An Analysis of Two Million Minutes

1) Who is sending this message and what is the author's purpose?

Two Million Minutes is a thought provoking documentary. The messengers behind this movie seem to Robert Compton, Chad Heeter, and Adam Raney. They are the main people who put this documentary together. Two of these three have educational backgrounds; Mr. Compton has a business background. Their purpose for this documentary is to compare and contrast the educational lives of a male student and a female student in their last year of high school from schools in the USA, India, and China. They try to draw the conclusion that US students are falling behind their counterparts in China and India. There is no clear information as to where the financing of this documentary came from.

2) What techniques are used to attract and hold attention?

The shocking statistics are one way that a person's attention can be help when watching Two Million Minutes. Also, close camera shots are used. But more importantly, there are various persuasion techniques that are used in this documentary. I am not an expert on this but here are my thoughts about those techniques. I would say they use analogies to compare the students from the three countries. They say that if American students would study as many minutes as those in China and India, the results would be the same. However, there is no proof that that would be true. They use conclusions drawn from a small sample, and apply them to the populous. This is called extrapolation. They also use fear when they reported certain statistics and through the narration and images. There is a bit of nostalgia thrown in when the commentators reminisce on the past education push in the US and why it happened and why it needs to happen again. Finally, "experts" are used to add to the persuasion and fear of the current US situation.

3) What lifestyles, values, and points of view are represented in this message?

With the exception of one, all of the families were traditional in the sense of being a two parent household. The one male student from Carmel apparently had divorced parents, but that was never really addressed as being an issue. For all of the students shown in the documentary, the parents seemed to have a genuine interest in their child's education. It is hard to say for sure, but based on the homes that were pictured in the documentary, all of the students except the male one from China, lived in exceptionally nice homes. I can mention this as a person who has lived in both the US and China, and has visited India. Additionally, the extracurricular activities that the girl in China is doing (dance, violin) point to her definitely being from at least an upper middle class family.

The male US student definitely reflected a hardworking student, at least in the sense of balancing his job, school, and other activities. Both he and the female US student were able to get the schools or majors of their choice, though none of the Chinese or Indian students did despite all of their hard work in studying. The documentary seems to give that point that hard work will make all of your dreams come true, but even the end of the documentary shows that that is not true.

4) How might different people interpret this message differently?

There would be wide ranging interpretations of this message depending on who is listening. Like the one expert said in regards to parents, some US parents would agree that their child should study harder and be more like the Indian or Chinese students, but other parents would say that for them it is more important to develop life skills in addition to studying. The Chinese or Indian parents might say that their children didn't work hard enough when compared to those shown.

Depending on where the student is from, would determine how the message is interpreted. I think that most American students would not feel much impact from seeing or hearing this message. Spending all of that time studying would be a needless burden to most American students as many would not want to be classified as nerdy or geeky. From the perspective of Chinese or Indian students watching this, they would probably be in awe of these students and the accomplishments that they have made. They would tell themselves that they must work harder to achieve the same level.

5) What is omitted from this message?

One issue I feel that is somewhat omitted from the message is the issue of motivation. I know through other classes that I have taken, teachers have talked about this issue. It is obvious from the documentary that these students were clearly motivated to advance their education and knowledge. What about the students who are not motivated to do so? Only the elite students were regarded and set to be the standard.

I do not feel that this documentary clearly addressed others factors beyond education but that are yet closely related to education. Things that come to mind are responsibility and maturity. Based on my experience of teaching Chinese university students, I felt that they generally were less mature (especially emotionally) than what their American university counterparts would be.

The message also omits how the structures of the education systems are set up. I know that in China the "high stakes testing" is a major force in the education system. If the US was using the same system, many students that are in high schools now, would have never been able to reach that level. The US uses a much more inclusive system (a free and affordable public education for all) where as China and India use a much more classified and divvied up system. There are cultural factors that also must be considered in why the systems and students are different.