China: The World's Cleverest Country

[Rezolution]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business China: The world's cleverest country.
Just found this on the website. It certainly makes interesting reading.
Any comments?

DuchesseGood point. I do wonder whether it is good for the child emotionally to be the centre of so much attention? It must give them an over-inflated sense of their own importance?? You can have too much of a good thing, imho.

Might not be good emotionally but if we're all competing for jobs and dthe benchmark has been reset we need to rethink our ideas.

I think that there is a lot of jelousy and racism on why asian kids are doing better. I have seen no evidence that the chinese are less creative than the UK.

I suspect the higher rates of sucide in Asia is religous differences rather than there being less stress/ mental illness in the UK. Committing sucide completely goes against christian teaching and even if the average UK citizen doesn't practice christianity, they are certainly influenced.

i did find it hard to believe ..but it isn't just school..workplaces also seem to shoot down new ideas (to be fair large corporate workplaces do this the world over....and have to bring in special initiatives to encourage employee ideas from the woodwork) ...

however praise of a schooling system that does result in large numbers of pupils spending their spare time in jukus to achieve the necessary grade.....no.

i don't think we'd be happy with the english system if it was getting the results by parents paying for additional after school lessons.

although i think there is too much of the 'oh no you can't pressure them' abounding (when what is really being talked about is incentivisation and keeping kids challenged) in the conversation about UK education, the other extreme - that is after school lessons for infant school kids (several of mine had Art and Maths after school - our school day was 8am -4pm (though only maybe 4 hours of 'teaching' time)) in addition to requests for homework even for those children that really starred... doesn't appeal.

We in the West don't generally tend to see childhood as a training period and a time to build character and invest for the future (as they often do in Asia). When I look at those I know who had a more 'creative' education and a free rein at home I am not sure they are happier for it as adults.

Someone mentioned that it might not be a good idea for a Chinese child to have so many involved with its upbringing. Thing is the collective, the family good comes first. It's true, to a certain extent, that no Chinese parent can say 'it's not my fault, my child made their own choices'. It's expected parents shape and guide their child's choices for the best. If they choose wrongly parents feel as responsible and perhaps as shamed as the child. As someone once said in China 'whom you are belongs to others and whom others are belongs to you'. If you look at things through your own (very different) cultural lens you'll tend to get a distorted picture.

Cortina That was my post, saying that it might not be good for the child.
I liked your quote "whom you are belongs to others". That is so very true in my own life. I was known by my father's name as "---'s daughter" in the village where I grew up and only became myself when I moved away and mixed with people who did not know my father and took me on my own merits.
I don't mean that in a bad way either but it did limit my life somewhat.