Why are Indian & Chinese kids attaining much higher than white/black/Pakistani children?

[Widilo]

I’ve been thinking this over today. DS recently went to a Kumon class (if you trawl through Mn threads over the years this is generally much hated on MN). All the kids coming out were Indian or Chinese, all the kids in her group Indian or Chinese. A smattering of black children and 1 white child (DS). DS won’t be going back (it was a trial class) because it just seemed to be repetitive rote learning of hundreds of sums, but clearly this is working somewhere along the line?

stats linked here www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/education-skills-and-training/11-to-16-years-old/gcse-results-attainment-8-for-children-aged-14-to-16-key-stage-4/latest

I can't speak on the other cultures, but I went to university in China, the focus on education is massive, to a horrendous point actually in some cases.
There is a huge pressure to get into a good university and improve your whole families life in a way that there isn't really in the UK.
This documentary that covers people studying for the uni entrance exams (gaokao)

The school features has over 24000 pupils, partly a reason for a focus on rote learning, the sheer numbers.

I think the valuing 'brightness' over 'hard work' is definitely a things with some parents.

Sometimes I see parents on the Secondary board who almost seem to view the fact that a 'hard working' child does better than their 'bright but lazy' child is akin to somehow cheating and that the hard worker will come 'unstuck' at A levels or university.

You also see it on random GCSE threads with people who did GCSEs 20 years ago saying 'oh I didn't revise it's not necessary', probably a) forgetting they revised more than they remember, and b) not realising that GCSEs are very different these days both in content and how they are assessed.

My DC are at Private school and the proportion of Indian/Pakistani heritage kids is higher than in the general community. I think it’s a mixture of aspiration and having successful businesses that mean they can afford it.
In some cases as well I think that they feel Private schools foster more “traditional” values and if there is racism it’s easier to tackle in a smaller school that tends to be stricter

@TeenDivided - I dunno all the fancy ways of teaching reading. But there are some basic facts that people think most kids should grasp - ‘t’ generally makes the sound ‘tuh’ ; there is a sequence of letters (b comes after a - which is used in dictionaries); some common words are spelt differently from what they sound: like ‘the’. I think these rules just need to be learnt by rote. some are better at guessing the ‘rules’ and have shortcuts; and others have difficulties which mean they need to spend longer and have different strategies.

I guess I see these rules as similar to knowing 2 comes after 1 and 10>1 and 2+3=5. I just think we might spend more time/effort/academic research to help people achieve a similar fluency with numbers (I understand that some people won’t be able to achieve this just as some people won’t be able to grasp reading; but I think maybe more could be done for maths?)

@Namenic The sounds is Phonics, and yes the alphabet order, I agree that is similar to some rote learning in maths.

There is far too much acceptance and laughing over being 'bad at maths' in the UK, especially as people wouldn't be the same at being 'bad at English'.

Kumon is very popular with Chinese and Indian families as the learning by rote methodology is what they are used to 'back home' and they feel it's important.
I was an assistant in a fairly diverse school and generally speaking the non white children had more pushy parents who were not celebrating anything other than top marks. There was no "well at least you tried" or "you did your best" from them. They had high expectations and weren't afraid to voice their disappointment or annoyance.
I remember one Chinese mum who was elbowing her way in on sports day to film her daughter's race. I made a comment about how it was great that we could look back at these memories in the future. She looked at me like I was mad and said that she was recording her so she could go over her mistakes so that she could do better next time .

Because education is valued and children respect their parents. I’m Chinese, the thought of saying no to my parents just wasn’t possible. I have been softer on my DS but by British standards I was strict.

British parents make a big mistake in that they want to be friends with their children more than be a parent. A good example was GCSE time. DS was allowed to game but at that time it was restricted, he did not adhere to the allotted times so his console was removed. He really didn’t like me at that time.

After the results came In one of his friends actually said I wish my Mum had been as strict. He hadn’t been able to self regulate, I mean they are kids and don’t always think of the long game. His friends could have got all A grades but didn't.

I'm place marking! Can I add Eastern European kids to the list too. We are neighbours with Moldovans, Russians, Polish & there is a high number of Ukranians relocated in our town. Education is so important to them but they also put a high emphasis on music, dance & art. All the kids we know are extremely high achieving. Some of the Ukrainians that have relocates are away ahead of their UK peers in science & maths in particular. I find the Easter European kids fascinating & feel like a lazy mum in comparison!

I think this is very true. As a teacher I encounter so many parents of teens who endlessly undermine me because they don't want to be unpopular.

This in spades! We need to up our game as our kids are going to compete with these kids for jobs in the next decade... So many jobs can now be done by AI & god knows what will be invented in the future.. We can learn from these parents!

Also "high brow" culture is much easier to access for all in many of these countries... In Eastern Europe it is very inexpensive to go to the theatre or see a ballet. Also there is more of a culture of doing so.. Our Russian neighbours are shocked at the prices at our local theatres not to mind London..

Sincere apologies @TheWayTheLightFalls

i meant 'scrappy immigrant' as a compliment but obviously wasn't taken that way and I won't say it again. I talk quite often with my DH about how to make our kids scrappy which is where it comes from (they live in a posher area than the places we were raised). My own background is not white British so i think I'm used to getting away with saying things in person that a white person could not! That's meant as explanation rather than excuse - I am not an immigrant and do actually feel bad.

This is what they were pushing at Kumon. Your kids are competing on an international stage when UK education is way down the league tables for attainment

Some things need to be learned by rote. Times tables and number bonds are the obvious ones, but when it comes to language learning it's there too. There's a reason why the British are so awful at languages. I'm Dutch and I am fluent in 4 languages. Part of that is aptitude, but there's also the fact that at school we were expected to learn irregular verbs and vocabulary off by heart, that we were expected to study and memorise grammatical rules (I can still tell you which adjectives in the French language go before the noun instead of after it and how they are conjugated). We were tested weekly and those marks went on our reports. There's a balance to be struck here - we need rote learning to create a foundation for independent thinking and creativity.

Absolutely this. I have recently had Indian and middle eastern children join my class and they can answer 'chimney sums' and recite tables for days. Their data handling, missing number work, counting backwards etc was initially very poor. As soon as I mentioned this to both sets of parents they worked on these aspects with them nightly. The kids are rapidly catching up. The vast majority of parents of other ethnicities have not been working nightly to support their children's targets.

There is an entire ethos and level dedication behind these stats.

I'd recommend reading Battle Hymn Of The Tiger Mom.

I haven't time to read all this thread but I want to say that in a general way learning doesn't seem to be valued much in Britain. People apologise for being educated and knowledgeable or they are scorned for being so
.
There was a time in the training of teachers in England when 'formal' was out and 'informal' was in. Old-fashioned rote learning was frowned upon. I studied maths for a long time and I taught arithmetic to juniors. Yes, of course you want a child to understand the concept of 4 lots of 5 or 5 bags with 4 bulbs in each bag, but teachers owe it to children to teach them to say the tables by rote so that they can pull out a single line when they need to. I haven't studied what happens in a brain but from my own personal experience and observations, I think we understand the theory when it is first taught to us, then we just use the numbers, and later the idea/concept falls into place, possibly not for all, but for many. So the early rote learning is not all you want but it's the shorthand for life.

A cynical old teacher said, around about 1970, "Is concept a new word for an idea?"

I've never heard of Kumon. I just googled and found a centre just behind my dc's school.

I have a very bright 5yo ds that is obsessed with maths and language. Right now he is sat copying out the Russian language onto paper 🤣

His school (and me) suspect he is neuro diverse as he struggles massively with his social and emotional development. I wonder if Kumon would be suitable for him? He'd love the learning aspect of it but gets easily upset and frustrated.

...and I said to a teacher of infants, "Look and say or phonics?", because there seemed to be a debate about one or the other, and she replied, "BOTH".

I work in a school of mainly 2nd/3rd generation Pakistani Muslims. Their families come from a very rural area. At least 1 parent will have just moved over after an arranged marriage. There is little to no push to educate their children. They bring them to school and that is it. Only 1 parent works and it's usually taxi driver or in a take away. It sounds stereotypical but I've been there 15 years so have a good insight. This core group makes up 75% of our cohort. This group does not make good progress. They have poor language skills in home language and in English.
The rest are children of African, Indian, Chinese, Arab and Malaysian parents doing PhD at the 3 local universities. Their families have great respect for education and support their children. Their children have excellent first language skills (although usually come to school with no English) and over their 3 years with us make fantastic progress.
I'd say that the parents views towards education coupled with the the drive for them to achieve and their own skills to be able to support them is the main difference.

But to be honest, for our core children, if they had good first language skills and parents showed an interest in school they would do so much better. Most of the parents don't have the skills to support but even making sure they have done their home work, bring in their books would help.

@pointythings actually that’s not the case and there are various methods using fingers and other methods to know times tables. Some people can’t learn well by rote, even if they’re very intelligent, the art of teaching is to
work with natural strengths and not shoehorn everyone into being the same. Some of the most brilliant minds are different, cultures which insist on one way are missing some of their most talented people. Some cultures also have much higher rates
of
suicide in children. The whole tiger parenting thing is not for me, not good for my kids and we’re still achieving high marks and respect for others

A long time ago I was a primary school teacher who was told that the children were to know their tables but they mustn't say them by rote, out loud. The headmaster wanted promotion and a visitor to the school had presumably heard my class, and it just wasn't the in thing then, my darlings. Yes, I have felt aggrieved about that for decades, and I have eventually got rid of my anger about it in this sentence.

@BungleandGeorge tiger parenting wasn't for me either and I absolutely agree that not all methods work for all children. But there is a substantial subset of people in the UK who pass on the attitude that learning doesn't matter to their children. Part of that is because of the lack of social mobility and the legacy of the class system that is still so powerful here, and that needs addressing, but part of it is also about parents holding their DC back. In a previous job I worked with young people to get them NVQs - one of my students was 16, had left school with 2 GCSEs taken early (because she was ferociously bright) and had then been left. The course she was on got her a work placement in a travel agents and within 2 weeks they had offered her a permanent job and an apprenticeship. Whereupon her parents told her to refuse the job or they would throw her out for showing them up. I spent 2 days flat out finding her accommodation and support because she wanted to keep the job. She ended up a manager, married with a family, successful - but that was in spite of her parents, not because of them. That sort of thinking needs to be stamped out.

Expectations are high in some cultures. Having seen the tragic effect these expectations can have on children, I learned to chill out a bit with my own DC.

In terms of the wider discussion of the UK vs ROTW, there is a problem with the culture within British schools. It isn't cool to be clever, enjoy learning, etc. There are too many kids determined to drag everybody else down to their level via disruption and bullying. The entire education system needs reform - massive expansion of grammar schools and the provision of schools specialising in technical, arts, stage, trades, sports, etc.

The kids that want too get on with learning need to be free to do that amongst their peers. Those that aren't academic need excellent schools dedicated to helping them find their path.

The complacent white middle class believe we can rely on social capital to get around lower educational attainment. It's worked pretty well for generations. Is that changing yet?

The complacent white working class haven't yet adapted to the change that's already taken place, with the loss of widely-available manual jobs in the UK.

People from minority immigrant backgrounds know they can't afford to be complacent.