Job Discussion Forums

[Wolf]

On another thread someone wrote:

[Roger]

BUt in Asian societies, octogenarians are the most respected people, no matter how senile some of them are! PErsonality cult is deeply ingrained.
See how they allowed doddering Deng to vegetate until 1997, fearful the leadership question would put the wrong person on the driver's seat of the nation! Jiang was personally groomed by Deng, and when he died a deity was gone that no one could challenge anymore.
What's left for the masses to do?
To cry (over the death of the old man, yes, people aged 40 would tell me they cried on that fateful morning when his death was announced officially).

[Capergirl]

I do find my Arabic students (from the UAE) to be exceedingly immature by Western standards. They have been so sheltered during their upbringing that they need someone to constantly tell them what to do and how to do it. They wander around like little lost puppies a lot of the time and seem a bit overwhelmed by some of the local culture (they live in residence with Coast Guard students who like to drink and party all weekend long). These students--now 18 and 19--are accustomed to servants waiting on them, drivers chauffering them, and their parents making decisions for them. They are at a complete loss as to how to make decisions for themselves, even minor ones, now that they are living in Canada. They call their parents almost every evening and they (still) ask their fathers' permission to do things--they once even cancelled a trip to a nearby city because one student's father told him he was not "allowed" to go.

[selmo]

This is an interesting topic. In Thailand the idea of a novel is only about 60 years old. You commonly see Thais reading comics anything more serious they do not like. The Thai population do not want to think about serious things (also the Thai military definitely don't want them to). It has been found through studies that countries with a colder climate read a lot more coz they enjoy those long winter nights tucked up with a book . Where as hotter climates are happy to go pottering about or lying in the shade chatting. I have found to my surprise here in China many of the people I have met have read a lot of western classics. I know girls in my grade 7 who have read Shakespear and Russian classics. China has had literature a very long time. Korea has books that are often in their millionth print where as Thailand is lucky to reach 100 000. Countries that have had military regimes lack a lot of intellectuals.
As far as rebellion goes forget it . I have never been to Japan but I found ithat Thailand was were they go if they want to have dread locks and piercings for a month. I actively educate the Chinese children to expand their minds not their wallets but it is difficult. The fact that Confucious was accepted and held in great esteem above Lao Tze says it all. Education is important to the Chineses but not to be used to question things.
Us westerners are primed on individuality the eastern philosophy is the society. I know students who when they have produced a good piece of work do not want to be put in the spotlight. I think it is kinda nice that they want all of their class to do well together rather than our western dog eat dog mentality . Thats the Yin and yang of it over here

[bnix]

I agree with Capergirl.Of course,not ALL Arabic students are immature.But I can remember some of my Arabic "students" in Saudi.They were"military cadets".Many of them had full beards,families etc. But....when they broke a pencil 'Oh!Oh!My teacher! The pencil!"
They also delighted in crawling out the windows and trying to "escape".We had to watch them carefully during firedrills,beacuse some would try to "go over the wall" during the drill...and of course, in Saudi that would be "the teacher's fault".

Occasionally,some of them also decided to liven up the classroom walls a little by "decorating" them with crayons....

[Steiner]

A sixteen or seventeen year girl here in our school in China told us that one of the hardest things about being at boarding school is not knowing what to wear. Since her mother isn't here, she doesn't know whether to dress for warm or cold weather in the mornings. I swear I am not making this up.

[johnslat]

I suspect that the more " repressive " a society is, the more likely it is that its youth will be " immature ", in the sense that they usually have so little training/background in thinking for themselves. From my experience here, that certainly seems to be the case. When the learning process in the schools is based so heavily on rote memory, with, from what I can see, little or no opportunity to develop independent/critical thought, then what I'd call " immaturity " seems to be the inevitable result.
Regards,
John

[misterkodak]

I agree with Johnslat. The more opressive and controlling a society is, the less people (in general, not just "youts" .. sorry cousin vinny!) will think for themselves. I see this alot here in Turkey. The situation here is polarized. People are either filthy rich or dirt poor. There isn't much of a middle class. I work in a private school and all of my customers (I say "customers" and not students because that's how the management sees them) pretty much do what they want. Mommy and Daddy shell out the bucks for them to come here, therefore it's perfectly ok for them to sleep in class,swear at the teacher, cheat on tests, slag off whatever work is given to them,and do as they please. As a result of this mentality, more teachers are recipients of discipline from the management than students. It's virtually impossible to give a failing student the grade they deserve. "They may not come back next year". (We can hope ... can't we?) You can't fail them and they know it. I'll spare you the horror stories.
From my experiences, the younger generation seems to want everything at once regardless of how (or where) they get it or the future consequences involved. I believe this mentality comes from their home lives and the media in general. For some reason, the "rich " here are people who have newly come into money and as the old adages say "You can take the man out of the village but you can't take the village out of the man" and "Who dies with the most toys wins!" In my Second Grade class last semester, I had 2 students bring their own mobile phones to school. (Who is a 7 year old going to call?!) If one student shows up with a vcd player, it's guaranteed that another student will show up with a vcd player with sorround sound the next day. The majority of my highschool students all dream of going to America and "making it big", yet they seem ambivalent about how to go about it. In my 11th Grade class, we had a discussion about this. They all claimed that they want to go to America because it's "culturally and economically better" (Their ideas, not mine!!), yet they balked when I asked them if they would be willing to do a hitch in the US military, or work for help organizations like the Peace Corps in order to give something back to the "land of their dreams". None of them could tell me anything concrete about US History or Politics except about Britney Spears, Eminem, Michael Jackson, Gulf War II and how Turkey got screwed out of alot of money.
I do notice that the girls in my classes seem more down to earth and mature than the boys. Maybe this is just the "girls mature faster than boys" thing..or maybe it's just the dominant Turkish male mentality. I've had highschool male students tell me unashamedly that they get their grandma/mother/sister to clean their room,cook for them and prepare their materials for school. To be as macho as some of them are, you would think that they wouldn't be so afraid of their military service.. but then again.. mommy can't go with them.
I'm clueless as to how this generation in the US and other countries stack up to their counterparts here. I haven't been back to the US for awhile, but I can't see that they would be far off.

[isabel]

I teach at a university in Korea, and the students are really very young. Tonight I gave prizes for perfect attendance for the semester- Harry Potter pens. You would have thought they were Oscars. Part of it is they really do appreciate the smallest little gifts, and they love Harry Potter. But they love praise and praise each other lavishly. When a student who generally struggles speaks up well, the rest of the class erupts in applause.

At the beginning of the semester one of the students came to me quite distraught. We teach in a immersion dormatory program, and the students have to stay in the dorm all week and can go home on the weekends. This student was a senior, and told me, tearfully, that she didn't like having to live in the dorm. I assumed that she was just too old to be living in a dorm with the freshmen and sophmores. No, the problem was that she had never, in here life, slept away from her parents!

I love my students. They are delightful. They giggle and walk around arm in arm and holding hands- and thats the guys (the girls too.) But boy are they young!

[svrart]

As an Asian Indian who has lived in the US for the past 15 years, i have found American youth to be extremely immature. Their social and educational skills are next to zero. Mostly of them are interested in being cool and are lost in their own worlds.

Sridhar

[bnix]

Syvart makes a pretty big blanket statement.The US is a big country.Sure,some of the kids are more interested in being cool than studying(this also happens in other countries,too).I wonder if he is basing his statement just on Florida or if he has traveled widely in the US.His statement sounds pretty ehtnocentric to me.

[johnslat]

Dear svrart,
I suspect many of the youth of most (all? ) countries share the qualities you mentioned. How would you describe the youth of India, for example?
But there ARE some other factors involved. Youth that are growing up in a more affluent society are probably more " spoiled ", more self-indulgent, whereas those in poorer societies, where they have to scramble just to eat, likely get worldly-wise pretty darn fast ( either that, or they don't last long ). In India, I suspect you have both groups ( although probably more proportionally, of the latter than the States does ) - the middle-class and well-off " cool " followers of Bollywood and the " where's my next meal coming from " street kids. Those last may well be " more mature ", but I wonder if the price they're paying for that maturity isn't too high.
Regards,
John

[Eugene]

It's important to be aware that definitions of "maturity" differ from culture to culture. For example, in Japan anyone who can't control the expression of emotions or who freely expresses an opinion that causes disharmony in the group is considered childish and immature. The western tendency to tell the truth all the time no matter what is considered immature. So when we think someone is being immature, it may be that we're looking through a different lens.

Eugene

[Ann]

Exactly Eugene! The term "maturity is relative." Most of my students tell me that American kids are so immature (especially through their revealing compositions).
American kids tell me that Asian/Latino students are so immature.

[naturegirl321]

I agree, maturity is related to culture. Different cultures have different standards as to what is mature or not. They are innocent in some ways, but all-knowing in others.

EX. China's kids study so much, but don't have relationships, with the opposite sex really until they are in Uni.

But in some Western countries it's the opposite and they also know a lot about drugs and violence.