Is America Dumb?

by Zachary Z., 6th grader

Many students in the United States did not score very well on recent international exams, particularly in math, science, and geography. That’s according to a recent study by Programme for International Student Assessment, or PISA, which ranked American students number 30 in math and a low 18 in reading. The United States has consistently been outranked in semi-annual exams by countries such as China, South Africa, Japan, South Korea, England, and France.

I often wonder if that’s because many students have trouble focusing in class and are not studying as much as they could be for tests and quizzes. Although the U.S. government’s education system deserves some of the blame for these low test scores, more attention needs to be paid to how kids are being taught and how this is contributing to weak student skills. We should be reading more about what’s going on in the world. For example, many people will hear on the news about something going on in South America, yet they do not even know where South America is. This becomes embarrassing to our country. People who move to the United States work hard to learn English, but many Americans who are already here may not even know where the country these immigrants are coming from is located. For example, if somebody from Argentina comes to the United States, they will work hard to learn English; however, many Americans do not know where Argentina is.

In other countries, multiple languages are taught, and their citizens become fluent in more than one language. For example, in many African countries, they learn Swahili, Afrikaans, and English. In China, they have four big languages. They are Cantonese, Mandarin, Portuguese, and English. In America, many students are exposed to only one other language, likely it is Spanish. I say exposed because most Americans don’t learn how to speak Spanish in elementary school; at best we are just exposed to pieces of the language.

Recently, the Programme for International Student Assessment held an examination which many people from numerous different countries took. One question, probably the most embarrassing question for many Americans, was, “What is the temperature in this image?” The image showed a thermometer pointing to 81 degrees. Obviously, the answer is 81 degrees. However, guess what the most common answer from Americans was? Hot. That is proof that America is not doing enough to educate its citizens..

Let’s talk about the education issue. One reason why Americans score lower may be because  public schools are unionized. Unions are not necessarily a bad thing. However, what can happen is that teachers can go on strike causing students to be out of school. For example, take the Chicago teachers’ strike in September, 2012. However, the larger problem with unionized works is that once teachers have tenure, some may not be as inclined to work so hard. Like I said before, unions are not a bad thing. Fieldston’s teachers are part of a union. When was the last time you saw Fieldston’s teachers strike?

We’ve even turned the matter of American ignorance on basic topics into a joke. On “Jaywalking With Jay Leno” {This is the link to the Youtube Video}, Leno interviews high school students about geography. One of the questions he asked was: where is Iraq? The girl he was talking to replied, “In Afghanistan.” It is not a big secret where Iraq is. We see maps in school, on the worldwide web, and in books like an atlas. We have enough information to know where Iraq is. A major part of the problem is  that students do not pay enough attention to a topic when somebody or something is trying to teach them about it. More Americans need to take more of their  own initiative to learn about topics they are uninformed on.

The United States government and educational system as well as Americans, as a whole, all need to invest more time and money in education, or the United States will continue to stay uninformed and uneducated about many different topics.