A Great Irony Revisted

This week end, I was sent a cartoon – courtesy of Kenji Matsudo, Assistant Superintendent, Madeira City Schools – which captures the essence of one of my recent blogs.  Madeira is involved in the grass roots initiative to provide Ohio’s citizens with a stronger voice in shaping statewide education policy.  In my blog, I pointed to “a great irony” that is now taking place in education.  While leaders of the education reform movement in our country are trying to model our education system after countries whose students have historically outperformed America’s students on high-stakes tests, some of those very countries are trying to make their education system more like ours.  For example, internationally known scholar and author, Dr. Young Zhao, explains that even though China has an effective system to prepare students to pass exams, unless the Chinese only want obedient, compliant and homogeneous workers, they know they have to shift the emphasis of their educational system.  According to Dr. Zhao, the West is where China is working to find the inspiration it desperately needs for this new educational focus.  With Kenji’s permission, below is the cartoon and his insightful commentary: