Education, blockbusters

[rivkat]

Amanda Ripley, The Smartest Kids in the World: And How They Got That Way: The educational systems of Korea, Poland, and Finland, compared to those in the US, both in general and through the experiences of three American exchange students (and one student who moves back and forth from Korea to the US with her family). Ripley argues that high expectations and rigor are the key to success, but that the US has imposed the expectations at exactly the wrong point (tests that punish teachers but have little relevance to the students themselves). Instead, successful countries-primarily Finland is the example here-make teaching a highly rigorous and respected profession by requiring a lot of training for teachers, both academic and hands-on, and only selecting teachers from the top third of their own classes. Finland has produced great results even in schools with large percentages of immigrants who don’t speak Finnish at home, which means that homogeneity isn’t the simple explanation for why we can’t get the same job done. American parents value sports and easy academics over the hard work of learning, especially in math; they’d prefer good grades to good outcomes. The prescriptions are simple but not easy: read to kids and talk to them about current events; have a few tests that actually matter to kids rather than a lot of tests that don’t; train teachers well and have them continue professional development throughout their careers, but also pay them well and give them autonomy; deemphasize sports as part of the school experience; teach kids to work through initial failure-success regularly comes from repeated hard work, not from innate talent.

Anita Elberse, Blockbusters: Hit-Making, Risk-Taking, and the Big Business of Entertainment: Free LibraryThing Early Review copy. Elberse argues that despite the risks, investing in huge blockbusters is the most profitable strategy for big companies, whether in movies, music, books, or even sports, and explores the investment strategies they use to fund their big gambles and try to ensure their payoff. I would have been more interested in an examination of the larger ecosystem into which megahits fit; I couldn’t help thinking that she’s describing a strategy that works until it doesn’t, like other bubbles.

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