Comparisons that help
McCarthy, Abigail
OF SEVEmtAL MINDS Abigail McCarthy COMPARISONS THAT HELP APPLES, ORANGES & TEST SCORES ust the other day Diane S. Ravitch, assistant secretary of the United States Department of Education,...
...Their children were taught to appreciate differences and that differing talents had equal value: one child might be musical, another good at drawing or numbers...
...When The Jewish Way of Child-Raising (an approximation of the Japanese title) came out it was billed as a key to a people "with all the big money and all the big minds...
...Yet the number of Jewish Nobel Prize winners far outnumbered the Japanese...
...He was the only foreign child in the school and perhaps found security in sameness...
...Evidently nobody quibbled...
...So she enlisted the help of two other women who had different backgrounds...
...He was particularly interested in the preschool years...
...He forgot the Japanese language but his mother believes that she sees in him, now a young man, the mark of the early Japanese education...
...The cover listed world-famous people who were, according to the promotion, products of"5,000 years of Jewish education," many of them, the author says, non-Jews like Thomas Mann...
...Questioning was encouraged...
...The publisher of Goma Books, in a rather crude way, was trying to find out what the trade-offs were...
...The translator also had questions...
...The three mothers agreed that they sought to introduce curiosity, initiative, and individuality in their children...
...OF SEVEmtAL MINDS Abigail McCarthy COMPARISONS THAT HELP APPLES, ORANGES & TEST SCORES ust the other day Diane S. Ravitch, assistant secretary of the United States Department of Education, defended international tests comparing American schoolchildren with those of other industrialized nations...
...Above all, the primary stress was on individuality, she thought...
...Because she was a working mother, her own small son attended a Japanese preschool from the age of three to six and one-half...
...It was my conviction," she says, "that every ten mothers had twelve opinions...
...Mrs...
...Shiloh, yes, Mrs...
...Her son was not allowed to be lefthanded...
...Shiloh rose to the challenge...
...Shiloh.' But they continued insisting on his right hand...
...Studies of the American educational system and books suggesting solutions to its problems abound...
...He reasoned that there must be something in the Jewish upbringing to account for this difference and he wanted her to write a book about Jewish child-rearing for Japanese consumption...
...Even with those differing backgrounds, our principles of child-rearing were the same," Ruth Shiloh said...
...She recalls that in the Jewish schools for toddlers throughout Eastern Europe the children's day began with a dish of almonds and raisins: "To make them think of school as a pleasant place...
...One was the wife of the rabbi of the Jewish community, Mazal ToKayer, a Yemenite...
...The comparing of test scores is not enough...
...students lagging behind the others in mathematics and science...
...Let him use his left hand--it is considered all right in our culture.' They would say 'Yes, Mrs...
...He used to say, she remembers laughing, that he was only ha/f-Japanese but that, when he grew up, he would be all Japanese...
...He used his left hand and found he could draw with ease--something he had had trouble with before...
...The emphasis there was on total compliance, she remembers...
...It was amazing...
...He saw that a high standard of general achievement was reached in his country, but perhaps at the cost of outstanding individual excellence...
...These positive attributes are inculcated in Japanese learning, she thinks...
...Everything was to be done the same way...
...There was no questioning...
...To that extent the Department of Education is right in insisting on the value of the international comparison of test scores...
...They encouraged mothers to come for festivals and outings...
...We have to evaluate contrasting methods of education and contrasting goals as well...
...Business leaders and economists, alarmed at the decline in our global competitiveness, will be inclined to agree with her...
...Once the boy was back in Israel the Japanese training fell away...
...Their aim was to foster a love of learning...
...It was all good...
...7_~ 712: Commonweal...
...We would be foolish, she said, to disregard the results showing U.S...
...There were only around 18 million Jewish people in the world, he said, and over 100 million Japanese...
...He tried to find out why...
...Japanese publishers can be heavy-handed in promotion...
...He has more imagination than his contemporaries and a more plastic artistic sensitivity...
...I would go to the school and reason with the teachers...
...The other was Mitzi Edelman, Brooklyn-born and married to an American engineer working in Japan...
...He is more responsive to nature...
...Ruth Shiloh, a biochemist whose husband is the Israeli minister here, recalls with some bemusement that, when they were stationed in Japan, the head of Goma Books, one of the country's largest publishers, came to her with a rather amazing proposal...
...Everyone had the same standards, the same ethics...
...But it is important that we consider the trade-offs as we try to improve our performance...
...Nevertheless, her son liked the school...
...Why do others do better...
...It is an interesting footnote to the discussion that in Japan--a nation in which the average student outshines ours, and perhaps our chief worry--the same question was raised some fifteen years ago, not about another nation but about another cultural group...
...He liked to have our maid-housekeeper come because she was the same as the other mothers...
...It is clear from this vignette that in comparing educational practice and goals different cultures do have something to learn from one another...
...This could not have been more different from the Japanese approach, she concludes in retrospect...
...She thought that generalizing from her own experience would be too limiting...
...The teacher handed down what was to be learned...
...We told some stories, asked some questions...
...The book was a best-seller in Japan and was pirated in Korea where it had a similar success, albeit with no reward for the writers...
...They sat down and discussed the subject, together with a young man who was to act as their translator for the book...
Vol. 118 • December 1991 • No. 21
