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Are Hard-Working Chinese Kids
A Model for American Students?

By Li Yuan

In November 2006, Jack Li's father, a longtime Caterpillar employee in Beijing, was transferred to Peoria, Ill. Jack enrolled in high school as a ninth-grader. His parents, good friends of mine for almost a decade, weren't particularly worried about their son adapting to a new school in a foreign country -- at least not academically. They believed that China has better K-12 education than the U.S.

Jack didn't disappoint them: Three months later, he scored high enough on the SATs to put him in the top 3% in math and well above-average in writing and reading. Last fall, he transferred to Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy, a college-prep program for Illinois students. He took advanced chemistry last semester and will study basic calculus next semester.

Chinese students like Jack are examples of why Microsoft's Bill Gates asked Congress today to spend more to improve American education in math and science. Unless more students can be attracted to those subjects, Mr. Gates warned, the U.S.'s competitive advantage will erode and its ability to create high-paying jobs will suffer.

I know many Americans don't believe him. They argue that American kids may not be as good at math and science as Chinese and Indian kids, but they're more well-rounded. But that's increasingly untrue. For example, Jack isn't your stereotypical Chinese nerd. He's the captain of IMSA's sophomore basketball team and tried out for the tennis team today.

Bob Compton, a Memphis-based venture capitalist, ran into many kids like Jack when he was traveling in China and India. They were two and three years ahead of his two teenage daughters -- not just in math and science, but in almost every other subject, too. That discovery prompted him to make a documentary called "2 Million Minutes," which followed students in the U.S., India and China to show how they spent their four years of high school -- which works out to about two million minutes.

The film's conclusion: Chinese high-school students spend almost twice as much time on schoolwork as their American peers. (Indian kids spend half again as much time as Americans.)

In Beijing, Jack used to average three or four hours of homework a day. In his Peoria high school, he spent less than an hour a day. At IMSA, homework demands around two hours a day, and Jack still has two hours to play basketball. He told me he's learning and happy.

To be sure, I have reservations about China's exam-focused education system. The college entrance examination, held each July, is the most important exam in China -- it's the only way for many Chinese to avoid a life spent on the assembly line or doing some other low-paying job. As a result, Chinese kids have to be very competitive and focused -- sometimes too competitive and focused, it seems to me.

Mr. Compton agrees that China and India push it too far sometimes. But in the U.S., he says, "we don't push intellectual and academic achievement far enough."

And he means it: His two daughters are both considered good students, but their father has got them tutors in several subjects. He says he's worried that they won't be able to compete globally because there won't be American jobs, Chinese jobs or Indian jobs, but only global jobs. He says he told his daughters that "if you don't work hard, you'll get horrible jobs when you grow up."

That's exactly what my parents told me when I was young -- and it's what many other Chinese parents, including Jack's, tell their kids every day.

As for Mr. Compton, he acknowledges that "my daughters wish that I had never gone to China and India." But perhaps one day they'll thank him.

Just found out that this year Philly's One Film program has chosen to screen Empire of the Sun out of all old movies. I saw this movie at least three times on my settle lite TV last summer, but I don't mind seeing it once again especially now that I'm how many thousands of miles away from Shanghai, the actual location of the film and I'm not sure if all the longtang scenes and the occasional Shanghainese would bring out my homesickness. I was once also an enthusiast at digging Shanghai's "colonial" (though the Chinese word is "rented" ) past, a history the ruling party tried so hard to wash off from people's minds and now the city government ironically seems very supportive of rebuilding. Not the colonialism of it of course, but Shanghai is very Romantic about just everything European. I don't know why Philly would choose a Shanghai-based film and am not sure what kind of horrible impression the film would leave the people here of Chinese though.

Oh and Dr. Z asked me today if I'm interested in babysitting.

 

 

 

My theatre test came back with a B minus. Apart from not getting enough sleep the night before due to it being Lunar New Year's Eve, I got only 8.5 out of 10 for the essay question. The question was about whether critics were needed as the two essential elements of theatre are a performance and an audience. Instead of talking about what critics could bring to actors and audiences like my prof turned out to have expected, I focused on the organization perspective. I talked about what critics put in the paper can affect audience's reaction to the play prior to seeing it and consequently affecting audience turn-out rates and ticket sales. My professor responded that critics help actors and directors (or in my perspective, the artists) improve their productions instead of just "putting butts in the seats", a concept in my opinion is very much important concerning how live performing arts are struggling to survive nowadays. That's just one aspect of how artists think vastly differently than the management side. Their performance is far more important than the funding needed to cover the cost of the production. The funding is not within their considerations and is left to the management side to take care of of course. And that's why they are going to need me one day.

Cafeteria just put up a number of interesting "African maps" with no signs of Madagascar.

I'm kind of jealous of people who are on semester schedules. They only go to school for eight months a year and take 12 classes. We, on the other hand, go to school for nine months, take 18 classes, and work the rest of the three months. This coming summer will be the very last summer break I get to enjoy.

It's kind of surreal to realize that the aroma lingering in my friend's hall is the smell of marijuana.