Are Americans Falling Behind?

Until recently, the United States has been the most advanced (cognitively, technologically, militarily) nation. Currently, however, we seem to be competing with China. The following is a bothersome fact about students in the United States compared to students in China. It shows that the United States is not placing as much emphasis on one's education like that of other countries, such as China.

• Fewer than 40,000 students in the United States study Chinese, a language spoken by 1.3 billion people. Almost all students study English.

This makes sense because English is an internationally-known language, and is critical to learn if one wants to make a living not only in the United States, but in other English-speaking countries as well. As US citizens, however, we do not understand how much we benefit from having the world accommodate to our language. By requiring students internationally to learn English, it shows that the United States is the center of authority. If it were some other country who out-ranked the US, one that spoke an uncommon language differing from our own, then we would be the ones to include it in our schools' curriculums. We would have to teach it to our students so that they could reap the benefits of knowing two languages in order to succeed in life.

I think it is really important for students to know two languages; perhaps they would not have to be fluent in both, but they would benefit from knowing two languages over a person who knows just one. In other countries they make sure that their students are learning two languages simultaneously at the earliest age of first grade. Some might argue that the child does not have the proper brain capacity to understand two languages, but I think that is misleading. If we teach students at the lower levels of school (kindergarten through third grade) where a student's brain is like a sponge, in that it soaks in, so to speak, so much information that will be remembered for life, and will later on just be second nature. But, no, the US has to introduce students to foreign languages in high school. This is an issue in itself because some bigger schools have many languages to offer: Spanish, French, German, Norwegian, Chinese, Japanese; while other smaller schools may only have two options or one option of learning Spanish. Don't get me wrong, with the increasing number of immigrants in the US, it is important for us, as US citizens, to learn Spanish so to cooperate effectively with minority students and their families.

I think the US needs to be wiser in their goals for education. We are falling behind. Test scores comparing Chinese students to American students prove that the Chinese are more advanced and demanding in their academic studies. If we continue with the No Child Left Behind Act, the quality of a US education will diminish greatly. It is sad that the United States offers an education to EVERYONE, and there are students who do not appreciate the advantages of having an education. Instead, they slack off, miss school, and waste tax payers' money as well as their teachers' and parents' time. Meanwhile, kids over in China are working very diligently and at a very high academic level, that which surpasses the United States; and we wonder why we are falling behind....hmm...let's think about it.