Not Better, Just different? Part 2:

One of the problems, though, with making comparisons in the first place is that the societies for which school is preparing students, in India and in the US, are, at present, anyway, vastly different. While India has tremendous people power, it's also a much more traditional, and conservative place than I'd imagined. I haven't yet met a woman who had a 'love match' (people talk about this like it's a distant, mythical beast; something that happens to other people, the stuff of legend); I've met two women, both my age, both educated, who have been left by their husbands, one over her dowry, the other, over a photograph (of the woman, at a bar; apparently, this is taboo). Much worse happens every day: women are burned or thrown from windows over dowry disputes; some women commit suicide.

It would be easy, and maybe fair, to argue that's this is the way we operate in the States. Divorce is common; the disputes often involve money, and men (still) sometimes control the finances (or seek to). People, men and women, get violent, jealous, or crazy. But it's possible to eschew traditions in our society, to make choices based on individual desire, and even though there's a price to pay, it happens often enough. Here, women often say 'it's not possible here'. It's a frequent answer to so many of the questions I ask. A friend told me yesterday that here, if you're born a street sweeper, that's your destiny, both professionally, and personally. Your station governs everything you do.

So, what does this have to do with education? Though students don't have negotiate nuance, or deal with complexity in their school life, in some ways, the society which they're joining doesn't really ask them to. Everything is sort of pro-forma...already figured out for them. They have to perform well on a high stakes test; how they get to the place doesn't matter as much as the results they obtain.