The movie 2 million minutes was a very interesting movie and had a very strong message attached to it. Its just amazing how the Asians and Indians study and work so hard yet the Americans who don’t work as hard get into the college they want to get into over the Americans and Indians. The average American spends about 900 hours in the classroom and 1500 hours in front of the T.V. This is a very important statistic to consider because Asians and Africans pretty much devote their whole day to studying and working hard for school when Americans are watching T.V more hours then being in the classroom.
I feel that this is not fair to the hard working Asians and Indians who are working harder than Americans yet the Americans still get into the top class college over them. Asians scored 34% in math proficiency in the 12th grade and this was the highest percentage of any race. This just shows that Asians are scoring higher then Americans but America still get accepted to the college that they want to attend. It is not fair because the Asians deserve it and have worked enough for it while Americans really haven’t in my opinion. This movie has a very strong message to it and there is many ways to look at it. People have different opinions on if this if fair or not but I feel that Asians and Indians should be rewarded for working so hard and devoting most of there day to studying! [continues]TWO MILLION MINUTES: A GLOBAL EXAMINATION
BY ROBERT A. COMPTON (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER), ADAM RANEY (PRODUCER), AND CHAD HEETER (DIRECTOR)

BROKEN PENCIL PRODUCTIONS, 2008. DOCUMENTARY FILM, 54 MINUTES. $25.00.

Some facts: Two million minutes stand between the end of eighth grade and high school graduation. The typical American student will spend 382,400 of these minutes in school, while the average Indian and Chinese student will devote 422,400 and 583,200 minutes to school, respectively. And a threat: The United States may soon lose its preeminent status in the global economy.

What’s the connection? Two Million Minutes, a documentary film by Robert Compton, Adam Raney, and Chad Heeter, profiles six high school students from three high schools: 4,000-student Carmel High School, a high-performing public school in Carmel, Indiana; 1,600-student Shanghai Nanyang Model High School, located in Shanghai, China; and St. Paul’s English School, a for-profit K–12 school serving just 300 students in Bangalore, India. The film’s message is clear: The rigorous in-school and extracurricular experiences of Indian and Chinese students far surpass an American education system more dedicated to serving the demands of adolescents than the economic needs of a nation.

The featured American students—Neil and Brittany—are certainly intelligent, but they seem more concerned with extracurricular activities and friends than with their studies. Indian students Rohit and Apoorva, however, and Chinese students Xiaoyuan and Ruizhang all plan careers in math or science, and their families and schools support these goals. The film incorporates these students’ descriptions of their high school experiences and future aspirations with the hopes of their parents, and filmmakers juxtapose scenes from the different homes and schools. A Carmel High School teacher passes out a test explaining that everyone should ace question thirty-three because “I will accept three of the four answers on that,” while classroom scenes in India and China feature students completing morning aerobics, English drills, and science labs. Even weekends differ, with Saturday tutoring sessions in Bangalore and Friday night football games at Carmel High School.

Statements from experts—including Harvard economist Richard Friedman, former CEO of the Indian company WiPro Technologies Vivek Paul, and physicist and president of Rensselear Polytechnic Institute Shirley Ann Jackson—are coupled with bleak international statistics to support the film’s claim that America is “losing its competitive edge,” a