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royjones
Joined: 26 Mar 2004
Location: post count: 512
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 Posted: Fri May 21, 2004 4:02 am Post subject: |
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| very true.. |
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kiwiboy_nz_99
Joined: 05 Jul 2003
Location: ...Enlightenment...
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| Posted: Fri May 21, 2004 4:41 am Post subject: |
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| If by "well ahead" you mean 2 points, you go and be proud! |
Given that the scores were very tightly grouped, that's a whole lot of places on the world ranking scale. Just so we're clear on that.
Last edited by kiwiboy_nz_99 on Fri May 21, 2004 7:28 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Not Angry
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Fri May 21, 2004 5:21 am Post subject: |
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| Koreans spend way more time in school than we do.. maybe it is about equal in some elementary schools but in high school they definetely are there longer. But they do little work while they are there. Not in my classes or in the others that I have seen. But come midterms or finals and they study like mad. The rest of the time they seem to be goofing around a lot. Many of my students see little value in their public school education, so they don't take it to seriously most of the time. Plus grades are somewhat ridiculous here. Finals come a few weeks before the term ends so if a parent is unhappy there is plenty of time for it to be changed. I have to have my final grades in by the third week of June so that if parents are unhappy they can be changed. Also, for my final test I was told where the students scores should be, so as not to give anyone to low a score. |
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Zed
Joined: 20 Jan 2003
Location: Shakedown Street
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| Posted: Fri May 21, 2004 7:18 am Post subject: |
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| kiwiboy_nz_99 wrote: |
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| the idea of a superior education being purported is a myth, if not a joke. Any thoughts |
Koreans have the second highest average IQ in the world behind Hong Kong, and it's a western measurement tool. So they must be doing something right. I don't think it's good for the student as a whole person though. |
Strange all that intelligence and such little common sense. |
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jajdude
Joined: 18 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Fri May 21, 2004 8:13 am Post subject: |
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| Perhaps they spend a lot of time in classrooms, but how much is time well spent versus time, well, spent? |
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Dan
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Sunny Glendale, CA
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| Posted: Fri May 21, 2004 8:17 am Post subject: |
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| stopwatch wrote: |
I suspect 'most Koreans are good at math' (or, if you prefer, 'are better at math than their peers in other countries') is a load of [bowdlerize]dog-hockey[/bowdlerize]
Where's the evidence, outside of a selected set of standardized tests? It sure ain't evident elsewhere. High-quality engineering? Superior accounting practices? I think not.
Basic numeracy on the part of the person-in-the-street? Forget it. Your average shop clerk can barely make change.
The tests themselves pose another problem: I am suspicious of any test results coming out of Korea, unless the tests are administered in a highly controlled environment: between teachers feeding students answers and people using wireless radios to cheat on entrance exams and TOEFL, who could possibly believe any Korean test result? |
My major in college was computer science. That's a lot of calculus and physics classes, motion in 3d space, etc etc. There were quite a few Chinese and Korean students in my classes and believe you me they just knew that stuff like the palm of their hands. |
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Dan
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Sunny Glendale, CA
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| Posted: Fri May 21, 2004 9:22 am Post subject: |
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| stopwatch wrote: |
| Dan wrote: |
| There were quite a few Chinese and Korean students in my classes and believe you me they just knew that stuff like the palm of their hands. |
1. apocryphal story
2. invalid sample |
What level math did you take in college? Do you have any exposure to mathematic abilitiesl of Asian students? Probably less than me I imagine. |
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jajdude
Joined: 18 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Fri May 21, 2004 10:09 am Post subject: |
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I have noticed that too Dan. Asian students (at least in Korea) are probably a year or even two ahead when they finish high school, when it comes to math at least. Well, some really good students in my high school (including me  brag) did a little "pre-calculus" in the senior grade. But from what I gather, the kids here all do calculus in high school equal to what we only saw in first year university (and which freaked out a lot of "Mathophobes") . Actually a lot of people avoided math as much as possible and didn't do any in Uni. |
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Dan
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Sunny Glendale, CA
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| Posted: Fri May 21, 2004 10:20 am Post subject: |
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| jajdude wrote: |
| I have noticed that too Dan. Asian students (at least in Korea) are probably a year or even two ahead when they finish high school, when it comes to math at least. Well, some really good students in my high school (including me brag) did a little "pre-calculus" in the senior grade. But from what I gather, the kids here all do calculus in high school equal to what we only saw in first year university (and which freaked out a lot of "Mathophobes") . Actually a lot of people avoided math as much as possible and didn't do any in Uni. |
Absolutely, and if you are an Asian international student and do less than 700 on your SAT math, you're like the village idiot. |
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Zed
Joined: 20 Jan 2003
Location: Shakedown Street
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| Posted: Fri May 21, 2004 10:28 am Post subject: |
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| I did a year each of calculus, algebra and trig in high school. Are these not offered in NF? |
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jajdude
Joined: 18 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Fri May 21, 2004 10:40 am Post subject: |
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Well way back in 1987 Calculus was not a part of the high school math curriculum. The others were. Algebra and trig started in grade 9 or 10. I'm not sure Calculus is a normal part of high school now. maybe? In most places?
But when I revisited my old high school in 1994 they were a bit more advanced. Still not actual calculus then though. Just the preparatory stuff.
My brother is a math prof. He thinks calculus isn't even real math. So maybe the whole thing is relative. E=MC Hammered! |
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Yaya
Joined: 25 Feb 2003
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Fri May 21, 2004 2:10 pm Post subject: |
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| Americans have math anxiety. When I was in high school, many people took consumer mathematics as means of avoiding harder math. I hear it's a social thing for females to be discouraged in learning math in the US. |
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kangnamdragon
Joined: 17 Jan 2003
Location: Kangnam, Seoul, Korea
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| Posted: Fri May 21, 2004 2:16 pm Post subject: |
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| Dan wrote: |
Absolutely, and if you are an Asian international student and do less than 700 on your SAT math, you're like the village idiot. |
So those of us who are white and got over 700 on math are cheonjae? |
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matthewwoodford
Joined: 01 Oct 2003
Location: Location, location, location.
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| Posted: Sat May 22, 2004 5:07 pm Post subject: |
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| jajdude wrote: |
| Perhaps they spend a lot of time in classrooms, but how much is time well spent versus time, well, spent? |
God I hate those cute little sayings!! So condescending. So schmaltzy. However, your point is well taken. How come students spend all this time in studying and still don't know basic English? How come they lack basic study skills such as note-taking?
Koreans certainly don't conform to my image of a nation of little scholars, which is the image conveyed when you first hear statements like 'Koreans/Asians study very hard.'.
On the other hand the whole attitude to education is very different here. Given the hours and the pressure, I guess the average student here studies harder than the average westerner. Competition to do well at school is taken a lot more seriously here and parental pressure is consistently high. Many students here tell me their favourite subject is maths too, which almost everyone hates back home. And maths is both very important and a key factor in IQ tests.
So, for those reasons, I see no reason to doubt the reported IQ scores just because they're hard for western pride to swallow. For Koreans, the important thing is they are one point ahead of the Japanese. 
Whether it's innate ability or work is a tough one to prove either way. Let's see: if we could reconstruct Korea in a lab, we could put a population of westerners in one reconstruction and see how they performed, then put a control population of, say, Arabs, in yet another artificial Confucianist hermit kingdom to see how *they* performed. Then raise a whole bunch of Koreans in America to see how *they* perform - oh, wait, that's already been done in reality and, sure enough, they actually do tend to cluster round the top of the bell curve. At this point we could just decide IQs aren't very important... |
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matthewwoodford
Joined: 01 Oct 2003
Location: Location, location, location.
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| Posted: Sat May 22, 2004 5:12 pm Post subject: |
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| matthewwoodford wrote: |
| Then raise a whole bunch of Koreans in America to see how *they* perform - oh, wait, that's already been done in reality and, sure enough, they actually do tend to cluster round the top of the bell curve. At this point we could just decide IQs aren't very important... |
No wait! The reason they do well is *they are not yet totally assimilated into American society*! Once they learn to slack off or concentrate on sport or acquire a phobia for maths, their average IQ will come down to 100. |
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