Posted in book reviews

The New Global Student: Skip the SAT, Save Thousands on Tuition, and Get a Truly International Education by Maya Frost is quite possibly the most annoying book I ever completely read.  If the subject matter weren’t right up my alley, I would have thrown it out the window (well, actually, it’s a library book, so I probably would have just put it in the book drop, but I would have banged the door extra hard).

I read about the book on The Simple Dollar blog in a pretty glowing review, so I was excited when my library had it.  By page 70, my excitement was gone and I was wondering if I could make it through.  My sister advised me to skip ahead, but I don’t really like to do that with books.  The author spends nearly the first 100 pages trying to explain why the test-taking machine that is American education is flawed.  Perhaps if I hadn’t spent the last ten years of my life reading about alternate forms of education, this would have been more revolutionary to me.  I actually began talking to the book, saying things like, “Get on with it already!” and “Give me some details!”

Her writing style was also a major turn-off.  Take this sentence for example: “Our primo parental up-and-out strategy should be to help our kids understand their talents and to teach them to generate ideas, research the heck out of  ‘em, and follow through in order to find great opportunities.”  Now, I don’t actually disagree with that sentence, but the way it’s written is the reading equivalent of nails on a chalkboard to me.  In addition, the summaries at the end of each section which contrasted “Old School” and “Bold School” also got on my nerves.

Another big issue for me was her constant harping on “fego” which is her made-up word for the combination of parental “fear” and “ego” that prevents us from letting our children study abroad.  I don’t think I’ve ever read something written by a parent that was so down on parents!  She glosses over the myriad other reasons that parents could have about being hesitant to send a fifteen year old half a world away for a year, and offers no reassurance except to point out that they’ll be in less danger of being shot or of being in a car accident than they would in the United States.  Ridiculing a person’s fears is not, in my opinion, the best way to help them overcome the fears.  A long, well-researched, carefully argued chapter would help much more than a casual, “Well, we took our 4 blond daughters to India, Mexico, and Argentina, and nothing ever happened to them!”

I kept waiting for details on how they took their family abroad, and she never gave them to me.  Apparently, they decided to move abroad, somehow made their businesses work online in a week or two, and left for Mexico.  The only detail she gives is how the girls found them a better place to live right after they arrived.  Oh, and also, somehow their mothers were better off because they moved abroad. Then there’s a whole section where her husband catalogs the money they saved living in Mexico, and his casual estimate is $3000 a month while living a better lifestyle.  Does that mean we could live for free in Mexico?  Oh, and also somehow, his sales doubled the first year they lived abroad. She also keeps talking about savings thousands off of college tuition, but again, never really crunches the numbers for us.  It seems (although doesn’t actually say) that they were able to pay for college out of pocket by the money they saved.

I wanted to like this book, but when I had made it through the whole thing and she never even addressed my biggest question, I gave up trying.  See, you can’t just decide to go live in another country.  They have to give you permission.  She never details the necessary preparations or even explains what they did.  She does give us a “Ten Commandments for Families Heading Abroad.”  Have I ever mentioned on here that this is one of my biggest pet peeves? I do not like fake ten commandment lists.  I don’t find it amusing or cute or trendy or whatever to make up a list and call it a “Ten Commandments.” 

The best part of the book was the ten pages or so that were the stories of eleven young people who went abroad through Rotary Youth Exchange (which is definitely a program I will be checking out) for a year either during high school or in a gap year after.  Not only were the stories fascinating, but we also got a break from the author’s annoying voice!  I can save you the several hours you might spend reading this book: study abroad is beneficial, it doesn’t have to be expensive, families might want to go abroad together, either for a short time or for longer, check out Rotary and the website Transitions Abroad.  There.

And I have no idea why she ended the book with an epilogue about the lady who wrote the Not So Big house books.  She’s not recommending a “not so big” education; she’s recommending a global education in the largest sense of the word. 

Remind me never to read anything by this author ever again.