In a handful of nations, virtually all children are learning to make complex arguments and solve problems they’ve never seen before. They are learning to think, in other words, and to thrive in the modern economy. Inspired to find answers for our own children, author and Time magazine journalist Amanda Ripley follows three Americans embed­ded in these countries for one year. Kim, fifteen, raises $10,000 so she can move from Oklahoma to Finland; Eric, eighteen, trades his high-achieving Minnesota suburb for a booming city in South Korea; and Tom, seventeen, leaves a historic Pennsylvania village for Poland. Through these young informants, Ripley meets battle-scarred reformers, sleep-deprived zombie students, and a teacher who earns $4 million a year. Their stories, along with groundbreaking research into learning in other cultures, reveal a pattern of startling transformation: none of these countries had many “smart” kids a few decades ago. Things had changed. Teaching had become more rigorous; parents had focused on things that mattered; and children had bought into the promise of education.

少數國家會真正讓孩子學習提出縝密的推論來解決他們從未經歷的問題。換句話說，他們學習思考，並在現代經濟社會中崛起。為了替孩子們尋找答案，《時代雜誌》記者兼作家的阿曼達‧李普利花了一年的時間，追蹤三名安排在不同國家下生活的美國人。分別是：十五歲的金，藉由募集的一萬元美金從俄克拉荷馬州搬到芬蘭。十八歲的艾瑞克，用他獲得的明尼蘇達州郊區房子交換至南韓繁華的城市生活。十七歲的湯姆，離開賓州一座歷史悠久的村莊，移居波蘭。透過這些年輕人，李普利會見了幾經波折的教改人員、像殭屍一般缺乏睡眠的學生以及一名一年賺了四百萬美金的老師。他們的故事伴隨著多元文化學習的開創性研究，揭發了驚奇的轉變：過去幾十年，這些國家沒有這麼多聰明的孩子。但許多事情已經不同以往，現今教學越來越嚴謹，父母也開始重視一些議題，孩子們則進入教育最繁盛的時期。