My lazy American students
boston.com
boston.com
Contestants were dropping like flies. Here's what they couldn't answer: (1) What is H20? (answer given, with a quizzical tone, "Blackjack? 21?"), (2) Who is the current Vice President? and (3) In what state is New Orleans located?
The winner had to answer a final question. It was "Who was the second President of the United States?" She couldn't answer it.
The owner of the shop is a recent (last 10 years) immigrant from a former Soviet Block country (can't remember which one). He says laughing, "God bless American education." (Full disclosure: I am a high school teacher. I just bite my tongue.)
The punch line: all three win prizes. Don't believe me? This is why I love the internet in 2009. I have the video: http://ellen.warnerbros.com/videos/?autoplay=false&media...
What does all this prove? Nothing. Just like that editorial. The problem with that article, like most of the articles of that genre, is that it's entirely anecdotal. (The author cites some statistics about missing basic knowledge, but it's a red herring. Basic knowledge is irrelevant to her argument which has to do with effort and work ethic.)
I've come to believe that this is just one of those things. Teachers complain about their students - a lot. Imagine that. No newspaper with a brain on their staff should accept an editorial (on this topic) from a teacher immediately after the end of term - ever.
And you never know why a student chooses a college until you ask. They might be offering something in their major. They may know an alumni who can get them a spot (with the proper grades of course), or they might offer more scholarship money. If you're family income is $200 a month are you really going to turn down a free education?
Or at least, we have no reason to think that "business students are lazier than other students" tracks or causes the difference between Americans and others that the author focuses on.
From personal experience i've found the hardest working students to be those needing to get into professional school (law or medicine) as well as low-income/disadvantaged students who couldn't afford the $50k tuition/year to attend a private college.
Consequently, you could end up with a student body of pretty highly qualified foreign students but American students that didn't make the cut at more desirable colleges in the US. (Again, there are plenty of reasons why great students choose colleges that are not high on the prestige list, but this effect doesn't need to be large to be real.)
For some reason I have met a number of Japanese students that spent 4 years at schools I had never heard of (like X+State+University+Branch Campus in a tiny town). And they usually were very good students who went on to good grad programs, employment, etc.
The point being that the quality/reputation of the school will not be proportional in the same way to the quality of the domestic students versus the quality of foreign students.
A final anecdote, when I was at a university in Germany, I saw a cheesy poster advertising a scholarship to study in the UK, sort of "Apply Now! Come to England!". The scholarship: The Rhodes. I asked a few Germans and none of them had heard of the Rhodes Scholarship, which is probably the most prestigious scholarship in the English speaking world.
The bottom-barrel students never end up in American colleges, after all.
The chief difference is cultural - in Asia intellectualism is celebrated and demanded. Parents don't push their kids to football, they push them to academic achievement. Not being able to make it into college isn't worn as a badge of honor, it's downright shameful. I have personally known people who've shipped their kids away from home to some backwater third-rate academy, just so they can hide the fact that the kid couldn't get into any school locally.
Beyond parental pressure, peer pressure also largely pushes people to academic achievement. Having high marks won't get you beat up - in fact it commands respect (within reason). Having poor marks likewise isn't cool like it is here, but is similarly embarrassing.
Keep in mind though, that this has some consequences that academics who opine about the lack of American work ethic consistently fail to mention:
- Appreciation and participation in the arts, both as a college study, and as extracurriculars, is ridiculously low. People who study the humanities are looked down upon, I even know one guy who got disowned for it.
- Social integration takes a backseat, often to disastrous results later. In Taiwan is it not irregular for a middle school child (age 12 or so) to be at some form of school for 14 hours a day. There's literally only spare time to eat and sleep (and sometimes not even). Socialization is minimal, and add this onto the culture of living with your parents well into your 20s, it produces some seriously socially inept people.
Japan is already dealing with these consequences - look up "hikkikomori" if you're interested.
The introduction of AP and other advanced classes was a godsend for intelligent kids being able to be reaffirmed by their peers. But a lot of kids don't really want to be in school, and like to pick on kids who do. (Which was my experience as one of the "smart kids" at a private school in Charleston, South Carolina.)
It take a certain to 'laziness' to solve a problem elegantly rather than through grinding effort.
This kind of laziness, the kind of laziness that great programmers laud, can require a bit of effort. It's the kind of effort mathematicians go through when they look at problem for five minutes before saying "it's trivial".
The America that built Silicone Valley sometimes had this right balance between effort and "laziness". Present America certainly seems to have taken a wrong turn.
If anything, its an appreciation for elegance.
But maybe its just laziness as you say. If a solution looks like a grind, I will spend just as much time trying to find an elegant solution (probably more) because I don't want to just grind out the solution.
Yes on the social integration, though. People don't really have the time for much socializing until college.
I won't make any big judgement calls about international students based on observing my few friends. But hey, it does make me believe that international students are less aware of the consequences of things like plagiarizing. I think they are a little behind on it. For American students, we went through the "dumb phase" of plagiarizing in 6th grade when I remember 90% of my class using the same one source for an assignment forcing the teacher to give an hour long lecture on plagiarizing. She also canceled that assignment. International students, unfortunately, don't seem to have gotten that lesson before coming here. Really unfair for them -- but a win for American education(rare as that may be).
First, since when did 'two friends from India' begin reflecting the attitudes of millions of students all over the world (international), only a fraction of which end up in the US in the first place.
Second, how can you conclude that they were unaware of the consequences of plagiarizing. Maybe they were aware of the consequences, but decided to take a chance anyway.
It seems to be that you are subtly implying that the American education system inculcates some sense of ethics (discouraging things like plagiarism) in the students, which for some inexplicable reason the education system of these international students doesn't. That IMHO is bigoted.
It seems to be that you are subtly implying that the American education system inculcates some sense of ethics (discouraging things like plagiarism) in the students, which for some inexplicable reason the education system of these international students doesn't.
Exactly. The same could be argued about the original author's suggestion that the American education system in-builds laziness while the international system of millions of students does not.
In reality, I wouldn't call it ethics--far from that! American students don't plagiarize (as much) because they know they will get caught and face insane consequences. Indian students(my friends) don't know the perceived seriousness of it so they fail a class they had a 96 in because they plagiarized the final paper. I really pity my friend more than blame him.
Btw, my bias/generalizations are quickly repudiated and doesn't get published in a widely distributed paper for good reasons. The original author gets to make a huge splash. That's the problem.
Also, I split my K-12 education between India and U.S so I have experienced both sides of the education system.
Some cultures, India, China, perhaps others, currently place immense value on education. This brings with it immense pressure. While that can lead to a good work ethic, perhaps the immense pressure can also lead to a higher likelihood of cheating. It's not that these students underestimate the risk of getting caught, but more that they may be more afraid of the reaction of their family or peers back home if they fail.
Getting good grades is not exclusively a result of hard work. Often it can be genuinely challenging. For some international students, failing can mean a loss of scholar ship and thus having to leave back home. For students in China, for example, this may mean a loss of freedom, and certainly a big loss of social rank back home.
North American students studying here may occasionally have a lot of pressure from home, but they never risk being denied citizenship, or being relegated to low paying jobs for the rest of their life with no chance of improving.
In some graduate programs, this fact is occasionally taken advantage of by unethical professors, who can get away with treating their international students poorly.
I had a professor from France this semester. He went on a tirade about how we should cover our papers and not cheat. The whole class(all Americans) seemed pretty lost and could not relate to his lecture on cheating. I see a similar response when mainly foreign professors ask students to switch seats and spread around the room on exam days.
My French professor said when he went to college in the US, he had moments where the professor left the class and my professor(then a student) would look around him hoping folks would "cooperate"(in funny French accent). I'm not sure how much of that was said as a joke but I think the sentiment has at least some truth to it.
I can definitely tell you that while I was in India and my initial few years in the US, I was under immense pressure to perform. That is also when I would be most inclined to do not-so-ethical things. Then over time the pressure goes away and the incentive to cheat does not seem greater than just doing the work or accepting a poor grade.
If you're talking about asking for an extension 10 minutes before the deadline (or 10 minutes after), that's a whole different kettle of fish.
Perhaps this has more to do with the role college plays in American society. I believe that college has become more of a high school extension than anything, and so maybe it is wrong to blame students who treat it as such. I doubt they would be slacking off in grad school (but I can't be sure!)
Given that deadlines in education are more or less entirely arbitrary, I don't see the harm in extending them within reason, and providing students with the opportunity to successfully complete their tasks.
As for tardiness -- it happens. If someone consistently fails to meet our estimates, but delivers a sufficient degree of value within a reasonable amount of time, then I'll simply learn to incorporate their individual turn-around time in my estimates.
Hard deadlines are generally driven by what are ultimately financial/market concerns. I sweat the deadlines when a trade show is approaching, and I sweat the budget when we see schedule slippage on an release, but most of the time I'm happy as long as everyone is productive, progress is being made, and the budget looks OK.
...
> Success is all about time management, and in a globalizing economy, Americans’ inability to stay focused and work hard could prove to be a serious problem.
<sigh>
(that said, at the "American high school" I went to there were also a large number of Indian, Taiwanese and Korean kids and, like the article suggests, they made it a matter of principle to never receive less than an A+ in any course they took - although, that said, they rarely enrolled in courses where their chances of receiving such grades were in peril: very few Taiwanese and Koreans took history or English literature, for example)
I get weird looks when I tell classmates I'm aiming for a 9 or a 10 (almost equivalent to an A or A+ in US universities)
For instance one semester I was lab partners in an electronics lab with a Chinese student. Initially he did good work but as the semester continued he did less and less, until the second to last lab where he did none at all. Since I worked straight through the night on the lab, I let the lab director know that my partner had done very little work on the lab, he spoke to my partner and my partner put in more effort on the final lab.
I give this anecdote merely to point out that not every Chinese student is perfect, in the same way that not every American student is lazy. In my opinion there are many other factors at play other than cultural background of the student, perhaps the most important being the subject. I believe my partner did not engage in the labs because he was not that interested in the subject but rather felt pressured to pursue it by his engineering parents.
In the same way many students attend college in America but do not have concrete goals or ambitions on what they want to study. They are pressured by all kinds of things to go to college right away, and many do not realize until the end of their time as an undergraduate what they truly want to study.
Therefore can we please stop making generalizations about student performance based on these types of things and instead of saying "you must be a good student you are X" look at the reason why good students are good students.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
As an American student, I'd have to say I'm pretty pleased with the way things are.
'Hard worker' is an offensive term.
It's a cultural problem.
As an aside, this concept of Asian Intellectualism to me has always sounded hollow. My experience has been that Asian students especially Indian students tend to favour learning-by-rote over critical thinking which requires large amounts of time spent memorising things versus understanding them. The school and university exams in India tend to emphasise that as well.
Hint to her, she's part of the problem.
Then I thought I'd recast the situation into a more familiar setting. Apologies to OP. Make sure you read her version first. Does my version seem any stranger to you?
It was the kind of pitch I hate.
"I’ll do better," my software vendor told me, leaning forward in his chair. "I know I’ve gotten behind this phase, but I’m going to turn things around. Would it be OK if I finished all your uncompleted requirements by Monday?"
I sat silent for a moment. "Yes. But it’s important that you catch up completely this weekend, so that you’re not just perpetually behind."
A few weeks later, I would conduct a nearly identical conversation with two other vendors. And, again, there would be no tangible result: No make-up software. No change in effort. No improvement in time management.
By the time entrepreneurs are in the marketplace, habits can be tough to change. If you’re used to playing video games like "Modern Warfare" or "Halo" all night, how do you fit in four hours of customer revisions? Or rest up for a demo?
Building start-ups in this market, especially one with a large international population, has given me a stark - and unwelcome - illustration of how Americans’ work ethic often pales in comparison with their peers from overseas.
My failing entrepreneurs this semester are almost exclusively American, while my entrepreneurs from India, China, and Latin America have - despite language barriers - generally written solid software, excelled on prototypes, and become valuable business partners.
One woman from Shanghai became a fixture at Super Happy Dev House, embraced our coworking center, and incessantly e-mailed me questions about her evolving website. Her javascript is still mediocre: she frequently puts ";" everywhere (as in "x = y;y = z;z = a;") and confuses global variables with local variables. But that didn’t stop her from doing rewrite after rewrite, tirelessly trying to improve both syntax and performance.
Chinese entrepreneurs have consistently impressed me with their work ethic, though I have seen similar habits in entrepreneurs from India, Thailand, Brazil, and Venezuela. Often, they’ve done little server-side coding in their home companies, and they frequently struggle to understand my specifications. But their respect for customers - and for business itself - is palpable. The entrepreneurs listen intently to everything I say, whether on-line or at code reviews, and try to engage in the process.
Too many 18-year-old American entrepreneurs, meanwhile, text one another under their workstations (certain they are sly enough to go unnoticed), check e-mail, decline to take notes, and appear tired and disengaged.
Of course, it would be wrong to suggest that all American entrepreneurs are the same. I’ve engaged many who were hardworking, talented, and deeply impressive. They listened intently, engaged customer dialogues, and never shied away from code rewrites. At their best, American entrepreneurs marry knowledge and innovation, resulting in some astoundingly creative web apps.
But creativity without knowledge - a common phenomenon - is just not enough.
Too many American entrepreneurs simply lack the basics. In 2002, an O'Reilly survey found that most 18- to 24-year-olds could not find regular expressions, data base access, or sorting algorithms in a PDF document, ranking them behind counterparts in Sweden, Great Britain, Canada, Italy, Japan, France, and Germany. And in 2007 the American Institutes for Research reported that eighth graders in even our best-performing states - like Massachusetts - scored below peers in Singapore, South Korea, and Japan, while entrepreneurs in our worst-performing states - like Mississippi - were on par with eighth graders in Slovakia, Romania, and Russia.
We’ve got a knowledge gap, spurred by a work-ethic gap.
Which brings me to another code-challenged entrepreneur, who once sprinted across the office to talk to me.
"I’m really sorry I missed your targets," he said. "Do you have time to talk?"
"I have a meeting in a couple of minutes," I said. "But you can walk with me."
"OK," he said. "I really enjoy your challenge, and I think I can do better. How can I improve my site?"
I looked at him sideways. "Well, you might start with writing some code."
"Yeah," he grinned, looking at his shoes. "Sorry about that. There’s always stuff going on in my office late in the day. I have to learn to be better about time management."
Of course, he had it exactly right. Success is all about time management, and in a globalizing economy, Americans’ inability to stay focused and work hard could prove to be a serious problem.
Nowhere, sadly, is this clearer than in the marketplace.