Zakaria: Fears about U.S. students lagging behind are unfounded

Before Fareed Zakaria had an eponymous CNN program or a recurring Washington Post column, he was an ordinary -- albeit gifted -- Indian teenager.

In his Show Me Center address Monday evening, he said he did the usual things Indian teens did, which is to say he labored over the decision to become a doctor or an engineer while passing around bootleg copies of American television shows.

"The opening sequence of 'Dallas,'" he recalled, savoring the memory of the sheer opulence and wealth America seemed to hold.

"And of course the women..."

But a friend of a friend's raving about the wonders of the Cornell collegiate experience prompted Zakaria to apply for college in the land of Pam Ewing, eventually being accepted to Yale University.

But despite enviable academic aptitude, Zakaria found the transition from the Indian education system to the American one difficult.

In the rigidly practical and task-oriented Indian system, he was expected to know the answer to a given problem, whereas in his new American classrooms, he was being asked to solve them, and furthermore, contribute original ideas to the discussion.

"In a strange way, I came out of that world of very narrow practical education," he said.

But as he became more familiar with the American model, he said he identified a distinction between the two and came to espouse the principles of a traditional American education.

National anxiety about America's students' apparent lagging behind other nations, especially in science, technology, engineering and mathematic fields has blossomed into full-fledged hand-wringing in recent years, but in his most recent book, Zakaria argues such fears needn't be unduly heeded.

In "In Defense of a Liberal Education," he argues that the virtues of the American educational system aren't in its rigor or focus, but rather in its breadth and pervasive cultural influence.

"I've seen both sides, and I understand how important it is to ignite your passion."

In Zakaria's estimation, the reason the U.S. may not look so good on paper is that its education system is designed to foster innovation and creativity, while others around the world are geared to produce impressive test scores.

He attributes the U.S. system's success to broad education, but not just the humanities. Also important, he posits, are the existence of a flexible society and economy, disrespect of authority and the ability of a culture to instill in its youth an exuberant sense of self-assuredness.

He pointed out that the vast majority of entrepreneurs' first ventures fail, often spectacularly, and without a sort of militant optimism, promising and even revolutionary individuals might have languished in obscurity.

"Test-taking and succeeding are two different things," he said, pointing out that the former is low-risk and relies on rule-following, while the latter is the opposite. "To be a good entrepreneur, you may need self-esteem more than you need science."

He cited Apple as an example, attributing founder Steve Jobs' rise from business and design guru to global cultural touchstone to Jobs' formative exploration in religion, philosophy and aesthetics.

Zakaria's argument was that real innovation and success comes from insights and skills outside the narrowly-defined STEM universe. Insights and skills that, were there an algorithm to find, we would have already found and monetized by now.

For Zakaria, these more ethereal capacities are best nurtured in the old-fashioned American petri-dish of humanities, sciences and rebelliousness.

"What you really want to do is unleash people in their right fields," he said. "If they want to succeed, they will succeed."

tgraef@semissourian.com

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