>...He said, "I am not going to college." I ask "Why?" He said "I am not good enough to get in." I was stunned. He was head and shoulders above American students boasting ACTs of 33. He said he was going to what would be considered here a vocational-technical (votech) school.


I had to read this aloud to my family, and you got straight thumbs-up and a hearty laugh from my middle daughter (a high school senior). The main difference between the honor and advanced courses she attends (all but one) and the regular ones is the sheer amount of homework. They don't seem to be learning anything deeper, or broader, they just have more writing to do. I really expected some brainteasers there, not to say brainsweaters.

Basically, from my understanding, American high schools are geared toward producing hard workers, not great thinkers. Our professors always had a warm spot for those who didn't do much homework, but were learning stuff first time they heard it, the so-called category of "intelligent lazy bums". Though our school system was often criticized for being just a funnel to shovel maximal amount of facts into students' brains, in practice it did produce intellectuals.

Also, at the college level, having fixed set of courses with a minimal number of electives (I had only a choice of chemistry-biology-physics-geography-astronomy, and an optional second foreign languge) allowed for much more interconnectedness between the courses' curriculi, so we didn't have to learn the same things over again for the sake of those who had different courses before any given course. It may not have suited many, but it also gave more depth.

I'm lucky I'm not in charge of any reforming of American educational system, because I'd probably be shot by several generations of students :).