I was driven mad by the Chinese education system • Hacker News Board

Re: I was driven mad by the Chinese education system

#81

Post by mattmcknight » Mon, Feb 16, 2009, 4:04 AM UTC

jerf wrote: post #34

whacked_new wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have to wonder why that, culturally, seems to be linked to Asians? This is a complex issue, but the shallow explanation is the test taking culture. There have been reports of widespread (and sophisticated) cheating in the national Korean university entrance exams over howevermany past years that I can recall. I was told that this is because Koreans basically get one shot at the exam. It practically makes or break…

"I was told that this is because Koreans basically get one shot at the exam. It practically makes or breaks your life." People talk about the superior nature of the American higher education system, which might seem strange if you are used to hearing about how much it sucks, but of course those criticisms are talking about two different things. The American system is superior because you can get a second chance in al…

It's a good point, but you actually do a second shot at the Korean exam. It actually makes it harder, because you are competing against people that finished high school and didn't get the score they wanted on the exam, so have spent the entire last year studying for the exam.

To me, this points out a fatal flaw in the Korean test, it's not hard enough. It's hard enough from a comprehensiveness standpoint, but it's not from a level of knowledge standpoint. Put simply, an effective test should show what level you are at in a topic. A test should advance to higher levels of thinking, to places where knowledge is not merely facts. It should go beyond the furthest course offered to determine who is truly advanced, rather than see who learned the standard class the most completely.

Another flaw in the Korean system is that the actual university experience is lessened, because you have already proven yourself getting in and simply graduating is sufficient.

Re: I was driven mad by the Chinese education system

#82

Post by Raphael » Mon, Feb 16, 2009, 4:10 AM UTC

mattmaroon wrote: post #62

inglorian wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure...in your parent post, you mentioned being "accurate to life" as an important measure. While subjective, verbal examinations (and all the possible unfairness they entail) can be significantly more true to life (in the real-world, post-school sense) than the multiple-choice/short-answer tests that are common today. "Objective" tests are best for only the very few things that can be "objectively" measured.…

How does a math test, or a history test, or an SAT reward mediocrity or parroting?

You parrot the practice tests.

Re: I was driven mad by the Chinese education system

#83

Post by dangoldin » Mon, Feb 16, 2009, 4:29 AM UTC

bokonist wrote: post #36

pg wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first sentence is probably true. But the causes for this divergence are so complicated that I don't feel like I understand the question well enough yet to explain why it happened. For example, there was the court squabble that caused long trading voyages to be banned just at the wrong moment. If long distance voyages were a sufficiently powerful driver of European economic growth, that alone could have been enoug…

Here is a great article comparing the Chinese and the Portuguese approaches to exploration. The comparison between ship sizes is just stunning. It's the 15th century version of Lisp versus Blub :-) : http://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2006/10/how-to-succeed-or-f... Decentralization was a major factor in Europe's success. The Chinese government could issue an edict and ban trading voyages for centuries. No European rule…

Very interesting! This reminded me of the book "The Starfish and the Spider" where it discusses the power of leaderless organizations and how they can be better in certain instances.

Something interesting from the book is that these centralized groups become more and more centralized when they are attacked but the decentralized groups become more and more decentralized.

An example would be the RIAA vs Napster. Napster was replaced by more and more decentralized networks while the RIAA started asserting more and more control.

Re: I was driven mad by the Chinese education system

#84

Post by nostrademons » Mon, Feb 16, 2009, 5:30 AM UTC

vicaya wrote: post #26

carterschonwald wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

miniature versions of this happen in american high schools (especially magnet high schoos), where the children of recent immigrants will have to deal with a parent being angry if they do not get A/A+'s in their coursework.

Again it usually happens when parents are not well educated. They only realize the importance of education, but they're not educated enough to evaluate their children's progress, so they often have to rely on the not always reliable association of good grades with good progress.

I'll add my voice to the chorus. My dad's an MIT Ph.D. When I took the SATs in 7th grade (scoring at roughly the 90th percentile of graduating highschool seniors, i.e. my scores at age 12 were higher than 90% of 18 year olds), his first words were "Well, it's not perfect." He was very disappointed when I became a total slacker in high school. (Which was basically my sole act of adolescent rebellion.)

Thank goodness my mom has relatively sane, middle-class American values.

Re: I was driven mad by the Chinese education system

#85

Post by luckystrike » Mon, Feb 16, 2009, 5:39 AM UTC

azharcs wrote: post #40

After reading this article, All I can say is Indian education is very much identical. Some kids here are pushed even more than this Chinese kid; a kid sister of my friend goes to private tuition so that she could pass the entrance test of another private tuition which takes in less students and trains them to write and pass the entrance exam of a reputed college in India (so in simple words, she is going through two…

All parents would like to see their children 'well settled'. Unfortunately, in our (Indian) society as of now, ticket to a well settled life is still 'perceived' to be a degree from a top educational institute. It was true to an extent in the days before economic liberalization (1991), and this mindset would take some time to change.

Rather than calling most of the pushy parents incompetent or reasoning them to be idle housewives (err homemakers), i think it's mostly the fear of the kid not getting to be as successful (by their definition) in his/her life. This fear sometimes is a product of their own perceived failure or hardships in life, or what they have seen around them.

Economic growth plus good education and thinking can go a long way in curing any society of most of such ills.

Re: I was driven mad by the Chinese education system

#86

Post by tigerthink » Mon, Feb 16, 2009, 5:41 AM UTC

azharcs wrote: post #58

tigerthink wrote: post #3

I have always believed that to be successful intellectually, you should be driven by curiosity rather than fear.

I really liked your quote, I have just quoted you in my new blog post about the same topic. http://geeyk.com/what-is-wrong-with-chinese-and-indian-paren... ps: I didn't link here to drive traffic to my blog post, The comment i have written on here is the same i have posted there. :)

Thanks!

For posterity's sake I should probably clarify that I haven't always believed it. It's just something I started saying to myself a year or so ago.

Re: I was driven mad by the Chinese education system

#87

Post by asmosoinio » Mon, Feb 16, 2009, 5:44 AM UTC

megaduck wrote: post #77

drinian wrote: post #12

You know, I went to a top-tier private school in the US, followed by a top-tier private university, and I never understood the obsession with getting As in everything. I certainly wasn't, especially once at university, but I didn't feel like less of a person.Even in the US, there is a stereotype that Asian parents drive their kids in a similar manner, although I have never heard of them treating them like property li…

I can't speak for other Asian countries, but I know China. From what you wrote, your experience and the experience of Zhang Rui (the high school student) couldn't be more different. I've recently had the wonderful and depressing experience of teaching in rural Chinese high schools, and it was an eye-opening experience. The pressure and stress on those kids is simply astounding. Unfortunately for Zhang Rui, there is p…

Thanks for the eye-opening insight!

Re: I was driven mad by the Chinese education system

#88

Post by endtime » Mon, Feb 16, 2009, 5:47 AM UTC

Shamiq wrote: post #37

vicaya wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again it usually happens when parents are not well educated. They only realize the importance of education, but they're not educated enough to evaluate their children's progress, so they often have to rely on the not always reliable association of good grades with good progress.

Both my parents have post-graduate degrees and have told me one thing repeatedly: Shamiq, we know how important it is to learn, but the only way anyone is going to look beyond your skin color is if your scores are so superior, if your skills are so superior, if everything is so much better than the number 2 that they'd be shooting themselves in the foot if they don't hire you. But the main focus has always been grade…

Shamiq, we know how important it is to learn, but the only way anyone is going to look beyond your skin color is if your scores are so superior, if your skills are so superior, if everything is so much better than the number 2 that they'd be shooting themselves in the foot if they don't hire you.

If you don't mind my asking, where do you live?

Re: I was driven mad by the Chinese education system

#89

Post by nikron » Mon, Feb 16, 2009, 5:49 AM UTC

vicaya wrote: post #26

carterschonwald wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

miniature versions of this happen in american high schools (especially magnet high schoos), where the children of recent immigrants will have to deal with a parent being angry if they do not get A/A+'s in their coursework.

Again it usually happens when parents are not well educated. They only realize the importance of education, but they're not educated enough to evaluate their children's progress, so they often have to rely on the not always reliable association of good grades with good progress.

This is not true at all. I know plenty of parents who are well educated and place a lot of importance on grade. For example, my parents are both first generation doctors from India, and they place a lot of importance on grade and I don't think they are wrong for doing so.

Re: I was driven mad by the Chinese education system

#90

Post by nostrademons » Mon, Feb 16, 2009, 5:51 AM UTC

ekpyrotic wrote: post #71

nostrademons wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It makes sense that if you measure success by the same yardstick that drives education, the more highly educated will win. The Physics Olympiad is testing basically the same skills that a typical high-school physics education in China teaches. Naturally they'd do well at it. The question is whether those skills are what makes a successful physicist. And I'd guess that they're only a small subset of the skills necessa…

Thank you for responding nostrademons. I'll answer your second point as concisely as possible. First, I don't intend to demean creativity; in fact, I intend - at the moment, of course - to pursue a career in the philosophy of science. And philosophy, I hope we all agree, holds creativity and originality at its epicenter. I merely state, as you do, that mastering the basic skills of physics is a "necessary condition"…

> I intend to defend the position that these 10,000 of practice should be worked through as quickly as possible and as early as possible; alike how the Chinese high school system works. I think this is a reasonable position to take.

That's actually the part I have a problem with...

I was a physics major for most of college. There were 3 of us (Rachel, Nathaniel, and myself) in my entering class that entered with a full year of AP credits, i.e. we had studied & practiced a lot beforehand and came in with good skills. We all had big ambitions: Rachel wanted to be a researcher for NASA at JPL, Nathaniel and I wanted to be hotshot theoretical physicists that made fundamental contributions to knowledge.

Rachel dropped the major at the beginning of her sophomore year. She graduated with a geology/music double major, wanted to work for USGS for a while, actually worked there and discovered it wasn't all that great, and is now happily doing a Ph.D in geology.

I dropped the major midway through sophomore year, picked it up again junior year, and dropped it for good in my last semester. I graduated with a degree in CS, worked for a startup, founded a startup, and am now happily working for Google.

Nathaniel finished the major, went to grad school, took a sabbatical from grad school where he worked in a bakery, and is now back in grad school. He plans to finish his physics Ph.D, but now wants to be a baker after receiving it.

Meanwhile, the folks who are successfully doing physics Ph.Ds often came in with no prior experience.

The problem with the Chinese system is it leaves no room for being wrong about your direction. When I was 18, I was certain I wanted to be a theoretical physicist. When I was 24, I was certain I wanted to do startups. In neither case would I have guessed that I'd end up at a gigantic software company.