D.P.B.
Welcome to the battle for global supremacy.
I'm Hedrick Smith.
With technology and capital moving with lightning speed around the world and with the growing
power of the new economies of East Asia and Latin America, Western Europe and the United
States have lost their historic advantage.
Getting ahead in today's competitive struggle requires a high performance workforce trained
in higher skills and a teamwork mentality that can generate the quality and efficiency
demanded in the high tech industries of the 21st century.
School is where the race begins, the heart of any nation.
Where children learn the skills they'll need and the older generation passes on the mores
of society.
In America, Germany and Japan, this process is very different and the differences affect
economic performance.
So to understand the foundations underlying the battle for global supremacy, we look now
at typical youngsters at two crucial stages.
Second grade, where habits and values are formed and the last year in high school, where
seniors prepare to enter the workforce.
We go to three average middle class industrial areas, Kansas City, Missouri, Zendelfingen
near Stuttgart in Germany and Toyota City, Japan.
Most
of us think of primary school as reading, writing and arithmetic.
But school is also the first institution outside the home that shapes children's behavior and
social habits.
Probably nowhere do primary schools set out more deliberately to teach society's goals
and values than in Japan.
In Japan, my guide and translator was Tom Rolene of Stanford University, an authority
on Japanese education.
Our image of the Japanese is so serious and stiff that I didn't expect the bubbly vitality
of these second graders.
Large noisy classes.
The Japanese think that's a good idea.
I think the Japanese view childhood as a time in which it's natural to be full of energy,
but to be completely open to curiosity and to all the different discoveries that are
going on every day.
So that the teacher's ideas that a healthy classes when full of kids talking, raising
their hand.
Eight year old Kazuki Nakayama is one of the brightest kids in the class.
Kazuki finishes quickly.
All answers correct.
But I noticed that teacher makes no effort to push him ahead of the rest of the class.
She wants all the students moving along together at a pace that everyone can handle.
No grouping by ability.
I don't like to have too much difference grow up between them in terms of what they
can do.
So I noticed the kids that are a little bit slow and I tried to give them special attention.
Japanese teachers use faster students to help teach slower ones.
Yuta dropped his pencil case.
It sounded like lightning.
Like lightning.
These children are learning similes, describing something by saying what it's like.
Yes, lightning is what counts down.
Thunder makes noise up there.
It's not a teacher centered environment.
Rather the teacher steps slightly aside like in Judo where you use the energy of your opponent.
Well the teachers are using the energy and interests of the students, but they're also
letting things happen.
Lightning comes down.
This school or any Japanese elementary school in the early years tries to socialize students
to the entire kind of environment and process of learning much more than worrying about
the exact content of some kind of academic learning.
A powerful concept.
Tapping the natural enthusiasm of children achieves more than emphasizing grades.
They are very sincerely interested in making this feel like a home and that's why you take
off your shoes, put on slippers just as in your home.
They have music, they have flowers, they do a lot of other things which make the school
not an imposing place but a friendly place.
Lunch like every other activity has a conscious educational goal.
Building relationships and mutual support.
Each day one group serves lunch to the whole class.
The soothing music on the loudspeaker.
Something as complicated as serving food which could be a big mess is turned over to children
to take care of at a very early age.
It's quite fascinating to see the amount that teachers are willing to just let kids take over.
There's a lot of things you'll notice that they clearly don't have their manners straight
and all that.
They do wait until everybody's served and they sit there quietly before eating.
It's unbelievable self control.
Only when all are served do they give thanks and eat.
It's something that most Japanese teachers seem to take for granted that if given the
opportunity and sort of patiently work with the kids will create their own order.
It looks like a dance floor.
So beautifully polished.
The children do the cleaning in the morning and then before they go home as well.
One of the important elements of education is cleaning.
Cleaning cultivates a beautiful and gentle spirit.
So education money goes not for custodians or modern buildings but mainly for teacher
salaries and by cleaning up the students make the school their own and build a cooperative
spirit.
Working in groups it's the way they serve lunch, it's the way they clean up and it's
the way they learn.
Playing in the barrel this morning with Izumi and Yoko made a big impression on me.
We saw lots of routines and we saw students being involved as leaders of these little
routines and we saw these routines being developed in a way which will ultimately mean that learning
goes very smoothly.
Teachers spend less time organizing and controlling students throughout the process of their education.
Miho corrected my mistakes today.
Thank you very much.
I asked the teacher what about homework.
This is early elementary.
We don't want a lot of homework.
Ten to thirty minutes a night is enough.
It's just to teach them the habit of sitting in front of the desk a little bit every night.
One great strength of the Japanese system Tom Roline told me is the close partnership
of parents and teachers and it pays off academically.
I write often to the parents in a notebook about homework or anything that happens and
they write back.
We also have a report that goes home each week.
Schools can achieve so much because of strong support from home.
From Kyoku Mama, education mom.
Kazuki's mother happens to be a teacher but I learned that her active involvement with
homework is typical.
What do you want most from the school?
I do think it's important for school to teach Kazuki to study but even more important than
that is to have him develop a sociable nature.
That is what I'm hoping for.
More than test scores, the Japanese are after a cooperative spirit, an ability to work with
each other.
Half a world away, outside Kansas City, Missouri, I visited another primary school.
Another second grade classroom where I met another bright eight-year-old Raymond Utter,
R.L. to his family and friends.
Thank you, you may be seated.
Very quickly, I saw a different philosophy and approach.
Ms. Moore's second grade class got right down to business.
Read that first group of four, line five, six, seven, eight.
Aye.
Raymond?
Dad said I am flying to New York.
Correct.
I need a correction.
Can you give me one?
The first D on dad needs to be capitalized.
Correct.
Why?
Because it's the end of the sentence.
Correct.
Very good.
Here, no teacher stands aside, letting children conduct the class as in Japan.
Therefore, we're going to be counting by threes.
Threes.
Very good.
Ms. Moore?
Now, Elizabeth?
52 times two equals 104 minus 101.
Equals three.
Very good, Elizabeth.
Ms. Moore highlights the importance of correct answers.
Equals three.
Very good.
One plus one plus one equals three.
Good.
Excellent.
Boys and girls, you did a beautiful job.
I would like for each child to feel important.
I would like for each child to become independent.
I want them to learn how to think, how to reason for themselves.
I want them to feel good about themselves, to become independent little people, and yet
learn how to cooperate with someone else.
Then we have two...
Ms. Moore's approach fits the American model, celebrating individualism.
Individual birthdays, individual growth, classroom chores done by individuals, not groups.
Her goal is the development of the individual.
That's the American way right there, and it's here to stay, and there ain't no way they're
going to ever get rid of it.
That's what made this country great in the first place, and it'll always be that way.
Harold's dad, Ray Utter, works at the General Motors plant in nearby Fairfax, Kansas, and
he's watched American jobs disappear.
From the standpoint of looking ahead to your son's future in the long run, do you figure
he's getting the quality of education that he ought to be getting to be competitive in
the 21st century?
Right at this moment, it looks like it.
I'm waiting to see what goes on as he gets older into the senior high school.
I think that's where it's going to be the big kick.
They do get to play with computers now.
If you can't use that, you're not going to make a real good living.
Like most American parents, Ray Utter thinks his kid's school is doing just fine, but test
scores tell a different story.
As early as fourth grade, American students don't do as well in math and science as kids
from Japan and other advanced countries.
Now what about homework?
Do you assign homework at second grade?
We pick one night a week and we inform the parents at the beginning what night will be
their homework night because these children are involved in other activities.
They go to skating, they go to baseball, they do different activities.
We try to arrange it where it's not too inconvenient and it doesn't take too long, but the child
is responsible one night a week for doing a math page.
Okay, boys and girls, for those who go to Mrs. Streeter's math class, please stand up.
Put your chairs in, line up nicely, quietly, politely.
Very nicely done.
Cylinder class, this is a?
Cylinder.
Excellent.
All right, the next one.
You have, if I understand it right, four different math classes here.
Are they all essentially doing the same thing?
Would they have been doing the same thing in the other classes simultaneously?
No.
There are different ability levels and we are told in the school that we are to ability
group our math students due to the standardized testing that they perform better when they
are with people that they go at about the same pace and the same speed.
If you can't get basic addition and subtraction, you can't go on to geometric shapes.
Math classes divided according to ability.
But isn't there a risk that at this early age we are type casting second graders as
winners and losers?
The Japanese say everyone can make it if they work hard.
Hard work is more important than natural ability.
Can you tell us what shape your trick can is?
Go ahead and look back here if you need to.
Cylinder.
A cylinder, very good.
Do you have certain levels of achievement either set by the local school board or the
state that they have to achieve and you have a certain pace you have to reach?
In a way yes and in a way no.
In other words, like a child can leave here and they still can't read sometimes and yet
we pass them on.
At this elementary level the parent has the final say about retention.
We have PTA once a month and the parents are not required to come but it's there if they
choose to come.
Last month I didn't have any parent.
How often do you go to PTA?
How often are they?
Not very often.
They have one every month.
We don't normally make it to them because we're not real together trying to get dinner
done and out of here in time.
And I think too the PTAs are usually on Wednesday nights and we bowl on Wednesday nights.
We're already committed to something else that we've been doing and I haven't been
quite ready to give up my bowling to go to that.
One year I came up with the idea of writing letters to the children, writing a letter
to the parents on a weekly basis and that worked really well but it's also very time
consuming on my part and so after a couple years I kind of phased it out.
The others, like other parents, want their children well educated but the vital link
between home and school is weaker here than in Japan.
Experts say parental commitment is less in America generally and our system lacks a simple
mechanism for drawing all families into active involvement.
In Germany I expected the schools to be like ours but I was surprised to see quite a few
similarities to the Japanese approach.
We begin every morning in a circle.
We greet each other.
We sing a morning song in four languages since we have several bilingual children in the
class.
I start off with a song that involves movement.
Their bodies need to move so that their hands can work again.
The Germans, like the Japanese, attune their pace to the needs of young children and set
up a rhythm between hard work and letting off steam.
We say and write.
As in America, teaching methods center on the teacher but the children sit at tables
in groups of four.
Now Claudia, what's difficult in that sentence?
There are two L's in the Thornhalle, the X in box and the S P in spring.
Eight-year-old Claudia Schuster is one of the brightest students in the class.
This public school did away with grades for first and second graders about 15 years ago.
So the child has a great free learning space for the first two years.
This frees me from having to classify the children along a scale.
And you know school is always oriented towards achievement.
The children themselves notice where they fit on the scale.
The discrepancy is really very big.
Keenly aware of individual and cultural differences, Mrs. Lindenberger fosters group harmony by
having the children help each other.
For some tasks they work with partners, sometimes in groups of four or individually.
Claudia, treat with him and then speak with one another.
Where would we be if every person was selfish?
We have to learn how to cope within a group.
We don't live alone in the world.
The world is heavily populated.
There is a small group that has to learn to live together.
It's important to help the others because some of them need help.
Sometimes I see mistakes and then I tell them where the mistakes are.
I feel like I'm a teacher.
I visited the Schuster family at home.
York Schuster is a member of a factory work team at Mercedes-Benz.
There's probably no job that doesn't involve some kind of group work.
When they learn early in school or to conduct themselves in a group, it will be to their
advantage in their working lives later on.
German children, like the Japanese, go to school on Saturday and spend about 50 more
days in class each year than Americans.
But during the early grades, the German school day ends at noon and children go home for
lunch.
Like other German parents, Claudia's parents expect her to do homework every day, right
after lunch and before play.
Like most German kids and unlike most American kids, Claudia has her own desk.
All but three children were frightened watching television, so we discussed the rules for
watching TV correctly.
Too much TV is harmful.
One show a day is enough.
In Germany, as in Japan, public school teachers are not only well paid but have real prestige
and authority.
And many are not shy about using school to influence private behavior.
I have here a picture which a child drew.
Here's a child without a head.
Here's a child without a body.
Death and danger.
It's frightening to have children come here with such horrible images in their heads while
I teach them their letters.
I'm trying to show parents who watch a lot that TV is not a good influence.
They are the greatest example for their children, not my class.
In America, some parents would say what you're doing is very good.
Others would regard it as an intrusion by the school into the private affairs of the
family.
How do German parents react?
Maybe it is an intrusion, but we also want to be sure that adults have the right attitude
toward television.
I found that German parents don't seem to mind the intrusion.
Like the Japanese, they're much more inclined than American parents to accept the idea that
teacher knows best.
The most important task of the school is to help the parents raise a child, to co-raise
a child.
School, parents, educating children together.
We've seen primary schools in Germany and Japan fostering relationships and teamwork
alongside an American system that promotes individual opportunity and achievement.
The Germans and Japanese push students pretty equally, keeping them all well motivated as
they move into high school.
The American system of tracking works well for the brightest and the most affluent.
They get pushed to the hilt and pointed toward the world's best universities.
But a lot of American kids get the message they're not meant for school, and so they
stop trying.
So while America leads at the top, it also leads at the bottom with huge numbers of dropouts.
But what about the majority, the average kids, the mid kids?
That's 70% who won't finish college, the backbone of our future workforce.
Preparing the mid kids for high tech jobs is the key to a high standard of living in
the 21st century.
So how are we doing?
Suburban Blue Springs outside Kansas City was cited in the Wall Street Journal as one
of the 20 top school districts in America.
Blue Springs High sends two-thirds of its seniors to college.
But nationally, the figures aren't so good, only about half start college and half of
those don't finish.
What about the half who never start, like Jason Fuller?
In his senior year, he's taking four classes.
One a study hall, then a tech course in electricity, a class in reading skills.
And the centerpiece of Jason's program, marketing.
If you become an assistant manager at McDonald's, you automatically get a lot more hours.
You get on the payroll, you make more money and everything, but you also have more responsibility
and you're there a lot longer than a part-time person.
On the chart on page number 122, there's three basic levels of management that we want to
make sure everybody understands.
What are they?
Shawn?
Top management, middle management, supervisory level management.
Any other advantage of going into management?
Why in the world would you guys want to be a manager other than the prestige and the
money?
An important point.
Mr. Keester's management class is supposed to help students build careers.
Half-day school in the morning, then afternoon jobs that Mr. Keester has to approve.
So we release them 11-11.
Most of them go to work.
A lot of them are using the business, use them at noon for the fast foods and restaurants
and things like that.
This appealed to Jason.
He was bored with school and here, as in most places, vocational training has low prestige.
How would you grade our VOTEK system?
Is it up to date?
Is it serving our kids well?
We're way behind and part of that is because of the cost of equipment.
By the time we even identify the equipment that would be ideal in terms of teaching a
skill, going through the bureaucratic system of funding it, installing it, training teachers
to actually instruct with those materials, there's probably something better on the market.
Some teachers at the regional vocational training center disagree.
There's very few shops in this Kansas City metro area that has any better equipment to
work on cars than we do.
I did see some modern equipment, but the center serves a large area and for many students
like Jason, it's far from home and far from Blue Springs High.
We have talked to some guidance counselors and one of the things they've said is our
VOTEK centers are not up to date.
They don't have the most modern equipment, the courses are not up with the market and
so forth.
What would you say to that kind of a guidance counselor?
I'd invite them to come over and take a look.
It's a two-way street.
I've yet to see a guidance counselor come into my shop, so how do they know what we
have?
So Jason's high school and the vocational center weren't making connections.
Okay, I hope that takes care of it for you, Chris.
And Jason really liked the school's option of an afternoon job.
I remember last year when Jason and his mom came in for a conference and we visited and
Jason at that time was very much into the let me get out of high school and get on with
my life and to him that didn't mean more education, that meant a job.
So for two years he worked at the Sonic drive-in, but he had a quarrel with the manager and
quit.
So tell me about your job here at Sonic.
I worked here approximately two years.
Hit-flip hamburgers that I cooked and everything.
Making good money?
I guess good money for being 16 and having a car, enough to pay for insurance and have
a little run-around money, I guess is better than none.
The American teenage ritual, get those wheels and become an adult.
Problem was Jason wasn't prepared for the adult world.
The car was a distraction.
Jason wasn't driving that car, the car was driving him.
After quitting the Sonic drive-in, Jason needed a new job to remain qualified for half-time
school.
And Mr. Keister approved Jason's doing filing and other chores for his aunt who prepares
tax returns in her home office.
Do you think he's laid the basis for a career?
Yes I do.
In what career?
Well right now, like I said, we talked about the police.
He's interested in law enforcement.
He's been doing shorter cooking, he's now working for a tax account.
How does that build a police career?
Forgive me, there's something I'm missing.
Sure, but I get back to the basic skills.
We have so many students here that you can't have 35 different programs for every student.
But you've got to learn how to work first of all.
You have to learn the basic skills.
I feel like that's what we're doing here.
He knows he has to go to work on time.
He knows he has to work so many hours.
He knows he has to be loyal to that employer.
Things like that that I think when he becomes a police officer, hopefully some of these
skills will say, well I remember that in class.
This is what I have to do to get ahead.
When you were talking with your guidance counselor or with Mr. Keister in the marketing class,
did anybody try to help you drive towards a particular career idea that might be helpful
to you after graduation?
No, nobody really pushed me towards one.
It was pretty much my decision of what I wanted to do.
And how do you feel about the decisions you made?
I feel like maybe somebody should have pushed me a little bit harder and maybe I should
have had somebody with a little bit more authority such as my mom or dad or guidance counselor
or teacher help me out in that area.
We haven't visited for a while.
Jason's guidance counselor is overburdened.
She's responsible for 375 students.
Bring me up to date.
Well, there's been a few changes.
Instead of looking to go on in management probably for Sonic, I quit that job and I'm
going to try to do the military thing, Army.
Have you been visiting with a recruiter or making some plans with them?
Yes.
As a matter of fact, I have and I've done everything but signed the paper because they
said I'm a little overweight.
The whole secret is finding something you're good at.
Everyone says he's hoping the Army will pick a career for him.
Trouble is he's going into the reserves.
Only five weeks of skill training, hardly enough to build a career.
Isn't it possible you're doing a better job for the college bound than for the kids who
are not sure where they're going and are going into the workplace?
Here's a kid who's taking marketing.
He's told one guidance counselor he's interested in becoming a policeman.
He's told another he thinks he maybe wants to go in the Army.
He's had an after school job as a short order cook and now he's working for a tax account.
It doesn't sound like a terribly organized program.
Well I don't know if we're responsible for the fact that he's a, I wouldn't think that
the high school is responsible for the fact that he's a short order cook.
Do you think that kid is going to compete with a Japanese and a German 18 year old?
That may be the toughest question you've asked.
Because if I read your question right, the school becomes totally responsible for providing
all the opportunities and the skills necessary for a young person to be competitive in the
world market and I'm not sure we're equipped for that to happen.
Jason Fuller is a pretty typical American mid kid.
If America is going to be a high tech, high wage society in the 21st century, it needs
kids like Jason Fuller in high productivity jobs.
The principal, Ted Luman, admits that American high schools are better geared to serve the
college bound.
That often means that mid kids like Jason Fuller fall between the cracks.
The Germans take a different approach.
Private businesses and state schools work together.
Companies large and small invest 15 billion dollars a year educating Germany's mid kids.
They offer training in 400 different vocations from baking to banking, from insurance to
industrial electronics.
Every teenager is treated as a national asset whose education is too important to be just
a personal matter.
After 10th grade, two thirds of West German youth are in apprentice programs now being
slowly extended to the east.
Like most other firms, Mercedes-Benz operates apprentice training centers like this one
at Sindelfingen as an integral part of its operations.
Like Jason Fuller, Roland Wacker was bored with school, so he signed up for an apprenticeship.
Again like Jason, Roland wanted wheels.
But there's a difference and it matters.
I save for six months out of my apprenticeship money.
I make 900 marks a month and put aside a couple of hundred marks for the car.
After six months I had enough money but I waited until I got a good deal.
Roland could afford a car because the German system pays him a solid wage while he's in
training.
Jason Fuller in Kansas City had to settle for a minimum wage job just to keep his car
in gas.
Roland and his friends are training to become industrial electronic technicians.
Their teacher has given them a puzzle.
Find the error he has put into the circuitry that controls an industrial robot.
It's like the real repair problems they run into when they work in the Mercedes factory.
This robot, the most modern Mercedes has, cost about one million dollars.
Why spend that on apprentices?
Because one instructor told me we're training tomorrow's workers.
Furtz, how would you do this?
The Germans call this the dual system.
Dual because practical training on the job goes hand in hand with demanding academic
courses.
How high is the output voltage if the frequency is infinite?
Let's summarize.
The largest portion of the social net is pension insurance.
Roland's schedule is pretty typical.
It's a three and a half year course.
Each week he's in class for a day and a half and three and a half days he trains on the
job.
Are the tests hard?
You have to pass very hard tests.
Yes, in every subject you have a final exam.
In technology, circuitry, in mathematics naturally, economics, German and social studies.
The tests are pretty hard because it's a total of three and a half years of learning.
You're tested on what you've learned during the whole apprenticeship program.
I visited Roland's family.
His father is a welder for a Mercedes supplier.
How did Roland's parents feel about his having to pick a lifetime career three years ago
when he was only 16?
Many American parents would feel it's too much of a decision for a young person to decide.
Does he need the help of the family?
Definitely.
I went along with Roland to the vocational counseling service to get my own impression.
But at the same time I knew what his interests were.
There are a lot of vocations to choose from.
But for years it was easy to see what Roland had in mind.
At 14, two years before the big decision, students are brought by their school to the
nearest vocational center like this one in Stuttgart.
There are centers in every city open to students and adults alike.
Each center is a fund of information, books, videos, pamphlets, job fairs on every conceivable
occupation, how to get the training, where to find the jobs, what each job is like.
The idea is to stimulate teenagers to think about the possibilities and then later help
guide them toward a decision.
The line is direct.
Untutored child, apprentice, skilled craftsman.
How would you compare your feelings, your experiences here in the apprenticeship with
school?
Back then I didn't do too much for school.
I didn't take it too seriously.
But here if you don't pay attention and get good grades then you could get passed over
and then you don't have a job.
The pressure is there.
I do more for school now than I did before.
And is business happy?
Mercedes chairman Helmut Werner told me that the company spends about $65,000 on each apprentice.
Is that a good business investment?
It is because you cannot look at that on a short time basis.
If you accept that this is an investment into possibly a lifetime's work then it's an excellent
investment.
When they ask who was that you have a real first class specialist.
The German system covers careers we don't associate with apprenticeships.
It tracks into white collar careers and toward management too.
In this banking class I met Nicole Rosa, almost 18 and in the last year of her apprenticeship.
Now which of these documents has to be sent next once we've issued a letter of credit?
First the statement from the Sanwa bank to the Southwest State Bank.
And how would it be sent?
Telex.
That's right, Telex.
Like Roland, Nicole works at a real job at a local savings bank.
Already she's entrusted with advising new customers.
When you go to school you learn the theoretical things and when you go to the bank you do
this what you've learned.
I've been to big banks in Great Britain for three days.
Then you know how to write to fill a form.
But I don't know why you must write this one and this one.
And you feel you get that kind of theoretical training?
Yes, we learn it in school in our banking lessons.
Nicole can become a bank manager and more.
I was impressed by the flexibility of the German system.
Many apprentices go on to technical colleges and universities.
Some have even risen to be the heads of big banks.
The German secret weapon is the education of the high school graduate who doesn't go
on to university.
At that level after you get through a German apprenticeship training program you're simply
the best educated person in the world at your level.
They turn out an absolutely world class worker and it allows them to make very sophisticated
products, use very sophisticated machine tools and just operate technologies at levels that
the rest of the world finds impossible to operate.
So Roland Vacher has a system in place to train him.
Jason Fuller in Kansas City is on his own.
The whole idea of teenage years being a period of increasing freedom which we have in the
U.S. is just not true in Japan.
It's quite the opposite, it's a kind of constriction and a focus in much more on school and getting
into a college or at least becoming very serious about the future.
It's ironic here we are in Toyota City and everybody's coming on a bicycle.
Japanese kids just don't have cars.
Their parents are expecting them to spend their high school years really studying hard.
Even getting into high school is serious business.
Senior high kids compete citywide to enter the best schools.
Tom, Rolene and I were looking for the average so we visited Yutakana High School in Toyota
City.
It was April, just after the start of the school year.
The assistant class head distributed a list of homework to you for the holidays.
Even at an average high school like Yutakana, a week spring vacation includes homework.
Finish your homework early and then think about the areas you're not strong in.
I asked Tom Rolene how he would compare academic performance in America and Japan.
Whatever subject we're looking at, the amount that the students are doing here and the level
they're going to reach is higher.
It's almost not comparable.
We're talking about kids in the middle of Japan getting a level of education that's
maybe at the top 5 to 10 percent of the American student population.
Whether they like it or not, and I would say that most students do not like this part of
their life in terms of the studies they have to do.
They are being shaped as citizenry and as future workers in a way that makes them highly
disciplined, well informed and skilled in many of the kinds of things that an economy
can use.
The law regarding the prohibition of monopolies and the preservation of fair trade.
Every high school in Japan has to meet the same rigorous national standards.
While in America, 50 states try to monitor 14,000 school districts.
That grade, that was good.
In Japan, the stakes are really high.
How well you do in high school sets the path for the rest of your life.
School is so central that teachers are responsible for seeing that all students make it into
the next stage to a university, a training program or a job.
Hiro Imae teaches Japanese literature and doubles as advisor for several dozen students,
including those headed for the work world.
What are all these pictures on the wall here?
He shows me photos and letters from last year's seniors telling how they like their jobs.
To begin with, please look at the first part.
It says we look for curiosity.
Mr. Imae coaches seniors on what employers are looking for.
As you will see when you open it, the brochure discusses the value of questioning.
The company is saying they want their workers to stand up and question things.
As the year begins, students' career plans are often vague.
Yasutera Iyoda, whose father worked for a Toyota supplier, had thought about college.
Now he's thinking of a job.
What company do you want to work for?
I want to be a policeman.
Look at Yutekano in July, end of the term, the dress looks more casual, but the pressures
are more intense.
Yasutera Iyoda has changed his mind.
Instead of police work, he now wants a job at the auto upholstery plant where his father
works.
I saw Mr. Imae, he works hard for the students who want to get a job.
I was encouraged and felt that it's best for me to go to work after graduation.
Exam week, students boning up on history, Chinese dynasties.
No matter whether they choose university or the job market, all Japanese high school students
take a full course load and sweat out exams.
Like universities, employers watch results.
They're looking for dedicated hard workers who have shown they can learn.
By July, everyone's getting serious.
In recent years, because of labor shortages, companies have gotten used to recruiting at
high schools.
Mr. Imae, the literature teacher, bargains hard with recruiters.
You give me more jobs for my students and I'll send you my best prospects.
Please help us with our recruiting.
Recession this year means companies don't have as many jobs to offer.
Well this year, this is the number.
Oh no.
Ikeda hasn't quit, has he?
No, of course not.
Like other teachers, Mr. Imae follows up on past graduates.
Each senior class wants to do well, not just for themselves, but for those who will follow.
If graduates work at Toyota or some company like that, work very hard and do really well
there.
The company will think highly of the school and try to recruit more from the school.
So for the younger students, we must perform well and do our best.
The graduate's track record on the job is the school's bread and butter.
Japanese schools in general, and your school in particular, have a very good record for
placing students in universities, junior colleges, and jobs.
What's your actual batting average?
One hundred percent.
That means that every single member of this class will be signed up for a university,
a training program, or a job before graduation.
Not every high school hits a hundred percent, but the record would inspire envy in America.
So there's a seamless journey from first grade into the adult world, the whole experience
of education reflecting the tightly woven patterns of Japanese society.
The self-restraint and cooperation learned in school are a necessity of Japanese life.
One hundred and twenty-five million people crammed into living space no bigger than Connecticut.
Virtually one people existing in isolation for a thousand years.
Companies like schools nurture teamwork and togetherness.
All across Japan, businesses welcome new workers into the industrial family with ceremonies
like this one.
The powerful feeling of shared purpose and commitment gives Japan a strong competitive
advantage in the global economic struggle.
The sense of being a Japanese comes very natural to us as compared to the United States where
you really have to sort of come up with identity for the nation.
You have to keep telling various elements of the society that this is the United States,
this is American way of life.
The American way of life.
Individualism, self-reliance, diversity, cornerstones of our rich and dynamic society, lessons we
teach our children.
But that credo of self-reliance today leaves tens of thousands of teenagers like Jason
Fuller unprepared for global competition and industry scrambling to fill the gap.
We're hiring workers with high school education that don't have the qualifications a high
school graduate should have and we have to teach them remedial courses in reading, writing
and arithmetic and that's wrong.
We shouldn't, business should not have to do that.
That just adds a cost that makes us less competitive on a global basis.
What's more, American schools carry the enormous burden of social disintegration, violence,
drugs, a society divided by class, race and unequal opportunity.
The cost is shattered communities, broken lives, wasted resources.
For some reason in the 70s and 80s no matter where you looked at Americans they didn't
seem to care about the future.
We see it even today if you look at state and local governments in the last year or
two during this recession and you say what did they cut the most?
The answer is they cut education.
What were they expanding spending on prisons?
Now if you think of that as a social choice, spend more money on prisons and less money
on education that doesn't make a lot of sense from the point of view of the future.
The future, that's the point.
How well are we preparing our children for the future?
Think about the three systems we've seen.
In Germany and Japan the pieces fit together.
Not perfectly, but well.
Common purpose, group effort.
Each country building a high performance workforce.
German business working in partnership with schools.
Japanese teachers guiding youngsters into industry.
America lacks a common strategy.
Everybody goes his own way.
Businesses discount high school diplomas but rarely share responsibility for improving
education.
Schools focus on the college bound and leave the majority to fend for themselves.
Years ago that was good enough, but no longer.
Global competition has snatched away millions of blue collar jobs that were a good living
for America's high school graduates.
Today America's lack of tough educational standards and clear goals means an uncertain
future for youngsters like Jason Fuller.
The cost is a middle class stuck in the economic gold rooms.
And unless America makes radical changes and forges a new strategy, its economic erosion
will continue.
In our next program, how German and Japanese businesses gain advantage over America.
Thank you for being with us.
I'm Hendrick Smith.
This program was produced by Hendrick Smith Productions and WETA Washington, who are solely
responsible for its content.
And I'm
I have this dream.
It's about playing for my country.
On Monday night, a beautiful woman, a station master,
and a crazed lover.
An offbeat comedy of manners. The station. 9.30 Monday night on SBS.
Back off, devils! Hallelujah!
Charlatan or miracle worker, on Wednesday, James Randi, professional magician, offers some rational explanation of the seemingly paranormal.
I know how people are deceived. I know how they deceive themselves. And many magicians, most magicians, really allow people to deceive themselves.
Randi also shows how he unsettled Yuri Geller.
I'm having a hard time with you.
You don't feel what? Strong tonight?
I don't feel strong.
The mind-bending secrets of the psychics, Wednesday at 8.30 on SBS.
Tomorrow morning, USA 94 continues on SBS. From Group D, Greece and Bulgaria, still searching for their opening wins of the tournament, play in Chicago.
At 5.30, the Swiss will be looking to book their second round berth when they meet Colombia in Stanford.
The Colombians have lost both their matches so far.
And at 8, the USA can spark a huge national celebration.
They can take just a point off Romania and move into the last 16 of the 1994 World Cup.
See it live and exclusive here on SBS.
Brrrr-wee!
The winner of the European Compact Camera of the Year is the Pentax SBO 115.
Sleek, ultralight, remarkably compact, with a built-in 38-to-115 zoom.
And the winner of the Australian SLR Camera of the Year Award is also a Pentax, the brilliant Pentax Z20.
Picture modes for the novice and full-spec modes for the advanced photographer, with a power zoom and built-in flash.
The most awarded cameras this year are by Pentax. Make no mistake.
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Dynamo Ultra removes the heart and shadow of greasy stains that ordinary concentrates can leave behind.
Bravo, Dynamo. Dynamo Ultra. Performance that's out of sight.
But be careful, they've slowed down. Slowed down.
Oh, you saw that one.
Yes, I saw it, I saw it. What a beautiful color.
My dog hates speed. It makes him smart.
If it's for the dog, then we're going to go really slowly. I don't want him to get angry at me.
When I said slowly, I didn't say stop.
So, go ahead, go ahead.
What are you playing at? You're not in order.
It's not my fault, Mr. Officer. It's the dog's fault.
Go ahead, go ahead.
They're so annoying. They're so annoying.
Did you see that, the police? Instead of fighting speed, I'd complain to the prefect.
And I'd complain to you too, my dear man.
You're right.
What was I saying?
Oh, yes. Boxing. French boxing. It's much more beautiful than English boxing.
In English boxing, we only use our fists.
Whereas in French boxing, we also use our feet.
I've known wild seas,
Good evening,