Our Children Are Not Prepared: A Teacher's Thoughts on Education

Dr. Pingnan Shi, known as Dr. Ping to many students and parents, grew up in China during the Cultural Revolution. He escaped Communism when he became a political refugee after the Tiananmen Square Massacre. Later, he escaped Socialism by coming to the US as an engineer in 1995. He became a high school math teacher in 2011 due to his concern about the lack of good math education and its negative impact on students and the country. After seven years of teaching in a private college prep school, he realized that America's K-12 education is outdated and desperately needs an overhaul. He started to write essays in 2016 in a seemingly futile effort to wake up parents and teachers.

Fortunately, many parents were wakened up during the lockdown of 2020. For the first time in the history of American education, parents were able to see what their children were learning and they did not like it. They formed grassroots parent groups to get involved in their children's education. I am encouraged by them. So I decided to publish this book, compiling all the relevent essays I have written for the past six years.