in asia, school and education has become an arms race/competition

[sushi]

asian countries due to lateless in modernization and falling behind the west, is obssessed with creating genius or genius children.

they are also obsessed with having a higher national IQ than the west, so as to not fall behind them.

this lead the education system to make and design test significantly harder, and more workload in an effort to raise the average IQ of the population to be higher than that of west and america. so their future talent will be lead in technology and science.

i wont say which aisan countries does that , but you can google and guess.
the result is misery and suicide, and study stress, combined with prussian education and drilling.

 

[sushi]

i think the soviets may also do that in the past, due to obssession to one up the US, but I am not sure.

 

[Cognisant]

Meanwhile many western education systems are critically underfunded.

It doesn't take a genius to see where this is headed.

 

[Ex-User (14663)]

I think it's a severely misguided mindset. Scientific and technological innovation is driven by individuals, moreover individuals with creativity, entrepreneurial spirit and infatuation with certain ideas. It doesn't help to raise the average IQ by 15 points because the innovation is driven by outliers - it doesn't work as an ant hive where every little ant moves a little stick from A to B and eventually build a beautiful monument. The result is just going to be a bunch of people who are able to replicate other people's ideas and do well on tests, but not much else.

 

[kora]

I think it's a severely misguided mindset. Scientific and technological innovation is driven by individuals, moreover individuals with creativity, entrepreneurial spirit and infatuation with certain ideas. It doesn't help to raise the average IQ by 15 points because the innovation is driven by outliers - it doesn't work as an ant hive where every little ant moves a little stick from A to B and eventually build a beautiful monument. The result is just going to be a bunch of people who are able to replicate other people's ideas and do well on tests, but not much else.

I don't know if such a rigorous education would eliminate the capacity to innovate radically either, though I am not saying it doesn't either for sure. I am interested if you have any thoughts on this.

However, on you other point I kind of disagree. I think it is simply that the anthill is invisible to us. I think the idea of the individual genius who breaks all the boundaries is a narrative that we like because it is simplistic and heroic. Take Newton, his ideas about gravity were intuited by quite a few people at the time, though he was able to do the math and that is what is amazing about him. Most people can't remember his contemporary Flamsteed who suggested that two apparent comets were in fact one comet circling the sun, Newton disagreed with this, then Halley showed him the data Flamsteed had meticulously recorded, which made him change his mind. And this is just one story we have access to, which means that there are probably many more we don't know about. It was a time when scientific discovery was flourishing in general, tons of new observations were pouring in because instrument were being perfected and improved. Also the fact that breakthrough discoveries are fairly frequently made by various individuals at around the same time shows that there are many factors that are not just down to a genius innovator, but the collective works of past and present people, the exchange of ideas, the improvement of technology and tools, conflict, debate, menial repetitive data gathering and experimental work in laboratories. And now if you look at the stages we are at, just getting a more precise understanding of the behavior of some particle requires whole teams of physicists and massive funding. The breaktrhough and paradigm shift is always the most visible part, historically, but there was tons and tons of much less exciting stuff that built up to it.

 

[Ex-User (14663)]

@higs well I don't think it has anything to do with a predilection for heroism; I think if you look at the state of science and technology today, you would find that 99% of the ideas are generated from a core set of ideas spurred by a very small group of people. You could probably fit them all inside one big room. I personally was obsessed with Newton a while back, so I've read multiple biographies, studied how he worked, where he got his ideas etc. I've even read his original notebooks. It's true he got inspiration from various sources (he was most obsessed with classical greeks) but 1) all of these people were people of ideas, 2) they were very few, 3) various ideas like calculus, infinte series, planetary motion etc were floating around but the way Newton put everything together into one unified system was beyond genius. Moreover, these people didn't just mechanically churn through data and write papers conveyor-belt style like they do today. I think they belonged to a tradition which is quite distant from this Asia-situation we're talking about here. They were under no pressure to satisfy anyone's expectations, standards or conventions. It was just pure human creativity. And I do think that the Asian mindset is an impediment to creativity. That's even been shown in experiments – when someone is either under pressure to achieve some result or works for some material gain, their creativity is severely undermined.

 

[kora]

I'm agreed he was mega genius. But he's not the only example of scientific progress. Basically all I'm saying is I think a lot of the time some people collects a ton of data methodically even though it's boring as hell and not creative and this is a necessary block for building knowledge and a stepping stone for a breakthough. My initial post is way too long and diluted.

I'm very interested in these experiments you speak of.

 

[kora]

Basically @Serac I think you're talking about paradigm shifters when you designate people like Newton or Einstein or whatever, which does indeed demand practically superhuman creativity. Funnily enough both of those people have stories of being very mediocre at school/uni. But, I think it's worth mentioning that there is a lot of legwork done between the paradigm shifts on a small or large scale, and some of this legwork is very menial and not creative at all, even if it is necessary. That's all.

 

[Black Rose]

people have to be able to try and fail to be creative

openness vs conscientiousness

if people are afraid to fail they will not try anything new

 

[Ex-User (14663)]

@higs For the experiments I think I would have to reference this very good book on learning I read a long time ago, called "Punished by Rewards" by Alfie Kohn:

How rewards and credit (e.g. grades) impair problem solving skills, makes you a lazy thinker and destroy creativity:

"People who are offered rewards tend to: chose easier tasks, are less efficient in using the information available to solve novel problems, and tend to be answer oriented and more illogical in their problem-solving strategies. They seem to work harder and produce more activity, but the activity is of a lower quality, contains more errors, and is more stereotypical and less creative than the work of comparable nonrewarded subjects working on the same problems"
[p 48]

Impediments to exploration:

"When we are working for a reward, we do exactly what is necessary to get it and no more. Not only are we less apt to notice peripheral features of the task, but in performing it we are also less likely to take chances, play with possibilites, follow hunches that might not pay off. Risks are to be avoided whenever possible because the objective is not to engage in an open-ended encounter with ideas; it is simply to get the goody. One group of researchers explained that when we are motivated by rewards, 'features such as predicatbility and simplicity are desirable, since the primary focus associated with this orientation is to get through the task expediently in order to reach the desired goal.' Another psychologist was more succint: rewards, he said, are the 'enemies of exploration'."
[p 63]

Reward orientation makes you inherently lazy:

"If we do usually complete the task, it is only because doing so is a prerequisite for getting the goody. But even when this is true, we will, given a choice, select the easiest possible task. At least then studies have found just that, when preschoolers working for toys, older children working for grades, and adults working for money all trying to avoid anything challenging. Furthermore, research indicates that (1) the bigger the reward, the easier the task that people choose; (2) when the rewards stop, those who received them earlier continue to prefer to do as little as possible; and (3) easier tasks are selected not only in situations where rewards are offered but by people who are, as a general rule, more reward oriented."

Goal orientation and intellectual risk;

"...The lesson [of reward-based school] is that school is not about playing with ideas or taking intellectual risks; it is about doing what is necessary, and only what is necessary, to snag a better letter or number. Most students will quickly accomodate us, choosing 'to do that which will maximise the grade and not attmpeting tasks in which they might fail, even though they would choose to challenge themselves to a greater degree under other circumstances'"

 

[kora]

people have to be able to try and fail to be creative

openness vs conscientiousness

if people are afraid to fail they will not try anything new

That sounds like a good potential explanation for the results of the experiments Serac is referring to.

@Serac thank you I'll browse.

 

[Black Rose]

intrinsic motivation

 

[ZenRaiden]

Passing knowledge onto new generations is what made civlization possible in first place so I dont find anything wrong with putting higher priority on education. I think its much wiser move than simply expecting good results from something that gave no good results. However the way this works is that culture attitudes are always transfered into classrooms and that can be both good, but also hindering if those attitudes are limited to few simply expectations.

I find that the biggest hinderance overall are expectations of parents and teachers. Most kids try to fit those expectations, but creativity and also imaginations are kind of something that leads people to do things that arent always understood or appreciated.

Formula for teaching, benchmarks and hoops students jump through are cool, and do form a kind of fundamental basis for knowledge, after time though it gets really onesided and produces one kind of results. But being creative requires more than mere basic surface level knowledge. It has to be a way of thinking and way of analysing and way of experimenting and way of exploring and way of risk taking and way of being stubborn and taking other less obvious routs.

Through my student years I dont remember one instant where creativity was necessary.
The only exceptions I can think of were student projects and few times we got extracurricular problems in math. Thats just a drop of water into a huge ocean. Most of the time and days you are just going from task to task barely doing anything other than meeting deadlines trying to learn as much as possible to do well on test that will require one kind of approach to solving anyhow.

 

[Daddy]

Most would agree that schools are not fun places to be. Why is that? Why shouldn't learning be fun and explorative?

 

[Polaris]

^ Yeah, it's actually the opposite: boring and exploitative.

 

[sushi]

Most would agree that schools are not fun places to be. Why is that? Why shouldn't learning be fun and explorative?

because its indoctrination and national project to raise the general iq of the population, and seperate the stupid and intelligent. GPA and test scores play a prominent part in objective.

 

[Tenacity]

I'm a believer that EQ is equally as important as, if not more important than, IQ. Yet, I believe that neither should be a standard for determination of whether or not someone is "genius".

 

[ZenRaiden]

because its indoctrination and national project to raise the general iq of the population, and seperate the stupid and intelligent. GPA and test scores play a prominent part in objective.

Its dumb, but so is the whole education system. To grow you need more then simple feedback, but you cant expect your teacher to give it to you. There is no time and if he has lots of other students he isnt even competent to give you necessary feedback. Its easier to just hand out tests and grade them accordingly and thus give simple and primitive feedback.

The bottom line is you are responsible for your own education and no one else. Not your teacher, not your parents, not your aunt, and not your cat. The only person who knows what you know is you and realistically speaking if you are honest to yourself you are the most likely to achive something in life.

 

[Tenacity]

asian countries due to lateless in modernization and falling behind the west, is obssessed with creating genius or genius children.

they are also obsessed with having a higher national IQ than the west, so as to not fall behind them.

this lead the education system to make and design test significantly harder, and more workload in an effort to raise the average IQ of the population to be higher than that of west and america. so their future talent will be lead in technology and science.

i wont say which aisan countries does that , but you can google and guess.
the result is misery and suicide, and study stress, combined with prussian education and drilling.

The results seem to stem from a bit too much of collectivist culture. Here in the "West" / America, individualism is the norm, thus the variance of novel ideas becomes more common and incentivized. But there should be a balance.

There are some benefits to collectivist thinking and action that could actually unify us and help resolve many of our problems here. We are sometimes so individualized that everything can feel highly scattered, inefficient, unpredictable, and ambiguous.

It can be efficient for a leader to say something, and then have the followers listen and do exactly as told - That is, supposedly, "discipline". Obviously, this can be take too far down the deep end, but keep in mind that with 0 hierarchical differentiation, chaos can combust the system altogether.

Yet, the supposed "lack" of discipline which we have in comparison in the U.S. can create a new kind of freedom that promotes both a deeper understand of things like gratification, at the risk of going into mind-numbing endless distraction if unmoderated (hence why our entertainment sector is so renowned and sparkly and shiny).

Many Americans are also miserable, and we have suicide rates that are far, far from faltering, but for different reasons. It is, however far less stigmatized here (though stigma still exists) so we can actually take prevention measures.

My fear for the people you mention, especially the children, is that they will not acknowledge their state of mind as being depressed or suicidal, and not understanding at all will mean that there are far less chances for prevention. The simple ability to have freedom of expression is actually not simple at all.

We become unhappier the more our expectations differ from our reality, and we always want what we can't have.

When I think of a potential solution to this, I think of Priscilla Chan and Zuck and what they are conceiving and doing for personalized education. While they have received backlash from mainstream media, they are at least -attempting- to solve a very serious issue in our highly un-modernized un-personalized education system. Every child is unique and education should absolutely not be a blanket one-size-fits-all system. You can hire all the private tutors in the world, but some learning cannot be forced - The real curiosity must be there - the passion and the interest. This is something I'm very adamant about. Some kids love science and tech. Some kids love language and art. Some want to create their own genre of study altogether, for example, NYU's Gallatin school of individualized study where you can define your own major and study whatever you want. That, to me, is genius. Some people need 24% of exposure to one subject and 36.7% of deep-diving within another to truly maximize individual potential, and as long as the children can have a choice, that can sometimes mean all the different between healthy and fully flourished development or not.

There are multiple ways to achieve mastery in life. But if I had to pick education enforced without relevance versus learning how to learn, I would choose the latter.

 

[Kormak]

asian countries due to lateless in modernization and falling behind the west, is obssessed with creating genius or genius children.

they are also obsessed with having a higher national IQ than the west, so as to not fall behind them.

this lead the education system to make and design test significantly harder, and more workload in an effort to raise the average IQ of the population to be higher than that of west and america. so their future talent will be lead in technology and science.

i wont say which aisan countries does that , but you can google and guess.
the result is misery and suicide, and study stress, combined with prussian education and drilling.

e_e IQ doesn't come from education. Ppl are born with it.
Can't squeeze water out of rocks... ever tried to teach a mentally handicapped adult?
There is only so much culture and education can do.
The west is like this because it drains high IQ human resources from the first and third world via migration. Every asshole with a brain wants to move to the US or western Europe because of: better living standards & the opportunity to succeed.

The west enjoys cultural hegemony, it has succeeded in exporting its culture and in large part, the English commonwealth has succeeded in making English a global language, the French & Spanish have done similar things. This makes most high IQ ppl already partially adapted to western society by the time they arrive.

In the east, I have only seen similar lvl of success from Japan.......... ore wa weeaboo ja nai desu.

 

[Geauvoir]

Asian person here. Meanwhile we think the large majority of Americans are lazy and/or stupid in terms of academics. (Of course, America is such a large country that by percentage, there should be a number of super-geniuses in the population.) I had a classmate migrate to the US. She was, to put it mildly, not a clever student at all. More like the bottom of the class. When she got to the US, she became the star student and the top of the level. Western teaching methods are horribly inefficient and the teachers are underpaid and under-motivated.

Also, have you considered that Asian education systems simply do not care about the West? Sure, we'd like to be competitive with the rest of the world, including the rest of Asia. Not everything revolves around the West.

 

[scorpiomover]

Asian person here. Meanwhile we think the large majority of Americans are lazy and/or stupid in terms of academics. (Of course, America is such a large country that by percentage, there should be a number of super-geniuses in the population.) I had a classmate migrate to the US. She was, to put it mildly, not a clever student at all. More like the bottom of the class. When she got to the US, she became the star student and the top of the level.

Catholics, Jews, Muslims and Indians have all had the same experiences.

Western teaching methods are horribly inefficient and the teachers are underpaid and under-motivated.

Most Western countries protect their citizens while not making them feel their freedoms are restricted, by obfuscating those restrictions.

Also, have you considered that Asian education systems simply do not care about the West?

Yes.

1) Most people in the West are told repeatedly that no-one cares about them, and that people only care about themselves. So most Western countries expect the Asians to not care about the West, and not want to go anywhere hear Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand.

Westerners are amazed at how many Chinese and Singaporeans seem to talk so much about the West, when the West hardly ever mentions Singapore or China, except when they are doing something that would directly affect Western nations.

2) In Western nations, for every view that lots of people believe in, there are lots of people that believe in the exact opposite.

There are people who believe in a Flat Earth, a Hollow Earth, and that the Moon landings were faked, just as there are plenty who believe in the exact opposite.

So Westerners take it for granted that there will be many Chinese people who are pro-West and anti-West, many Chinese people who are pro-China and anti-China, and the same goes for Singaporeans and Singapore.

But Chinese and Singaporeans who express an opinion, are usually expressing negative views about Americans and Westerners in general, and positive views about Singaporeans and China.

So this seems very bizarre to Westerners, as the only time you have this kind of monolithic attitude in Western countries, is when the people are actors who are paid to say these things. It makes people how many of these people are on their government's payroll.

Sure, we'd like to be competitive with the rest of the world, including the rest of Asia. Not everything revolves around the West.

Then maybe act like not everything revolves around the West?

Talk about things that concern Asians, that have nothing to do with the West, in accordance with how much of an issue those things are in the West.

China has 1.4 billion people and had nothing to do with the West for 9,800 years out of 10,000 years. So 99% of their issues are probably entirely Asian-grown, and have nothing to do with anything in the West.

Talk about concerns that make you worried about Asia. If you only say positives about Asians, or make back-handed compliments about Asians, you sound like you're suppressing all the bad things about Asians, because if you told the truth, then people would think that Asians are much worse than most people.

Talk about stupid Asians, as there's stupidity everywhere.

 

[Geauvoir]

Catholics, Jews, Muslims and Indians have all had the same experiences.

I'm aware of that, and I wonder why. We consider most Muslims and all Indians Asian too. (Just to be clear, I'm not calling all Americans stupid. I'm saying that the standard of academics in America really just sucks compared to most first-world countries, excluding the universities.)

1) Most people in the West are told repeatedly that no-one cares about them, and that people only care about themselves. So most Western countries expect the Asians to not care about the West, and not want to go anywhere hear Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand.

Actually, Asians love to travel to Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand. Just as many Westerners find Asia an exotic location, we find your countries exotic too. The bit that we don't care about is your internal governmental systems, unless they are particularly interesting like Scandinavia.

Westerners are amazed at how many Chinese and Singaporeans seem to talk so much about the West, when the West hardly ever mentions Singapore or China, except when they are doing something that would directly affect Western nations.

Firstly, while China and Singapore have links, we are vastly different countries. I don't really know what Chinese people in China say about the West, although I get the impression that they don't say much.

I notice that you are from the UK. Singaporeans have been affected by the British, in that we were once a colonized country. Of course, the Brits colonized so many countries that I don't think any specific one really affects them. But the influence remains here in our law code and especially our education system. Our big exams are the GCSE O's and A's too.

Singapore maintains relations with a lot of countries. We're highly globalized as a financial centre. A lot of what happens in the West (and other world capitals) affects us. But we are such a small country that we don't have much effect on the West in turn.

So Westerners take it for granted that there will be many Chinese people who are pro-West and anti-West, many Chinese people who are pro-China and anti-China, and the same goes for Singaporeans and Singapore.

But Chinese and Singaporeans who express an opinion, are usually expressing negative views about Americans and Westerners in general, and positive views about Singaporeans and China.

This is actually very untrue. I have many friends who are anti-China and pro-West. I think it depends on the generation of Singaporeans. The older generations have lived to watch the Cold War, the US invading Iraq, the US invading Afghanistan, the US invading...etc.

Personally, I am neither pro-West nor anti-West nor pro-Singapore/China nor anti-Singapore/China. Each country has its good and bad. I just feel that this particular post is stupid. Americans are continually drawing up competition with the Chinese, when the Chinese are not even interested in them as a specific competitor. (By the Chinese, I mean from China. Not Singaporean Chinese.)

Then maybe act like not everything revolves around the West?

Talk about things that concern Asians, that have nothing to do with the West, in accordance with how much of an issue those things are in the West.

Sure. There are plenty of issues that concern Asians. But none of them are relevant to this post, which talks about the West.

If you only say positives about Asians, or make back-handed compliments about Asians, you sound like you're suppressing all the bad things about Asians, because if you told the truth, then people would think that Asians are much worse than most people.

Singaporeans b*tch about Singapore all the time. They also b*tch nonstop about China. And Malaysia. But the fact of the matter, relating to this post, remains that

1. American education (again, excepting the universities) is subpar and Asia doesn't need to compete.
2. Therefore, stop this reasoning that Asia is driving its kids to shreds over a petty contest with the West.

As for China's rigorous education system, I think the pressure the kids go through there is brutal. Singapore's education system is also quite brutal. But you must understand that Singaporean kids and Chinese kids generally do like to learn and to feel challenged by what they are learning. While the schools are also stressful, a lot of pressure comes from the students' individual drive for excellence. I say this as a student myself.

Talk about stupid Asians, as there's stupidity everywhere

True. The average Asians is generally more stupid than the average Westerner in things like art, singing, sports, uh....things that are not academics-related. But what is actually relevant to the post, and makes sense as a reply, is that the average Westerner is more stupid than the average Asian in school.

It's not a "lateless in modernization and falling behind the west" issue. Western education just sucks.