Symptoms: Continuous procrastination, lack of sleep, crappy quality of turned-in assignments, low motivation, poor grades.
Diagnosis: American students are lazy and take education for granted.
Rx: Watch videos about how the Asians are winning.
Yeah. We get it. Foreign nations have better students: they work harder, take studying more seriously, and end up smarter. We should strive to be more like them. Right?
Wrong. But that's the portrayal.
The Chinese and Indian students in Two Million Minutes did a lot more studying and preparation for college, and were generally set in their career choices. The American students were not, and were made to appear nonchalant about education, and only focused on their social lives.
So what's wrong with the American education system?
The students are not putting their best effort forward, there isn't enough motivation. But so what if we don't spend every waking minute on school work? We have social abilities. Life's success isn't solely based on academics and knowledge. There's more to life than with what we are being compared. Sure, we could afford to be more focused students; it would be better if we spent more time studying; it would be nice if we took school more seriously. But we're doing okay. Better, in those regards, than the Chinese students.
So what's wrong with the Chinese education system?
Well, considering there are students who commit suicide for being overworked, or for having too much pressure on them, or for embarrassment of poor grades...it's no wonder they are striving to be more like the American system. They lack the creativity and the social benefits that American students have. Sure, a lot of successful and intelligent people come out of it. They have a lot of self discipline and go on to Ivy League schools. But they're missing a lot from their quality of life.
Who's better? The Asians or the Americans?
Well, I'm both. So I win.
"Well, I'm both. So I win." I love you.
ReplyDeleteI completely forgot about the suicide thing. That's so scary that people invest themselves in their schoolwork to that extent, like is it really worth your life? There's an Indian movie I saw where that happens too and it was frightening.
I think the "social" stuff is valued more in america and more useful. In China and India those students all want to be engineers or other math professions. Maybe for those professions it doesn't matter that they don't know how to socialize(they just might be sort of screwed up with life. Do those cultures have arranged marriages? It would explain why). But in America a lot of professions require social skills and you can do well in these professions. The countries just have different priorities, which isn't bad it is just different (such a good concept that I learned from Dragon Tales :)). America likes to have well rounded students while Asia likes to have students with academic achievement. It is hard to say which is better. It is probably hard because one isn't better...
ReplyDeleteAnd Kira you are so right. You do win. :)
Okay, but are we putting too much on this "being well rounded" thing?
ReplyDelete