There is a movement called ED in "08" that is working to get presidential candidats to address education in American. A documentary they filmed is called 2 million minutes which they claim is how many minutes the average student spends in highschool in America, India, and China. The purpose of the movie is to show how much of ths time is sqandered by American students. Let's look at the numbers:
2,000,000 minutes
33,333 hours
833.33 hours per month (based on 10 month school year for 4 years)
193.79 hours per week (based on 4.3 weeks per month)
38.75 hours per day (based on 5 day work week)
...wait... there are only 24 hours in a day.
There is no way any child in any country spends that much time in school, even if you include homework and extracurricular time.
To get 2,000,000 minutes of education, a student would have to work
33,333.33 hours in the four years
8333.33 hours per year
694.44 hours EVERY MONTH with no break
161.49 hours every single week
meaning 23 hours every single day.
That leaves 1 hour per day to eat, sleep and socialize.
Perhaps the movie should be more realistically called 600,000 minutes which would equate to 10 hours per day with summer breaks and holidays.
Anyway, while the title and premise of the movie is mathematically flawed, you still get the picture they are trying to get across.
Perhaps the real problem is with unrealistic expectations? I don't believe it is possible for students to achieve EVERYTHING that is heaped on them in high school. It would be alot more realistic to let children choose their avenue of study in high school so that the ones more inclined to math and science actually have the time to concentrate on it. Maybe then American students will be able to compete with children in China and India
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1 comment:
Hello,
The title of the documentary, Two Million Minutes, is a reference to the amount of time a person lives in four years, NOT the amount of time spent in a classroom.
The whole premise of the film is to compare how students in the U.S., India, and China prioritize their two million minutes during their high school years. These minutes include the time spent in class, time spent studying, time spent in extracurricular activities, time spent watching TV, time spent sleeping, etc.
The film suggests that students in India and China spend a greater portion of their time in class, studying, and preparing for careers than do their peers in the U.S. You can learn more about the film by visiting its website at www.2mminutes.com.
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