2 Million Minutes

2MM was the film we watched in class last week; I have some things to say about it because it was an enjoyable documentary. The blog I wrote was sort of a review and an analysis simultaneously. The blog ended up with two questions; "how do we live?" and "how do we want to live?" were the two questions of focus. USA doesn't seem to do justice for these questions but China and India have answered these questions and it shows because the two nations are driven. China and India have shown they want to make a difference and they want to succeed more than any other nation in the world. They both put in an excess amount of hours to studying and they end up with what they want, success. Even though USA doesn't always exhibit this style, they do end up with success as well, just in a different pattern.

2 Million Minutes was a good film to watch. Regardless of anyone's occupation, it is a must see for everyone. It's definitely something that changes my views of the three nations, not necessarily in a bad way. I just wanted to point out some of the differences that can contribute to success of a nation. China has the one child rule and that allows a family to focus on one child instead of focusing on more than one which can happen in the USA. The USA might lack effective studying habits but the students catch on more quickly because of their self confidence in which they exhibit a good amount of success. India is a close knit nation and that contributes to the success because the parents are always there to remind the student of what their goals are. 2MM allows us to sit back and reflect on the issue and establish a viewpoint. Do I feel the USA needs to step up? Not necessarily. The USA does have an advantage and the advantage is our ability to have more freedom of choice. Not every student is going to dedicate their life to school because many have other aspirations of the types of life they will live. If we start seeing a drought with our success in regards to the smarter students, then the USA will need to worry more about establishing success. We are successful in many more aspects of life not limited to being an engineer and the like. We have the movie business, which is the greater than any other movie business of any other nation. I'm bias in that aspect, but it is true. We have the music business, which is full of success. We have many other aspects of life that are integrated into other nation's because of our success in certain areas that other nation's lack. In class, the instructor said the main reason why many people would like to see more people working in high demand, high paying, jobs is the fact that these people would be paid less. Just because we don't have as many engineers that China or India has, doesn't mean we aren't the best in the world. Our number one engineer might be better than over half of China's or India's engineers so that plays a factor into that aspect as well. Not only that, but China is bigger than the USA, therefore China has more of an opportunity to have more engineers than the USA does. Maybe China has too much emphasis on school and not enough emphasis on play. Too much work and not enough play can bring down success for some people and that might not be healthy for everyone. In the US, there are so many people working a part time job on top of their school studies; the students in the US might even have other extracurricular activities in addition to their already booked workload. In all, I'm happy with the way things are at this time because students in America are given more freedom and more of an opportunity for self expression compared to the other two nations. Until we lose our edge over other nations, this includes many jobs besides engineering or being a doctor, we can feel comfortable with our success and keep on doing what we've been doing. If we start losing that edge, then the USA will need to get into gear and exhibit more effective methods of establishing success.




http://www.matthewktabor.com/2007/11/06/two-million-minutes-a-global-examination/