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.

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.

I guess you're referring to Daniel C. Tsui, Yáng Zhènníng, and Lǐ Zhèngdào. Yáng and Lǐ won their Nobel in 1957. Lǐ got his Ph.D. in the late 1940s; Yáng got his in 1942. China in the 1930s and 1940s was not only a desperately poor undeveloped country; it was also being invaded by Japan. Nobody will argue with you if you say studying physics in China in the 1930s and 1940s was a bad bet.

The physics Nobelists in 2006, 2007, and 2008 got their Ph.D.s in 1974 (Mather), 1970 (Smoot), 1970 (Fert), 1969 (Grünberg), 1972 (Kobayashi), 1967 (Masukawa), and 1952 (Nambu, D.Sc. rather than Ph.D.). So really what we learn from China's lack of physics Nobel prizes in recent years is that China's physics schools were terrible in the 1950s and 1960s. The Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution were happening there in the 1960s, and the problems with Chinese educational outcomes included things like "widespread illiteracy" and "professors sent to prison camps because students thought they were unpatriotic", not problems like "too much time spent on rote learning".

I agree that the Physics Olympiad is not the same as doing physics research; but people who can't do well in things like the Physics Olympiad (as it's been described here) lack the foundation to do physics research.

In computer science, there have recently been some very substantial results out of Chinese universities; Wang Xiaoyun et al.'s breaks of MD5 and SHA-0 and attack on SHA-1 in 2004 and 2005 come to mind. She got her Ph.D. at Shandong in 1993. So I am optimistic that in the coming years there will be many significant results from Chinese universities.

Mao, of course, hated patriotism and China's past with a passion and did everything in his power to destroy its history. Shrines, historical landmarks (except ones dedicated to him), books about China's history -- all destroyed, all because they gave the Chinese a sense that there was more to China than Mao Tse Tung, something he couldn't tolerate. The students who tortured and murdered schoolteachers during the late sixties were from the Maoist (left-wing) of the Chinese Communist Party. They were the Red Guards, the vanguard of those carrying out Mao's orders to destroy the past.

My father-in-law was one of those people sent to the aforementioned prison camps, and it wasn't for being "unpatriotic". It was because he (a Communist most of his adult life) was branded a "right-winger" because he started becoming concerned with some of the small things wrought by the local socialism, like millions starving to death. His best friend was forced by the Maoists to inform on him, which (in different ways) destroyed both of them.

As for being "unpatriotic", my father-in-law (as I discovered during a recent trip there) is still remembered in Hubei province as a leader in the fight against the Japanese. A fight where he was wounded so badly he was literally left for dead and taken to the morgue area of a field hospital before someone noticed he was still breathing.

After his (guaranteed) conviction as a right-winger during the Cultural Revolution, he spent ten years having his health destroyed in the camps. He was allowed one egg a week for protein, often cooked in used motor oil.

My wife (born 1951) spent much of her childhood hungry all the time. For years. She, of course, was one of the lucky ones. Lucky, even though she got stung by bees a lot. This happened because she and her friends wanted, just occasionally, to taste something sweet. So they would catch bees and remove the stingers from them and squeeze tiny drops of sweetness into their mouths. This didn't get rid of the hunger pangs of course, but it gave them a small bit of pleasure.

A few months ago my wife had a intense nightmare. I comforted her for a bit and then, when she had calmed down, asked her what was wrong. She was deeply ashamed and refused to tell me at first, but I eventually convinced her that by describing the problem she would lessen its power. So she told me. And since there's some anonymity here, I'll tell you.

One day, when she was about nine years old, the hunger pains became too great for her and another little boy. So the boy caught the neighbor's cat and killed it. My wife helped him cook it and eat it. This was how my wife, as gentle a soul as you'll ever meet and a lover of animals, spent her girlhood. I wish that I could indulge, as kragen does, in a bit of historical revisionism and change her nightmares. I can't. She may go to her grave with her nightmares.

For those interested, I recommend the bestselling book _Mao: The Unknown Story_ by Jung Chang and historian Jon Halliday, a result of a decade of intense research. Chang's earlier bestseller _Wild Swans_ is also a great read. Based on many discussions with my wife and her friends (all about Chang's age and social class), I can vouch for its general validity.

My apologies (except to kragen) for the long and somewhat contentious post, but I hope you can understand the intensity of my emotion on this. The people who suffered these horrors need a voice, not lies.

Fuck communism.

From your post I think I might have offended you but I am not sure how. Please accept my apologies.

>> From your post I think I might have offended you but I am not sure how.

I was reacting to the fact that your original post contained lots of detailed knowledge of recent Chinese educational history, but evidenced no sense of China's recent politics. I took this as a sign of disingeniousness. I'm happy to see that I was wrong.

>> "loyalty to the country" or patriotism

Patriotism is very unpopular among today's bien pensants, partly because it's widely conflated (both by supporters and critics) with nationalism. They're very different, I think. Patriotism is simply love of country. That means wanting the best for it and its people and carries no implication of wanting less for any other country. In fact, since free and wealthy countries are not a burden on others, part of patriotism becomes actively wanting the best for other countries as well, since (via trade and reduction of conflict) our country becomes better off as well.

Nationalism is comparative. It's "we're better than you", or "we will be better than you" or "we will be better than you, even if we have to stomp your brains out". This almost always leads to bad things happening to both countries, the opposite of what any true patriot wants.

>> I'm sorry I missed the distinction between "loyalty to the party" and "loyalty to the country" or patriotism.

Political parties will always, to some extent, put their own interests ahead of those of the country. When there is no representative government (as in Mao's China), the pressure to put the country's interests first (i.e., patriotism) is largely severed.

>> Please accept my apologies.

No need to apologize to me. My suffering has been limited to listening to the stories of my wife and her friends (or more exactly, the friends who survived).

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".

One of the deficiencies in the Chinese educational system is that critical thinking simply isn't taught. The SOLE focus is consumption and rote regurgitation of material. I'm currently attending a top university in Beijing, and one thing I find strange is the incurious nature of many of the Chinese students. They've simply never been taught how to question things or contextualize knowledge.

Sure, there are a few highly creative thinkers, but they've had to be entirely autodidactic.

Sure, there are a few highly creative thinkers, but they've had to be entirely autodidactic.

This sounds like every student body I've ever encountered anywhere in the world. Do you think the problem is worse in Beijing (what university?) than at Berkeley or Stanford?

I'll agree with you that most people, everywhere, are incurious. That's not a China problem, it's a human problem. It's particularly striking, though, at schools like Beida, Tsinghua, and BNU.

The students at those schools are, quite literally, the best and the brightest that China has to offer. The selectivity for those schools is astounding, and your exam scores have to be off the charts. EVERYBODY wants to attend those schools, so every person at those schools had to beat out tens of thousands of competitors. They're wicked smart, definitely smarter than me and probably smarter than you. Driven, too. Think MIT, CalTech, Stanford, Harvard, and then turn it up a notch.

Despite the aggressive intellect of these students, I often get a feeling of... intellectual passiveness. I've got to be careful here, because I don't want to give the impression that people here are stupid or inferior. They're not. It's just that in conversation I often feel like I'm talking to someone who's never properly learned how to question things. That's surprising, especially when I'm talking to someone who is obviously both brilliant and ambitious.

There's always exceptions, and the cream will always naturally rise to the top. I'm sure people can produce a ton of counter-examples. Things are also (slowly) changing, as the internet is producing a new and vibrant intellectual forum. However, I think that any intellectual "spark" still has to be self-produced. The Chinese educational system is hostile to it, even at the higher levels.

I could spend a year practicing simple dynamics problems using F=ma and force diagrams if my goal is to do well in the Physics Olympiad. But if I want to be a physicist, most of that time would be better spent going on to Lagrangian and Hamiltonian mechanics once I've got the basics solid.

Forcing oneself to do tasks is a pretty sure way to shut down creativity.

Sure, because you are (unrealistically) imagining yourself compelled to excel at your current aspiration. Consider instead the case where you were forced to put in 10000 hours becoming a master concertina player.

* 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.*

Who do you admire and look up to? Did they have childhoods chained to the oar, compelled to excel with discipline through fear? Is that how they came to achieve amazing things?

I doubt it. I'm not a physicist at all, but I know at least that Richard Feynman and Freeman Dyson did not.

You should be glad you didn't grow up in such a system. Be happy you have a shot at participating in something of a meritocracy, be it academic or corporate.

'Students graduate in to a world where connections, wealth, accident of birth and not talent determine your success in life.'

This is clearly true everywhere in the world, and if you meant to say that this is MORE true in China, then you better rethink because there is far more opportunity there right now compared to most places in the world. Might I suggest a few reasons why you cannot higher the 'best' cs graduates:

The best will go where the money is, are you offering enough money? A lot will go overseas. Another good reason is CS is not where the money is at in China. You must also remember that IT is a new field in China, and not long ago a computer and the internet was a luxury, ditto for the education of CS.

I am a Chinese who moved to the Australia when I was 9, the education system here seemed to me like kindergarten at the start, it was just play all day and do nothing. This moved to Chinese primary school year 4 level at the start of high school.

Anyway, although I attended one of the top public schools (my year was very strong), it provides no where near the same rigor nor depth of education, and most importantly the majority of students here did not actually want to learn, which was probably the one thing I hated most about this system, nobody cared, what a waste of youth and talent.

Chinese students at the end of high school are amongst the most well educated in the world, not to mention the vast differences in education and life culture, which a lot of westerners are ignorant about.

The big fallacy of the Chinese education system is that its hard to get IN to a university, and once you're there you're pretty much assured graduation (or the mentality is there), this is perhaps the reverse of western society and needs to be fixed.

Not according to Henry Ford: http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext05/hnfrd10.txt

If ever I wanted to kill opposition by unfair means I would endow the opposition with experts. [...]

None of our men are "experts." We have most unfortunately found it necessary to get rid of a man as soon as he thinks himself an expert--because no one ever considers himself expert if he really knows his job. A man who knows a job sees so much more to be done than he has done, that he is always pressing forward and never gives up an instant of thought to how good and how efficient he is. Thinking always ahead, thinking always of trying to do more, brings a state of mind in which nothing is impossible. The moment one gets into the "expert" state of mind a great number of things become impossible. [...]

As I have said, we do not hire experts--neither do we hire men on past experiences or for any position other than the lowest. [...]

It is particularly easy for any man who never knows it all to go forward to a higher position with us. [...]

There is not a single man anywhere in the factory who did not simply come in off the street. [...]

there is the pressing to take away the necessity for skill in any job done by any one. The old-time tool hardener was an expert. He had to judge the heating temperatures. It was a hit-or-miss operation. The wonder is that he hit so often. The heat treatment in the hardening of steel is highly important--providing one knows exactly the right heat to apply. That cannot be known by rule-of-thumb. It has to be measured. We introduced a system by which the man at the furnace has nothing at all to do with the heat. He does not see the pyrometer--the instrument which registers the temperature. Coloured electric lights give him his signals. [...]

The length of time required to become proficient in the various occupations is about as follows: 43 per cent. of all the jobs require not over one day of training; 36 per cent. require from one day to one week; 6 per cent. require from one to two weeks; 14 per cent. require from one month to one year; one per cent. require from one to six years. The last jobs require great skill--as in tool making and die sinking.

The question is whether those skills are what makes a successful physicist. And I'd guess that they're only a small subset of the skills necessary for original research. Yeah, they're a necessary condition, but they're very far from a sufficient one - and perhaps some of the time spent on drill would be better off directed towards working on those other skills like creativity.

It is no surprise that Indians do not show this stellar a performance in the IMO: the math sections of entrance examinations have little in common with IMO problems (exclusively multiple-choice, heavy on calculus; no Euclidean geometry and number theory).

The IOI situation is quite embarrassing. I've been invited to the national training camp. Most of my fellow competitors don't know jack about algorithms. They aren't even aware of some basic STL functions. Some wrote an O(n^2) sorting algorithm in the qualifying rounds, others memorized a quicksort implementation. But they seem to be good problem solvers, or perhaps a little mathematically-inclined; one of the problems for qualifying involved coming up with a recurrence in two variables and then optimizing the program with DP. Nevertheless, people should expect a lot more from a large country recognized as an "IT hub".

I'll answer your second point as concisely as possible. First, I don't intend to demean creativity; in fact, I intend - at the moment, of course - to pursue a career in the philosophy of science. And philosophy, I hope we all agree, holds creativity and originality at its epicenter.

I merely state, as you do, that mastering the basic skills of physics is a "necessary condition" to becoming a great physicist. I, however, put a reasonable threshold of 10,000 hours on this mastery.

I intend to defend the position that these 10,000 of practice should be worked through as quickly as possible and as early as possible; alike how the Chinese high school system works. I think this is a reasonable position to take.

Note: I don't intend to comment on the positives/negatives Chinese education past this high school, i.e., university.

That's actually the part I have a problem with...

I was a physics major for most of college. There were 3 of us (Rachel, Nathaniel, and myself) in my entering class that entered with a full year of AP credits, i.e. we had studied & practiced a lot beforehand and came in with good skills. We all had big ambitions: Rachel wanted to be a researcher for NASA at JPL, Nathaniel and I wanted to be hotshot theoretical physicists that made fundamental contributions to knowledge.

Rachel dropped the major at the beginning of her sophomore year. She graduated with a geology/music double major, wanted to work for USGS for a while, actually worked there and discovered it wasn't all that great, and is now happily doing a Ph.D in geology.

I dropped the major midway through sophomore year, picked it up again junior year, and dropped it for good in my last semester. I graduated with a degree in CS, worked for a startup, founded a startup, and am now happily working for Google.

Nathaniel finished the major, went to grad school, took a sabbatical from grad school where he worked in a bakery, and is now back in grad school. He plans to finish his physics Ph.D, but now wants to be a baker after receiving it.

Meanwhile, the folks who are successfully doing physics Ph.Ds often came in with no prior experience.

The problem with the Chinese system is it leaves no room for being wrong about your direction. When I was 18, I was certain I wanted to be a theoretical physicist. When I was 24, I was certain I wanted to do startups. In neither case would I have guessed that I'd end up at a gigantic software company.

Precisely and concisely the problem. Now, I am particularly interested in some discussion (somewhere else) on how or whether a "best of both worlds" is possible. Knowing that there are education specialists in both cultures, I can only think that 1. it is unsolvable and everything is compromise, 2. there are fundamental cultural incompatibilities, or 3. the specialists are clueless.

I'll need to hear more details than that; China is the largest country in the world.

The American system puts a great deal more money per capita into education than China. Therefore, in money terms, the success of Chinese students to become select cadres comes only through their own hard work and an excess of good luck, not to be attributed to the Chinese education system.

Undoubtedly China is going to end up with a large number of very technically competent physicists I'm just wondering if they lost a few who could be Nobels along the way.

I don't think studying for an olympiad impedes this. Terrence Tao (Australian, to be clear), dominated math olympiads, went on to make fundamental contributions to math and won a Fields medal.

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.

I can't speak for other Asian countries, but I know China. From what you wrote, your experience and the experience of Zhang Rui (the high school student) couldn't be more different. I've recently had the wonderful and depressing experience of teaching in rural Chinese high schools, and it was an eye-opening experience. The pressure and stress on those kids is simply astounding.

Unfortunately for Zhang Rui, there is probably no more important single event in his life than taking the University Entrance Examination (高考, or GaoKao). There are really only two life paths before him, depending on his score.

If Zhang Rui gets a decently high score, then he can attend a large university in a city like Beijing or Shanghai. He will receive an urban residence permit, and a small stipend that he can use to live as a student. He'll receive a degree without much difficulty, and he should be able to get a good job. He can become a professional, he can go into government, he can become a writer, he's got a lot of options.

If Zhang Rui gets a low score, then he has few or no options. He lives in a remarkably poor region, even by Chinese standards, and his father is probably a peasant farmer (or something close). He's probably also got a rural registration, so he'll never be legally allowed to leave his village. He can either follow in his father's impoverished footsteps or become an undocumented migrant worker, sweating in a factory or hand-mixing concrete on a construction site.

Those are the choices. Zhang Rui might be able to skip university and still lead a full and interesting life, but the odds are hugely against it. He'll have to fight the system until the day he dies.

This is the harsh reality that Zhang Rui is facing, and it helps to put everything into context. His father and teachers know all these things, and so it's likely they've boiled it down to a cold binary decision: either little Zhang gets into university and brings the family out of poverty, or he's another worthless peasant stuck in Anhui. The only thing that matters is the score on the GaoKao. It's horrible, but not uncommon.

I sincerely hope that Zhang Rui overcomes the system without losing his soul (or his life). He sounds creative, strong, and insightful. China could use more voices like his.

They can leave but can't legally hold a job without the right work permit.

For the Americans here, you can get a quick "gut" feeling for the hukou system by thinking about the illegal Mexican immigrants in the U.S. Sure, they can go to any city and find low-wage blue collar work. The odds are also pretty good that they won't be deported. However, they're always going to be stuck at the bottom of the heap.

The situation is practically identical for people here in China with an "agricultural" residence permit. They flock to the cities by the tens of millions to (illegally) work in factories and do construction work. I see them every day. It's better pay than plowing fields, but they'll forever be working dirty, dangerous, low-paying jobs. If they do manage to climb up somehow, they'll live in constant fear of being discovered.

Going to a university gives you an urban registration, which is arguably even more important than the degree.

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.

People talk about the superior nature of the American higher education system, which might seem strange if you are used to hearing about how much it sucks, but of course those criticisms are talking about two different things. The American system is superior because you can get a second chance in almost anything. You'll have to pay, but you can get a second chance. If you don't like your major, you can change at any time, carrying over what you can.

This sounds so stupidly obvious if you grew up in the US that you may not realize that even in otherwise very enlightened societies like Europe, this is not how it works. In the UK, you declare your major in high school and from what I've heard talking to people who went there, it is possible to change, but very, very hard.

Now, match that against the number of people who change majors in the US... almost everybody does within their first year! Even if you count "real major" -> "real major", i.e., one real engineering to another real engineering and not something like "real engineering" -> "English degree", you're looking at a lot of motion.

It's really strange to me how much this has stuck in those places when, in general, it would be really easy to pick up that aspect of the American system. I suppose it should be pointed out that there are still some clear advantages to American culture, for as much as people love to dump on it.

To me, this points out a fatal flaw in the Korean test, it's not hard enough. It's hard enough from a comprehensiveness standpoint, but it's not from a level of knowledge standpoint. Put simply, an effective test should show what level you are at in a topic. A test should advance to higher levels of thinking, to places where knowledge is not merely facts. It should go beyond the furthest course offered to determine who is truly advanced, rather than see who learned the standard class the most completely.

Another flaw in the Korean system is that the actual university experience is lessened, because you have already proven yourself getting in and simply graduating is sufficient.

Even within the UK, Scotland has a 4 year degree and England a 3 year. Generally in Scotland you can switch to your minor at the end of the first year without losing anything.

The only other part of Europe that I know about Germany is vastly more lenient with people staying students seemingly forever. One guy I talked to claimed that they couldn't afford to finish as the loss in student discounts would be too abrupt. Kind of like people on unemployment who would have to take a pay cut to start working.

And of course just because people can switch doesn't mean they do. Whether it's in someway normal to switch seems to play a larger role (generalizing from two data points...)

No, I'm not. I'm sharing a general observation with wide validity associatively triggered by one person's post. It's a conversational thing.

"Generally in Scotland you can switch to your minor at the end of the first year without losing anything."

Do you mean this as some sort of evidence against my point? (Honest question, I'm not sure.) It's evidence for it.

"And of course just because people can switch doesn't mean they do. Whether it's in someway normal to switch seems to play a larger role (generalizing from two data points...)"

Culture. Even if there are no technical barriers, if the culture forbids it, or makes the thought unthinkable somehow, it causes friction.

It is not Asians - it is most cultures where the parents are fairly poor and the children have a chance to succeed in life.

A second generation rich (well off) person will not work as hard as someone whose father is poor.

I doubt that the stressing and pressure that this guy is going trough is good - but the hard work that a lot of Chinese school children do is a good thing.

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.

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.

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.

Which means that it is easy to muddle the issues by drawing hazy borders around themes that vary from person to person, which is likely a source of impediment for bio research. Therefore, it isn't far fetched, at all. Funding is certainly good, but restricting what areas can be done, or even having a say in it, when it comes to pure research, is not helpful.

But, I am not very educated about these policies and you do make a good point. This is just a mostly personal interpretation of it, which I believe has a good likelihood :)

Decentralization was a major factor in Europe's success. The Chinese government could issue an edict and ban trading voyages for centuries. No European ruler could afford to be so foolish. There was no single point of failure. When John II of Portugal refused to fund a voyage west across the Atlantic, Columbus simply went to Isabella of Spain and convinced her to role the die.

China was one monolithic civil service state. Europe was divided into a dozen kingdoms that were essentially profit maximizing family businesses. The intense competition between these states propelled Europe forward at a rapid rate.

Something interesting from the book is that these centralized groups become more and more centralized when they are attacked but the decentralized groups become more and more decentralized.

An example would be the RIAA vs Napster. Napster was replaced by more and more decentralized networks while the RIAA started asserting more and more control.

To me the main factor for China's stagnation is that unlike countries in Europe, China had no equal (or near equal) for thousands of years (well the majority of it). There was simply no competition. To make a long story short, China simply rested on its laurels too long until the arrival of the modern era.

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.

If you don't mind my asking, where do you live?

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.

Thank goodness my mom has relatively sane, middle-class American values.

I'd say it's not about education as much as about wisdom.

Still, I appreciate the fact that he pushed me because now I'm a good student. Haha. Not to mention, I've found something I absolutely love (CS).

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

If you don't want to sacrifice accuracy, I think the answer lies in neuroscience :)

Tests are considerably more objective, which is why they're the least bad option. I'll take an objective measure over a possibly superior but significantly more subjective measure any day if accuracy is the goal.

The requirements for a Gateway were:

1.) A substantial portfolio - we usually needed 2-3 pieces of work that met the standards for advancement into the next Division, in each skill area (there were like 6 core skill areas).

2.) An oral presentation of one of those pieces of work in front of a panel of judges, similar to a thesis defense.

The panel would have 4-5 people and would usually consist of one's teachers in the subject area (all classes were team-taught, so we had 2 teachers), a teacher who was not one of ours, a classmate, and an outside community member.

The oldest graduates of my high school are only 4 years out of college now, so it's hard to judge how successful this is. But consider that the first two graduating classes were 32 and 48 students, respectively. Of those, I'm at Google. One engineering-ish friend is at Intuit. Two classmates are at Harvard Law, one of whom spent a couple years at Bain beforehand. There're a bunch that have gone into teaching, and several that have started blue-collar businesses (the school was in central Massachusetts, which has much less of a knowledge economy than the immediate Boston area).

"Objective" tests are best for only the very few things that can be "objectively" measured. Often, they succeed only in rewarding mediocrity and parroting.

1. A conversation.

2. Real-world problems.

There are so many different types of tests that your statement is essentially meaningless.

The proficiencies are more than anything designed to test the quality of a given school's education and measure their progress. School districts' federal (and often state) funding and various other things are determined by their results on those tests.

My statement was that there isn't really a better metric. Does that explain it better?

How about other types of standardized tests that are non multiple choice?

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. :)

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.

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.)

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)

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. :)

"anyone who is slightly not retarded" does NOT land up a job in non-metros.

Just visit a tier 2 city like Nashik (I am not even talking about proper rural areas) and see the employment opportunities there. At such places success stories abound of sons and daughters of lower middle class workers who cracked some competitive exam or another have landed, and naturally students are inspired to work harder.

Go little deeper and in the rural areas, the socio-economic conditions there are such that kids who can attend schools and colleges consider themselves privileged. And these people do uplift the economic situation of the entire family.

The point I am trying to drive here is that the parents are generally right to emphasize the importance of education to their children. Of course, obsessive behavior as demonstrated in this article is wrong.

The inherent problem which leads to this is two fold: lack of seats and unscientific content in education.

Lack of Seats There is an utter shortage of seats in all educational centers in India. This leads to higher "cut off" grades leading to obsessive competition. The very idea that grades are the blanket deciding factor to deem a student fit to attend a certain school is very poor and it needs scrutiny urgently.

Unscientific content The Indian education, in its current form, discourages creativity, emphasizes solely on memorization capabilities (I have some friends who are now managers at Big Four IT companies who memorized essays for English exam and sums for Math exams and got super grades) and is highly politicized. It is geared to train students to be doers and not thinkers, it does not light the burning curiosity that I feel is very important to really learn anything (be it math, sciences, even history, etc)

IMHO, there is an need to modernize the educational system which should solve many a problems.

It is a mammoth task; grading system, content, creativity, the "tuition problem" to name a few obstacles. We can start out by accepting the problems.

Again, all due respect to your views. I can relate with them and probably would have completely supported them had I not had the opportunity to visit what some call the "real India" :)

And as was discussed in this forum a few days ago, teachers have the most important role to play in imparting good education and encouraging creativity and learning over marks. They can actually make a huge difference even with this current system.

Rather than calling most of the pushy parents incompetent or reasoning them to be idle housewives (err homemakers), i think it's mostly the fear of the kid not getting to be as successful (by their definition) in his/her life. This fear sometimes is a product of their own perceived failure or hardships in life, or what they have seen around them.

Economic growth plus good education and thinking can go a long way in curing any society of most of such ills.

At times, peer pressure is more compared to ones from parents, which more dangerous.

Also there is not much importance given to other extra curricular activities/career.... this is also due to to not having good institutions/infrastructure. If you are from middle class and god forbid if you want to leave your studies for getting in to sports or music or modeling then the whole society will come down on you as if you're a sinner. Though this mentality is on the verge of changing (in urban areas only) but not at the pace of 21st century.

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.

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."

I think a good indicator of how well you're learning something is to ask yourself, "If I asked myself about this subject 6 months ago, would I think I was an idiot?". In school, I can think of maybe 3 subjects that's true in, but not by much. With something I'm teaching myself through failing, like programming, I would probably think I was an idiot less than one month ago.

I think the problem is not grades per se but the difference between what they're supposed to measure and what they actually do. That difference can be small (I can remember college classes where it was), but it takes an effort.

I think the purpose of grades is primarily for bureaucrats to compare schools.

Teachers are the ones being paid. Grade them, not the pupils. Children need to know which classes are worth attending.

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) Edit: more recent numbers http://nces.ed.gov/FastFacts/display.asp?id=16

Violent Crime is falling: 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 but if so it's swamped by swings in the economy.

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=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 ). The reality is much more complicated.

Edit: Pick a social, religious, ethnic, and or age group you would rather be randomly dropped off in 1908 than 2008.

1) I strongly disagree.

2) Divorce rates have increased but the length of the average marriage stayed fairly constant. People divorce has basically replaced death which IMO is an improvement.

3a illegitimacy) This is part of a trade off where marriage is less important.

3b inner city crime rates) this has to do with concentrating relative poverty. Overall violent crime keeps falling and intercity poor of 2008 is far better off than poor of 1908.

4) I don't know what your talking about.

5) Is improving by every measurement. Have you looked at dropout rates from 1908?

6) That's debatable, I think taxes are far more useful now than they where in 1908 and most people are far more wealthy after taxes. When the value of the average person's after tax income is so much higher then it's hard to say taxes are a problem.

7) People on welfare today are far better off financially than the average worker from 1908. Directly comparing an unemployed person of 2008 with an unemployed person of 1908 seems to be missing the point.

8) Is this just a matter of taste or is there an actual problem?

9) Our military threats have changed, but considering we where about to go to WWI I think we are probably far more safe today.

10) Stronger now than it was in 1908.

PS: Then again I could just be a child of my age, I might prefer now to the world 100 years from now. But, when you look at people actually lived the past was far from pleasant.

2) The two have nothing to do with each other. While the rise in life expectancy happened gradually over the course of the century, the rise in divorce rates was very sharp from 1965 to 1980.

3a) Again, the rise in illegitimacy happened between 1965 and 1980 and has generally been a social disaster.

3b) In terms of material well being perhaps. In terms of culture, absolutely not. Read "Gang Lead for a Day" and then compare to "How the Other Half Lives". And violent crime certainly has not been falling in the inner cities: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=271919

4) Read Robert Putnams's Bowling Alone. Basically TV and video games have replaced the old civic organizations like the Masons or bowling leagues.

5) High drop out rates are a feature. It means young adults aren't required by law to waste their life earning a meaningless credential just to enter their chosen profession. I discuss this in full in this thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=358326

6) What government spending do you find so useful? The military bases in 170 countries? The carrier fleet that would last about 30 minutes in modern cruise missile warfare? The space shuttle program that only makes news when a shuttle explodes every ten years? The corn and ethanol subsidies? The housing/welfare programs that have created a permanent urban underclass? Medicare/medicaid, which consume 7% of GDP on healthcare, yet only manage to cover a fraction of the population?

7) My point was that the overall employment rate among black men has declined dramatically. This is a disaster. Even if their material well being is ok, being unemployed is emasculating.

8) The problem is the Dilbertization of the economy. The soulless organization man companies, filled with pointy haired bosses, are a child of World War II.

9) Well I certainly hope so.

10) Both U.S. today and U.S. pre-Fed had a nasty business cycle. But the advantage of the system back then was that in the panic of 1907 Wall St. bailed itself out. No need for several trillion dollars of government money. Other advantages of 1907 include no inflation, no Sarbox, and companies actually paying dividends.

Overall, I would still prefer to live in 2009. But that's almost entirely due to the exponential growth of technology. But remember that technology can move in a different direction than the other components of a society.

Technology is much, much better today. But the political system is far, far worse. Culture is better in some ways ( Rock & Roll, movies, blogs) and worse in others (fewer civic organizations, awful architecture). There is no reason we could not restore the political system of 1909 while keeping all our new fangled toys. Then we would have the best of both worlds. On the other hand, if the political situation continues to deteriorate, eventually technological growth will start to slow down or even reverse. That is scenario that must be averted.

Anyway, Technology is driving most of the social changes you're talking about. Something like 50% of the average persons medical expenses occur in the last year of their life which makes insuring the old extremely costly. The government pays for ~50% of all medicine in the US and most of it would not exist if a) it where not available and b) people where not living as long. The world would probably be more wealthy without that drain, but I don't know if it would be better.

I expect the government of 1908 was more corrupt than the government of today, people did not have the money to let government take that much off of them. 1908 introduced the Model T, before that modern roads where pointless in most places. I think the streetlight best summarizes government involvement, when 1000 people per hour are driving underneath them it's a extremely useful, but they are pointless in the middle of a corn field. Nobody is going to pay per light to see at night so it's really just a question of government/local groups or nothing. Saying public infrastructure is best served by private companies seems to miss the poor service they provide. EX: Cellphone coverage in the US. So yes taxes are up, but it's not like the money is set on fire we are getting a lot of services from that money.

When it comes to social organizations things like MMO guilds and facebook let people be far more social than the average pre car social club. While face time might be decreasing the average person is far more social today than at any other point in history. And considering how much more free time people have facetime might also be increasing.

Edit: Over the last 100 years the middle class and the wealthy have left city's and have only recently been returning. Murder statistics among the poor and they have always been high so correlating it with city living is missing the point. You can look at the murder rate in inner city's or the murder rate among high school dropouts and see the same trends.

PS: I think human nature has changed little over time, most social changes are a reaction to increased technology / prosperity and throughout history the rich tended to become fat, self absorbed, and decedent. The powerful / well connected become corrupt. And working people get stepped on.

Indeed it was. But perhaps you have heard the name K Street before? The retail, envelopes-full-of-cash corruption is now mostly gone. Corruption today is organized, supersized, and legalized. It's called interest group politics. Worse, because government is so much bigger, both in revenues and the extents of its regulations, interest group politics has a far more pernicious impact on our lives than the corruption of 1909 ever did.

The world would probably be more wealthy without that drain, but I don't know if it would be better.

Even given that we want to spend more on healthcare, the government healthcare programs waste somewhere on the order of 80% of the dollars spent. My point was that the taxes we now pay are not being put to good use.

I expect the government of 1908 was more corrupt than the government of today, people did not have the money to let government take that much off of them

Just look at the rates. Combined federal tax rates for a median earner in 1909: 0%. Combined federal tax rates for a median earner 2009: ~20%.

The government was very corrupt then, but at least people new it was corrupt and thus had little inclination to vote in leaders that would raise taxes. Our modern government, via its K-16 education system, has basically taught everyone that the government is our mother and that giving it money is righteous and good.

So yes taxes are up, but it's not like the money is set on fire we are getting a lot of services from that money.

Federal taxes do not pay for streetlights and cell phones ( and neither does much of state and local taxes). I generally view the interstate highway program as a disaster that destroyed urban neighborhoods and created an unsustainable reliance on automobiles.

When it comes to social organizations things like MMO guilds and facebook let people be far more social than the average pre car social club.

You have got to be be kidding. Human beings did not evolve to socialize via text.

Over the last 100 years the middle class and the wealthy have left city's and have only recently been returning. Murder statistics among the poor and they have always been high so correlating it with city living is missing the point.

Murder statistics among the poor and they have always been high so correlating it with city living is missing the point.

This simply false. At the turn of the century, 85% of the population of Milwaukee were immigrants or the children of immigrants. Yet the homicide rate was 3.7. The other big northern cities were similar. The people in these cities were mostly poor immigrants. Yet they worked hard and moved forward in life. In the 60's, breakdowns in law enforcement, "urban renewal", and the growth of the welfare state allowed the growth of a large criminal underclass in the cities. Riots and muggings pushed the hard working middle class out into the suburbs Poverty does not cause crime. Culture and lack of rule of law cause crime.

"In 1913 the 16th Amendment was passed, which allowed Congress authority to tax the citizenry on income from whatever source derived." So yes the "income tax" showed up in force, but the government still had plenty of income sources back then. The possibility of free trade is really an outgrowth of the federal government giving up on import taxes for most products.

In 1900 the recorded homicide rate in the US was under 2 per 100,000. 3.7 is about twice that and today Milwaukee has a little over twice the national homicide rate. I would suggest that the statistics under represented the homicide rate back then, but this is just going to go around in circles. Look into the actual numbers and try and come up with an unfiltered view of what that time was like. Hell, read some newspapers from back then. By 1910 the homicide rate had "gone through the roof" which should suggest they where measuring different things. Anyway, have a nice night.

The Singapore government spends 1.3% of GDP on health care and the private sector spends around 2% of GDP. Overall, their health indicators are slightly better than our indicators in America. The U.S. government spends 7% of GDP on health care and the private sector spends another 7%. The delta between what the U.S. spends and what I think would be spent with a well run system is what I consider the waste. Singapore is an example of much better run system that exists in the real world. It's not an 80% difference in spending, but it's close.

Most study's suggest that private inshurance is less efficient than public spending so I am not really sure what your talking about there.

I do not find that surprising. "Private" healthcare in the U.S. is really a system of government licensed cartels. The nurses unions, AMA, insurance companies, drug companies, big hospitals, etc have all manipulated the political system to drive up the cost of care.

In 1900 the recorded homicide rate in the US was under 2 per 100,000. 3.7 is about twice that and today Milwaukee has a little over twice the national homicide rate.

The crime rate for Milwaukee statistic was from 1911, the immigration stat was from 1900, since I couldn't find one from 1900.

You can ( and I have) read accounts from the time, and the difference in crime and levels of decay becomes even more apparent. Read How the Other Half Lives and then compare it to The Corner or Gang leader for a day.

Either way, the point stands - these cities, with a high proportion of poor immigrants, did not have anything like the underclass problem that exists in the same cities today.

The actual numbers don't support his or you're assessment. Dramatic increases in a few areas dramatic reductions in others, but our worst city is has 2/3rd of the crime of the worst city in 1911. Tracking where the populations moved shows that crime is down overall even as people migrated to other areas.

  1911-1914
  Baltimore Md = 5.8 vs 45 in 2006 big jump.
  Chicago Ill = 9.0 vs 16 in 2006
  New York = 5.9 vs 6 in 2006 
  Seattle Washington = 9.6 vs 4 in 2006 less than 1/2?
  Nashville Tennessee = 35.9 vs 13 in 2006 big drop?
  Memphis Tennessee = 69.7 vs 19 in 2006 another big drop?

Also note that trauma care is much, much better now than in 1900. All things being equal, you'd expect a much lower homicide rate now. In 1900, if a guy gets shot three times in the stomach, he's a statistic. In 2009, he makes a full recovery ( http://meganmcardle.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/07/crime_d... ).

At any rate, the point remains that many of the once great American cities - Detroit, St. Louis, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Cleveland - are either in ruins or feel like they came out of the movie Blade Runner ( http://www.detroityes.com/home.htm ). This did not need to happen. The fall of these cities was the result of particular decisions made by particular political actors, and we are all poorer for having lost them.

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.

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.

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

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?