Donny's Blog

https://qz.com/139453/theres-one-key-difference-between-kids-who-excel-at-math-and-those-who-dont/ One way to help Americans excel at math is to copy the approach of the Japanese, Chinese, and Koreans. In Intelligence and How to Get It, Nisbett describes how the educational systems of East Asian countries focus more on hard work than on inborn talent: 1. “Children in Japan go to school about 240 days a year, whereas children in the United States go to school about 180 days a year.” 2. “Japanese high school students of the 1980s studied 3 ½ hours a day, and that number is likely to be, if anything, higher today.” 3. “[The inhabitants of Japan and Korea] do not need to read this book to find out that intelligence and intellectual accomplishment are highly malleable. Confucius set that matter straight twenty-five hundred years ago.” 4. “When they do badly at something, [Japanese, Koreans, etc.] respond by working harder at it.” 5. “Persistence in the face of failure is very much part o...