<p>Yeah, seriously. He needs to explain that whole business of China going down the toilet and whatnot!</p>
<p>As an Indian-American(/Canadian), I would strongly disagree with the assertion that the sole or primary motivation for Indians to enter certain field is money. I disagree not because I'm offended, which I'm not and have no reason to be, but because my observations don't really match it.</p>
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Sure, Indian and Chinese kids are smarter, but they only memorize facts and spute them out again. They cannot apply these to situations because they spend their time on remote memorization.
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<p>What exactly are you kids learning in your classes that requires more than memorization?</p>
<p>I think non academic electives such as gourmet foods, applied tech, or wood work might make U.S. high schools seem less heavy on memorization etc. But I agree, Duper, that the core classes still need memorization and understanding, and that is same everywhere.</p>
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has sensitized you to issues that don't even exist (i.e.- racism in my post),
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<p>Does anyone think this is even worth arguing? I was agreeing with you until this crap.</p>
<p>haha duper - agreed.</p>
<p>Which is why high school academics are the biggest waste of time and are not good for anything except college admissions. </p>
<p>gk23, those vocational electives are the only useful classes I've ever taken in high school. </p>
<p>Learning fundamentals of web design have allowed me to make good money online, cooking is always a valuable skill (especially for later on), weight training - while not vocational - taught me everything I need to know about body building, etc.</p>
<p>I agree, which is why I will like college. I am going to take classes in thing I actually like like tennis, computers, and some type of math.</p>
<p>guess classic doesn't want to provide an explanation now</p>
<p>They said the same thing about the Soviet's in the 1950's. Look what happend. Russia is now a third rate power with alot of bluster and crazy zelots running the goveremnt. As long as democracy eludes China and the caste system and other social inequalities exist in India American kids will have an advantage. We should embrace people from these countries not be scarred of them</p>
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caste system and other social inequalities
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<p>I can agree with parts of your logic but since when do we not have social inequalities in America?</p>
<p>word. damn silvestris you're killin it haha. kudos.</p>
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They said the same thing about the Soviet's in the 1950's. Look what happend. Russia is now a third rate power with alot of bluster and crazy zelots running the goveremnt.
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<p>I think it's gotta do with economic stuff, not democracy. Democracy (or ochlocracy, however you look) only prevents a guy from staying in power for too long. Socialism or communism isn't effective since it doesn't make people work as hard as they can. At least China and India is open to capitalism and the governments doesn't keep a guy for 20 years in power anymore.</p>
<p>I find this topic very interesting. I think that we do need to ramp up our expectations of our kids and challenge them to face a world economy. The public high school that my kids attend have some unique programs like The Engineering Academy (The</a> Engineering Academy at Hoover Highschool) that I believe addresses the need to get kids interested and prepared for a degree in engineering. My oldest son graduated from this program last year and is way ahead of his engineering peers at his university.</p>
<p>While I don't necessarily agree that the asian way is the best way to go (trust me, if you see how much these kids work, you'd never ever want to be a part of it.) I think we should give credit for what they do. A normal korean/japanese (sorry that I have to add more races into this, but I'm more familiar with them) kid in high school goes to school and has study hall there until around 10pm, when they go to something called hagwons in korean, after school classes for even MORE prep, get home around 12, eat, do homework, and sleep. Btw, school classes extend until Saturday, so only Sundays are off, in which there are even more after school classes.
And middle school is a whole load of crappy classes like these, in public schools an average of 16 hours a week is expected of a normal student (from my experience) and a good kid isn't supposed to complain and love the parents who, equally blinded by the concept of big investments=big future (true in most cases, but this is a bit over the top), pay extreme amounts of money for these classes.</p>
<p>So I don't think you should say that they are wasting their time, in a sense. We have what is considered the best SAT prep in the entire world (but correct me if I'm wrong) and academically, have so many good students here that we are now competing more with ourselves than with kids from other countries who want to get into good boarding schools/colleges. But just give credit to what they are doing, it's hard stuff.</p>
<p>&& please don't flame me, I'm kind of new to CC ;)</p>
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guess classic doesn't want to provide an explanation now
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Don't get your hopes up. I'm just not on here 24 hours a day.</p>
<p>Anyway, I've only got about ten minutes before I have to leave, so I'll address your other issues later, but we can talk about China right now.</p>
<p>This is why China's future is bleak:</p>
<p>1) China (as it exists now) will not last. Look back on history. A unified China has been the exception, not the rule. It will only be a matter of time before China is once again divided. Do you really believe that people in places like Taiwan and Hong Kong are going to put up with this faux-communist regime forever?
China is not like the United States. Sure, we like to call the U.S. a "melting pot," but that works better in the U.S. than anywhere else because (almost) none of us are really natives here. In China, their racial and ethnic (not to mention ideological) differences are amplified through thousands of years of historical tensions.</p>
<p>2) China is going through an interesting population growth cycle. Because of the "one child" policy put in place by Beijing, China has an increasingly older and older general population. There are too many old people and not enough young people in China to give it a viable chance of being the world's premier superpower anytime soon.</p>
<p>3) China is playing games with its money and devaluing its own currency. This cherade can only last so long.</p>
<p>4) India is growing much faster than China. By 2050 the world's biggest city will be Mumbai, India. By that time, India will also have more people than China. The Chinese monopoly on population is almost finished.</p>
<p>5) The Chinese government is shooting themselves in the foot. By playing all of the dumb games mentioned above and more, they have harmed their own country in a major way. China cannot compete on a global scale with all of these restrictive government policies in place.</p>
<p>6) More and more people in India are learning English at a much faster rate than people in China are. That's why so much American outsourcing is heading to India and not China. Sure, China gets it's fair share, but India is getting more.</p>
<p>I'm out of time, but I have many more reasons why India, and not China, will be the next economic superpower.</p>
<p>I'll post them later.</p>
<p>Classic, I like your insightful points about India and China. they seem well though out.</p>
<p>I don't really get why people feel so threatened by the Asian countries. Yes, the future for many of them looks promising and I am not an internationalist by any means, but why attack them? It's like if, say, Patel and I were in the same class and working on a project. I hear Patel is working very hard on his project and it might even be better than mine. The stupid thing to do would be run around and defame him, saying how stupid his studying is and how I'm better blahblahblah. </p>
<p>Wouldn't the smart thing to do be step up my game? India/China and America are going to start competing soon and we don't change, we'll lose. America has existed for too long in a smug, unshakeable position and the top world power. It won't last if we keep on doing the same thing. </p>
<p>"Stupidity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results". Maybe we need to take a leaf out of their books and realize that something about our educational system may not be as good as it should. Maybe we need better math education or a more intense science curriculum. Rising to their level rather than trying to verbally berate them down to ours. </p>
<p>Just a suggestion.</p>
<p>Just my 2 cents..</p>
<p>The trailer was just what I expected. Portraying two American students as lazy, unmotivated, and immature while showing the indian and chinese students as hard working, smart, and mature. Propaganda at its best. I don't know what the filmmaker is proposing, but if he thinks the American education system is ever going to change into the horror that is the Indian and Chinese education system, he is wrong. I am not saying our education system is perfect, its far from it.. but how are those systems any better.</p>
<p>These kids spend almost every waking hour studying or attending classes. To end up with what.. a well paying job, a nice house, money?.. I hate to use this quote but "Money can't buy happiness". When these people look back on their childhoods and realize that they spend all that time with textbooks just so they could make a few extra bucks.. was it really worth it?</p>
<p>People only live once.. the people from china and india look like they need to learn to relax.. to joke around with friends, lay back, dare i say even party a little.. </p>
<p>I have been accepted into what i consider a great school.. its not hyps but its a place where I feel I will get a great education. However, when I look back on my highschool years I have the privlage of remembering the good times, not endless hours of studying.</p>
<p>If America isn't a superpower in 50 years, who cares.. apparently only these bussiness capatalist venture merchants who needs to omg be the best in the world and make the most money.. I have traveled to many places.. In Italy, Spain, and France the kids and teens seem to be very happy, infact it looks like most of western/southern europeans are generally content with their lives.. they don't worry about being number one or making the most money... they seem to enjoy life... The people in india are different..I didnt get the sense they were enjoying their childhood.</p>
<p>I'm sorry if these comments had some generalizations.. but this is the impression I was getting.</p>
<p>I don't get why America cares that its not going to be #1 anymore, if the people of india and china are willing to sacrifice everything else in order to get a better job, make a good salary, etc.. let them do it.. </p>
<p>I just hope America will realize that being #1 in everything isnt always neccessary, and the means that these people are using to get to number one might not be worth it (for the individual).</p>
<p>I agree, America is always going to be the big boy IMO. </p>
<p>If anyone even gets close to their power, they'll just pull an Iraq on that country and claim there are WMD's on them.</p>
<p>Like the power above said, you only have one life to live, so you should spend it being the happiest you can be without regrets.</p>
<p>And I love how they pick some upper class Indian and Chinese students. I've been to India, and wow, many places there have some of the poorest conditions I've ever seen.</p>
<p>They need to get all that straight before they can even contemplate becoming superpowers. America has a lower class too, but America's lower class is like heaven compared to that.</p>