Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Zuckerberg is brilliant no doubt but many young people were coming out with similar applications during this time. His just stood out or managed to get lucky somehow.. Zuck represents maybe .00015 of society.
Asians around where I live study no matter what. On random weekends my local library is packed with Asians while whites are enjoying the outdoors .
Students in some of those countries go to school 10-12 hours a day. They have little to no social lives and are under tremendous pressure to excel. They sit in their seats in school, they don't talk, they don't ask questions, they don't "participate" - they just memorize and do whatever they are told.
Here in the US we want our kids to have social lives, to play sports, to enjoy their childhood, and we don't ever want to pressure them too much. We don't tell them they are failures when they don't get the best grade in the class. .
Typical b.s.
Yes, in India, my parents went to school 6 days a week. They also played sports, and my mother also played an instrument. My father's biggest hobby was building and flying kites and he was the college table tennis champ.
Please keep your "at least my kids are well-rounded" tripe out of this conversation. It's the refrain of the underachiever.
I think this is pretty true except for the bolded part. Many high school kids in the US are encouraged to work the AP and IB prior to college.
Like I said, the low standard for medicore results in large number of kids AP courses. Back in the days, AP courses were offered really for a limited number of kids that were truely advanced. The public education system brags about the number of AP courses offered. If the standards were not so low, there wouldn't be that many AP courses. The fact is simple, an average high school student shouldn't have a hard time in college.
I look at what's out there today and what I went through in school 30 years ago. My son is in a decent public school. For 6th grade, over 90 kids out of 400+ students are in accelerated math (acclerated math = 2 years ahead). There is another big percentage of kids who are advanced (1 year ahead). I don't believe for second that all these kids are so bright. It just happens that the average is so low that you have a high number of advanced kids.
Students in some of those countries go to school 10-12 hours a day. They have little to no social lives and are under tremendous pressure to excel. They sit in their seats in school, they don't talk, they don't ask questions, they don't "participate" - they just memorize and do whatever they are told.
Here in the US we want our kids to have social lives, to play sports, to enjoy their childhood, and we don't ever want to pressure them too much. We don't tell them they are failures when they don't get the best grade in the class. We insist that teachers use all our new "best practice" and have students do everything in groups, "engage" and "participate" in lessons, discover things on their own (we don't want to stunt their intellectual growth by "telling" them anything).
We completely reject the parenting and teaching methods that result in these high test scores. And yet, we complain that we need to reform education to produce high test scores. But we don't actually want to do any of the things that result in those scores, so we just keep on with ineffective reforms, in the belief that there is some path to high scores aside from plain old work, work, work.
It's so bizarre that we keep comparing ourselves to these countries and their scores and finding that we fall short, when any parent or teacher who did things in the manner of those countries would instantly be labeled "bad."
I'm not saying we should parent and teach like they do - but maybe we should examine the gap between what it takes to get high scores and what we consider acceptable forms of parenting, teaching and learning. The fact that the gap is so big suggests that maybe our focus on high scores as a mark of achievement is erroneous. If high scores are the result of learning methods we don't find acceptable, then why do we insist on using those same test scores as a measure of our success? Maybe high scores don't actually measure what Americans consider success.
I am a bit more concerned that people are paying more attention to Asian PISA scores rather than our own. There is a big elephant in the room that is not being addressed in regards to the lower average US PISA scores but no one in the mainstream media seems to be addressing it.
All that matters ultimately is the end result of it all: making a lot of money in a professional career.
No, you're wrong. This is not the only thing that matters ULTIMATELY.
Education is also for stretching the mind, becoming learned, wiser, and more aware of what matters in life and what doesn't. Education should have taught you that.
Making A LOT of money is not necessarily one of them.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Excellent post
