Goodreads asked Cornelius N. Grove:

Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

Cornelius N. Grove My most recent book, "A Mirror for Americans," followed naturally from my immediately preceding book, "The Drive to Learn." For years, I had been pursuing the question of why East Asian students always have superior scores on the international comparative tests, while American students always have middling scores. Over 50 years, a huge amount of research has been carried in East Asia by anthropologists and others to figure out why East Asian students are superior. After I began digging into their research reports, I realized that the answer has two parts: (1) How East Asian children are raised at home, and (2) how East Asian children are taught in primary schools. In "The Drive to Learn," I explained how they are raised at home. In "A Mirror for Americans," I explained how they are taught in primary schools. I think of the two books as "sister volumes."

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