NYT article on easing academic pressure and a cultural divide

[Anonymous]

There is a big difference between "there are not very many Asian-American people in politics" and "Asians don't hold any political power", which is what the PP said.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Recognize that when a minority group does very well, whites will lose interest in that group. When nonJewish whites saw Jews doing well, they felt threatened and responded with quotas at some Ivies. Many, if not most,whites are racist in the sense that they believe that some groups cannot compete with them intellectually.

Your first sentence contradicts your second sentence.

Trying to discuss logic with some bubblehead? How racist

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:... Unlike in Korea or China, the result of one test doesn't determine your life path...

is it still the case today though, especially korea? hard to believe when their products/innovations rivals apple's

Yes, it is. The problem is that there are only a handful of conglomerates (called chaebols there) that provide almost life-time, good paying jobs. And if you go to one of only a handful of the top universities there, you are almost guaranteed to get a job at one of the conglomerates, or a cushy government job. It is *very* difficult to go up in the food chain without having gone to one of these prestigious universities.

Here, you can go to a middling university and still end up doing really well in life by working hard, and maybe with a bit of luck sometimes. It's not so easy to do this in Korea. This is one of the reasons why so many immigrants like America. They like the "if you work really hard, you can make it" mantra. So, that's why a lot of the Asian parents pressure their kids. It's not because they don't care about their kids. Quite the opposite... they want their kids to do better than them, or have job security/guarantees, and they believe that you have to work really hard to achieve this because that's how it is in their home country. They also know that Asians are a small minority in this country; Asians don't hold any of the political or corporate power. So, to do well, you have to work hard.

This was an interesting piece I read about this topic:

http://nypost.com/2015/12/29/from-nyc-to-harvard-the-war-on-asian-success/

"Of course, neither Aderhold nor parents in charge of sports are indulging nonathletic kids with a “right to fumble” and join a mostly non-Asian varsity football team."

perfect response to that racist superintendent of P-P schools in NJ. Mirrors exactly what a poster here said a few posts ago.

[Anonymous]

"If anything, they are being run over by the BS-educated whites and blacks who need affirmative action programs (by race, legacy or sports) to compensate for their poor academic preparation."

I don't think the privileged are poorly academically prepared but may be they would surpass themselves if further inspired by necessity. People can believe all they want that asian work ethic only produces test taking robots but the reality is that complacency serves to handicap their own kids. Preferences based on birth, versus SES, just doesn't make sense when our kids will come to maturity in a global economy that doesn't care about our affirmative action or legacy and sports biases.

[Anonymous]

Missing (Asian) student in this school district. http://www.nj.com/mercer/index.ssf/2016/01/west_windsor_area_teen_missing_since_friday_police.html Let's pray that she has not done anything to harm herself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

And yes, Asian-Americans hold both political and corporate power.

Actually, no, they really don't outside of some heavily asian precincts in northern california.

"Holding corporate power" is also a matter of definition. The number of Fortune 500 CEOs who are Asian hasn't climbed dramatically, for example. http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/diversity_among_ceos.html

No one is denying there are more Asians in the US and that some Asians make good entrepreneurs. But running corporate America, they are not.

Let's start with Governor Bobby Jindal and Governor Nikki Haley, neither of whom are current or soon-to-be former governors of California.

WOW - those are a lot of Asians holding political power.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

yes, it is my opinion that the Kumon tutoring track stifles intellectual curiosity and promotes rote learning.

I completely agree with this. Sometimes parents get caught up with wanting their kids to have the highest possible grades and to be "advanced" in the present, but they lose track of the long term goals of education. If a kid always has to have the right answer to the point where he becomes afraid of trying something new because it might be the wrong answer, then something is truly wrong and that kid's education has veered off track.

This. This. This.