(NAME-MCE) Two Million Minutes' suggests it's time to improve U.S. education

[Bill Howe]

'Two Million Minutes' suggests it's time to improve U.S. education



A Memphis entrepreneur's documentary compares high-achieving students from
India, China and America. It has drawn mixed reactions from academics.

By Mitchell Landsberg, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer 

June 16, 2008 

It was over dinner in Bangalore that Bob Compton began to suspect something
was deeply amiss in the way America educates its young.

 

Compton, a successful venture capitalist, was meeting with some of the
Indian software engineers he employed. He soon found himself engaged in "the
most interesting conversations I've ever had."

 

He had expected math and science nerds. But they also knew more about
history, geography and literature than most Americans he knew.

 

"I said to them, 'How'd you get this way?' " he recalled. "They said, 'Well,
at school.' "

 

That conversation launched Compton, 52, of Memphis, Tenn., on a mission. As
both an entrepreneur and the father of 14- and 16-year-old girls, he wanted
to know what schools in other countries were doing that American schools
weren't, and why the United States performed so miserably on international
student comparisons. 

 

The result was "Two Million Minutes," a one-hour documentary comparing the
educational experiences of six students: two Americans, two Indians and two
Chinese.

 

The movie, in (very) limited release, begins with the premise that the high
school years span roughly 2 million minutes.

 

How is that time spent?

 

Compton discussed the film, partially funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation and the Broad Foundation, over breakfast recently in Beverly
Hills.

 

Although the documentary has not been picked up for TV or broad release, he
was upbeat about the effect it was having, mostly through college screenings
and DVD sales.

 

But something was bugging him. It was a discussion that had taken place
after he screened his film at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

 

"I took a brutal beating," he said.

 

Compton, who has run or founded several technology and medical firms, has an
MBA from Harvard and thought he was on home turf. 

 

 

 

Academics resist

 

But one faculty member, Compton recalled, told him that "we have nothing to
learn from Third World education." Another, renowned education theorist
Howard Gardner, took him to task for comparing the U.S. with China.

 

"His point was: How can you have a great educational system when you don't
have freedom of speech?" Compton said. Compton saw the remark as missing the
point: America may not have anything to learn from China's one-party
political system, but it might want to know why Chinese students do better
in math and science.

 

Gardner, best known for his theory of "multiple intelligences" -- which
holds that different people learn in different ways -- declined to be
interviewed but sent an e-mail saying that the contrast among students in
the three countries is "well worth pondering."

 

"On the other hand," he wrote, "the movie's view of what education is, and .
. . what it should be, is limited and deserves a response. While excellence
in science, engineering and technology are worthy goals, it is equally
important to learn about history, citizenship and the arts."

 

.... More at
http://www.latimes.com/news/education/la-na-educate16-2008jun16,0,2554838.st
ory

 

 

 

 

Bill Howe 

Multicultural Dimensions http://www.multiculturaldimensions.org/index.htm

Personal Web - http://www.billhowe.org <http://www.billhowe.org/> 
Blog - Travel - http://billhowe.org/BillBlog/
Asian Pacific American Coalition (APAC) - http://apaact.com/

New England Conference on Multicultural Education (NECME)
http://www.necme.org <http://www.necme.org/> 

 

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: winmail.dat
Type: application/ms-tnef
Size: 9882 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://mail.nameorg.org/pipermail/name-mce_nameorg.org/attachments/20080618/580abcde/attachment.bin