[photopress:Chinese_students_1_2_3.jpg,full,alignright]Most Americans have heard that the United States lags China and India in math and science education, but they often dismiss that reality, assuming that the leaders emphasize rote learning at the expense of teaching well-rounded original thinking.
Entrepreneur and venture capitalist Robert Compton says he carried those same assumptions.
Realizing that no statistic could do justice to what he had seen on the ground, Compton launched a new career as filmmaker, documenting students’ high school curriculums and study habits in China and the United States.
The result was 2 Million Minutes, the film Compton screened last month at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Compton cited a calculation from Stanford economist Eric Hanushek that a nation’s gross national product growth correlates directly to the level of math and science scores achieved by its students.
The title, 2 Million Minutes, represents the approximate number of minutes in a four-year period.
The average U.S. student, his film states, spends 900 hours in a classroom and 1,500 hours in front of the television.
By the end of high school, Chinese students have spent twice as much time studying as Americans.
The speech and film screening were sponsored by the Stanford Business School’s Global Management Program.
Source: Stanford News Service
