ChildFund Alliance Survey: Kids In Developing Countries Dream Of Better Education (SLIDESHOW)

To find out what kids around the world dream of when it comes to pursuing the best life they can imagine, the ChildFund Alliance surveyed 5,100 children throughout Africa, Asia, the Americas and the United States. The nonprofit, which works with vulnerable kids in 56 countries, asked privileged kids and children in need questions about their ideal jobs and how they would improve their countries as president.

The survey concluded that those in developing countries are focused on education, while kids in the United States have the chance to set their sights on the arts and sports.

"American children have the luxury of setting their career hopes high, but those in developing countries are focused on the single best way to disrupt the cycle of poverty — education," says Anne Lynam Goddard, president and CEO of ChildFund International.

See what kids from Zambia to North Carolina say they think about when they're asked to dream big.

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Comments

[Bill Jones123]

09:21 AM on 11/30/2011

Would someone PLEASE blame a lazy, no good, union thug, teacher somewhere for this disease in our country.

Come on. Step up and give us your diagnosis and your multi-billion dollar prescription.

Let's do to public education what we have done to health care delivery in this country.

[Bill Jones123]

09:20 AM on 11/30/2011

Education in this country is DEAD.

The only question now is who killed it.

The idea that some lone math or science teacher did strains credulity, and indicates just how sick we are.

That a multi-billion dollar industry has sprung up around "teachers are the problem" indicates the perniciousness of the problem.

Any math or science teacher will tell the truth: This country is ROYALLY SCREWED.

While it may NOT work it may be time to stop the edu-industry in its tracks before it becomes another country bankrupting military-industrial complex.

Close all of the public schools, fire ALL of the teachers, and let private for profit schools take over.

Then if things go completely south we know we at least tried.

Cataclysmic failure is now a better option than the slow death of the past 14 years.

[Max Patton]

03:49 AM on 11/30/2011

Sad state of affairs in the U.S. we all just wan to be a country of millionaire athletes, singers, hedge fund managers, and reality show contestants. We're raised to not want to put in an honest days work anymore.

[luapmi2]

04:09 AM on 11/30/2011

You can thank the democratic "Great Society" caper that rewarded all the wrong behaviors....

LBJ was an evil genius since it enslaved blacks to the democratic party.

[Max Patton]

05:01 AM on 11/30/2011

What on earth are you talking about? I don't see point.

[srynmichael2]

06:34 AM on 11/30/2011

LBJ, sorry. Typo.

[srynmichael2]

06:32 AM on 11/30/2011

That started with LJB's "Great Society."

[Hlynn]

08:34 PM on 11/29/2011

When I saw the first headline "When I Grow Up", it reminded me of something Jonathan Kozol (who has dedicated much of his life advocating for children) wrote about. He asked a child what he wanted to be when he grew up, and the child started to answer with, "If I grow up"--not "when", "if".

Many of the communities in our country are so dangerous. I was watching an interview the other day with a man who started a program to curtail violence in Boston. He said mothers are putting their children to sleep in bathtubs to protect them from stray bullets. No child should have to live in that kind of danger and no mother should have to be fearful of tucking her children into their beds at night.

[22Keys]

06:07 PM on 11/29/2011

Actually kids in America dream too big. They all want to be athletes and entertainers.

[DeuxExMachina]

01:22 AM on 11/30/2011

..and their fallback plan is to win "Big Brother" or "Survivor"

[kyeshinka]

01:35 PM on 11/29/2011

It's nice to see children in developing nations value education. Too bad the US, destined to third-world obscurity, no longer does.

[umbrarchist]

01:10 PM on 11/29/2011

The Internet makes a FREE global reading list possible, at least for English reading countries.

A Short History of the World by H. G. Wells (not sci-fi but with a sci-fi writer's perspective)
http://www.bartleby.com/86/

All Day September by Roger Kuykendall
http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2295/all-day-september

The Fourth R by George O. Smith
http://www.onread.com/book/The-Fourth-R-17950/

Eight Keys to Eden by Mark Clifton
http://www.mysterious-strange-weird.com/index-sensational-mysteries.html
http://www.onread.com/book/Eight-Keys-to-Eden-6514/

There Will Be School Tomorrow, by V. E. Thiessen
www.feedbooks.com/userbook/11643.pdf

THE YEAR WHEN STARDUST FELL by Raymond F. Jones
http://www.amazon.com/Year-When-Stardust-Fell/dp/1935774409
http://www.readcentral.com/book/Raymond-F-Jones/Read-The-Year-When-Stardust-Fell-Online

Starman's Quest by Robert Silverberg
http://www.freefictionbooks.org/books/s/9682-starmans-quest-by-robert-silverberg

Black Man's Burden by Mack Reynolds
http://sfgospel.typepad.com/sf_gospel/2008/08/mack-reynolds-on-africa-islam-utopia-and-progress.html
http://www.feedbooks.com/book/4826/black-man-s-burden