The Smartest Kids in the World
And How They Got That Way
Amanda Ripley investigates why students in some countries demonstrate stronger academic skills than their American counterparts—and what their schools, families, and societies do differently. Rather than treating education as a contest between abstract policy models, she follows three American exchange students attending schools in Finland, South Korea, and Poland. Their experiences reveal sharply contrasting systems: Finland emphasizes selective teacher preparation and professional autonomy; South Korea produces formidable results through an intensely competitive culture; and Poland illustrates how national reform can raise expectations within a relatively short period. Ripley connects these stories to international assessment data, interviews, classroom observations, and the experiences of foreign students in the United States. Her central concern is not intelligence in a narrow sense but whether schools expect young people to master demanding material. The result is an accessible w…
