Are you trying to defend an ideology, or are you trying to understand the subject at hand? Maybe the scores are inflated, who knows. But I have seen myriad tests and Singapore always comes out very well and Japan, and South Korea and Viet Nam, and pretty much all of Asia. I think the details are pretty unimportant. The Asians have proven their culture to be superior when it comes to educating their children.
For years now, the incoming freshman class at UC Berkeley, one of the top universities in the world, has been around 50% Asians. And my professor friends have told me that when they saw a Japanese kid come into the room they knew that's going to be an A. I think this is also true of most Asians, the Vietnamese, the South Koreans and the Taiwanese are all known for their commitment to education.. And they all had a long way to come, because of problems they had during the last century.
The reason they excel is because they value education. Just like the Jews, they understand its importance and there is cultural pressure for the students to do well and, study hard and work hard. In Asian cultures thought and philosophy is pervasive and runs through the entire culture. Thought is seen a a verb. As an actual exercise they talk about, for example, you might see in an Asian cinema where the female might chastise the male by saying:" I did not know you are a man without thoughts".
We have a very anti-intellectual segment of our society, especially in the south, which is also the poorest part of the country. The Republican Party pretty much, not only refuses to believe about global warming, they have not even reached the point where they accept evolution. And that is not just stupid, that's crazy.
Bottom line, is that we need to do a better job of educating our people. We need to value it. That begins with making it a cultural value and affordable, and available, making affordable public education available for every child between the age of 2 1/2 and including two years of community college.
We are rich and can afford to do that.
The Republican party is a bastion of anti intellectual beliefs which they willingly insist on and often knowing is not true e.g. AGW. That effort weakens our kids intellectually.
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i don't know whether singapore's scores are inflated by gaming, but statistical errors are
a concern and may be in play here. when academic test scores are interpreted properly,
they can provide guidance. unfortunately, international academic test scores have
become a privatization battering ram used by neoliberals to reduce costs. the analyses
released in the press are nearly always on politic and have little to do with improving education. |
