summons

Renee Montagne did a piece on Morning Edition on NPR on Wed., Dec. 29 http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=132416889 illuminating the excellence in achievement of Chinese students on a global standardized math test. To lift from the transcript, some educators are calling this a "sputnik" moment - that the U.S. needs a wake up call to lessen the gap in knowledge and achievement in math between American students and our Asian counterparts.
The piece then went on to create a more complex picture - in fact, one prominent Chinese educator criticized the very measuring instrument and the typical way knowledge/achievement is measured in the Chinese culture, particularly in the test that enables students to be admitted to college: he says all these measures are rote memorization and don't allow for problem-solving or creativity. The latter types of learning are seen as more Western.
As a Westerner, I was surprised by all of this for a couple of reasons - I think of Eastern culture as less "black and white", less dualistic. It hadn't occurred to me that the emphasis on education in Asian cultures might rely heavily on memorization. Also, I tend to have that knee-jerk, sky is falling reaction to what's happening in the American education system; "our students are behind! our culture doesn't value education! there are no jobs! we are economically doomed!"
I like thinking there could be a way (or many ways )that each culture can learn from the other.
It also got me to thinking about why and how I started to care about my own education and not just rote memorization. I was always in honors classes, got decent enough grades in high school and college, but I didn't really care that much about what I was "learning." The turning point for me was taking a Greek Civilization class my sophomore year of college. I had a huge crush on the senior behind me. He was so smart (later became a neurosurgeon)! We'd pass notes back and forth and flirt even though we were both dating other people. But, his grades were much better than mine. One day, while reading the Iliad, I asked him, "why do I need to know this stuff?" He answered, in all seriousness, "because in order to be an educated person in the world you should know this stuff." It was an "a-ha" moment. I realized that I never really cared before about truly learning and that wasn't who I wanted to be. I began making an effort about what went into my brain and questioning so much of what I had allowed to be in my brain before that time.
For me, that was the beginning of being awake to the world in a different way, of being engaged in both my experiences, but also my experiences in the larger context of culture and history. I am so grateful.
This reminds me of a poem someone introduced me to recently, by Robert Francis:
Summons
Keep me from going to sleep too soon
Or if I go to sleep too soon
Come wake me up. Come any hour
Of night. Come whistling up the road.
Stomp on the porch. Bang on the door.
Make me get out of bed and come
And let you in and light a light.
Tell me the northern lights are on
And make me look. Or tell me clouds
Are doing something to the moon
They never did before, and show me.
See that I see. Talk to me till
I'm half as wide awake as you
And start to dress wondering why
I ever went to bed at all.
Tell me the walking is superb.
Not only tell me but persuade me.
You know I'm not too hard persuaded.

Let us all be open to listening and learning in the New Year. Let us be awake. Happy 2011!