8 ms·

A bit of a rant here - Having worked in education both here in the States and in Korea, this makes a ton of sense. We all lauded the accomplishments of Asian c

A bit of a rant here - Having worked in education both here in the States and in Korea, this makes a ton of sense. We all lauded the accomplishments of Asian countries in measures of math, science, and English. We sought to replicate their success. And we have started. One thing about the US student was that we used to be behind in math and science, but our creativity was our strength. And we're educating that out of the system, in the pursuit of standardized objectives (standardized objectives that encourage the development of things like remind to constantly keep kids on track, career clusters for focus, and the pressure to decide a career in 6th, 7th, or 8th grade).

yters 8y ago
Ironically, Asian countries tend to copy the creative Western countries with all their STEM abilities.
- kccqzy 8y ago
  And it's perhaps a good thing to copy each other! Ideally we would want our kids to be both creative and knowledgeable in science, math, reading, and other skills.
  - yters 8y ago
    Or perhaps reclaim our education standard that created STEM in the first place? The Asian method seems to be mostly good for sucking up existing content and spitting it back out, but not producing anything new. Additionally, the "Asian method" is not actually Asian, as is the case of most practices we attribute to China. These practices (rote mass education, communism, state birth control) are all originated by Westerners, who were unable to sell their ideas to the western countries, and so went east. In other words, we outsourced all our bad ideas to perform massive social experiments with other civilizations. Pretty reprehensible, if you ask me.
tathougies 8y ago
Do you have any basis on which to claim that Asian students are less creative than your idealized American one? Standardized education in Asia has a very long history, and given the many achievements of Asian civilization, it seems quite fantastical to claim Asians are less creative than <insert culture here>. If anything, the countries of Asia must necessarily be more creative, because they often have less to work with. Countries like Singapore and Japan have very few natural resources but can still hold their own economically against America or any other Western power. Meanwhile, without diminishing the amount of hard work undertaken, America's economic success historically is due in large part to the wealth of geographic resources and the successful extraction and marketing of those resources. While lucrative, and a great example of what the American work ethic can accomplish, I'm not sure I'd label this as particularly creative. Ultimately, the drive to label Americans as creative and Asians as non-creative is simply moral positioning in order to maintain some kind of perceived superiority over cultures rather than admit they may have a better system.
- Loughla 8y ago
  Whoa there. I never said Asians in general or Asia as a whole weren't creative. That was not even remotely stated, implied, or even in my thoughts when writing that comment. What I said was that the strength of the American system, for decades, was that it seemed to foster and encourage creativity - and that is being destroyed by the pursuit of standardized objectives. I didn't say a thing about the other systems' creativity or the students' ability to be creative. I made a comparison of the levels of stress experienced in the two. Korean students have ENORMOUS pressure placed on them was my experience. And in the US we pulled THAT experience from their system. We seemed to have taken all of the bad with none of the good. Relax.
  - nugget 8y ago
    I think of it more as appetite for risk than creativity. The US system encourages and rewards taking risks more so than others. Failure is forgiven and sometimes even celebrated. I worked in Japan and found its famously risk-averse culture way more intense than Western descriptions make it out to be (and those descriptions are not kind to begin with.) This component of their culture absolutely acts as a headwind to entrepreneurship. On the other hand, some of the most dynamic risk-takers I've met recently are young Chinese kids from Beijing and Shanghai who grew up in very traditional formal educational pathways.
moosey 8y ago
I made a terrible mistake and I put a lot of pressure on my daughter to do well in school, do well in extracurriculars, etc. I made the measurement the goal. Now I'm trying to undo that damage and put it in her mind that at any point you can change direction, study, knowledge, but you need a few tools to do so: self-criticism, discipline, critical thinking. Initial progress has been good and our relationship is running quite a bit smoother, but Jesus I could have left my kid seriously messed up. I think that a huge amount of this derives, in the US, from the continued degradation of the social safety net in this country. We have put an expensive gateway in front of success with very expensive college, and even with that there is no guarantee of a job that pays well enough for you to live comfortably. That in addition to the traditional standard of the "Atomic Family". I have no proof of that, but it certainly seemed to have been a major factor in our house, but I have to recognize that individual human brilliance can occur at any point in life, and that the tools to act on it are more important than many of the things that she is learning at school.
- refurb 8y ago
  continued degradation of the social safety net in this country What degradation? Spending on the social safety net has only ever increased, not decreased.
  - sjg007 8y ago
    The population has grown. Obviously spending increases. However, access to the safety net has decreased as have the net benefits. In other news water is wet.
    - refurb 8y ago
      The US population annual growth has barely broken 1% in the last 50 years. Social spending has increased at a greater rate.
    - nugget 8y ago
      I used to believe this but it turns out that net benefits (by almost any measure) have increased continually: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-05-16/the-u-s-social-safety-net-has-improved-a-lot https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-05-16/the-u-... The fact that so many people don't "feel" more secure from these very expensive investments may point to other structural problems.
RandomInteger4 8y ago
Can you cite a source or describe what you mean by "our creativity"?
40acres 8y ago
Everybody wanted our school kids to perform as well as those in Korea, but I wonder if anyone ever looked into the high rate of suicide among young Koreans?
porpoisely 8y ago
Math and science are creative pursuits. One of my pet peeves when people think that STEM subjects are not creative fields.
- path411 8y ago
  I think a common problem is that often they become non-creative subjects when taught in school. Standardized tests frame them as a pursuit to find the same steps and answers as the mythical answer key, instead of a pursuit of exploring and building solutions to questions/problems.

yters 8y ago

Ironically, Asian countries tend to copy the creative Western countries with all their STEM abilities.

kccqzy 8y ago
And it's perhaps a good thing to copy each other! Ideally we would want our kids to be both creative and knowledgeable in science, math, reading, and other skills.
- yters 8y ago
  Or perhaps reclaim our education standard that created STEM in the first place? The Asian method seems to be mostly good for sucking up existing content and spitting it back out, but not producing anything new. Additionally, the "Asian method" is not actually Asian, as is the case of most practices we attribute to China. These practices (rote mass education, communism, state birth control) are all originated by Westerners, who were unable to sell their ideas to the western countries, and so went east. In other words, we outsourced all our bad ideas to perform massive social experiments with other civilizations. Pretty reprehensible, if you ask me.

tathougies 8y ago

Do you have any basis on which to claim that Asian students are less creative than your idealized American one? Standardized education in Asia has a very long history, and given the many achievements of Asian civilization, it seems quite fantastical to claim Asians are less creative than <insert culture here>. If anything, the countries of Asia must necessarily be more creative, because they often have less to work with. Countries like Singapore and Japan have very few natural resources but can still hold their own economically against America or any other Western power. Meanwhile, without diminishing the amount of hard work undertaken, America's economic success historically is due in large part to the wealth of geographic resources and the successful extraction and marketing of those resources. While lucrative, and a great example of what the American work ethic can accomplish, I'm not sure I'd label this as particularly creative. Ultimately, the drive to label Americans as creative and Asians as non-creative is simply moral positioning in order to maintain some kind of perceived superiority over cultures rather than admit they may have a better system.

Loughla 8y ago
Whoa there. I never said Asians in general or Asia as a whole weren't creative. That was not even remotely stated, implied, or even in my thoughts when writing that comment. What I said was that the strength of the American system, for decades, was that it seemed to foster and encourage creativity - and that is being destroyed by the pursuit of standardized objectives. I didn't say a thing about the other systems' creativity or the students' ability to be creative. I made a comparison of the levels of stress experienced in the two. Korean students have ENORMOUS pressure placed on them was my experience. And in the US we pulled THAT experience from their system. We seemed to have taken all of the bad with none of the good. Relax.
- nugget 8y ago
  I think of it more as appetite for risk than creativity. The US system encourages and rewards taking risks more so than others. Failure is forgiven and sometimes even celebrated. I worked in Japan and found its famously risk-averse culture way more intense than Western descriptions make it out to be (and those descriptions are not kind to begin with.) This component of their culture absolutely acts as a headwind to entrepreneurship. On the other hand, some of the most dynamic risk-takers I've met recently are young Chinese kids from Beijing and Shanghai who grew up in very traditional formal educational pathways.

moosey 8y ago

I made a terrible mistake and I put a lot of pressure on my daughter to do well in school, do well in extracurriculars, etc. I made the measurement the goal. Now I'm trying to undo that damage and put it in her mind that at any point you can change direction, study, knowledge, but you need a few tools to do so: self-criticism, discipline, critical thinking. Initial progress has been good and our relationship is running quite a bit smoother, but Jesus I could have left my kid seriously messed up. I think that a huge amount of this derives, in the US, from the continued degradation of the social safety net in this country. We have put an expensive gateway in front of success with very expensive college, and even with that there is no guarantee of a job that pays well enough for you to live comfortably. That in addition to the traditional standard of the "Atomic Family". I have no proof of that, but it certainly seemed to have been a major factor in our house, but I have to recognize that individual human brilliance can occur at any point in life, and that the tools to act on it are more important than many of the things that she is learning at school.

refurb 8y ago
continued degradation of the social safety net in this country What degradation? Spending on the social safety net has only ever increased, not decreased.
- sjg007 8y ago
  The population has grown. Obviously spending increases. However, access to the safety net has decreased as have the net benefits. In other news water is wet.
  - refurb 8y ago
    The US population annual growth has barely broken 1% in the last 50 years. Social spending has increased at a greater rate.
  - nugget 8y ago
    I used to believe this but it turns out that net benefits (by almost any measure) have increased continually: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-05-16/the-u-s-social-safety-net-has-improved-a-lot https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-05-16/the-u-... The fact that so many people don't "feel" more secure from these very expensive investments may point to other structural problems.

RandomInteger4 8y ago

Can you cite a source or describe what you mean by "our creativity"?

40acres 8y ago

Everybody wanted our school kids to perform as well as those in Korea, but I wonder if anyone ever looked into the high rate of suicide among young Koreans?

porpoisely 8y ago

Math and science are creative pursuits. One of my pet peeves when people think that STEM subjects are not creative fields.

path411 8y ago
I think a common problem is that often they become non-creative subjects when taught in school. Standardized tests frame them as a pursuit to find the same steps and answers as the mythical answer key, instead of a pursuit of exploring and building solutions to questions/problems.