13 ms·

I was driven mad by the Chinese education system

150 points by divia 18y ago

DenisM 18y ago
He seems to have more problems with his relatives than the education system. However if this sort of treatment is culturally prevalent I can see this easily holding back the whole country - humans are fragile and fine instruments and perform at peak only when maintaned with utmost care.
- carterschonwald 18y ago
  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.
  - ReverendBayes 18y ago
    Was Bronx Science like this? It seems to me that the tech track magnets would be a little more enlightened, but I could be wrong.
    - carterschonwald 18y ago
      its not a matter of the school culture, just the silliness of some parents.
  - vicaya 18y ago
    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.
    - Shamiq 18y ago
      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 grades and scores.
      - endtime 18y ago
        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?
        Shamiq 18y ago
        Currently in Evanston, IL. Before that in Texas.
        endtime 18y ago
        Do you feel that people in IL or TX are still that racist? Or are you old enough that when your parents were saying that it was a long time ago? I haven't lived in either part of the country but I'd be surprised if it's really still like that.
        Shamiq 18y ago
        Both my parents and I are immigrants, and where they came from they were the minority. As such, they personally encountered and had to deal with both racism and xenophobia. It's more subtle in their professional fields, but not nonexistent. Parts of Texas are still horrible, but Northwestern is amazing when it comes with dealing with diversity. I have carried with me the work ethic springing from their statements, but tend to ignore the ill will that inspired it. It's useful to learn how to work hard.
- vicaya 18y ago
  Fortunately, such treatment is less and less prevalent in China, especially in more developed areas (the student is from a poorer province, where a top-tier college education often means a rare ticket to the prosperity for the whole family.)
  - jacoblyles 18y ago
    Most of the anecdotes I have heard like this seem to come from societies where scores are very important to getting into college, and where a college education can make a vast difference in the material well-being of the family. India is another place that sounds like this.
tigerthink 18y ago
I have always believed that to be successful intellectually, you should be driven by curiosity rather than fear.
- jerf 18y ago
  Based on what I've seen in real life in the American version of this, you can be pretty "intellectually successfully" just from being pushed, although they lack the "spark"; I can't imagine this producing an entrepreneur (and I'm not just saying that because this is HN; that really is the opposite of where they end up). The problem is that every other kind of success tends to be elusive, up to and including "succeeding in not committing suicide". (Fortunately, I don't quite know anyone who made it that far, but I know some people who came close.)
- azharcs 18y ago
  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-parents/ 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. :)
  - tigerthink 18y ago
    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.
bokonist 18y ago
My favorite theory about why the West and China diverged starting in the 16th century is that entrepreneurial capitalism thrived in the West. The ambitious acheived success by finding a competent master, learning a trade, and then making stuff people wanted, whether that be clocks or caravels. In China, the ambitious were sucked into the civil service exam system. They were judged by arbitrary tests rather than by producing useful things. The result was centuries of stagnation.
- whacked_new 18y ago
  > The result was centuries of stagnation. One of the factors, yes, but making such an attribution overlooks a lot: the Tang is often regarded as a renaissance in China. It follows the Sui, when the imperial exams started. General characteristics of each of the dynasties, and each of the rulers, have large effects on the policies and the culture of the era. Simple example: if Bush was an emperor, and held power for a few generations, it isn't far fetched to see a dark age of bio research.
  - cglee 18y ago
    Good point. It should also be pointed out how difficult it was to sustain productive and fair policies in the dynastic system. All it took is one bad ruler to ruin centuries of progress. This is why the integrity and structure of the system is more important than individual rulers. The best form of government may be a benevolent king, and even if that's somehow sustained for 5 generations, all it takes is one malevolent one to ruin everything.
  - f3lix 18y ago
    "if Bush was an emperor, and held power for a few generations, it isn't far fetched to see a dark age of bio research." The total federal research and development budget increased under Bush. The objection that some people have is his moratorium on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. This is a small part of all bio research that is morally contentious. I doubt your assertion of seeing a "dark age of bio research" is warranted.
    - 18y ago
fuzzmeister 18y ago
Parents should push their children to succeed through positive reinforcement and good example, not through fear.
- gcheong 18y ago
  A big problem is that the whole "spare the rod spoil the child" mindset has become so much a given that people have a hard time believing any "softer" approach for anything other than babies and infants might work, even in the face of evidence that the current approach is not working.
  - Retric 18y ago
    I don't think things are failing so blaming "the current approach" seems misguided. I can't think of a single area where things where better 100 years ago than they are today in the US. Most trends are fairly positive over the last 30 years. EX: People talk about an increase in the dropout rate but it's slowly falling across the US. (http://nces.ed.gov/ssbr/pages/dropout.asp http://nces.ed.gov/ssbr/pages/dropout.asp) Edit: more recent numbers http://nces.ed.gov/FastFacts/display.asp?id=16 http://nces.ed.gov/FastFacts/display.asp?id=16 Violent Crime is falling: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States There might be an long term increase in the unemployment rate http://www.data360.org/dsg.aspx?Data_Set_Group_Id=248 http://www.data360.org/dsg.aspx?Data_Set_Group_Id=248 but if so it's swamped by swings in the economy.
    - bokonist 18y ago
      I can't think of a single area where things where better 100 years ago than they are today in the US. 1) architecture 2) divorce rates 3) illegitimacy rates 3) inner city crime rates 4) the strength of civic organizations 5) the entire education system 6) taxes 7) black male employment rates ( http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950CE1D81E3CF93BA15751C0A9629C8B63 http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950CE1D81E3CF... ) 8) average firm size 9) the non-existence of several hundred nuclear weapons pointing at our cities 10) the financial/monetary system There are of course many things that are better about 2009 than 1909. But it is foolish to see history as a unidirectional march towards progress ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whig_history http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whig_history ). The reality is much more complicated.
thinkcomp 18y ago
It's really depressing to read articles like this, partly because it does seem like there's no way out when you're in the middle of it, and partly because there are significant parts of the American educational system that are really little better. I did not have abusive parents or extended family members, and I did not have to endure the suffering that this author did in a far-away boarding school, but I certainly can relate to the notion of school being a prison. The idea of teaching to tests is really damaging, and it's unfortunate that the past eight years in the United States anyway have focused educational policy on testing scores alone.
- mattmaroon 18y ago
  Test scores are like democracy, they're the least bad option. There's simply not a better way to measure progress, or one more accurate to life.
  - Rabidmonkey1 18y ago
    I'm not sure I agree with this sentiment. Surely there must be a better way to show proficiency in something besides testing (in the conventional sense). Besides, the US isn't a Democracy, it's a Republic, albiet a democratic one. The founders really hated the word and made sure it wasn't in any of the founding documents. "Democracy: A government of the masses. Authority derived through mass meeting or any form of direct expression. Results in mobocracy. Attitude toward property is communistic negating property rights. Attitude toward law is that the will of the majority shall regulate, whether it is based upon deliberation or governed by passion, prejudice, and impulse, without restraint or regard for consequences. Results in demagogism, license, agitation, discontent, anarchy." -1928 U.S. Army Training Manual
    - whacked_new 18y ago
      There are better ways, but when your objective is to be quick, at the expense of accuracy, tests are the "generally accepted" method. If you don't want to sacrifice accuracy, I think the answer lies in neuroscience :)
    - 18y ago
iamelgringo 18y ago
What can I do now? Learn how to program, drop out of school and start your own startup. At least that's what the kids do here in America.
- whacked_new 18y ago
  That's almost like saying, when a fish is suffocating because his pond has become deprived of oxygen, "stop eating plankton and start eating rodents; that's the way we lions roll here in the jungle." In all seriousness, I can guarantee that this is far from an isolated case. If he is 10th or 12th in his class, just how many are there, between him and the 1st, who basically live with the same thing, but either don't write about it, or worse, write about it, but never get heard?
- time_management 18y ago
  That's, umm, not what most people who flush out of the US school system end up doing, even among the small percentage who have the ability.
Rabidmonkey1 18y ago
This article is by a kid who is still in this situation. I can't speak or write Chinese, but if someone can reach him via the comments on the original article, please tell him to leave there and explore the world. It's much bigger than the silly schools he's in and there are plenty of opportunities for him to become successful.
- poutine 18y ago
  You really have no clue. This poor kid probably doesn't have the money for a train trip to Shanghai much less to explore the world. He has no ability to work other places inside China and nobody would hire him where he'd make any money where he is. He is trapped and a Chinese university degree is the only way out.
  - Rabidmonkey1 18y ago
    Hey, that's just plain insulting! FYI I've been all over China - I spent 2 weeks there with a sports team in 2005 playing all over the country - literally east from Beijing to as far wast as Urumchi, which nearly hits the Russian border - in fact, Russians came down to watch the team play. Have you ever been to China? I have. I know what it's like. The kid obviously has internet access - isn't that something? There are so many possibilities inherent in that alone for him there, heck, even for something as simple as a solid friendship to keep him grounded. What gives you the authority to declare his fate?
    - poutine 18y ago
      I've been living in China for years, have Chinese friends and employ Chinese people.
Eliezer 18y ago
This goes beyond madness into the realm of Sparta.
drinian 18y ago
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 like this father does. Then there's the cram schools in Korea and Japan. I have to wonder why that, culturally, seems to be linked to Asians? Culturally, though, this is the most disturbing part of the article: One day I brought in a book, The Collected Stories of Guy Maupassant, and it was confiscated. The head teacher said this book was useless in improving my grades and that these kinds of books only lead students into decadence and depravation. The next day after class I was flipping through a book of short essays and it too was confiscated. The head teacher would not even let me write small articles on my own because she believes that it is a waste of time to write anything unless it is required by the literature teacher. One message I was always sent during my education was that the point of education was to become a whole person, not just to make money; literacy and humanism were an integral part of that. (I think a couple of Asian kids that I went to school with ended up in the humanities against their parents' wishes because of this). That attitude seems to be quite common among hackers as well. The shells of people that the Chinese system will turn out, if this is any indication, scare me.
- whacked_new 18y ago
  > 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 breaks your life. So everything you do in life, up until that point, is in preparation for the fight. I must stress again though, that this is a shallow look at the problem.
  - pg 18y ago
    There's also a tradition of respect for parents, and parents like good grades. Indeed, at younger ages, grades are reports to parents.
sounddust 18y ago
Can anyone translate, or at least summarize, the comments from the original article in Chinese? I tried using Google, but none of them made any sense except the first one (which was apparently written in bad Chinese by an American)
azharcs 18y ago
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 levels of tuitions to get into another tuition which she might go 4-5 years later). Every other week I read in newspaper that a school or college kid killed himself/herself because they failed or got lesser marks than their peers. The most recent I read was a girl killed herself because she got 4 marks lesser than the topper of her class. It is scary and it is only getting worse day by day. I have actually thought a lot about the reason “Why Parents are pushing their kids to the wall”, it is certainly not job uncertainty (there are plenty of outsourced jobs here and you can see almost anyone who is slightly not retarded getting one). The only answer I got was “Most of the parents in third-world countries lack good Identities” because they are in some jobs which are not very happy or proud of and the only way for them to escape from their ‘past or present’ is to change their future which they think is in the hands of their kids and not theirs. They constantly hear of stories of kids who studied well, got a job in some company and bought his parents house (which if he/she is lucky enough to hold on to the job might own it in next 20 years). As I have seen most of the pushy parents are highly incompetent who actually believe that their life is over, they can’t change it because they missed opportunities when they were young. A real person would go achieve what he wants at any age irrespective of anything else but pushy parents are not that because they are betting on their kids and that is much easier. The other part of the problem is housewives (I am not sexist); this is a group which actually doesn’t have an identity. If you have ever been near one, most of their sentences start with “My son/daughter is…” most of these sentences end with an achievement of their kids which are incidentally better than other housewives kids. Now the housewives who were humiliated in the conversation go home force their kids to do well in whatever they do. It is certainly not limited to studies; it can be anything jumping a fence, throwing a ball or anything else. At the end of the day, their kid has to be better than other kids. It is kind of like playing a MMORPG where they want their avatar to be better than others and they want their avatars to level up faster so that they can fight bigger battles. So the problem is certainly not the education system, it is actually the society (housewives and people who are not happy with their jobs). So my solution would be think about the kids later, create jobs for housewives (idle minds are devil's workshop, they are the clear example of it). Keep the housewives busy and you would automatically see an improvement in kids who are back to being creative and independent like they always were. Sorry for 600 words long rant, I am just pissed with how things are going on here right now. It actually took me an hour to write this. :)
ekpyrotic 18y ago
I hate to be the bearer of bad news but the Chinese education system, coupled with discipline through fear works. I competed at last year's International Physics Olympiad (Viet Nam), who won? China, as usual. China starts preparation for the competition when their participants are just 8; they work ~16 hours a day on physics problems. The result? Winning with ease. You have, I all presume, read Gladwell's latest book. The Chinese education system squeezes the 10,000 hours required for expertise in before the children are 18. I'm currently [one of] the best physics students in the UK and I'd pay anything to have had an uprising like that, instead mine was consumed with PC games, and posting on forums. The evidence I have shown can only be used to defend the proposition that: "The Chinese education system is best for those students with a natural skill in certain areas; i.e., physics". It might be argued that while it has these benefits the negatives - I reference the article in question - might outweigh the former. I hate to go all reprogenetic on you. But my argument would go something like the following: (1) A productive society is one with experts. (2) Expertise is only accomplished with relentless practice. (C) The most productive society will be accomplished if citizens are made to constantly work at their discipline. There will, of course, be a transition stage in which those that lack real expertise are weeded out; but, I'm ashamed to say, that seems the most productive society. Until then I will carry on working on my physics/philosophy 16 hours a day - I only wish I'd been forced to start earlier.
- wwalker3 18y ago
  Doing well in the Physics Olympiad is not the same as doing well in physics. In the Physics Olympiad, you solve simple problems based on well-understood formulae. In physics, you create new knowledge. It may be telling that China has won only three physics Nobel prizes, and all three of the winners got their PhDs in the US. I admire your dedication to working hard on physics, but I think that creative, effortful practice is the key, not relentless drill.
  - ekpyrotic 18y ago
    Thank you wwalker3 for your keen response; however, I going to have to both agree and disagree - cliché through it is. Doing well in the Physics Olympiad is a prerequisite to doing well in physics. Yes, I agree, creating knowledge requires a creative flare; however, I don't believe such heights can be achieved without first going through "the relentless drill". I'll use to example of literature to better illustrate my point. No doubt Hemingway's precision and restrain in writing was a creative leap; but that was founded on years of drilling; years of practicing alternative styles; years of relentless practice. Only then are creative insights possible. First comes the drill; then comes the "creative, effortful practice".
rms 18y ago
http://translate.google.com/translate?prev=hp&hl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.chinaelections.org%2FNewsInfo.asp%3FNewsID%3D142748&sl=zh-CN&tl=en http://translate.google.com/translate?prev=hp&hl=en&... Machine translation so you can see the comments... thoughts seem to range from "it's your parents fault" and "your parents are right, you can rest after your education" to "when you kill yourself take your teacher out with you."
radu_floricica 18y ago
One of the proudest moments of my high-school life was when I decided _not_ to study for a test... with a teacher I liked and respected. I still remember his disappointed look at my grade. But it was something necessary, something to drive home the point that grades are not important.
Ras_ 18y ago
In Finland, we have the exact opposite. When tuition is universally free (actually you get paid to study, because government has allotted a student benefit for 55 months in third tier studies for everyone) from 1st grade to doctorate studies, some tend to wander - even for years - doing community work in student unions, or change majors, read another MSc, searching themselves... Just too many choices and the only opportunity cost is lost time. But it seems to work, at least according to PISA studies. (we do have entrance exams for universities, and getting private tuition is quite common when people try to get accepted into Med or Law studies - but not for most fields)
jacktang 18y ago
No matter the education or the business, I think what the Chinese should pick up again is conscience.
kragen 18y ago
Education is a laudable value, but cruelty in service of a laudable value is still cruelty and still reprehensible. Also, grades are not a great way to measure learning. I wish more of the rural poor in the US would tell their kids things like, "You should also learn from your cousin, talk to him more--then you will develop your mind." There are a minority who do, a large majority who don't care. I wish the stress I remember from US high schools had been from wanting to do better academically instead of fear of physical brutality from the other students. If this guy's family is typical, China is going to do really well academically in the next few decades unless their government screws everything up again. And it's going to have to deal with a lot of traumatized young graduates.
anthony_barker 18y ago
Funny thing is that you can then turn around and hire this top grad for 7000 rmb a month after college. Top grades are not a guarantee for high paying jobs. 7 million university grads per year.
triplefox 18y ago
I had something of an experience like this in the US system. My mom was overly concerned about my grades because, in her view, the only way to get a good education and "be successful" was to test into the top math+science classes, as that was what my older brother did. (She wasn't able to admit that until last year after I finished college and got a job. My brother is finishing his PhD and now realizes that he doesn't want to research math the rest of his life, he just liked studying it.) Fortunately, the pressure was far less in my instance, and I ultimately found a satisfactory compromise in college between my own goals and "successful" goals, but the bitter feelings are the same. Learning isn't helped by making it a threatening experience.
quantumhobbit 18y ago
It is sad but this mentality seems to have spread to the U.S. at least in the form of Chinese grad students. It isn't very intellectually stimulating to discuss chemistry with someone whose idea of being great in Organic Chemistry is having memorized Org Chem textbooks in English before he could speak English. What is worse is that professors admire the amount of work Chinese students put in compared to their American counterparts. I feel a lot of pressure to work mindlessly and without any creativity. I think that this model of education is not sustainable and will damage American higher education in the long run. Sometimes I feel out of place in graduate school in an engineering department. I'm the only person I know of here who reads Faulkner and listens to Coltrane in his spare time. I get the feeling that if I told my adviser that I was teaching myself French on the weekends, he would consider it a waste of time. Not that reading Faulkner helps me learn Quantum Chemistry, but I feel like a well rounded education will help me make breakthroughs later in Quantum Chemistry. But I'm finding that dissatisfaction with the slavishly work hard in one chosen area is the minority opinion and it is hard not to be disheartened by this.

150 points by divia 18y ago

He seems to have more problems with his relatives than the education system. However if this sort of treatment is culturally prevalent I can see this easily holding back the whole country - humans are fragile and fine instruments and perform at peak only when maintaned with utmost care.

carterschonwald 18y ago
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.
- ReverendBayes 18y ago
  Was Bronx Science like this? It seems to me that the tech track magnets would be a little more enlightened, but I could be wrong.
  - carterschonwald 18y ago
    its not a matter of the school culture, just the silliness of some parents.
- vicaya 18y ago
  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.
  - Shamiq 18y ago
    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 grades and scores.
    - endtime 18y ago
      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?
      - Shamiq 18y ago
        Currently in Evanston, IL. Before that in Texas.
        endtime 18y ago
        Do you feel that people in IL or TX are still that racist? Or are you old enough that when your parents were saying that it was a long time ago? I haven't lived in either part of the country but I'd be surprised if it's really still like that.
        Shamiq 18y ago
        Both my parents and I are immigrants, and where they came from they were the minority. As such, they personally encountered and had to deal with both racism and xenophobia. It's more subtle in their professional fields, but not nonexistent. Parts of Texas are still horrible, but Northwestern is amazing when it comes with dealing with diversity. I have carried with me the work ethic springing from their statements, but tend to ignore the ill will that inspired it. It's useful to learn how to work hard.
vicaya 18y ago
Fortunately, such treatment is less and less prevalent in China, especially in more developed areas (the student is from a poorer province, where a top-tier college education often means a rare ticket to the prosperity for the whole family.)
- jacoblyles 18y ago
  Most of the anecdotes I have heard like this seem to come from societies where scores are very important to getting into college, and where a college education can make a vast difference in the material well-being of the family. India is another place that sounds like this.

tigerthink 18y ago

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

jerf 18y ago
Based on what I've seen in real life in the American version of this, you can be pretty "intellectually successfully" just from being pushed, although they lack the "spark"; I can't imagine this producing an entrepreneur (and I'm not just saying that because this is HN; that really is the opposite of where they end up). The problem is that every other kind of success tends to be elusive, up to and including "succeeding in not committing suicide". (Fortunately, I don't quite know anyone who made it that far, but I know some people who came close.)
azharcs 18y ago
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-parents/ 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. :)
- tigerthink 18y ago
  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.

bokonist 18y ago

My favorite theory about why the West and China diverged starting in the 16th century is that entrepreneurial capitalism thrived in the West. The ambitious acheived success by finding a competent master, learning a trade, and then making stuff people wanted, whether that be clocks or caravels. In China, the ambitious were sucked into the civil service exam system. They were judged by arbitrary tests rather than by producing useful things. The result was centuries of stagnation.

whacked_new 18y ago
> The result was centuries of stagnation. One of the factors, yes, but making such an attribution overlooks a lot: the Tang is often regarded as a renaissance in China. It follows the Sui, when the imperial exams started. General characteristics of each of the dynasties, and each of the rulers, have large effects on the policies and the culture of the era. Simple example: if Bush was an emperor, and held power for a few generations, it isn't far fetched to see a dark age of bio research.
- cglee 18y ago
  Good point. It should also be pointed out how difficult it was to sustain productive and fair policies in the dynastic system. All it took is one bad ruler to ruin centuries of progress. This is why the integrity and structure of the system is more important than individual rulers. The best form of government may be a benevolent king, and even if that's somehow sustained for 5 generations, all it takes is one malevolent one to ruin everything.
- f3lix 18y ago
  "if Bush was an emperor, and held power for a few generations, it isn't far fetched to see a dark age of bio research." The total federal research and development budget increased under Bush. The objection that some people have is his moratorium on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. This is a small part of all bio research that is morally contentious. I doubt your assertion of seeing a "dark age of bio research" is warranted.
  - 18y ago

fuzzmeister 18y ago

Parents should push their children to succeed through positive reinforcement and good example, not through fear.

gcheong 18y ago
A big problem is that the whole "spare the rod spoil the child" mindset has become so much a given that people have a hard time believing any "softer" approach for anything other than babies and infants might work, even in the face of evidence that the current approach is not working.
- Retric 18y ago
  I don't think things are failing so blaming "the current approach" seems misguided. I can't think of a single area where things where better 100 years ago than they are today in the US. Most trends are fairly positive over the last 30 years. EX: People talk about an increase in the dropout rate but it's slowly falling across the US. (http://nces.ed.gov/ssbr/pages/dropout.asp http://nces.ed.gov/ssbr/pages/dropout.asp) Edit: more recent numbers http://nces.ed.gov/FastFacts/display.asp?id=16 http://nces.ed.gov/FastFacts/display.asp?id=16 Violent Crime is falling: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States There might be an long term increase in the unemployment rate http://www.data360.org/dsg.aspx?Data_Set_Group_Id=248 http://www.data360.org/dsg.aspx?Data_Set_Group_Id=248 but if so it's swamped by swings in the economy.
  - bokonist 18y ago
    I can't think of a single area where things where better 100 years ago than they are today in the US. 1) architecture 2) divorce rates 3) illegitimacy rates 3) inner city crime rates 4) the strength of civic organizations 5) the entire education system 6) taxes 7) black male employment rates ( http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950CE1D81E3CF93BA15751C0A9629C8B63 http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950CE1D81E3CF... ) 8) average firm size 9) the non-existence of several hundred nuclear weapons pointing at our cities 10) the financial/monetary system There are of course many things that are better about 2009 than 1909. But it is foolish to see history as a unidirectional march towards progress ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whig_history http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whig_history ). The reality is much more complicated.

thinkcomp 18y ago

It's really depressing to read articles like this, partly because it does seem like there's no way out when you're in the middle of it, and partly because there are significant parts of the American educational system that are really little better. I did not have abusive parents or extended family members, and I did not have to endure the suffering that this author did in a far-away boarding school, but I certainly can relate to the notion of school being a prison. The idea of teaching to tests is really damaging, and it's unfortunate that the past eight years in the United States anyway have focused educational policy on testing scores alone.

mattmaroon 18y ago
Test scores are like democracy, they're the least bad option. There's simply not a better way to measure progress, or one more accurate to life.
- Rabidmonkey1 18y ago
  I'm not sure I agree with this sentiment. Surely there must be a better way to show proficiency in something besides testing (in the conventional sense). Besides, the US isn't a Democracy, it's a Republic, albiet a democratic one. The founders really hated the word and made sure it wasn't in any of the founding documents. "Democracy: A government of the masses. Authority derived through mass meeting or any form of direct expression. Results in mobocracy. Attitude toward property is communistic negating property rights. Attitude toward law is that the will of the majority shall regulate, whether it is based upon deliberation or governed by passion, prejudice, and impulse, without restraint or regard for consequences. Results in demagogism, license, agitation, discontent, anarchy." -1928 U.S. Army Training Manual
  - whacked_new 18y ago
    There are better ways, but when your objective is to be quick, at the expense of accuracy, tests are the "generally accepted" method. If you don't want to sacrifice accuracy, I think the answer lies in neuroscience :)
  - 18y ago

iamelgringo 18y ago

What can I do now? Learn how to program, drop out of school and start your own startup. At least that's what the kids do here in America.

whacked_new 18y ago
That's almost like saying, when a fish is suffocating because his pond has become deprived of oxygen, "stop eating plankton and start eating rodents; that's the way we lions roll here in the jungle." In all seriousness, I can guarantee that this is far from an isolated case. If he is 10th or 12th in his class, just how many are there, between him and the 1st, who basically live with the same thing, but either don't write about it, or worse, write about it, but never get heard?
time_management 18y ago
That's, umm, not what most people who flush out of the US school system end up doing, even among the small percentage who have the ability.

Rabidmonkey1 18y ago

This article is by a kid who is still in this situation. I can't speak or write Chinese, but if someone can reach him via the comments on the original article, please tell him to leave there and explore the world. It's much bigger than the silly schools he's in and there are plenty of opportunities for him to become successful.

poutine 18y ago
You really have no clue. This poor kid probably doesn't have the money for a train trip to Shanghai much less to explore the world. He has no ability to work other places inside China and nobody would hire him where he'd make any money where he is. He is trapped and a Chinese university degree is the only way out.
- Rabidmonkey1 18y ago
  Hey, that's just plain insulting! FYI I've been all over China - I spent 2 weeks there with a sports team in 2005 playing all over the country - literally east from Beijing to as far wast as Urumchi, which nearly hits the Russian border - in fact, Russians came down to watch the team play. Have you ever been to China? I have. I know what it's like. The kid obviously has internet access - isn't that something? There are so many possibilities inherent in that alone for him there, heck, even for something as simple as a solid friendship to keep him grounded. What gives you the authority to declare his fate?
  - poutine 18y ago
    I've been living in China for years, have Chinese friends and employ Chinese people.

Eliezer 18y ago

This goes beyond madness into the realm of Sparta.

drinian 18y ago

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 like this father does. Then there's the cram schools in Korea and Japan. I have to wonder why that, culturally, seems to be linked to Asians? Culturally, though, this is the most disturbing part of the article: One day I brought in a book, The Collected Stories of Guy Maupassant, and it was confiscated. The head teacher said this book was useless in improving my grades and that these kinds of books only lead students into decadence and depravation. The next day after class I was flipping through a book of short essays and it too was confiscated. The head teacher would not even let me write small articles on my own because she believes that it is a waste of time to write anything unless it is required by the literature teacher. One message I was always sent during my education was that the point of education was to become a whole person, not just to make money; literacy and humanism were an integral part of that. (I think a couple of Asian kids that I went to school with ended up in the humanities against their parents' wishes because of this). That attitude seems to be quite common among hackers as well. The shells of people that the Chinese system will turn out, if this is any indication, scare me.

whacked_new 18y ago
> 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 breaks your life. So everything you do in life, up until that point, is in preparation for the fight. I must stress again though, that this is a shallow look at the problem.
- pg 18y ago
  There's also a tradition of respect for parents, and parents like good grades. Indeed, at younger ages, grades are reports to parents.

sounddust 18y ago

Can anyone translate, or at least summarize, the comments from the original article in Chinese? I tried using Google, but none of them made any sense except the first one (which was apparently written in bad Chinese by an American)

azharcs 18y ago

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 levels of tuitions to get into another tuition which she might go 4-5 years later). Every other week I read in newspaper that a school or college kid killed himself/herself because they failed or got lesser marks than their peers. The most recent I read was a girl killed herself because she got 4 marks lesser than the topper of her class. It is scary and it is only getting worse day by day. I have actually thought a lot about the reason “Why Parents are pushing their kids to the wall”, it is certainly not job uncertainty (there are plenty of outsourced jobs here and you can see almost anyone who is slightly not retarded getting one). The only answer I got was “Most of the parents in third-world countries lack good Identities” because they are in some jobs which are not very happy or proud of and the only way for them to escape from their ‘past or present’ is to change their future which they think is in the hands of their kids and not theirs. They constantly hear of stories of kids who studied well, got a job in some company and bought his parents house (which if he/she is lucky enough to hold on to the job might own it in next 20 years). As I have seen most of the pushy parents are highly incompetent who actually believe that their life is over, they can’t change it because they missed opportunities when they were young. A real person would go achieve what he wants at any age irrespective of anything else but pushy parents are not that because they are betting on their kids and that is much easier. The other part of the problem is housewives (I am not sexist); this is a group which actually doesn’t have an identity. If you have ever been near one, most of their sentences start with “My son/daughter is…” most of these sentences end with an achievement of their kids which are incidentally better than other housewives kids. Now the housewives who were humiliated in the conversation go home force their kids to do well in whatever they do. It is certainly not limited to studies; it can be anything jumping a fence, throwing a ball or anything else. At the end of the day, their kid has to be better than other kids. It is kind of like playing a MMORPG where they want their avatar to be better than others and they want their avatars to level up faster so that they can fight bigger battles. So the problem is certainly not the education system, it is actually the society (housewives and people who are not happy with their jobs). So my solution would be think about the kids later, create jobs for housewives (idle minds are devil's workshop, they are the clear example of it). Keep the housewives busy and you would automatically see an improvement in kids who are back to being creative and independent like they always were. Sorry for 600 words long rant, I am just pissed with how things are going on here right now. It actually took me an hour to write this. :)

ekpyrotic 18y ago

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but the Chinese education system, coupled with discipline through fear works. I competed at last year's International Physics Olympiad (Viet Nam), who won? China, as usual. China starts preparation for the competition when their participants are just 8; they work ~16 hours a day on physics problems. The result? Winning with ease. You have, I all presume, read Gladwell's latest book. The Chinese education system squeezes the 10,000 hours required for expertise in before the children are 18. I'm currently [one of] the best physics students in the UK and I'd pay anything to have had an uprising like that, instead mine was consumed with PC games, and posting on forums. The evidence I have shown can only be used to defend the proposition that: "The Chinese education system is best for those students with a natural skill in certain areas; i.e., physics". It might be argued that while it has these benefits the negatives - I reference the article in question - might outweigh the former. I hate to go all reprogenetic on you. But my argument would go something like the following: (1) A productive society is one with experts. (2) Expertise is only accomplished with relentless practice. (C) The most productive society will be accomplished if citizens are made to constantly work at their discipline. There will, of course, be a transition stage in which those that lack real expertise are weeded out; but, I'm ashamed to say, that seems the most productive society. Until then I will carry on working on my physics/philosophy 16 hours a day - I only wish I'd been forced to start earlier.

wwalker3 18y ago
Doing well in the Physics Olympiad is not the same as doing well in physics. In the Physics Olympiad, you solve simple problems based on well-understood formulae. In physics, you create new knowledge. It may be telling that China has won only three physics Nobel prizes, and all three of the winners got their PhDs in the US. I admire your dedication to working hard on physics, but I think that creative, effortful practice is the key, not relentless drill.
- ekpyrotic 18y ago
  Thank you wwalker3 for your keen response; however, I going to have to both agree and disagree - cliché through it is. Doing well in the Physics Olympiad is a prerequisite to doing well in physics. Yes, I agree, creating knowledge requires a creative flare; however, I don't believe such heights can be achieved without first going through "the relentless drill". I'll use to example of literature to better illustrate my point. No doubt Hemingway's precision and restrain in writing was a creative leap; but that was founded on years of drilling; years of practicing alternative styles; years of relentless practice. Only then are creative insights possible. First comes the drill; then comes the "creative, effortful practice".

rms 18y ago

http://translate.google.com/translate?prev=hp&hl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.chinaelections.org%2FNewsInfo.asp%3FNewsID%3D142748&sl=zh-CN&tl=en http://translate.google.com/translate?prev=hp&hl=en&... Machine translation so you can see the comments... thoughts seem to range from "it's your parents fault" and "your parents are right, you can rest after your education" to "when you kill yourself take your teacher out with you."

radu_floricica 18y ago

One of the proudest moments of my high-school life was when I decided _not_ to study for a test... with a teacher I liked and respected. I still remember his disappointed look at my grade. But it was something necessary, something to drive home the point that grades are not important.

Ras_ 18y ago

In Finland, we have the exact opposite. When tuition is universally free (actually you get paid to study, because government has allotted a student benefit for 55 months in third tier studies for everyone) from 1st grade to doctorate studies, some tend to wander - even for years - doing community work in student unions, or change majors, read another MSc, searching themselves... Just too many choices and the only opportunity cost is lost time. But it seems to work, at least according to PISA studies. (we do have entrance exams for universities, and getting private tuition is quite common when people try to get accepted into Med or Law studies - but not for most fields)

jacktang 18y ago

No matter the education or the business, I think what the Chinese should pick up again is conscience.

kragen 18y ago

Education is a laudable value, but cruelty in service of a laudable value is still cruelty and still reprehensible. Also, grades are not a great way to measure learning. I wish more of the rural poor in the US would tell their kids things like, "You should also learn from your cousin, talk to him more--then you will develop your mind." There are a minority who do, a large majority who don't care. I wish the stress I remember from US high schools had been from wanting to do better academically instead of fear of physical brutality from the other students. If this guy's family is typical, China is going to do really well academically in the next few decades unless their government screws everything up again. And it's going to have to deal with a lot of traumatized young graduates.

anthony_barker 18y ago

Funny thing is that you can then turn around and hire this top grad for 7000 rmb a month after college. Top grades are not a guarantee for high paying jobs. 7 million university grads per year.

triplefox 18y ago

I had something of an experience like this in the US system. My mom was overly concerned about my grades because, in her view, the only way to get a good education and "be successful" was to test into the top math+science classes, as that was what my older brother did. (She wasn't able to admit that until last year after I finished college and got a job. My brother is finishing his PhD and now realizes that he doesn't want to research math the rest of his life, he just liked studying it.) Fortunately, the pressure was far less in my instance, and I ultimately found a satisfactory compromise in college between my own goals and "successful" goals, but the bitter feelings are the same. Learning isn't helped by making it a threatening experience.

quantumhobbit 18y ago

It is sad but this mentality seems to have spread to the U.S. at least in the form of Chinese grad students. It isn't very intellectually stimulating to discuss chemistry with someone whose idea of being great in Organic Chemistry is having memorized Org Chem textbooks in English before he could speak English. What is worse is that professors admire the amount of work Chinese students put in compared to their American counterparts. I feel a lot of pressure to work mindlessly and without any creativity. I think that this model of education is not sustainable and will damage American higher education in the long run. Sometimes I feel out of place in graduate school in an engineering department. I'm the only person I know of here who reads Faulkner and listens to Coltrane in his spare time. I get the feeling that if I told my adviser that I was teaching myself French on the weekends, he would consider it a waste of time. Not that reading Faulkner helps me learn Quantum Chemistry, but I feel like a well rounded education will help me make breakthroughs later in Quantum Chemistry. But I'm finding that dissatisfaction with the slavishly work hard in one chosen area is the minority opinion and it is hard not to be disheartened by this.