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A Psychologist's Thoughts on Clinical Practice, Behavior, and Life

Should America Adopt China's Way of Education?

The (September 9-10, 2017) Wall Street Journal's article, "Why American Students Need Chinese #Schools," makes several points: that, in China, the teacher rules supreme over the parent, and that effort and drill are considered the educational pathway to success. There, teachers engage in behavior which would cause their arrest for child abuse in America. Yet, while producing many superior students, the Chinese system also has failures, it being "littered with dropouts in a system that perpetuates an underclass."
Why are so many American schools in disastrous shape, producing the angry frustration that consumes teachers?
The problem with holding ‎teachers‬ largely responsible for their ‎student‬'s learning is that many learning difficulties derive from emotional and family issues that are uncontrolled by the teacher.
Teachers teach--with greater or lesser knowledge and creativity--and can be a catalyst for a child's learning but they do not control most elements of a child's life. Many ‪#‎children‬ who do poorly academically have inadequate control over their thinking and behavior and the healing of these deficiencies, after which grades can improve, is not the province of education.
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