About the Book

During the 1960s, international comparative tests were developed to evaluate the academic learning of students from different nations. When the results of the first tests were announced, Hong Kong-based Western scholars were stunned to see that the American students’ scores were far below those of their Chinese and Japanese peers. How could this be? (In those days, everyone assumed that U.S. schools were the best!) This startling result was termed a “paradox” by the scholars.

When scholars confront a paradox, what do they do? They do research! So these scholars began research in East Asia to figure out why this paradox had occurred. As the decades went by, other scholars from around the world travelled to East Asia to join this research effort.

As those same decades went by, there was never an international comparative test on which American students scored at or near the top of the international rankings.  But students from East Asia scored at or near the top of every one of those tests.

For a summary of recent scores on three international comparative tests, click here.

Fast Forward to 2020

The findings of that 50-year research effort are now publicly-available in over 1,000 books and journal articles. Collectively, they reveal two principal reasons for the consistent academic superiority of East Asian youth:

• The upbringing they receive at home from their parents, and
• The instruction they receive in school from their teachers.

Cornelius Grove wrote two short books to share these findings with the American public. Each book addresses one of the two major findings:

• East Asian children’s upbringing at home is overviewed in The Drive to Learn (2017, 138 text pages); learn more at TheDriveToLearn.info
• Their instruction in preschools and primary schools is discussed in A Mirror for Americans (2020, 148 text pages), the subject of this website.

Overall, this clear, readable, and slim volume is excellent for anyone interested in global perspectives in education. Highly recommended. Choice magazine, June 2021; published by a unit of the American Library Association

It’s Mainly about Values

A Mirror for Americans: What the East Asian Experience Tells Us about Teaching Students Who Excel discusses not only what happens in East Asian schools and classrooms but also, and more significantly, the values that shape how teachers there instruct and interact with their pupils. By revealing the nature of teacher-pupil relationships in East Asia, Grove enables readers to step back and reassess our American ways of thinking about teachers, pupils, academic learning, and classroom processes.

Why did Grove entitle this book A Mirror for Americans? People who’ve had experience in an unfamiliar culture often remark that they now see their own culture with fresh eyes. It’s as though they’ve looked into a mirror and seen alternative possibilities for their lives. They realize their home culture has features that aren’t “givens” but instead are choices. Different choices could be made.

The mirror provided by A Mirror for Americans enables readers to see that East Asian teachers’ methods actually are not vastly different from American teacher’s methods. The big difference that yields those superior students is the underlying values that drive East Asians’ approach to children and their classroom learning.

The most basic value-difference is that individualism is exceptionally strong here in the U.S., whereas in East Asia, family- and community-focused values have prevailed across centuries.

In turn, that basic value-difference leads to a consequential contrast between how classroom lessons are designed and delivered in the U.S. and East Asia:

• American teachers attempt to make their lessons student-centered.
• East Asian teachers attempt to make their lessons knowledge-centered.

The results of the 2019 NAEP* tests found that 61 percent of 12th graders reported that they had applied to or been accepted at a four-year college. But only 37 percent performed well enough in math and reading to be ready for freshman college courses. NAEP associate commissioner Peggy Carr said, “Students were very clear that they didn’t know or feel confident in some basic skills when it comes to reading, or being able to conduct some basic math operations.” Excerpts from Education Week, November 18, 2020, p. 3. *NAEP = National Assessment of Educational Progress.

Example: Here’s an excerpt from the “A Mirror for Americans” section that ends chapter 2.

Chapter Two is the first of two chapters about preschool practices in Japan. Looking back on that chapter, Grove reflects as follows:

Extent of freedom allowed: During their lengthy free play periods, Japanese preschoolers are routinely allowed the run of the entire school and its grounds with virtually no supervision, and are often left to deal with disagreements on their own. Words such as “freedom” and “self-reliance” seem applicable to these practices. By whatever name, there’s plenty of it!

Therein lies a paradox: We Americans wax passionate about inculcating in our children self-reliance, self-control, self-confidence, and other attributes of “freedom.” But when we consider our ways while looking into the mirror of Japanese preschool practices, we become conscious that we’re monitoring and restricting our youngsters’ movements, protecting them from every possible risk, rushing to intervene in their childish disputes, and insisting that they choose from among a handful of adult-devised activity centers during free play. Do these practices instill self-reliance, self-control, and self-confidence?

Distinguishing Features of A Mirror for Americans

Although A Mirror for Americans is short – merely 126 text pages – its readers will find that, in an easy-to-understand way, it…

• Corrects mistaken beliefs about East Asian teaching held by many Americans
• Reveals the cultures of learning, and of teaching, in East Asian primary schools
• Includes accounts of actual lessons being taught in East Asian primary classroom
• Suggests YouTube videos depicting lessons and other activities in East Asian schools
• Analyzes East Asian textbooks, constructivism, and whole-class interactive learning
• Identifies features of math teaching that give East Asian pupils a competitive advantage
• Concludes that East Asia lessons more thoroughly immerse pupils in the subject matter
• Encourages Americans to reconsider the values that shape our primary school teaching
• Suggests that our strong individualistic values are undermining our schools’ educational effectiveness.

A UNIQUE FEATURE OF A MIRROR FOR AMERICANS

All non-fiction books include a bibliography – a list of the books, articles, and other sources that were consulted by the author. A Mirror for Americans has two bibliographies:

• A standard bibliography, which appears in the book itself.
• An annotated bibliography, which appears here on this website.

Extremely rare, an annotated bibliography is one in which each book or article is not only listed, but also overviewed. The one on this website discusses 118 of the research reports that Dr. Grove found most useful. These 300- to 600-word annotations do not appear in the book because they would have made it far longer, sharply increasing its price.

Following the “Mirror” section at the end of each chapter is this statement:

“If you’d like more detail about the researchers’ findings, or simply wish to know what inspired the contents of Chapter [Number], read these entries in the annotated bibliography at www.amirrorforamericans.info.”

Then a number of annotated works are suggested. On this website, any of the 118 suggested annotations is easy to find because a link to each is provided. For details, visit the Introduction to the Annotated Bibliography.