Which Country has the Secret to the Smartest Students?

on policies to increase gross national happiness. So this is a real thing. I'm not kidding. And as part of the focus, the Boutanese government came up with an education reform plan called Educating for Gross National Happiness. They were trying to provide a more holistic schooling for the country's children, you know, better in a great schools into their communities and promote ecological health. I mean it's all good stuff, right, yeah, And at the very least, it's a very sweet idea,

I agree, but you know, it's fast. They need to look at how different countries around the world approach education and and what they decided to focus on, and how even some of the operank systems in the world can approach things so differently, so we'll talk about some of those today. But don't worry, We're not done talking about gross national happiness. So let's get started, right Hey, their

podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good friend man guest Ticketer and on the other side of that soundproof glass doing his best Billy Idle impression as our friend and producer Tristan McNeil. It's not a bad one. Actually looks kind of looks like him. Are you ready to talk education? Mango? Am I? So? I'm super excited for our guests and and we're definitely gonna put one of our listeners to the test with a ridiculous quiz and

I'm ready to get started, all right. Well, before we dive in, we should say that they are obviously challenges involved when you try to compare educational systems around the world. Every country has its own values and its own challenges and of course its own strengths. But we did decide to look at data gathered by the o e c D, which is the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and and specifically their Program for International Student Assessment, and the

o e c D is this inner governmental organization. It's made up of thirty five countries, the US being one of those, and other places are included like Australia and Mexico, the United Kingdom, Finland, Japan, Chile, and and several others. And the organization was founded in the sixties with this goal of trying to help economic development around the world. They also work to think through common problems, but one of the areas that they look at is the quality

of education around the world. So this Program for International Student Assessment is is just one way that they evaluate things like the level of education and science and math and reading. But you know also what percentage of children have access to education. Yeah, and we should also say that in looking at an assessment like this, we know it's not a perfect science and it doesn't really give

us a look at every country in the world. I mean, this has been criticized for like only in valuating the wealthier nations, and that's a valid criticism, but it's one of the better collections of data available and it is fascinating to look through. Yeah. So all that to say, you'll hear us referring to the O e c D as we compare countries that are members. And our goal here is not to say that one country is better

than others. But it really is fascinating how you could pick two countries that are near the top of the student assessment in terms of math and science and reading scores and realize that they have incredibly different approaches to education. And that's exactly what we want to do. I mean, these are these are two countries that you will always show up on these lists of the best school systems around the world. But again, these two countries are so

very different in how they approach education. Yeah, and not from one another, but also from us. Right, And of course we're talking about Finland and Japan here, and we'll be looking at a few other countries too, but let's start with Ease. So Will's assignment was to look into Finland, and I took Japan. And we should know that we couldn't have done this episode without the incredible research assistance from Jocelyn Sears. So well, why don't you talk to

me about Finland? All right? So it was super interesting reading about the investment and focus that Finland put into their educational system really beginning in the early nineteen sixties, and this was when parliament there decided that the best way to really build long term economic success was to invest in education and specifically in their teachers. So they made the decision that all teachers needed to be highly trained, and by the late nineteen seventies, all teachers were required

to have a master's degree. And get this, fewer than fifteen percent of applicants are even accepted into these master's programs. It's that competitive. And according to a fascinating Smithsonian article I was looking at the focus on investing in teachers, it really led to this elevated status for teachers. It kind of put them on par with doctors and lawyers, and not in terms of salary, but because of the

amount of autonomy and respect that they're given. Yeah. And and so you were telling me that even after they get into the master's programs, it's still really competitive to get those teaching jobs. Yeah. So one statistic I saw from a few years ago is that there are nearly seven thousand applicants competing for fewer than seven hundred openings

at the primary school level. And you know, most teachers now have master's degrees not only in education, but also in a specific content area, and there's additional focus on being prepared to teach their special needs students, which is wild. But talk to me about autonomy. Well, the government decided that once they'd really invested in teacher training after about a decade or so, it was it was time to

put decision making in the hands of these teachers. So prior to the nineties, the curriculum guides in Finland were something like seven hundred pages long, which I mean, I guess isn't that surprising since there's obviously a ton involved in teaching. But what's more crazy than that is that if you want to read the core curriculum guidelines for teaching math today, you can do that in fewer than

ten pages. Yeah, it's because these are really just guiding principles, and the teachers and local schools they're able to tailor those guiding principles to meet the needs of their local population. So this whole structure is pretty decentralized. Then, oh, definite. So that's definitely all fascinating. But here's what I might find even more interesting, and it's that when we were looking at the stats on school hours and time spent

with the teachers. It seems like kids in Finland are spending far less time with their teachers than kids in most other countries. Well that's right, but but let's back up a little bit and start from the beginning. So, so kids actually don't start school there until they're seven years old, and before that, Finland does provide this heavily subsidized daycare, you know, opportunity for all of its children. But in these preschools, they aren't really focused on teaching

things like math and reading. The focus is much more on play, I mean lots and lots of creative play and outdoor play. And then the parental leaf policy and Inland is so generous, allowing parents to stay home until their kids reach three, and so their rates of enrollment in early childhood education are are actually pretty low. And even after three, there are fewer kids in preschool at ages three and four than any other country in the O e c D. That's really interesting. But what about

once they get to primary school. Well, here's where our kids are going to be incredibly jealous. So for the first few years of school, the school day is only four hours long and seventy five minutes of that is recess, seventy five minutes of recess, so I'm certain my son doesn't see anywhere near that much. No, I was looking. I think the average time allocated the recess in the US is is less than half an hour. I think

it's like twenty seven minutes. But you know, in Finland it's mandated that they have fifteen minutes of recess for every hour of instruction, and even beyond that, the schools also incorporates so much more time for arts and crafts and just very active hands on learning. So forget about my kids being jealous, like I'm jealous. I get it, I get but I'm guessing the days get longer as the kids get a little older. Yeah, but you know, even by ninth grade, school days are just six hours long.

So if you total the amount of time finished kids spend at school over their nine years of basic education, it's about sis which I know that sounds like a lot, but that's more than a thousand hours less than the O E C D average. So one of the things I read about Finland and that I'll talk about a little when we look at Japan is the psychology of

removing shoes when coming into the classroom. Well, I thought this was interesting too, And and of course in a place like Finland where it's very cold in the winter, there's a practical purpose for taking your shoes off, you know, to prevent bringing in snow and mud. But like you said, there's also a psychological impact that's been seen in multiple studies. So the thinking is that students feel more relaxed than at home, that it helps them focus and even improves

their behavior. And it was interesting to read about studies in other countries where it's more common to wear shoes indoors and to see the impact of testing on shoe removal. And so one experiment in Spain, where it's the norm to wear shoes indoors, found that behavior and performance improved with the shoe removal test. That's pretty neat. So back to the time spent on school and studying, we haven't

talked about homework. Are the kids in Finland making up for less time in school spent by doing more homework? Not even close, to be honest with I mean, in fact, kids in Finland spend less time doing homework than any other kids in the O E. C. D SO study from two thousand and twelve found that the average fifteen year old spent about two hundred minutes per week on after school study. That's almost a hundred minutes lower than

the next lowest, which was the Czech Republic. My son hits homework so much, I'm sure he's gonna be packing his bag exactly. So what else do we want to know about the education in Finland? All? Right? Well, a few things, a few other notes I had here, but but one big one I actually should have noted this earlier is that a big part of the reformed education policy in Finland is focused on equality and education or

equal access I guess. And so there's a strong belief that every child, regardless of their family's income, or their background, or their status or location, should have the same educational opportunity. They really see, education is this way to combat social inequality, and as a result of this, the gap between the weakest and the strongest students is the smallest in the world. And there are a couple other things I wanted to mention.

What else here? Um? Oh yeah, Actually, there aren't any standardized test in Finland, which is like school paradise, I know. So instead teachers work to assess the students independently as they progress, so this gets back to the highly trained teacher thing, and every student receives free school lunches as well as access to medical and dental care. Uh University

tuition is free now. As for the future, their latest curriculum updates focus on something called phenomenon based teaching, which is this effort to focus less on individual subjects and more on this interdisciplinary approach. So the teachers collaborate more, you know, to make this work, and it'll be interesting to see what this means for Finland in the future.

And all of this is completely fascinating to me. One other note, though, I do think we should keep in mind that there are only about five million people in Finland, so it's a very small country compared to some of the other massive countries around the world, and even compared to Japan, which I know we'll talk about next. So this is not to say that everything that works in Finland will work everywhere else, but it's still really interesting

to see what they've accomplished. Definitely, Well, I'm ready to talk about your fan but first, why don't we take a quick break. So Mango, a couple of weeks ago, you may Remember, we responded to several listener requests, and we we told our listeners that we were going to give some of them a chance to be on the show and play some of our ridiculous quizzes. All they had to do was either send us an email or call into our Fact hotline four pt Genius to tell

us why they should be on the show. And that's seven Fact hot Line. It is still right, Manga. I was just gonna say that's good. I just wanted to check because I've heard of a lot of fact hot lines or other hotlines not going so I'm glad we're maintaining that. So so anyway, our guest today responded and and was the only person who wrote in or who called in, and who was both a zombie on the Las Vegas Strip and a production of Evil Dead the Musical and a mechanical bull operator. I think was the

only person that called it. We've got so many great calls and so many great emails, but Sam Murphy was the only person that called in with both of those qualifications, as well as being a science teacher at the elementary level, which is why we decided to have Sam on the show today. So Sam Murphy. Welcome to part time genius. Hi. So, I'm assuming growing up you you always knew that you wanted to be both a zombie on the Las Vegas

trip and a mechanical bull operators. That is that accurate? No, absolutely, you know. And like when I was looking for college programs, I looked for something I could double major in both of those things. It was very important to me. That's terrific. Well, I had a question specifically about the bull operating side of it. I actually two questions. What one, what's a respectable time to stay on a bull for? And too? Have you have you ever seen anyone right a sober? Okay? Um?

So the official time in rodeo is eight seconds and then you're officially being scored from that point on. So if you can stay on mechanical bowl for eight seconds, having never rode before, you're doing great. That's fantastic. Um. And I'm sure. Yeah, during the day there are a couple of times where people were mostly sober. It's people on the laws biggest trip. Yeah, imagine that's true. Just to clarify, if you have not made it eight seconds, you're not even to the point of being judged yet.

Is that what you're saying in rodeo. Yeah, you have to go eight seconds and then they'll start scoring you. So I mean, like when I was a bull operator, I'd go pretty easy for the first like four so people could feel good about themselves. Got it, and you crank it up? I understand. Okay, Now that's pretty awesome. And you're also a comedian and an actor in Las Vegas as well as a science teacher. I mean, I don't know how you find the time to do all of this, but but tell us what you teach at

the elementary level. UM. Yeah, so it's a really really great third party company. UM. And we teach science, and we sort of teach like the highlight reels of science. So we dropped dry ice into things and see what happens, and we make them slime and we send that home with them. UM. So it's really really cool to be this fun, bright part of kids days when they're really bogged down with tests and making sure that they hit certain requirements in certain marks, and we say, go play.

Oh that's awesome, that's awesome. Well, well we have a quiz ready for you today, Mango. What quiz are we putting Sam up to? Uh, well, it was going to be called the Great School Quiz, but I've upgraded it to the pretty Great School Quiz. Al Right, Well, it's five questions and they're pretty straightforward questions, but they're fun. One Sammy ready to play? I'm so ready? All right,

here we go. Question number one. What band wrote confusing lyrics to the song I Am the Walrus when they heard that high school students were being forced to study and analyze their songs in class. That's right, one for one, alright. Question number two, what popular condiment was banned in French school cafeterias in two thousand eleven on the grounds that it posed a threat to the national cuisine. Yeah, that's right,

well done too for two. That sounded like a little bit of a guest, But I'm glad you trusted your got on that one. Okay. I just feel like French people would be like ruining alright. Question number three. What nineteen seventies and eighties animated music series got its start when an ad executive realized that his kid couldn't remember the multiplication tables but had no problem recalling rock lyrics. M Holograss not a bad guest of the answer, to

this one, Mango. Yeah, what am I talking? Yeah that's right, Schoolhouse Rock. But we'll give that to you. Yeah, I think we're giving Sam credit for that one. Alright. Question number four. What Cuban dictator declared nineteen sixty one the Year of Education and sent literacy brigades to the countryside to build schools and teach people to read. Yeah, that's right. And and by the end of that year, literacy had jumped from sixty to nine. Alright, so you're four for four.

Let's see how Sam can do on the last one and two thousand, fifteen students in Chicago launched a unique fundraiser. They got the school to play the song Baby by this Canadian artist between classes, and students could pay money to get it to stop. What artists are we talking about? Justin Bieber. The campaign was so effective that it raised over a thousand dollars in less than three days. Wow. So I think Sam has gone an astonishing five for five. So what is Sam je today? Mango? Yes, I'm when

amazing five for five? And not only is Sam one a handwred note to their mom or boss, but also a copy of Stray shopping Carts of North America, which is a field guide to abandon shopping carts. Thank you, I'm so excited. Thank you so much for having me. You guys, welcome back to Part time Genius. Now, before the break, we talked about Finland, and I wish all our kids the best as they relocate it to take advantage of their shorter school days and lack of standardized testing.

But now it's time to talk about another country that also appears near the top of these O e c D rankings. And again this is based on scores in math and science and reading, but it's a country with a very very different approach, and that's Japan. So Mango, the mic is yours. Thanks for warming up for me. So I want to go back to a point you made earlier about the fact that every country is different and that each culture has its own priorities and their

own interests. So even though Finland and Fancy very high scores on the assessment, they really do have different approaches. And I actually wanted to start by talking about values first. So so things beyond I guess the learning of the core subjects m definitely and and we'll get to that stuff too, But first I want to emphasize how much focused Japanese culture puts on developing independence and the sense

of social responsibility, all at a very young age. So one way to illustrate the importance of independence before we talk about what happens at school is how kids get to school. I've I've read about this a little bit before, and and and that's the fact. I guess that most kids in Japan walk to school, Right, that's true, but that's not all. So most of them, as as young as like six years old, will walk to school alone or at least not with their parents. Like many of

them walk as a group. But usually this big ends around first grade. And for most schools, if kids are within walking distance, they're required to walk. The walking distance can be considered more than four to five kilometers, so the average walk for an elementary school kid can be

up to thirty to sixty minutes. Yeah. There's a sociologist in Tokyo whose name Terru Clavell, and she put it this way quote, it's a culturally indoctrinated understanding that children are supposed to be independent by the time they start grade school. Really, so that's age six. And she goes on to refer to a statement in Japanese that translates quote to the adored child send him on journeys. Alright, So, so you've got six year olds walking up to an

hour with no adults supervision. Well, in most areas, the PTA finds these retirees in the area and asked them to come outside and you know, supervise the walkers, and they have designated safe zone houses if any kids need any sort of help. Well, if anything, I would have to imagine this emphasis on walking would play at least a little bit of a role in Japan having lower rates of childhood obesity. Oh, it definitely does, all right.

So so you were saying that there's also this focus on social responsibility, and this is something I feel like I have seen a little bit about. Does this have something to do with the fact that I've heard a few times that they're no no janitors in Japanese schools? Yeah, so you know, I'd heard that a lot too, And that's not exactly true about the no janitors things. So most schools do have them, but they focus on the more complicated repairs and in most cases also cleaned the bathrooms.

But yeah, that's the basic idea. So there's something called tokatsu, and it's these are non cognitive activities that are used to develop the sense of social responsibility. And these include the daily chores. The children are responsible for cleaning the classroom, cleaning common areas, stuff like that, and this starts at first grade, and students are required to bring their own

washcloths to help out with the cleaning. They'll clean for about twenty minutes a day, and in one report I saw during this time the school might play cheerful, marching music and it's all over the sound system. But it's to keep everyone energized at home. Yeah, And and to be clear, this is not seen as any sort of punishment. I mean, it's it's much more about this moral education

and learning to be responsible in a group. And as you might guess, much of the stems from the Buddhist idea of purification and and the sense that cleaning is not far off from a form of meditations. Interesting and in addition to this, most schools don't have cafeterias, so students in their teachers have lunch together in their classrooms and in places where the schools are providing the food. Students actually rotate through the responsibilities of serving others in

the class. I mean, I think that's great, But what about the core classes themselves? I mean, I'm guessing this is where we're going to see the biggest differences from Finland. This is where Japan and Finland definitely take different approaches. And this is the case whether we're talking about a number of hours in school, the focus of the classes in school, homework, even standardized testing. So let's talk about

the school hours first. For much of the twentieth century, Japan followed a six day school week, and they've always had a reputation for this very strict teaching methods with like lots of rote memorization, and this six day school week is something that's been fiercely debated over the past few decades. In what way, Well, in the seventies and eighties, people became more vocal about the amount of pressure being placed on students in Japan, and in response, there was

this new educational system developed called you tori kyoku. I know I'm pronouncing that wrong, exactly right, So this translates roughly as quote pressure free education. You did say that, right, which is kind of funny when you think of it being applied in Japan. But there was this attempt to replace some of that wrote learning with this move towards

more creative thinking and problem solving skills. And and on top of all of that, the school week went from six to five days in the nineties and did that help some Well, it's tough to say what it did for students stress levels. But it hasn't all gone smoothly. And in fact, after the shift, Japan saw its scores

go down a bit on the International Achievement tests. So many people want them to return to the six day weeks, and in fact, in a survey a few weeks ago, eighty six percent of parents in Tokyo were in favor of returning to Saturday classes and only seven percent we're actually opposed. That is incredible and I cannot see that being the case here. Oh no, it wouldn't be. And and there's definitely a moved to push back towards the

sixth day weeks. So in fact, there's a bit of a loophole in the legislation which gives schools the opportunity to teach classes on Saturdays if there's a special need. So in two thousand and twelve, nearly half of elementary schools and junior high schools were holding at least some amount of Saturday classes, so they definitely spend far more time in the classroom than the students in Finland. Yeah, and that's not the only additional time they're spending there.

Because they have these highly competitive entrance exams and other standardized tests. There's something called juku or or cram schools, and they help students prepare for years for these exams. Like these cram schools meet after school and on weekends to help students prepare for future exams in math, science, English, and we're talking kids as young as six or seven, Like one report showed nearly twenty of elementary students and almost half of junior high students attended some amount of

cram school. And these schools weren't cheap, like they cost more than three thousand dollars per year in some cases. And it isn't just juku like like one study showed nearly seventy of students attending after school math lessons as well. So so unlike in Finland where from a very young age there's this huge focus on preparing for entrance exams and standardized tests. I mean, it sounds so stressful. Yeah, despite some of the efforts to address the intense pressure, like,

it's definitely still a very real thing. I look at these numbers here and it's like eight two percent of Japanese students report being very worried about their grades in school. And there's some other issues that they should be addressing as well, like bullying is actually an issue in Japan, but it's a little different than in the US. It's very much a group phenomena there where the entire class will gang up on one classmate and it's really sad.

It's it's like between the stress and the bullying. It's thought to be the primary reason that teen suicide rates spike on September one, which is the first day of school. That's horrible. Yeah, And and for all the impressive test scores and achievements, that's definitely a problem that needs to be addressed. But I do want to finish the discussion to Japan on a positive note. What you got unicycleicycle

that smile on everybody's face. So the majority of elementary schools in Japan have unicycles on hand for kids to ride during recess time. And it's because the Ministry of Education shouldn't recommends that schools have these along with bamboo stilt to help build core strength, right of course. I mean they even have an all Japan elementary school competition or a championship of unicycling. That's pretty awesome and definitely a better way to end the discussion of Japan, you know.

But but hopefully they can successfully address some of the issues you mentioned, because it does seem like there's certain things about you know, their focus on independence and a desire to serve others that seem very good. But all right, let's take a quick break before we talk about a

few other places. Our guest today is an education reporter at u S News and World Report, and she's been covering education policy and politics for nearly a decade now, Lauren Camera, Welcome to Part Time Genius than so So, Lauren, we're spending most of this episode talking about education systems around the world. So far in this episode, we've talked about Finland and Mango just finished schooling us on Japan. So now we want to talk a little bit about

the US. But it seems like that can be a little bit challenging because, you know, rather than pointing to a big national trend. It feels like you kind of have to look at what all the states are doing individually or independently. Would you say this is true? Yeah, absolutely, I'd say that that's definitely true. Um. I often say that, you know, there's not really one overarching trend, but rather lots of states trying to do lots of different things

all the time. UM. Sometimes I like to joke that in the USC education system loves its shiny new objects. It upsets it a lot over you know, one thing, and then it's quickly onto the next. Would you mind telling us about a few of those shiniest ones. Well, right now you might be seeing some of your kids have later school start times for examples, uh schools, and at least nineteen states that um I know of our

planning to start the school day later this year. This is sort of a trend that's been happening the last year or two, after the CDC released a report a couple of years ago just blatantly saying that kids are not getting enough sleep and um that they're just starting the school day to early. So you'll probably see that continue.

You also might see less homework. UM. There was a recent survey in June by Morning consoled that pretty much found that of American adults feel that, um, you know, less than one hour of homework per day is pretty much appropriate for elementary school students. So we've seen, for example, there is a school district in Florida, I believe it's Marion County. The school superintendent recently issued a ban on

homework in thirty one of its elementary school. So you might not see a hard line drawn like that everywhere, but we might start to see a dip in homework assignments. Um. Also, I would say, you know, the increased use of technology. This has been a trend for the last couple of years, but um it's actually a really interesting one. If you

look at the data. In twenties or team, only four million students had access to broadband that was fast enough that allowed them to use digital tablets in the classroom. But now, just like four years later, that number has pretty much catapulted to thirty nine point two million students have that ability. Now, just to ask you about that, your are you saying, just to clarify, is that access

in the classroom or access at home. That's access in the classroom and at libraries okay, okay, So the ability to do their work on those Yeah, yeah, that's largely thanks to actually, believe it or not, a federal program called e rate. It's probably one of the only federal programs I can think of off the top of my head that was conceived and is doing exactly what it's supposed to do. So in the four short years you have, you know, thirty five million more students having that ability.

So it's pretty remarkable. Actually. You know, one other thing that I could think of is that the probably be an increased interest in making popular again vote tech programs, apprenticeships, things like that, other technical skill courses as ways to help build the so called skills gap that's getting a

lot of attention these days as well. Yeah. Now on the homework front, is are these decisions based on studies around the um effectiveness or lack of effectiveness of homework or is it based on just kind of family needs of it? Do do you know why the trend does seem to be moving in the direction of less homework for students. I mean, I'm fully in favor of it, I'm just curious why. Yeah, well, I've in the eleventh month old sun. He's not really bringing home a lot

of homework yet, but he's falling behind already. Yeah, right, UM, I think it's it's both based on you know, public polling, opinions, UM, and also research that suggests, you know, a lot of the learning is the most effective learning at least is done in the classroom. Well, and is there anything else that do you feel like we should know about right now regarding education policy or or any other trends. Yeah, it's probably um, you know, it's probably worth noting that

as a backdrop to the story. All states right now are in the process of devising new education plans. This is something that's required under the new federal Education Law, the Every Students Sees Act, and those plans are in the process of being okayed by the um Department of Education. And that's really going to change how students in schools are assessed and held accountable and will therefore have a

big impact on the classroom. Uh. You might, as a parent start to see some of these changes this year, perhaps things like greater access to art classes or a p in IB classes, potentially STEM programs, and some states are proposing to even pay more attention to socio emotional health of students. That's very interesting. Well, I'm glad you're here to read through all fifty of those plans so that you cannot make sense of those for us. But thanks so much for your terrific reporting and for joining

us today on part Time Genius. Yeah, thanks so much for having me. Welcome back to part Time Genius. We were just wrapping up our discussion of Japan, but I realized I had one more question, and that's because we've been looking at two pretty different ends of the spectrum in terms of time spent at school and after school work and standardized testing, and we're talking about these are

kind of two ends of the spectrum. It's so, do Japanese students spend more time on homework than all other countries? Actually no, so that honor belongs to China. And it's not even a close competition like the O E c D looked at sixty five countries in a study a few years ago, and Chinese students spend eight hundred thirty one minutes per week on homework. My gosh, and that's almost two minutes more than the next closest, which was

the Russian Federation. They spend five five minutes and only a few other countries spent more than five minutes per week on homework. And of course all of this is more than four times what the kids in Finland are spending. Gosh. In fact, almost high school students in China say they typically finished their homework after eleven pm. Yeah, and it sounds like this is another place where, you know, the

level of competition and stress must be so high. Definitely. So. Just like Japan, China has some very high stakes tests for their students. Like there's a huge nine hour college entrance exam called the High Test. And unlike the s A T where several students hit perfect scores every year, no one has ever achieved a seven fifty, which is the perfect score on this exam. And I guess this

exam is is really important for college entrance. Yeah, I mean it's not just important, it's actually the only criteria for getting into Chinese university. Yeah. It's so competitive there that the top universities may only select one out of fifty students. Oh my god, that's crazy. And you know we sit here thinking that the U S schools are a competitive Yeah, no kidding. And and this exam is so important that can have this major impact on students

future career and even their marital status. But I think the craziest part about the exam maybe the prompts used in the writing section. So according to an article in The Guardian, two of the prompts from the two thousand and fifteen exam included quote do butterfly wings have colors? And quote who do you admire most? A biotechnology researcher, a welding engineer, technician or a photographer. I'd like to turn in my essay on that first one. The answer

would just be yes. But it seems like there would have to be a breaking point for all of this one day. Well that's already kind of starting to happen, though not really in this seismic way, but you definitely see fewer students taking the exam and just opting to go to school abroad, and and then others are starting to go to vocational schools, which tend to be less competitive. I mean, I doubt the entrance exam is contributing much

to gross national happiness. I mean, if they're measuring that there, I kind of doubt that they are. I told you I was going to bring this one back up, but but let's go back to Bhutan's It was really fun reading about the implementation of this program. And so it's focused on four primary pillars. So there's sustainable development, preservation and promotion of culture, conservation of the environment, and good governance.

And then to measure their progress, Bhutan developed an index in two thousand and eight that would quote reflect g n H values, set benchmarks, and track policies and performance of the country. So the way they set these benchmarks and track all of this is through this index that includes nine domains their psychological well being, time use, community, vitality, culture, health, education,

environmental diversity, living standard, and governance. You got all those I got, But you know, I mean, like the whole four pillars and nine domains thing. It sounds so Buddhist, like it reminds me of the Four Noble Truths and the eight Full path. I love the way you say Buddhis But that's because it really is rooted in Buddhist philosophy and and and that's no big surprise because Bhutan

is majority Buddhist. And in fact, in two thousand ten they began requiring schools to make time for daily meditation. But even back on the education side of me, there's there's another interesting piece of this. So with their focus on education and all their efforts to provide primary schooling for everyone and increase the literacy rate, Bhutan is seeing

some pretty significant results. I mean, they're not going to be on the same top list that Finland and Japan are in terms of all of their scores, but what they've accomplished is still really impressive. So just just looking at some of the numbers for literacy, actually, let me pull these back up. It says in two thousand five, the literacy rate for those sixty five and older was

about for men and only five percent for women. But if you look at the fifteen to twenty four age range at that point, it was eight percent for men and sixty eight percent for women. But then fast forward seven years to two thousand and twelve, looking at that fifteen to twenty four year old age group, again, it jumped to for men and almost for women. I mean, these are some huge games. Yeah, it's incredible, So maybe focusing on gross national happiness isn't such a silly idea.

But you know what else is incredible? The part time genius backed off. All right, I'll kick us off here. So earlier when we were talking about all students receiving free school lunches in Finland, I'm not sure if you saw the story, but this will now be happening in New York City. Earlier this year in New York announced the program to provide free lunches to all public school kids,

which is great. So looking at a country we didn't really talk about today, do you know that in France schools are working to teach children not to be picky eaters through this thing called taste training lester So in two thousand eleven this became part of their national curriculum, and Karenlebillion, author of French Kids Eat Everything, told warts quote the French take a different approach to food from

a very young age. They believe and have done scientific research to prove that you can teach your kids to eat just like you teach them to read. And according to the report, young kids are expected to learn how to enjoy such delicacies as pickled pig snouts. So I'd like to see them trying to get my kids the

eat the host gross. Actually, I had a fact here about education in France as well, and I didn't know that Traditionally, French children have only gone to school four days a week, and it's Wednesday that's kind of their special day with no school. And this dates back to the late eighteen hundreds when this day was reserved for religious education, and in the seventies it became a mandatory day off. But in the past decade or so it's

turned into this heated debate. To go back to two thousand eight, Nicholas Sarkozy mandated the elimination of classes held on Saturday, which some schools were kind of using to make up for that day off, and mandated they returned to this four day week. So then a few years later Francois Holland instituted a half day on Wednesday, so became four and a half day school week. And then early in his term, Emmanuel Macron informed schools that they would have the option of going back to the four

day week if they so desired. That's amazing. So, speaking of recent announcements, something I forgot to mention, we were talking about Japan. According to the Japan Times quote this year, the Ministry of Education announced they would be adding the teaching of a second language at all elementary schools and so while he might be thinking English, it's actually computer programming languages. So as part of the language curriculum update to be completed by all students will be taught coding

in schools. Wow, okay, alright, Well, in Russia, September one is known as Knowledge Day and it's the celebration of the beginning of school and it's accompanied by lots and lots of ceremony. So at the end of the ceremony, a first grade girl sits on the shoulders of a senior boy and then she rings a bell to signify the start of the year. I had no idea what that means, but it sounds very like, of course, she sits on the shoulders and rings a and it's time

to start school. So I have to admit I saved this one for last. In two thousand to nonprofits started by Hilula Swan of our I'm sure I'm getting that good job created the first boat based school in Bangladesh. And so you might be wondering why. It's because so much of the country is often flooded during the monsoon season. It makes it very difficult for many kids to get to school. And with a boat based school, the school comes to them. So by there were twenty two of

these floating schools. And it's amazing because the school really also serves as a school bus by traveling around and picking up the students. And after all the students are collected, the boat docks and and the school they begins, I know, and the boats have internet access and they've got solar panels to make it all possible. And the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have given it a million dollars to build more boats and improve the technology. It's really phenomenal.

And uh, it isn't just there so inspired by this, you can actually find schools in other countries prone to flooding. So these occur in Cambodia and Nigeria, the Philippines, Vietnam and Zambia as well. Now I see why you say that, one mango, I have to admit that that is an incredible fact and and be honest, worthy of this week's trophy. So congratulations, that's it for today's show. Thanks so much

for listening. Thanks again for listening. Part Time Genius is a production of how stuff works and wouldn't be possible without several brilliant people who do the important things we couldn't even begin to understand. Tristan McNeil does the editing thing. Noel Brown made the theme song and does the MIXI mixy sound thing. Jerry Rowland does the exact producer thing. Gay Bluesier is our lead researcher, with support from the Research Army including Austin Thompson, Nolan Brown and Lucas Adams

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