Their last names were:
Pan Liu Prattipati
Li Qiu He
Xu Bansal Dong
Wei Cho Ching
Zhang Farrakh Huang
Jiang Huang
I know, not all of the names are Asian, but you gotta agree that an overwhelming majority of the names sound Chinese. What are we doing wrong people? Why do American kids seem so "average" compared to their Asian (and Indian) schoolmates? Do you think it's the Tiger Mom mentality? I've watched a few of Amy Chua's interviews and I was honestly not that impressed with her. Can't we teach our kids to excel without removing them from all social interaction (ie. sports, parties, outside friendships.) I've talked to JD about this and he confided in me that his math class at school is referred to as "Asian math" (JD is in the gifted program and takes the highest level math available.) JD promised me that even the Asians call the class "Asian math" and that no one seems offended by it. I will however, promise you that the nicknames for the other math classes are offensive and therefore, will not be mentioned on my blog.
I'm probably opening a can of worms here but this has really peaked my interest. What do you think? Leave a comment and let's figure this out together...
3 comments:
Bad news Heather. If we count Iran and India as part of Asia then probably ALL of those kids are of Asian descent. And I know FIFA has Iran and India in the Asian Football Confederation and how much more evidence do we need to say those countries are indeed Asian?
Now my kids are in the Asian school system and I have some strong opinions about the way they're learning. I can't fit it all in this comment box but for now let me say that math lends itself well to rote memorization and that's why I think the Asian school system produces such good math scholars. However when it comes to critical thinking and creativity, in my opinion the Asian system is lacking.
But I'm talking about the Asian school system and specifically the Chinese one. You're talking about kids in the U.S. from Asian families, which is surely a whole other topic.
I think we need to talk about this this summer over margaritas. :)
Heather - I don't think it is a Tiger Mom thing involving insane and brutal treatment of fragile egos...
...but there is something to be said for raising expectations. When you set a higher standard, kids (as a rule) will reach up to that.
Simply put -- we set the bar too low.
I can recall a couple of years ago, when I was talking my daughter through a story problem.
Someone overheard me, and said "She can't do that, that's ALGEBRA."
Well, maybe she COULD have done it, if you hadn't stepped in and told her it wasn't worth her time to try. Culturally, our schools shut it down before we ever try because we place too high a value on self-esteem.
(Yes, I will now await those nasty emails from teachers...)
I know this may sound crazy...I once read a study about brain functions. The study compaired US vs. Asian. Both sides of the brain were active when speaking Chinese, not so with English speakers. Because Chinese has the many tones.
Maybe its not about race rather than laguage spoken.
Or maybe all us adoptive Mom's are of a certain age and expect more from our children.
Or maybe....I could go on and on and on
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