why do we go to school? @$*%*#!) seriously

[warpus]

I am speaking from firsthand experience in dealings with Chinese colleagues. Even in 2nd or 3rd year math or science courses, they often tell me that the stuff were already taught in high school. And of course, my parents are teachers in Hong Kong. They often commented that the high school curriculum in Ontario is very lax (as do many of their friends who are also ex-teachers).

And since you'd like to talk about the Chinese cooking numbers up, let me remind you that grade inflation is a serious problem that plagues the top institutes in USA. This includes even Harvard, Princeton, and Yale.

My aunt is a high school math teacher (grades 10-12, I believe) and I've heard from her many times how idiotic her students are and how easy the material is.

I'm not surprised. This might sound like a cliche (or maybe not?), but I sucked at math in Poland. I found it tough. I moved to Germany and all of a sudden I was awesome at it. The material was just a lot easier.

Then I moved to Canada and ended up excelling at math.. quite a bit. I ended up going into a math/cs degree in University because I was just so good at math.

But was it me? Nope, the level just dropped so much when I moved to Germany and then Canada that I found a lot of it laughably easy. A walk in the park. Things only started getting intense when I got into University.

Canadian students have got it easy.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

My aunt is a high school math teacher (grades 10-12, I believe) and I've heard from her many times how idiotic her students are and how easy the material is.

I'm not surprised. This might sound like a cliche (or maybe not?), but I sucked at math in Poland. I found it tough. I moved to Germany and all of a sudden I was awesome at it. The material was just a lot easier.

Then I moved to Canada and ended up excelling at math.. quite a bit. I ended up going into a math/cs degree in University because I was just so good at math.

But was it me? Nope, the level just dropped so much when I moved to Germany and then Canada that I found a lot of it laughably easy. A walk in the park. Things only started getting intense when I got into University.

Canadian students have got it easy.

You also got older in the meantime and that could have had a large impact on your mathematical abilities for various factors such as maturity level/attention span or even brain development.

There is also the question of whether or not the material was simply taught better (from your perspective) at each subsequent school.

I'm not dismissing your view entirely, but I think it's far from proven that basically the materials covered are 'easier' in Germany/Canada based on your experience as there are a lot of factors at play.

 

[Tahuti]

My aunt is a high school math teacher (grades 10-12, I believe) and I've heard from her many times how idiotic her students are and how easy the material is.

I'm not surprised. This might sound like a cliche (or maybe not?), but I sucked at math in Poland. I found it tough. I moved to Germany and all of a sudden I was awesome at it. The material was just a lot easier.

Then I moved to Canada and ended up excelling at math.. quite a bit. I ended up going into a math/cs degree in University because I was just so good at math.

But was it me? Nope, the level just dropped so much when I moved to Germany and then Canada that I found a lot of it laughably easy. A walk in the park. Things only started getting intense when I got into University.

Canadian students have got it easy.

I noticed that a shift in the teacher and/or material could significantly alter my results if I was in an indifferent mood. If you are just good or really dedicated at it, neither of it doesn't really matter, though overall, if you are passersby all of it does matter.

I'm now pursuing a CS degree as well, despite having earned only mediocre results at best at high school. I feel that you want to study it that bad, then you just have to do it, which is an approach that has worked for me most of the time.

 

[illram]

I haven't read the thread, so this might be repeating something already said, but my theory on K-High school, at least in the US, is this: it as much about simply socializing people for a baseline level of interaction in orderly society as actually educating people. School teaches you things like, it is important to follow the rules*, stay in line*, do what the teacher/authority person says*, here is how you read and understand basic numbers, here are some books you need to read to grasp basic fundamental tenets of the culture you live in, here is how you function within a large (hopefully diverse) group of people, etc. Bonus points for organized physical activities or sports, which we should have more of and which should be compulsory.

* I don't mean that to sound all 1984, I mean as a positive baseline. All people in a functional society have to follow at least very basic rules (like, don't kill people, don't steal things, don't be violent) and to some minimal extent stay within the boundaries of established authority.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I'm now pursuing a CS degree as well, despite having earned only mediocre results at best at high school. I feel that you want to study it that bad, then you just have to do it, which is an approach that has worked for me most of the time.

If you substitute 'Aerospace Engineering' for 'CS' then you would describe me pretty much exactly. I was a terrible student, dropped out of high school twice and was never good at math. When I decided to get my GED and get an AE degree, I had to go through 2 full years of remedial (i.e. middle school level) math and then 2 more years of college level math before I could even start work on my AE degree. People whine about subjects being hard and not getting them but I can't sympathize really. Math is hard and I'm not good at it, but I wanted to do this job bad enough that I was willing to sit down and do the work no matter how long it took. Most people are capable of doing just about anything if they are willing to work hard for it.

 

[caketastydelish]

In all seriousness that was inspiring Hobbsyoyo. Thanks, I needed that.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Thanks!

 

[warpus]

You also got older in the meantime and that could have had a large impact on your mathematical abilities for various factors such as maturity level/attention span or even brain development.

There is also the question of whether or not the material was simply taught better (from your perspective) at each subsequent school.

I'm not dismissing your view entirely, but I think it's far from proven that basically the materials covered are 'easier' in Germany/Canada based on your experience as there are a lot of factors at play.

Oh, I remember the stuff I learned in Poland. In grade 1/2 we were doing equations involving variables.

In grade 7 in Canada they had me do similar equations.. Admittedly they were more complex but it was sort of laughable.

But you are right that I got better at math over time. It's just that I didn't just magically get better when I crossed those borders.

 

[LamaGT]

Speaking of being bad at math, in my freshman high school year I was terrible: at the end of the year I was essentially blocked, I just couldn't understand factorization. In the end I managed to salvage the vote to get a passing grade because a friend explained it to me very well (ironically I was weakest in the easy stuff). This persisted to the next year (junior I think it's called?) although I realized that I could understand the theory of it all but couldn't solve it. Then on the second semester the math teacher changed and I took the opportunity to dedicate myself to math, on my own.
Previously I thought the book did a very poor job at explaining but I realized that by practicing, even alone, I could solve everything, so now I just use that method. It doesn't even matter if I don't understand the teacher at school, as long as I exercise and apply myself to it.

Now I actually find math to be kind of fascinating, especially the way you can draw complex figures only using algebra
I'm still not getting great grades but now the problem is that I actually miss out some very basic errors (things like forgetting a - sign on the way, or forgetting that the square root of negatives doesn't exist :/), but now at least all I need is to iron out these stupid mistakes.

 

[cybrxkhan]

My aunt is a high school math teacher (grades 10-12, I believe) and I've heard from her many times how idiotic her students are and how easy the material is.

I'm not surprised. This might sound like a cliche (or maybe not?), but I sucked at math in Poland. I found it tough. I moved to Germany and all of a sudden I was awesome at it. The material was just a lot easier.

Then I moved to Canada and ended up excelling at math.. quite a bit. I ended up going into a math/cs degree in University because I was just so good at math.

But was it me? Nope, the level just dropped so much when I moved to Germany and then Canada that I found a lot of it laughably easy. A walk in the park. Things only started getting intense when I got into University.

Canadian students have got it easy.

A similar situation appears to occur for Asian vs. American schools, as I mentioned earlier, where the former teach more advanced subjects earlier than the latter.

This is something a lot of older Asian folks here have said when criticizing... well, criticizing whatever it is they're currently criticizing about America or American people. However, the Asian folks who are older than me, but not too much older, and thus those who've sort of experienced both Asia and America, say that it appears that while the Asian schools may teach the advanced subjects earlier, American students are better at using them creatively at the end of the day.


That's not to say I think that's what the situation with you and Germany and Canada was, but in the case of Asia I think the differences in difficulty are not as relevant as people make it out to be for lack of better wording.

 

[Evie]

Warpus: and yet, actual testing and studies show Canadian students and Polish students about on par at maths by grade 10.

(And they show Quebec students to be matching Japanese ones and Macao Chinese ones - again around grade 10 - at maths).

(America, on the other hand, is well below average)

 

[_random_]

I recently read (I can't remember where, unfortunately) that a lot of the disparity between American test scores and the rest of the developed world's comes from the much broader use of testing by Americans. Students with learning disabilities and various social impediments to proper education get tested in America while they wouldn't be elsewhere. Supposedly, if you control for this, America stacks up pretty well.

No clue how true that is, but it's interesting if it's the case.

Edit: It was here. No citation given by the blogger, but it's published by the Washington Post, so I like to think there's some kind of fact checking in place. But maybe not?

 

[ywhtptgtfo]

Warpus: and yet, actual testing and studies show Canadian students and Polish students about on par at maths by grade 10.

(And they show Quebec students to be matching Japanese ones and Macao Chinese ones - again around grade 10 - at maths).

(America, on the other hand, is well below average)

That'd be pretty hard to believe. It'd be interesting to look at how this studied was conducted.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Warpus: and yet, actual testing and studies show Canadian students and Polish students about on par at maths by grade 10.

(And they show Quebec students to be matching Japanese ones and Macao Chinese ones - again around grade 10 - at maths).

(America, on the other hand, is well below average)

This actually brings me to another point I was going to make to Warpus - it could also be that the order the materials were taught in were just different between the different countries such that when he moved, he was taking things that were easier for him so he got the impression the whole system was easier when in reality both systems got the same results just in a different order massiverunonsentencelolwtf.

I recently read (I can't remember where, unfortunately) that a lot of the disparity between American test scores and the rest of the developed world's comes from the much broader use of testing by Americans. Students with learning disabilities and various social impediments to proper education get tested in America while they wouldn't be elsewhere. Supposedly, if you control for this, America stacks up pretty well.

No clue how true that is, but it's interesting if it's the case.

Edit: It was here. No citation given by the blogger, but it's published by the Washington Post, so I like to think there's some kind of fact checking in place. But maybe not?

I wonder how much of an impact there is that in the US we have more poor children than there are people in a lot of smaller countries so our results get skewed? I remember reading somewhere that our wealthy students do just as well as kids elsewhere but the averages are much lower given our larger student body and larger group of poor kids. Which is really another enormous flaw in our system - we are a rich enough country that we should pour resources into poorer districts to make up for disparity.

It's not like it's poor kids faults that they are poor and they deserve the same opportunities. Unfortunately, we largely leave education up to the states and they tend to push funding down onto local property taxes (with a bit of state money to make up some of the difference, but not enough) so that poor districts tend to have crappy schools.

It's illegal for kids not to go to school in Hong Kong. Even kids from the poorest parts of the society have to go to school. I wonder where you get this piece of information from. Please cite credible sources.

As for mainland cities, I have little idea. However, the general comments from my HK friends and relative are that mainland schools are even more demanding.

I think I've figured out the reason for your disconnect: it may be illegal for the children of citizens of HK or other mainland cities not to go to school. However, a huge chunk of the residents of big Chinese cities are not official citizens of those cities- they don't have official residence documents which means they are not allowed any services, including school access for their children.

 

[Leoreth]

I recently read (I can't remember where, unfortunately) that a lot of the disparity between American test scores and the rest of the developed world's comes from the much broader use of testing by Americans. Students with learning disabilities and various social impediments to proper education get tested in America while they wouldn't be elsewhere. Supposedly, if you control for this, America stacks up pretty well.

No clue how true that is, but it's interesting if it's the case.

Edit: It was here. No citation given by the blogger, but it's published by the Washington Post, so I like to think there's some kind of fact checking in place. But maybe not?

Similar arguments tend to circulate in the German press whenever a new international study on education comes around. It's not that we should completely doubt them, but the tests in most developed countries are probably skewed by effects like these and it's impossible to tell who benefits or suffers from this lack of comparability.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

I'm not dismissing your view entirely, but I think it's far from proven that basically the materials covered are 'easier' in Germany/Canada based on your experience as there are a lot of factors at play.

For instance where in Germany he went to school. The curriculum differs significantly between German states. And especially in math some are lot easier than others.

 

[cybrxkhan]

Speaking of Asia, I think I've heard in Japan and maybe some other Asian countries school isn't mandatory after middle school, is that true?

 

[hobbsyoyo]

It isn't mandatory in most of the US when you turn 16 - hence why I was able to drop out. Twice.

 

[Borachio]

Similar arguments tend to circulate in the German press whenever a new international study on education comes around. It's not that we should completely doubt them, but the tests in most developed countries are probably skewed by effects like these and it's impossible to tell who benefits or suffers from this lack of comparability.

I'm not sure comparisons between countries matter much. A nation's education system either works maximally for the benefit of the country or it doesn't.

Of course, some politicians will like to point the figure at another country apparently enjoying better (or worse) educational success than their own in order to get some benefit for their political careers from the comparison.

And if a country appears high on some international comparison list, then it might reap the benefit of high prestige in attracting large numbers of foreign students. But I'd think any prestige which wasn't deserved would be quickly debunked. Still, who knows?

 

[warpus]

Warpus: and yet, actual testing and studies show Canadian students and Polish students about on par at maths by grade 10.

(And they show Quebec students to be matching Japanese ones and Macao Chinese ones - again around grade 10 - at maths).

(America, on the other hand, is well below average)

Interesting, but I guess not surprising, as I almost failed out of grade 3. Yep, grade 3, I almost didn't make it. I hated school, it was a lot of work, even at that young age.

I moved to Germany and magically I'm good at everything. And then Canada and I'm a master. I realize it's anecdotal, but i just can't shake that experience out of this discussion.