Vendor
	Mohrbooks Literary Agency Sebastian Ritscher
Original language
English
Categories
Parenting: advice & issues
Weblink
http://books.simonandschuster.co …

THE SMARTEST KIDS IN THE WORLD

Amanda Ripley

And How they Got that Way

Through the compelling stories of three teenagers living abroad and attending the world’s top-notch public high schools, an investigative reporter explains how these systems cultivate the “smartest” kids on the planet.

America has long compared its students to top-performing kids of other nations. But how do the world’s education superpowers look through the eyes of an American high school student? Author Amanda Ripley follows three teenagers who chose to spend one school year living and learning in Finland, South Korea, and Poland. Through their adventures, Ripley discovers startling truths about how attitudes, parenting, and rigorous teaching have revolutionized these countries’ education results. In THE SMARTEST KIDS IN THE WORLD, Ripley’s astonishing new insights reveal that top-performing countries have achieved greatness only in the past several decades; that the kids who live there are learning to think for themselves, partly through failing early and often; and that persistence, hard work, and resilience matter more to our children’s life chances than self-esteem or sports. Ripley’s investigative work seamlessly weaves narrative and research, providing in-depth analysis and gripping details that will keep you turning the pages. Written in a clear and engaging style, THE SMARTEST KIDS IN THE WORLD will enliven public as well as dinner table debates over what makes for brighter and better students. Amanda Ripley is a literary journalist whose stories on human behavior and public policy have appeared in TIME, The Atlantic, and Slate and helped Time win two National Magazine Awards. To discuss her work, she has appeared on ABC, NBC, CNN, FOX News, and NPR. Ripley’s first book, The Unthinkable, was published in fifteen countries and turned into a PBS documentary.

Available products
Book Published 2013-08-01 by Simon & Schuster
Book Published 2013-08-01 by Simon & Schuster

Comments

A compelling, instructive account regarding education in America, where the arguments have become “so nasty, provincial, and redundant that they no longer lead anywhere worth going.

Amanda Ripley observes with rare objectivity and depth. She finds a real and complex world ‘over there’—schools with flaws of their own but also real and tangible lessons about how to do better by our kids. The Smartest Kids in the World gave me more insights, as a parent and as an educator, than just about anything else I’ve read in a while.

An investigative reporter for The Atlantic, Ripley turns her attention to three high school foreign exchange students and their experiences living, learning and immersing themselves abroad.

The Smartest Kids in the World is a must read for anyone concerned about the state of American public education. By drawing on experiences, successes, and failures in education systems in the highest-performing countries across the globe, Amanda Ripley lays out a course for what we must do to dramatically improve our nation’s schools.

This is a no-nonsense, no-excuses book about how we can improve outcomes for all kids, from the poorest to the wealthiest. It avoids platitudes and ideology and relies instead on the experiences of students.

Arabic: Obeikan Education ; Chinese (CC): Commonwealth ; Chinese (SI): Citic ; Japanese: Chuo Koron Shinsha ; Korean: Bookie ; Norwegian: Mime Forlag ; Polish: PWN (Wydawnictwo Naukowe) ; Portuguese (B): Três Estrelas ; Romanian: Publica ; Russian: Eksmo ; Thai: WeLearn ; Turkish: Tubitak ; Ukrainian: Bionic University ; Vietnamese: Alpha Books