January 02, 2008
Call Me Dubious: Japanese Envying Indian Schools?News
There’s a long tradition of “Dubious Trend Line” (DBL) stories in the New York Times, and today’s article on how Japanese parents have suddenly become interested in the Indian educational system seems to more or less fit the pattern.
The idea is, Japanese students are no longer tops in Asia when it comes to math and science. While India itself is nowhere near the top, there are apparently numerous signs that Indian ideas about education (including rote “memorization and cramming”) are becoming more popular:
Bookstores are filled with titles like “Extreme Indian Arithmetic Drills” and “The Unknown Secrets of the Indians.” Newspapers carry reports of Indian children memorizing multiplication tables far beyond nine times nine, the standard for young elementary students in Japan.
And Japan’s few Indian international schools are reporting a surge in applications from Japanese families.
At the Little Angels English Academy & International Kindergarten, the textbooks are from India, most of the teachers are South Asian, and classroom posters depict animals out of Indian tales. The kindergarten students even color maps of India in the green and saffron of its flag.
Little Angels is located in this Tokyo suburb, where only one of its 45 students is Indian. Most are Japanese. (link)
This quote presents us with some amusing titles (“Extreme Indian Arithmetic Drills”! Catchy…), but it also contains the article’s first major problem, which is statistical: the only concrete example in the entire piece is based on this one school (“Little Angels”), which only has 45 students. (Other Indian International schools are mentioned in the second half of the article, but in those schools the vast majority of students are currently Indian expatriates, not Japanese.)
The second major problem in reasoning is in the following passage:
Much of Japan has long looked down on the rest of Asia, priding itself on being the region’s most advanced nation. Indeed, Japan has dominated the continent for more than a century, first as an imperial power and more recently as the first Asian economy to achieve Western levels of economic development.
But in the last few years, Japan has grown increasingly insecure, gripped by fear that it is being overshadowed by India and China, which are rapidly gaining in economic weight and sophistication. The government here has tried to preserve Japan’s technological lead and strengthen its military. But the Japanese have been forced to shed their traditional indifference to the region. (link)
If a Dubious Trend Line journalist goes to broad geopolitical generalizations when trying to explain a much more specific cultural event, they’re likely grasping at straws.
In general, I don’t disagree that a focus on the fundamentals might be useful in the early years (and I have my doubts about the Montessori method), but there’s nothing especially “Indian” about that, is there? Isn’t the memorization simply a hold-over from the old British educational model? Overall, the article does little to convince me that this is anything other than a mini-fad — if that.
(Note, check out the comments on the News Tab for more detailed dissection of this article.)
amardeep on January 2, 2008 10:10 PM in News · T·r·a·c·k·b·a·c·k address · Direct link · Email post
Hello, Jack Shafer! :)
i wouldn't diss the indian education system automatically as many of you are prone to. lots of things wrong with it, but it also gets some things right. perhaps the biggest flaw in the indian (not just educational) system is the lack of opportunity based on merit---the system doesn't know what to do with you if you are really good in anything---this i don't think the japanese lack.
i would think this will work for them even better than it works in india.
ahahaha maybe one day there will be the indian eqivilent on kumon centers in the united states . . . ..
Hello, Jack Shafer! :)
Rahul, I knew I was stealing that from somewhere -- thanks for reminding me where! (I was thinking I might have seen the phrase on Gawker.com back in the day... )
I agree that the thought of Japanese parents lining up to enrol their kids in an Indian school sounds somewhat dubious. I used to have nothing but contempt for the Indian method of rote memorization, but now I think there may be something to it after all. Would love to find out what the specific effects of these different forms of education are. In any case, in the U.S., I find it somewhat shocking that people who are otherwise very intelligent are unable to calculate simple things in their heads. Can it only be about knowing the multiplication tables, or could cramming be related to other mental capacities (either positive or negative ones)? Creativity is great and everything but when everyone starts to believe they're an artist there's got to be something wrong. I blame it on the "there are no wrong answers" mentality so prevalent here.
I think memorization is a very old Indian learning technique practiced in all sorts of areas and pre-dates British in India. Rote memorization of vedas, slokas happen first and then only the meaning of such is explained to students. I think even Quran is taught that way in madrasas.
Should we equate education centers started by Indians in other countries to the ones run in India? NRIs tend to be high achievers and would wish to educate their children in the best facilities. I know Indians in Thailand who left the country and a well paid job because Thai schools were not good enough for them. There are many Indian software people in Japan and they would want a English medium school just like the best in India. Maybe the Japanese want to get into these schools that the Indians started in Japan. I don't see anything odd about it. If Indians ran schools in America, I bet all kinds of parents would try to get their kids in.
5 · Amardeep said
Rahul, I knew I was stealing that from somewhere -- thanks for reminding me where! (I was thinking I might have seen the phrase on Gawker.com back in the day... )
Let me guess. Rahul had Indian education ;)
NO!
4 · fallen jhumki said
My thoughts too. :)
Oh, the irony...coming so soon, as this newstory is, on the heels of Aamir Khan's latest (now tax-free!) , lamenting the sad state of primary education in India, in particular the dependence on “memorization and cramming."
Oh, wasn't implying that, but the, er, trend of puff pieces on "trends" based on anecdotal data is a pet peeve of his, and he's devoted many acres of column space to it on Slate.
You might be on to something here, Divya. On the other hand it, what to speak of "creativity", the ability to take charge and come up with original ideas on your own in given situations is also a skill worthy of being learned at an early age. Some educators (and employers) have argued that the hierarchal nature of Indian culture (which seeps over into it's educational systems, stifles that skill, that ability. Left alone without a teacher or other elder telling you what to do, how will you guide your own life? Can you guide your life? That is the question. I myself found it amazing that while in India you find many highly "educated" people - several degrees and such, still some such people can still be somewhat "childlike" in their lack of awareness, experience or openness to issues that they are not aware of. It's a dichotomy my company has dealt with on several occasions and it's covered in our 3 week training course. But yeah, I agree that rote learning does have a place.
Haha.. Why would you want to memorize multiplication tables beyond nine times nine?
Amardeep, I share your overall skepticism regarding the 'trend' claimed in the article (BTW, shouldn't it be DTL, not DBL, or is that a joke within a joke :)), but the broader issues the article raises are worth discussing. It seems to be using the Japanese example to focus attention on trends in America and projecting America's concerns regarding Indian and Chinese educational achievement - on to the Japanese.
My overall take: (i) American paranoia in these matters is misplaced (ii) If the average achievement level in India is considered, Indians have much more to be concerned about than the Japanese or Americans (iii) There's already way too much pressure on Indian kids and Japanese kids - in India, in Japan and in America, and this kind of paranoid'trendspotting' isn't going to help. (What, your kid is 18 months old, and he can't count to 100 yet?)
Also, in case people missed them, there are comments on the NYT site itself, over 200 so far. I've read only the first page so far, and saw this one, from someone who attended the first six grades in India and the next six in the US, to be quite succinct and nuanced.
There was also a comment from a Japanese English teacher who was extremely skeptical that Japanese five year olds could be writing one-page English essays, which the NYT article claims Little Angels kids are doing. And a Japanese mathematician who thought the Indian kids are learning tables which give them 67 X 43 right off the bat.
The 'trend' extrapolated in the article seems dubious enough, even the 'facts' seem that way.
$2000,
I agree, there's a big gap in Indian education. I was in India for a summer and had to find my high school summer reading books there. I didnt know how hard it could be. I had to have my mom mail it to me from America. I was looking for Lord Jim by Conrad and Mark Twain's Huck Finn. Why they didnt have Huck Finn in a town the size of Coimbatore with a large English speaking population, I dont know! You dont have to wonder about their lack of awareness about 'issues'.
Why didn't you search for it online? Both those books are well out of copyright, and freely available on various websites.
pingpong,
the year was 1994. I hate you!
...Back then you actually read "BOOKS"
And my success with the ladies continues.
Yeah, looking back on 1994, I had read Tom Sawyer several times and Huck Finn once, (as stories, not metaphors or accounts of times gone by) but never heard of Joe Conrad. In fact I didn't hear of Joe Conrad until well into college (me, not Conrad), and for a while I thought that he was this dude who fought with Marlon Brando in Vietnam. (Yeah, characters and actors and authors and stuff, but postmodern storytelling transcends the medium and all that).
But then, I'd bet a decent amount that very few US school discussed, say, Sarojini Naidu's poetry. To each country its own writers...
7 · circus in jungle said
Yes, memorization is at the heart of many ancient and continuing Indian systems of education. If you think of "conceptual" knowledge as discontinuous from the rest of life, you will be tempted to dismissively call this memorization "rote" or "cramming", as opposed to the development of living memory. You don't learn to speak your language by having its grammar told to you; you learn it, so to say, by rote. The way you got started on other forms of language--at the very least, if you are Indian--was not very different: it was your mother saying "repeat after me"--repeat this verse, repeat this multiplication table, and (if you were a lucky child), repeat this tune.
Japan has nothing to fear--with Hello Kitty bringing out a new "more rugged, cool look" to appeal to men, I will be sending my hard-earned $$ to their IP-creators for the foreseeable future.
There were a few really nicebook shops in Coimbatore. Higginbothams used a carry a large collection of classics. I know for certain that they had Huck Finn, Tom Sawyer and Pudding head Wilson -- my brother brought it off them (mid - late 80s). You probably just did not know where to look, or had truly awful luck.
Getting classics whose copyright had passed was never a problem in India (and looking back, at really cheap prices too!). What was diificult was to get more recent books, books by off beat writers, etc. That too changed after liberalization
The root cause was Japanese's discovery of the brilliance of some of its citizens. Given the growing importance of the importance of a quality english based education, the rest was inevitable
Its really upside down. Laughably so. If anything, its Indians who should be learning from the Japanese.
The countries that were colonized by the japanese and adopted its educational system, South Korea and Taiwan, became prosperous developed nations; while the countries that got stuck with the macaulayite english medium system, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Kenya, are among the most abjectly impoverished and backward nations on earth.
No indian college ranks in the top 200 in the world; Indian students perform poorly in international academic competitions; the great majority of indian graduates in engineering are considered unemployable by international corporations; indian infrastructure, created by graduates of the indian educational system, is absolutely pathetic; indian bureacrats, products of indian colleges, are abysmally corrupt and incompetent; and so on.
Yeah, this was very dubious. If anything, the system used in most indian schools has profound flaws both in teaching math to average students and to those in the top 1%. As you'd imagine this is doubly bad. For the average student, the current method in your typical bombay high school is have a mediocre teacher show 1-2 examples (if you're lucky) and then have to work through everything else on your own. Compound that with the *enormous* pressure high school kids are under (both in 10th and 12th grades) due to the lack of spaces in decent colleges, and an overwhelming tendency towards engineering and mba's -- I don't think this is the Indian education system the article was referring to; which is to say it was terribly written!
Really, the article should read "a few NRIs started primary schools and a few hundred japanese students have joined them". From a pedagogical point of view, while primary education in things like math is important, the most crucial element of math education for math/science/tech-oriented careers happens in grades 9-12. And here, the system has deep problems (though this varies a great deal from DPS-type schools to, say, the maharashtra state system).
A potentially even bigger problem is how indian may be squandering the chance to provide advanced topics and opportunities to gifted students! The math/physics/chem-olympiad system in the US, in addition to things like Intel ISEF/STS and Westinghouse is unparalleled and profoundly important in promoting more creative skills and unconventional thinking in these fields. India pales here, and I don't think Japan does that great either -- this is probably one area where effort could yield some awesome rewards as well.
Hi,
It's nothing special about it, if we consider our true potential. From centuries India is the seat of knowledge and wisdom of world. Only British rule faded it for a while. Now we are again back to the field. This is just one such instance. Read my article about this topic on http://vidya.ravisblognet.com
With Regards,
Ravi
www.ravisblognet.com
Education & Career
Technology & Gadgets
Spirituality & Self Awareness
I studied in a CBSE school (in the 80s) and I can say that the prescribed syllabus was very good - gave a fairly comprehensive overview of all the subjects and prepared me for college (both for choosing a field and in providing a solid foundation). When I travelled to the US, to do a Masters in Physics, I took up a TA job and discovered that first year and second year engineering students were having a lot of difficulty with their Physics and Math classes. The reason, I found, was that they had not had any foundation/exposure to the basic concepts in high school.
Regarding memorization - I think that in my younger years (from 5-9), it was a great period to learn up stuff! What I memorized then, I still remember very clearly! I learnt tables (upto 19x10). Also, since my school was one of those started by Swami Chinmayananda, we also learnt some chapters from the Bhagavad Gita - it is just so easy now, when I am studying a commentary, to know the verse by heart.
At some point, it starts getting hard to memorize stuff - you have to put in more effort, but until then, I think it is wise to learn up as much as you can!
I am still amazed that a Indian "hot-shot" executive who commands a multi lakh salary in Bangalore ask me "Who did America gain independence from?", "Why is there an independence day?". I know, I know, a sample size of one is a poor sample.
i don't have anything to back me up, but i always thought it was a consequence of centuries of passing on our religious texts orally.
In the Indian system of learning, memorization or cramming plays a small part and doesn't get you far. Memorization does not help you get through the many competitive exams you have to take such as the JEE/Pre-Med/State Engg. Entrance tests etc., to enter undergrad programs. The high school (grade 10 and grade 12) exams too are tough in their own way and require you to think through. It takes extreme ignorance to assert that the Indian learning system is based on "memorization and cramming". Great things about learning in India are its teacher-proof nature, unvarnished and frequent feedback, and clearly defined outcomes. It does not matter whether your teacher is good or bad, you know what your child should work on, and you know how well your child is doing. It takes a lot to be a dedicated teacher in India, an extremely thankless job, even as thankless jobs go. In an opportunity limited land like India, where commuting to school is a ordeal (1 to 1.5 hours each way is the norm) teachers never tell you that anything goes, or any outcome is OK, and that the road is success is easy. This is sort of atmosphere that conditions Indian students to compete and excel. The system emphasises analysis and comprehension over expression, educators reasoning that expression can always be learned if one knows how to create the content. The Vedas and Upanisads are not texts, rather they are guides for discussion. Upanisad among other thing means to "sit by and discuss/learn". That is why a classical course in the Upanisads in India begins with the Upanisads and quickly moves on the bhashyas or commentaries that are vastly more detailed and complex.
Frankly, I think the only reason the Japanese are lining up for admission to any international schools is to learn English. A Tokyo transplant, I know firsthand the bucks Japanese parents are willing to shell out in order for their kids to learn the language. But why stop at English tutoring. The new trend now is complete immersion in an English-speaking environment - hence the increasing enrollment.
BTW, principal Nirmal Jain of India International School in Japan is my momma. She started the school a few years ago for Indian IT families coming to work in Tokyo so that they could bring their children with them. Tuition at the main international schools in Tokyo is astronomical and frankly out of the financial reach of many of these young families. On the other hand, tuition at IISJ, a non-profit, is doable. And because the school is certified by the board of education in India, the students can fit right back into the system there without skipping a beat.
So not only does the school keep families together, but it also affords the children the opportunity to experience another culture.
Yes, I am very proud of my mom!
Amardeep,
So you have caught on to the recent trend in the Western media to make mountains out of Indian molehills. I discussed a similar inflation in my blog post on the 'outsourcing of wombs' on Accidental Blogger.
'Dubious Trend Line'- is an apt phrase. I'll remember to reference it the next time I issue an alert for such stories popping up at regular intervals in the main newspapers and news websites.
Word.
India is a overpopulated developing country that is why the competition of limited resources is fierce. Kids sacrifice a lot to get admission in a good college, and trust me it is not because hectoring "desi parents" it has more to do with competition and peer pressure. Whatever strategy is used by thse kids is their business because an overwhelming majority of these kids do very well after they graduate.
For every one of India's executive "type" who did not know about revolutionary war I have met a 50-60 Americans (including ABDs) who thought Indira Gandhi was Mahatma Gandhi's daughter.
I was attended a meeting where introductions were being exchanged, one non-DBD (not sure he was ABD) asserted that in India people do not have last names (The guy was Tamilian). Later on after the meeting the same guy derisively asked me if I was "Bombay ka aadmi" -- somehow he had “memorized” these three words.
Slightly off-topic here, but has anyone seen this new film? I am curious as to your opinions on its merit/ability to effect change in education in India. It's getting quite a bit of buzz.
For the last few months, I have seen a jump in india related articles in nytimes.com, I guess they figured out that is the easiest way to increase the hit count of their website and increase their online advt revenues. Any india related artcile get fwd-ed among millions of desis and get discussed in many blogs and get quoted in most of the indian newspapers ( nytimes says so about india/indians etc). You guys might have noticed that most of these articles end up in the top emailed list.
7 · circus in jungle said
Very good point. The Vedas were memorized, and after centuries, the entire meanings were lost. Isn't that amazing? Ironically, it was the European colonialists who encouraged the Brahmin Hindus to write down what they were saying. So around ~1800s AD, the meaning of the Vedas were deciphered, and a wealth of data to aid in Indo-European linguistics was uncovered.
Regarding the madrassahs of Pakistan/Afghanistan area: You are correct. Those kids rocking back and forth don't know what the heck they are talking about. It is, however, astounding, that they memorized a whole book, but they don't know what it means. So they have a lot more in common with Brahmins that I realized.
I appreciate Europeans for introducing to us our history, our yoga practices, our culinary traditions, and for explaining our belief systems to us.
They could, if they were taught vedic mathematics.Anyway, in math you Have to cram initially until you get the basics rock solid.
Actually math (or for that matter any thing else) becomes much easier if you understand what you are doing.
Knowledge without understanding can only take you so far.
Boston Mahesh, I'm not at all sure this assertion is correct. The British Empire sponsored and disseminated many tendentious accounts of Indian history. Many of these (such as the persistent myth that they "introduced" us to our own history) continue to be circulated - and the blame lies with our terrible social science and humanities curriculum that does very little in imparting an understanding of historiography, or a criticism/appraisal of methods of historical investigation (Ironically, the Hindutva movement in India also buys into the Victorian characterization of Indian history, especially the typical tropes on Hindu-Muslim relations and India's millenarian past. This is especially hilarious to me because those who conceive of themselves as fierce and devoted nationalists assume that British imperialist accounts of history must be true.)
For now, I'll just link to a short review of Bayly's Empire and Information, who is but one among many historians who have analyzed mistaken and prejudiced (both deliberate and inadvertent) conceptions of Europeans on Indian society and history, from 17th to 19th c., as well as the role of knowledgeable Indians in providing information, intelligence, and history to the British/Europeans [link]
Boston Mahesh,
I hope that the last part of your comment was tongue in cheek, this is a quote from Profs. Clingingsmith and Williamson “India was a major player in the world export market for textiles in the early 18th century, but by the middle of the 19th century it had lost all of its export market and much of its domestic market…While India produced about 25 percent of world industrial output in 1750, this figure had fallen to only 2 percent by 1900.”
The "meaning" of the vedas has apparently always been lost. The first commentaries on the vedas are called the Brahmanas (to add to the confusion). These date back to 3000 years or so, almost as old as the vedas themselves, and are full of speculations on what the Rishis might have meant by this or that ritual/verse. Centuries later, there was someone called Saayana who wrote a commentary on the vedas, also speculating on what things might have meant. Maybe there just isn't supposed to be much meaning there - ritual does not really have meaning, it's the doing of it that's important. I read an interesting theory about how ritual actually preceded the development of language in homo sapiens.
In any case, the vedas were aleady written down well before the Brits arrived. They have never really been deciphered (except by yogis where the verdict in general is that they're superfluous).
Yogi #32,
I agree with most of your comment, I think there are other undergraduate institutions in India, disciplines other than engineering which are as good as IIT, at the top of my head, Sriram College of Commerce, Lady Shriram college and St. Stephens in Delhi, St. Xaviers, Sydneham and Poddar in Bombay, Xaviers in Calcutta and Presidency College in Chennai are great institutions. Additionally many RECs and BITS Pilani are excellent engineering colleges.
Agreed. I am sure there are some other colleges too that we haven't thought of that are just as good. What is not so great about the Indian system is that doesn't give you the academic freedom to take say classes in history and physics at the same time, also switching majors is difficult to impossible.
Yogi,
Hope my comment didn't come across as harsh because I agree with your comment in 32. You are right about variety during undergrad and difficulty in changing majors, heck a lot of professional colleges have a maximum age restriction.
These may be great undergraduate institutions, but unfortunately, very few professors here are active researchers or have their finger on the latest in their fields. Unlike the IITs or BITS or similar level institutions such as the IIMs/IISc/AIIMS, not many non-science undergrad majors in India are exposed to the latest work or rigorous research methods. Delhi School of Economics, FMS, JNU, TISS, and a few good professors scattered over the country (some in the Humanities departments of the IITs) produce some nice research but it rarely ever trickles down to undergraduates who are stuck with the same outmoded concepts. By and large, however, a lack of funding, motivation, and incentives, makes it very difficult for the average Indian academic to pursue research or curricular re-design. Many professors at Delhi University will tell you that a PhD granted there counts for very little.
And on school education:
Although math and science secondary level education in India is very rigorous (and I'm very thankful for having received it), many times it seems to be "too much, too soon." The drills are very useful; but I think that many secondary level students in India have to sacrifice the desire to learn concepts intuitively and deeply, at a more fundamental level perhaps, for their vocational and educational goals.
portmanteau,
I am not qualified to speak on the quality of research in the institutions I mentioned as I was talking more in terms of quality of instructors for commerce and economics. Correct me if I am wrong, doesn’t a lot of funding directed by UGC which if correct may explain the bureaucracy affecting another facet. Just wondering feel free not to answer, are there any people from Delhi University North Campus and DPS Mathura road here?
ROTFL
I went to one of the institutions you have mentioned above for 2 1/2 years (Jr college and for a undergrad program for a while as a safety while waiting for the results to get into an engineering program). Relatives and friends went to others. None of the colleges were considered to be anywhere close to the same league as a good engineering school.
With a few exceptions, the people who went to these undergrad programs landed up here because they either could not get into engineering/ medicine, etc or because they did not want to put the effort required in a professional course. (This has been changing slowly since the late 90's , but the selection bias remains).
Dizzy,
That is probably because there used to be excessive stress on an engineering education in India, I also went to one of the colleges for B.Com and not because I couldn't get into a professional course, and know a great number of people who attended these institutions. The effort lacking on the part of people you knew doesn't make these institutions subpar.
Did the Hindustan Times pay of the New York Times to write this article?
the great majority of indian graduates in engineering are considered unemployable by international corporations; indian infrastructure, created by graduates of the indian educational system, is absolutely pathetic; indian bureacrats, products of indian colleges, are abysmally corrupt and incompetent; and so on.
Why are those Indian engineering grads considered unemployable by international corporations?
One learns the Quran in Arabic as well as one's own language, I thought.
Pundits of Sanskrit learn intricate meanings to the sanskrit words they study, so I would imagine same type of education is available for the Arabic/Quran students.
The Japanese are on to something, but it's the Americans who could probably benefit from Indian-style schools. Most American kids have lost respect for the teacher and are focused on taking the easy way out vs. actually work hard for an education. Memorizing multiplication tables forces children to do things the hard way, not the easy way (calculators). It's symbolic of the Indian approach to education. I never even thought about picking up a calculator as a kid, I had to figure it out on my own.
I thinking you may be generalizing a bit much here. I have had many students (mostly freshmen) who were extremely hardworking and dedicated, some held jobs and were paying for their own education while taking a full time course load in engineering or physics. Definitely working harder than I was when I was 18 or 19.
Yeah, where do you get this from?
I also never thought about picking up a calculator, but in those days calculators were not considered an option before university level. I don´t know how old you are but my guess is that calculators were widely used in neither American nor Indian schools at that time.
1.) little quality control in the large number of colleges coming up
2.) Students are starting to lose focus on their core subjects as many feel that a job in IT is gauranteed
3.) Good students now have options in areas other than engg
4.) Flight of good opportunities professors as job opportunities/ pay rates in have exploded in the indusrty
5.) 50% + reservations throught the system, leading to an overall lower quality of students and tons of other side effects
6.) overcrowded system
7.) burn out -- too much pressure too early on in students takes its toll
8.) Too many students go in w/o liking their subject
9.) The high payff of shortcuts/ cheating has lowered the work ethic
10) Too much political interference in the academic institutions
etc, etc.
From an overll perspective many of the reasons are not really bad for India, and many of these just reflect growing pains.
(Good arithmetic skills also increased the speed needed in solving a problem tremendously)
oops ... meant decreased. (too bad good arithmetic skills did nothing for your writing skills :-) )
Interesting topic. I think someone mentioned this earlier - in India there is too much focus on the straight and narrow while in America we focus too much on the creative process. I am largely a product of the Indian school system (St. Anne's, Fort and St Xavier’s - Bombay) and I thought I got a great education. Certainly a huge emphasis on memorization of some things but I always thought that was necessary. When I came to school here it made it so much easier for me. I didn't have to spend so much time struggling with basics that I lost the energy or desire to actually learn about something in greater depth. The fact that I could cram when required made anatomy classes a breeze and actually made me look forward to studying physiology. And grad and post grad school helped me express my creative side.
That being said, what I love about the American way is that you have the ability to capitalize on your uniqueness and your difference if you choose to do so. Especially in primary school where the focus is so much on that “feel good” aspect. In India I was considered a decent student but an “underachiever.” I thought I studied hard but I could not compete with the true crammers. Here in America I always did really well because the confluence of both types of education is what works best for me.
Ah, Wren and Martin! The memories that evokes...
26 · Dhoni said
The countries that were colonized by the japanese and adopted its educational system, South Korea and Taiwan, became prosperous developed nations; while the countries that got stuck with the macaulayite english medium system, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Kenya, are among the most abjectly impoverished and backward nations on earth.
No indian college ranks in the top 200 in the world; Indian students perform poorly in international academic competitions; the great majority of indian graduates in engineering are considered unemployable by international corporations; indian infrastructure, created by graduates of the indian educational system, is absolutely pathetic; indian bureacrats, products of indian colleges, are abysmally corrupt and incompetent; and so on.
Interesting view and I agree somewhat. But I think American post-war involvement and the countries' adoption of the capitalist model of dev had a lot to do with S.Korea's and Taiwan's successes. Pakistan was in sync with the Korean trajectory as well, but their feudal society which they didn't dismantle post-independence is their undoing.
Regardless, as you mention, the wonderful products of the Indian education system are on display for all to see in India.
When will SM fix its quoting system. The quote in 62 is messed up. 63 is the right quote.
59 · iABD said
I've worked with inner city kids and I've seen it firsthand. Teachers just aren't respected and learning is seen as very "uncool". I also grew up in the American suburbs so I saw many of my peers disrespect teachers firsthand - and this in one of most successful school districts in the country. Sure, we had our Princetons and Harvards, but there were more of the sort who did not respect education like my cousins did in India.
(I don't mean to generalize, these are my observations).
As for calculators, I grew up in the 80's and they were available....but my parents would not let me use them.
I was talking about college students. I have no personal experience with schools in this country except for one summer when I was involved in the Upward Bound program teaching physics to high school students and yes they were not serious about work at all. So I think your characterization is probably accurate about school kids. However by the time they get to college most students I came across knew they had to be serious or they would flunk. I am talking about engineering and physics freshmen mostly here. There is no such thing as a gentleman's F which is what you will get if you don't take your work seriously. Most of my students were respectful, hardworking and diligent. This was in rural state with a mostly white population.
In India we did respect our teachers but sometimes we were just scared of them, they could be quite tyrannical.
not dubious and completely true! most of the indian schools in tokyo have been started by ex-pat indians and we have quite a reputation for our supposed vedic math skills. that's the thing though - they don't really respect the indian education system as a whole; only the math and science components. in addition, japanese school children learn english all through jr. high and high school but have very, very difficult time with conversational english. this can also be considered the case for indian students however, indians (generally and comparatively speaking) have an advantage over other asians with their ability to communicate in english. this might be another reason why they consider the indian schooling system to be successful.
to address the specific questions: no, i don't feel that it's a fad. my j. fiance told me that these types of books have been available for quite a long time (at least last 30 years) and are very popular. my feeling is that the reason this is becoming newsworthy now is that there are now actual indian schools that japanese people to send their kids to. in addition, my understanding is that the japanese school system is just as focused on cramming and rote memorization as we find indian schools to be. having attended elementary and some jr. high in india and finished the rest of my education in the usa, my experience has found that this is the case for most school systems.
the nihon-jin fiance is quite willing to send his future half indian children to indian schools should we move to japan in the near future! also, the first time i met his parents, they asked me if i was proficient in vedic mental math with numbers larger than two digits. unfortunately, i had to confess my poor mathematical abilities and that i took remedial algebra II in university (where the professor, the racist bastard, said to me on the first day, "why are you here? you're indian!" sigh.
44 · brown said
I hope that the last part of your comment was tongue in cheek, this is a quote from Profs. Clingingsmith and Williamson “India was a major player in the world export market for textiles in the early 18th century, but by the middle of the 19th century it had lost all of its export market and much of its domestic market…While India produced about 25 percent of world industrial output in 1750, this figure had fallen to only 2 percent by 1900.”
I'm not sure how big of a deal this achievement is. There was a time that the Saudis had a lot of exports in the global macroeconomic environment. And we know how successful and cultured the Saudis are (tongue in cheek).
But I stand by my claim that the Europeans taught us Indian history. We learned about Sanskrit being an Indo-European language, the Indus-valley civilization, the decipherment of the Vedas, and so on from Europeans. They did a good job at that, and we should be thankful for this (and we all are), and we should also be proud of who we are (and this we are as well).
Umm,
Boston Mahesh. It was a very big deal. At no point did the Saudis contribute 25% of the world GDP. And going by that logic, we can also say that the US having 25% of the world GDP is no big deal either? It was not without reason that India was called the brightest jewel in the crown of the British empire. Besides Economy and culture and not necessarily correlated.
And what history did the Europeans teach us? You should perhaps read about Thomas Babington Macaulay and his treatise on Indian education. That should educate you on the true European purpose of "educating" the Indians. The whole aim was to convince us that Indian literature,art etc..is inferior and of substandard quality. The whole Aryan invasion fairytale was fabricated and Sanskrit became an "Indo-European" language. Yes there Sanskrit has loan words and some grammatical similarily with classical European languages, but that does not make German a "Indo-European" language now does it?
68 · campmuir said
I've worked with inner city kids and I've seen it firsthand. Teachers just aren't respected and learning is seen as very "uncool". I also grew up in the American suburbs so I saw many of my peers disrespect teachers firsthand - and this in one of most successful school districts in the country. Sure, we had our Princetons and Harvards, but there were more of the sort who did not respect education like my cousins did in India.
(I don't mean to generalize, these are my observations).
As for calculators, I grew up in the 80's and they were available....but my parents would not let me use them.
Good and interesting point. I have friends and family in education, and I personally think that the problem with the educational system in the USA is *NOT* the teachers and schools. The problem is with the students themselves. The students here are very disrespectful, they don't care about education and applying themselves scholastically, and they would rather hone their chearleading/football skills. Their school equipment is top notch, however: access to computers and internet, access to public libraries in their cities, very nice and modern schools, etc. However, the bulk of them don't really care, and some of them are in gross neglect of empowering themselves with education. On the other hand, these same kids go out of their way to hone their slam-dunking skills because this is what they believe passionately on.
In India, the students share books, do without electricity, have to walk great distances to schools, and one way or another, they HUSSLE to learn. They're ENTHUSED to learn. They show up to work sick. You get the idea.
beleza, your fiance is Japanese? That's quite unusual isn't it? How does your family feel about it? Just questions out of curiosity. The more cross-cultural mixing, the better, imho :)
Memorization comes from the guru-shishya tradition of learning the Vedas and other scientifically-inclined scriptures by rote. Not from the British, so far as i know.
72 · RandomDude said
And what history did the Europeans teach us? You should perhaps read about Thomas Babington Macaulay and his treatise on Indian education. That should educate you on the true European purpose of "educating" the Indians. The whole aim was to convince us that Indian literature,art etc..is inferior and of substandard quality. The whole Aryan invasion fairytale was fabricated and Sanskrit became an "Indo-European" language. Yes there Sanskrit has loan words and some grammatical similarily with classical European languages, but that does not make German a "Indo-European" language now does it?
Very interesting. India is resource rich in the Old World, and it has a lot of arable soil, which can support big populations.
anyways, German is an Indo-European language, just like Sanskrit. If you don't believe this, then you're probably subscribe to Creationalism and Flat Earth Theory. Why don't you buy books from India and increase their world share of exports.
Well, that's a relief. They are doing lots right when it comes to educating their citizenry. For example, Japan has just as high a population density as India but you don't find their streets choked with honking traffic, pollution and garbage (population is often cited as the main reason for this but Japan stands as a shining counterexample).
:). I'd have taken that as a compliment - at least, there's something Indians are perceived to be good at, correctly or incorrectly.
A lot of the dynamics here are familiar. The drumbeat in the '80s in the US was that Germany and Japan were going to be eating America's lunch. Thus America looked to their educational systems and adopted many of their methods (or fads); little surprise that we saw Kumon springing up across American suburbs.
[All that said, the evidence that a nation's economic prospects are tied to its students' performance on tests is weak. On the other hand, the quality of the education -- which largely takes place outside of schools, and which depends on social supports for its families and children at least as much as on specific pedagogical methods -- might be a lot more relevant. Berliner and Biddle ("The Manufactured Crisis") and Rothstein ("Class and Schools") are worth reading on these points.]
Now Americans (and Japanese) see economic competition from India and China looming and a similar reaction has been provoked. What this article doesn't mention (but which has been covered somewhat more frequently) is that nations with high average test scores (e.g., Singapore) are looking to American models to instill more creativity and innovation in their students, rather than rote learning.
The odd and disturbing thing to me is that the non-rote approach is exactly *how* Japan went from mediocre to excellent in student performance. Japanese elementary math instruction, in particular, is far more innovative and (dare I say it) "constructivist". It reaches far more students and lays a much stronger foundation for further study than rote memorization of facts and procedures. (The standard American impression of Japanese education seems to come from the high school level, which emphasizes innovation far less, whether in the regular school or the juku or "cram school".)
American math education has learned a lot of good stuff from Japan's innovations in the last generation. It's a little dismaying that Japan is now importing the bad parts of another model, apparently driven by the same motivations that make some American parents inveigh against educational models they don't trust (even when they've proven effective). At least it's promoting some tolerance of the brown.
meena -
i suppose we are "unusual." we haven't met any other desi-japanese couples before. most unusual is that we met because we both train capoeira and he has only been in the US for 1.5 years (i've known him the whole time).
anyway, we recently got engaged. my parents have "already decided to love him" and consented to the marriage when he came over to ask their permission. his parents don't speak english and live in japan so it's really difficult to get a true sense of their feeling for me but they were very nice to me when we met. my belief is that once you are forced to deal with someone of a different culture one on one it becomes impossible to keep believing cultural stereotypes - whether positive or negative.
so life is strange but wondrous.
Someone -
the boy and i were just talking about what japan is feeling at the moment - according to the type of things the newspapers (he reads japanese newspapers in japanese), etc. focus on - which i think is directly related to the post:
japan is feeling insecure about their ability to compete in the global workplace. also, the lack of population growth has brought about many of its own concerns. the lack of a future japanese workforce and being culturally closed to foreigners and immigration is something that japanese people are now trying to work around. i.e.> looking to educate their children in new, innovative ways; opening up immigration; opening up the "glass ceiling" within japanese corporations so that foreigners can advance and have incentive to stay with the company.
obviously i'm just giving a small, general view of the situation but you get the idea. japan is now realizing that to be globally competitive it has to offer the benefits and opportunity that innovation needs. so they're looking out.
anyway, regarding my professor - i don't feel it's a compliment. i'm sure you are aware of the issues with being a "model minority." not all of us need to be math or spelling bee champions.
peace.
Indians running schools outside India would be careful not to force (get forced) pupils into their our of school hours tuition classes. Unlike in India police and legal system will be less prone to let any one bribed-out.
Indian Science and Mathematics Scholars at best can write guides.
For text book they do translations. Ridiculously Gujarat Higher Secondary Board' Physics textbook in Gujarati is translation of American Textbook by Halliday and Resnick. The English Medium pupils of the state are given English Translation of Gujarati translation. This was done by Board appointed University Professors of Gujarat.
One foreign-degreed Professor of IIMA was caught writing textbook for MBA which was lifted wholesale from some American Text Book.
Indian University Professors get purchased textbooks from West in the Library and not let them get displayed on new arrival shelf. Books never get seen by students.
Indians must take any praise of their Education System with bucketfuls of salt.
www.dmjoshi.org