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I'm curious what's so different about Asians compared to other minorities. I've been looking at Greatschools.org stats and it doesn't matter if it's east coast or west coast, Asians do well at school and follow white stats closely but there's a HUGE disparity with Hispanics and blacks.
In San Diego I noticed a majority Asian school in a mid/low income neighborhood do great (at least on paper) comparable to wealthy majority white areas. In this particular school even the other minorities do higher than state average.
Although looking at other stats, San Diego county seems to be doing good with schools in general. But yeah, why are Asians different and what can we do to improve the school experience/results for other minorities?
How is it possible, that it's not well-known by now, what Asian families do, "that's so different", in order to get those success rates? They pressure their kids relantlessly, almost insufferably. There's been a fair amount of media attention to this phenom. Some of the kids don't take it well; they feel stressed, and aren't happy. Others blow their parents off.
I had Asian classmates and friends from grade school through college, so I got a front-row seat to the effect this pressure had on kids. Already by 4th grade, one Asian girl was routinely cheating on math tests. That's too much pressure to put on a little kid. In college, my Asian friends complained about relentless exhortations to "achieve!" In Japan, teen suicides result from the pressure to pass university entrance exams.
There's got to be a happy medium, somewhere in there. The statistics are achieved by means of a certain amount of sacrifice of the kids' happiness and well-being, in some cases. Is that "doing something right"? I'd like to see a study done, of how kids and also successfully-launched young adults, feel about it.
The asians I knew growing up in NYC were all smart. (So were the Indians/pakistanis). These kids went home and were expected to study. School was everything. Ever hear of "Tiger moms"? Their culture has strong family ties. Parents work hard and children study hard.
A bit tongue in cheek here but Indians are similar to Jewish culture. "You can be whatever you want when you grow up. As long as it is a Dr., Dentist, or Lawyer."
"You can be whatever you want when you grow up. As long as it is a Dr., Dentist, or Lawyer."
That's actually quite detrimental to kids' well being if there's very narrowly defined paths of acceptable careers or professions - what if you don't like to do any of these fields and have different aptitudes?
I've dated several Asian ladies in my day, the common characteristic I gathered was that they really encourage their children to succeed, study hard, and they push, and instill those values into their children. It becomes a way of life and part of their culture.. Their kids just seem to keep their heads down, with an eye on the prize. But a lot of cultures do this.
That said, you can't just generalize a segment of population/society. Stereotypes are overrated. One of the Asian ladies I dated, for example, was horrible at math....go figure. She could never figure out the percentages when leaving a tip for a waiter.....that said, I've met, for example, Peruvians that have a great work ethic, and they are very driven. The misnomer that immigrants are lazy and want free stuff isn't exactly correct either. They work hard, want to feed their families, etc. they own businesses, the ones I've met aren't sitting home watching TV...
IMO, if you really get out and talk to the people, you'll find that most stereotypes just aren't accurate.
Well said. I'm Asian and lousy at math (well, not really lousy, but I was a heck of a lot better in literature, history).
Many Asians may gravitate to quantitative fields not because they're naturally good at it, but if they have a non native English speaking background, they aren't penalized for it compared with studying the humanities.
If education is valued within the family, the children will of course do well academically, across the board. One example is Haines Elementary School in Chicago which has 86% Asians, 10% Black Americans, and 1% White Americans and all three racial groups score off the charts in testing.
Some Asians, eastern Asians. Not Filipinos, Hmong, and a view others.
According to J. Philippe Rushton, The University of Western Ontario and Arthur R. Jensen, University of California, Berkeley in Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 2005, Vol. 11, No. 2, 235–294, THIRTY YEARS OF RESEARCH ON RACE, DIFFERENCES IN COGNITIVE ABILITY Ashkenazi Jews have the highest average IQ (110) followed by east Asians (105) followed by whites (100).
Rushton is one of those controversial "race scientists" whose sloppy methodology and racial biases have pretty much discredited his "work" in general academia. His work is often cited by white nationalist groups, not surprisingly, and he has links to the Pioneer Fund, which sponsors pseudo-science about "racial genetics/eugenics."
That's actually quite detrimental to kids' well being if there's very narrowly defined paths of acceptable careers or professions - what if you don't like to do any of these fields and have different aptitudes?
I'd tend to agree about drafting kids into certain fields. However, I'm a big fan of pushing kids pretty hard K-12. Let kids decided what they want to study from positions of strength earned through strong classroom performance.
Due to our kids attending very demanding private K-12 we've been around a lot of Type-A parents who demand a lot of themselves and their kids. From my observations kids who are supported and motivated from an early age virtually always do well by "normal" standards and most shine to one degree or another.
Forgive the implied parental gloating.
Our daughter has two engineering degrees from an engineering school that typically does not allow students to attempt minors let alone double majors. She's in medical school now - at this point she wants to go into academic medicine.
Our son is a neurosurgery resident (PGY-3), he's already been accepted into a neurophysiology fellowship at a tip-top program out west if he wants it. He's also been accepted into a Ph.D physics program.
I take no credit for what they've done in the classroom beyond a couple of things. Expectations were always very high - high As were expected B's grudgingly accepted under oddball circumstances all else was unacceptable. Very high standardized test scores were expected as well. 2. We'd feed them and get them to where they needed to be no exceptions.
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We have some friends with two daughters. After school or sports practice they'd come home and sit at desks in a hallway with limited breaks until all homework and studies were completed. One is in engineering graduate school the other finished her Jr. year and moved straight into a Ph.D program in applied math. FWIIW both were spectacular athletes as well.
I could go on and on for a long time.
LEtting kids coast through K-12 is not the way to go for most kids.
When you surround yourself with successful people who want to strive high and want the people around them to strive high, you will also strive high. Asians hold the bar high in terms of education. Not all Asians will admit to it. They are VERY humble. Some Asians don't care about it much but they don't want their parents to disown them for getting bad grades lol. I also don't know where it came from but apparently memorization is a skill Asians have.
There's got to be a happy medium, somewhere in there. The statistics are achieved by means of a certain amount of sacrifice of the kids' happiness and well-being, in some cases. Is that "doing something right"? I'd like to see a study done, of how kids and also successfully-launched young adults, feel about it.
If you want to learn a musical instrument and play it well, you're going to have to put in 10,000 hours of practice.
Similarly, if you want to get excellent grades in school, you have to push yourself and study hard. There is no other way. Life is competitive.
I know an immigrant who came when she was 17, and her English is excellent in speaking and grammar. Her home country taught English since she was in 2nd grade, but we all know that learning it in school but never using it in real life means forgetting it really fast. But she didn't forget. So I said, "You must have a really good memory for facts." She nodded, and I said, "That means you got good grades in school?" She nodded again. She's now a CPA, which I assume deals with a lot of facts.
I had a history teacher who gave us oral pop quizzes on the spot. She'd ask a question and randomly picked someone to answer it. Some of my classmates knew the answers immediately, whereas I didn't know a single answer to them. So it's true that some people have the ability to remember a lot of facts without even trying.
I personally don't buy the "Competition" argument because competitiveness is a human trait, and I don't see how Asians are more competitive than another ethnicity.
Good point. All I know is my wife is a fire cracker. She just loves to compete and it fires her up. I'll give you a funny example of my wife. We work out at Orange Fitness and it's kinda cool as you can see everybody's performance broadcast on the big screen TVs on the wall. My wife will pick one of the girls in class, watch her scores as they are broadcast live during the workout and try her hardest to beat her. LOL.
So is it a function of her being Asian, a super competitive person or both? I vote a combination of the two.
Another interesting topic is appearance. She won't leave the house without looking good from head to toe. I often ask her why she just doesn't roll out of bed, throw on a baseball cap and jeans and roll? That she attributes to being Asian and she says "image and your appearance are treated much more importantly to Asians than folks from the West."
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