The Smartest Kids in the World

The ability of a workforce to learn, think, and adapt was the ultimate stimulus package.

10. Education Can Bridge Divides: Quality education that promotes critical thinking, empathy, and intercultural understanding can break down barriers and create a more just and equitable society.

9. Lifelong Learning is Essential: Education isn't a one-time event but a continuous journey. Encouraging a love of learning equips individuals to adapt and thrive in a constantly changing world.

8. Play Fuels Learning: Playful activities and hands-on learning can spark curiosity, engagement, and deeper understanding. Making learning fun and interactive improves motivation and retention.

7. Mistakes are Opportunities: Embracing a growth mindset encourages students to see mistakes as learning opportunities, not failures. Experimentation and iteration are crucial for innovation and personal growth.

6. Learning Can Happen Anywhere: Education doesn't need to be confined to classrooms. Real-world experiences, apprenticeships, and community interactions can be powerful learning tools.

5. Holistic Development: Education should extend beyond academics, fostering social-emotional skills, resilience, and a sense of citizenship. Preparing students for life, not just exams, is essential.

4. Relationships are Key: Strong bonds between teachers, students, and families create a supportive learning environment where individuals feel valued and encouraged to thrive.

3. Competence Over Competition: Shifting the focus from constant testing and ranking to skill development and mastery helps students gain confidence and a love for learning. Collaboration over competition fosters teamwork and problem-solving skills.

2. Context Matters: Understanding the cultural and societal context of education systems is crucial for appreciating different approaches to learning. What works in one place might not translate directly to another.

1. Learning Can Be Joyful: The book emphasizes that education needn't be rote memorization and stressful tests. Fostering curiosity, creativity, and collaboration can make learning an enjoyable and enriching experience.

Without data, you are just another person with an opinion.

PISA is not a traditional school test. It’s actually challenging, because you have to think.

PISA demanded fluency in problem solving and the ability to communicate; in other words, the basic skills I needed to do my job and take care of my family in a world choked with information and subject to sudden economic change.

Eric had read all about the hard-working Koreans who trounced the Americans in math, reading, and science. He hadn’t read anything about shamelessly sleeping through class.

In Korea, your education can be reduced to a number. If your number is good, you have a good future.

The system was as predictable as it was brutal. It sent a very clear message to children about what mattered: University admissions were based on students’ skills as measured by the test. Full stop.

If I wanted to see what a truly free-market education system looked like, I would have to stay up late.

If the work was hard, routine failure was the only way to learn.

Minnesota had started with a relatively strong education system. Then they’d made a few pragmatic changes, the kind of commonsense repairs you would make if you believed math was really, truly important.

The Finns decided that the only way to get serious about education was to select highly educated teachers, the best and brightest of each generation, and train them rigorously.

There just seemed to be something in the air here. Whatever it was, it made everyone more serious about learning, even the kids who had not bought into other adult dictates.

With the new, higher standards and more rigorous teacher training in place, Finland’s top-down, No-Child-Left-Behind-style mandates became unnecessary.

It was almost as if we wanted the prestige of Finland’s teachers—but didn’t really believe that our teachers needed to be highly educated and unusually accomplished in order to merit that prestige.

Maybe the real mystery was not why Finnish kids cared so much, but why so many of her Oklahoma classmates did not.

Parents who discussed movies, books, and current affairs with their kids had teenagers who performed better in reading.

A coddled, moon bounce of a childhood could lead to young adults who had never experienced failure or developed self-control or endurance—experiences that mattered as much or more than academic skills.

To work, praise had to be specific, authentic, and rare.

In Korea and Finland, despite all their differences, everyone—kids, parents, and teachers—saw getting an education as a serious quest, more important than sports or self-esteem.

Conscientiousness—a tendency to be responsible, hardworking, and organized—mattered at every point in the human life cycle.