How come they don't seem to have this problem in China, India or Germany? It isn't that kids can't handle the workload, the problem is the boring curriculum.
In China the kids take on an extraordinary workload, because long hours show dedication - but they're not learning effectively - instead they all cheat, bribe the teacher, etc.
The appearance of working hard and actually working hard/effectively are two different things. Don't be fooled by cultures with endemic corruption.
How are they not learning effectively? And do you have any sources or evidence to back up your claims of cheating or bribing teachers? Workload isn't an issue. It isn't like kids aren't capable of sitting for hours upon hours, they do these things in front of computers and TVs, the problem is that the public school curriculum is flawed.
Have you not heard of the high incidence rates of Chinese and Indian students being notorious for cheating? Ask any computer science teacher's assistant.
This is wrong. Sure there are stories of Chinese students, parents and teachers cheating the system, but keep in mind that China is a country of whopping 1.3 billion people.
Which just goes to show how systemic it is, if cracking down on some subset of students put them at such a severe disadvantage as to be worth rioting about.
One issue is that people think that there is "the problem". It is a multitude of problems ranging from economic to cultural to institutional. There are many things wrong with our education system and trying to wrap it up in a talking point only prolongs the real discussion that needs to be had.
How do you know they don't have this problem? In India and China, literacy rates are lower than in the US, and a much smaller percentage graduate secondary school (or even go to secondary school). The kids who can't sit still or study effectively probably don't stay in school. Plus, have you ever heard firsthand accounts of Chinese or Indian school curricula? It's a bunch of rote memorization and math drills. The American curriculum at least tries to encourage independent thought and creativity.
