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Why Romania excels in international Olympiads

palladiummag.com

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Re: Why Romania excels in international Olympiads

#71

Post by ivan_gammel »

avs733 wrote: post #44
pierrec wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This definitely adds a grain of salt, but as far as I can tell, none of that shows in the article, especially in the final paragraphs explaining how the elitist system is overall bad for the country. But it does make me wonder about possible hidden flaws in the methodology (I'm still confused at some of the earlier statistics contradicting the claims made later)

> Yet another possibility is that Romania has an undersampled ethnic group that overperforms, but whose schools aren’t tested very well. The only group this might be is Romanian Jews and using them as an explanation is problematic for two reasons. The first is that there are too few to realistically explain Romanian Olympiad performance. The second is that we know the identities of Olympiad participants from Romania,…

This one is not odd and was worth mentioning before rejecting. Just look at American IMO team of 2024, in which most team members have Asian ancestry - some ethnic groups may indeed perform better than others. Picking Jews for this matter wasn’t unreasonable if you know the history of Eastern Europe.

Re: Why Romania excels in international Olympiads

#72

Post by Kudos »

generationP wrote: post #67
patel011393 wrote: post #30

I would like to point out for context that the author, Jordan Lasker, is a eugenist derided for shoddy science, falsely using university affiliations, and racist commentary. I do not write this to contradict particular claims in the article above, but @cremieux should be read cautiously. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordan_Lasker

NB: None of what you are saying is confirmed by the WP page you are citing.

None?

> Much of Lasker's work and commentary focuses on race and IQ, and he has promoted eugenics.

Re: Why Romania excels in international Olympiads

#73

Post by blast »

patel011393 wrote: post #30

I would like to point out for context that the author, Jordan Lasker, is a eugenist derided for shoddy science, falsely using university affiliations, and racist commentary. I do not write this to contradict particular claims in the article above, but @cremieux should be read cautiously. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordan_Lasker

Shouldn't everyone be read cautiously?

Re: Why Romania excels in international Olympiads

#74

Post by cinntaile »

ecshafer wrote: post #38
koolba wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having seen what children are capable of, it’s neither overwhelming nor brutal. What’s truly brutal is acquiescing to children droning away their youth mindlessly clicking meaningless games or watching vacuous streaming content. We live in what could be a golden age of thought but for the average kid it’s anything but.

I have to agree with you. Children are adaptable and will rise to the challenge. The west too often prefers to think children are capable of nothing, and have them wallow in an intellectual void.

While I think the west is a huge generalization, I don't think the west thinks children are capable of nothing. It's more about letting children be children and play. Rather than forcing them to "work" almost constantly from a very young age.

I don't really envy the school systems that force kids to work very hard from an early age to get into a fancy university. From what I understand it's usually school systems with a heavy focus on rote memorization as well and that takes up quite a bit of time with diminishing results.

Re: Why Romania excels in international Olympiads

#75

Post by com2kid »

stefantalpalaru wrote: post #9

There are many factors - most of them economic and cultural - but it all starts with an intense maths syllabus in school, Soviet Union style. Here's the current one for 5th to 8th grade: https://www.scribd.com/document/184259748/The-Romanian-Maths... Most kids are overwhelmed by the complexity and volume (homework is brutal) but those few with an aptitude for it thrive and are picked up quickly by teachers looking to…

That is roughly equivalent to what I did in honors math in the 90s in the US.

Looking over the math curriculum in the same school district today, the current level of instruction doesn't even come close. Standards have sadly fallen.

Re: Why Romania excels in international Olympiads

#76

Post by ivan_gammel »

patel011393 wrote: post #29
xyzzy123 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if national averages actually matter very much beyond being a vanity statistic? While it's good to have a generally more mathematically capable population, you would expect most actual "progress" (papers, discoveries, things built) to be made by the outliers. I guess there's another layer tho in 2025 where, assuming they are rational, you wouldn't necessarily expect their efforts to benefit Romania.

Yes, a numerate population as assessed by national averages matters. A more numerate population reasons better about economic policies and may vote more wisely. Numeracy is closely tied to the ability to work in a variety of occupations. If we consider probability and statistics, the implications are especially salient.

>A more numerate population reasons better about economic policies and may vote more wisely.

People with good STEM education, even with PhDs in that field aren’t necessarily competent voters and good decision makers outside of area of their interests. Understanding economic policies is still an effort that many aren’t willing to take.

Re: Why Romania excels in international Olympiads

#77

Post by necovek »

Looking at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_medal_cou..., it seems that many neighbouring countries who had similar schooling systems perform similarly or better "per capita" (Hungary with So, Romania is at the sweet spot of high selectivity and population size to really pop out in these types of competitions, but it seem it's not really that unique as it's being suggested.

Re: Why Romania excels in international Olympiads

#78

Post by necovek »

chatmasta wrote: post #54
kazinator wrote: post #16

The education system is stratified, keeping high-achieving students together, promoting them to schools with good teachers, etc. OK, so then why don't the situations given in the elaborate description then show up in the statistics, like the "fat right tail" that isn't there? It's because the students sent to olympiads are statistical outliers, too few in number to skew statistics. The system acts to identify and fos…

Idiot author aside, even if the students were outliers being sent to the Olympiad, that would not explain the consistent performance over decades. Relative to the size of the country, and compared to the other dominant nations, the outliers seem disproportionate.

According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_medal_cou..., there are smaller countries performing better (Hungary, Bulgaria, for instance) and similarly as well.

Re: Why Romania excels in international Olympiads

#79

Post by GeoAtreides »

alephnerd wrote: post #2

Tl;dr - Romania, like other Eastern European states, uses "tracking" or separate educational streams, so students from "National Colleges" (the top tier of Romanian high schools) tend to be overrepresented. > The design of Romania’s educational system makes it perhaps the most stratified educational system in the world > One of the cruel parts of the Romanian system is that, though sorting is nationally available, st…

>Edit: cannot reply

What do you mean you cannot reply?

Re: Why Romania excels in international Olympiads

#80

Post by usrnm »

LarsDu88 wrote: post #45

Author aside I thought this was a very interesting answer to a question I didn't know I had. I had been thinking that sending my children to a school with high achievers could leave her at a relative disadvantage but this data would seem to say otherwise. I wonder if this conflicts with Malcolm Gladwell's observations on one's relative ranking when it comes to college matriculation (that its more important to be at a…

One of the unintended but hard to avoid consequences of a high competition education environment is a lot of broken kids. Dealing with constant pressure and failure is hard even for adults, for some children it's literally fatal. Don't forget to consider this as well
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