[lit-ideas] Bug Report
- From: "John McCreery" <john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: Lit-Ideas <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, ANTHRO-L <ANTHRO-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2008 11:14:30 +0900
From Slashdot
>
> "I'd like to file a bug report on the US educational system. The New York
> Times reports on a recent
> study<http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/national/10math_report.pdf>
> that
> shows the US fails to encourage academic talent as a
> culture<http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/10/education/10math.html>.'"There
> is something about the culture in American society today which doesn't
> really seem to encourage men or women in mathematics," said Michael Sipser,
> the head of M.I.T.'s math department. "Sports achievement gets lots of
> coverage in the media. Academic achievement gets almost none."' While we've
> suspected that the US might be falling behind academically, this study shows
> that it is actually due to cultural factors that are devaluing the success
> of our students. I suspect there's a flaw in the US cultural system that
> prevents [seeing] achievement on the academic front as valuable. Could
> anyone suggest a patch for this bug or is this cause for a rewrite?"
By way of contrast, the awarding of this year's Nobel prizes for physics
and chemistry to Japanese scientists was front page, banner headline news in
the Asahi Shimbun (the Japanese-language newspaper we subscribe to).
John
--
John McCreery
The Word Works, Ltd., Yokohama, JAPAN
Tel. +81-45-314-9324
http://www.wordworks.jp/
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