending the highest proportion of their gross national product on education, our elementary and secondary school students never place above the median in comparative studies of academic achievement." p. 26

they argue that most people are not aware of "the academic weakness of our nation's children"

they quote an excerpt from the National Research Council's report "Everybody Counts"

"Avearge students in other countries often learn as much mathematics as teh best students learn in the United States. Data from the Second International Mathematics Study show that the preformance of the top 5 percent of US students is matched by the top 50 percent of students in Japan. Our very best students--the top 1 percent--scored lowest of the top 1 percent in all participating countries." p. 31

In Stevenson and Stigler's study they also found a striking achievement gap in mathematics between elementary school students in Japan, Taiwan, China (Beijing) and the US. they also showed the gap widened throughout the elementary school years.

They propose several explanations for the gap:
longer school days and school years in Asian schools, teacher looping, centrality of children's schooling as a focus in teh home environment, amount of homework, the availability of workbooks that correspond to the textbooks, chidlren's magazines, the explicit teaching of classroom routines, collective emphasis of classroom activities vs. loneliness and isolation, length and frequency of recess.

they consider different attitudes towards childhood socialization in Japan, China and the US-- in Japan for example young childhood before school is a time of great indulgence while in the US parents feel that this is a crucial time when they should be working to prepare their children for school. once school begins the US parents turn the learning over to the school just at teh time that Japanese parents begin demanding more learning and discipline from children in teh home.

they mention modeling as an important technique of socialization in Asian society, collectivism in society, "parents remind the indolent child that failure to do well in school will bring shame to the family", explict teaching of routines.

A chapter is devoted to attitudes towards effort and ability. the authors point out the US obsession with natural ability and the converse focus on effort in asian societies. this has many implicatiosn including implications for tracking. in eastern societies young children are not tracked but are gathered together in mixed ability classrooms and also mixed ability groups.

US mothers in their samples had much lower standards by which they woudl be satisfied with their children's academic achievement.

Chapter 7 looks at the differences in organization of schooling in Japan, China and the US.

Goals of education. "The goal of education, we were told by a Japanese education official "is the reduction of individual differences among children"... while american educators place a great value on the cultivation of individual differences.

control of the curriculum: centralized vs. decentralized...they note an interesting statistic that according to 1989 Gallup Poll statitics 69 percent of american's favor a national curriculum.

they note the differentnature of textbooks and suggest that textbooks in China and Japan are less distracting, more focused and that they are sequential as opposed to the US notion of the spiral curriculum.

intriguingly they make this comment:

"since one goal of Aisan teacher is to have children learn that there are many different methods for solving problems...a common technique used by asian teachers in mathematics classes is to have children present as many different solutions to a problem as possible and then to have the class discuss which methods are the most efficient and why." p. 141

however they also emphasize the importance of textbook mastery in asian classrooms as well:

"the influence of textbooks on educational practices depends on how exhaustively their content is used by teachers. one gets the impression that few American teachers excpect to cover all aspects of every chapter in the textbook. not only are large sections within chapters skipped, but the teacher may omit whole chapters. this is not the case in Chinese and Japanese classrooms. Textbooks that contain short lessons, a limited number of practice problems, and practically no ancillary material make it possible for the class to cover every detail contained in every textbook. through notes taken in class, class excercises, and homework, every child will have had to attend to every word, every problem, and every exercise in the textbook used during elementary school." p. 141.

the authors note the predominance of teachers leading the classroom activity in asian classrooms and an overabundance of language classes in US elementary schools because teachers don't like to teach math.

This is all very persuasive as to why a majority of asian children are able to achieve at higher levels than children in the US.

now how is this related to my dissertation again? Stevenson's and Stiglers' findings to some extent corroborate my findings in traditional classrooms--the heavy emphasis on textbook mastery. but they are also suggesting that there is greater emphasis on creative problem solving in asian math classes than in the u.s..

with respect to my study...it is not a comparative study... or at least it is but it is comparing traditional classrooms--i.e. supposedly teaching in classrooms before the reforms and teaching in classrooms after the reforms. but i need to somehow speak to the fact that, at least in mathematics, chinese teachers are perceived as doing very well to begin with.