Globalization in Education

I usually find myself getting a little frustrated when I hear people talk about how our education system is not progressing with the world. Yes, I do think that this is an important aspect of education in today's world. However, I think it is not the only aspect in education. If we consistently look to see what the rest of the world is doing in their education system, we are not being proactive ourselves. Instead, we are being reactive. How are we going to compete with the world if all we talk about is about what they are doing? I think it is important to be aware of happenings outside of the U.S. and I think this awareness is not taught in U.S. schools very well. However, I think we put too much emphasis on the competition aspect with the rest of the world. Should we try to better ourselves to say we scored higher than this coutry on an exam or that we have a higher percentage of students complete a formal education than that country? Or should we instead teach students that we should better ourselves for the sake of bettering ourselves? The U.S. school system is missing the fundamental aspect of teaching students how to like school and appreciate an education. Instead, students learn to dislike school from their peers at a young age because they feel they are suppose to hate homework and not like school. Don't get me wrong- I like competition. I'm a competitive person and I see the value in it. It motivates people to do better. But do we lose something when all we focus on is the competition aspect? I would argue yes. There will always be someone from Timbuktu to compete with, but they shouldn't be our only focus.