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Preparing Students For the 21st Century
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It’s a globalized world, but that doesn’t mean we all live the same. Take high school students in the U.S., China and India. Different worlds.

A new documentary takes the two million minutes of high school life and compares them — in Indiana, Shanghai and Bangalore.

It’s a little shocking to see. Bright American kids on Xbox and after-school jobs, studying almost as an afterthought. Chinese and Indian kids at the books by 5 a.m., obsessed with science and math and exams and making it. This is up-close and amazing.

This hour, On Point: High school, three ways — India, China, and the USA.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Bob Compton, venture capitalist and executive producer of the documentary “Two Million Minutes.”

Shirley Ann Jackson, president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Neil Ahrendt, a freshman at Purdue University studying computer graphics, he’s one of the students featured in the documentary.

Vivek Wadhwa, a technology entrepreneur who’s founded two technology companies, he’s a fellow at Harvard Law School and executive in residence at Duke University. He joins us from New Delhi, where he has been studying the education system.

 

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