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Comment by vaishaksuresh | Hacker News Reader

I agree with what you say. Kids should learn to follow rules even when they don't like them. Society cannot function if everybody does only the things they like. Schools should focus on building solid character in kids and teaching them responsibility and hard-work not coddle them and let them play all the time. Personally, I think asian kids achieve more things because their culture enforces discipline, hard-work and obedience from a young age.

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> Kids should learn to follow rules even when they don't like them.

Except when you're forced to go through 16+ years of conforming and not being able to say "no" without being labeled a problem-child. That's a long time to be in the creative and free-thinking suppression chamber, and by my estimate most minds don't ever truly recover.

> Personally, I think asian kids achieve more things...

Personally, I think asian kids are brilliant when it comes to rote-memorization and standardized testing but they totally lack in the creativity department. Just look at all of the articles, studies, etc that show that the East has a severe lack of creativity. As an example: [1]. Ill take free-thinkers over number crunchers any day.

[1] http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/13905.html

I think you've misunderstood what the author is saying. She's saying that the rules aren't helpful, even if her son is largely following them.

If we take your argument to the extreme we could make rules so stifling that NO child would be able to follow them and then it would obviously be the system that's the problem.

Here is a case where the rules are stifling enough that SOME children are having problems continually following them.

Who is to say what level of rules and restrictions is correct? Should they be broken only 0.01% of the time, or 5% of the time, or 50% of the time, or what? What is the standard that children should be held to?

I was actually in agreement with blkhp19 and not the author. If most children are able to follow the rules and still function well, then the system does not need adjustment. If a small subset of kids are having problem following the rules, then the kids need to be taught about how life is not always about the, and what they want OR create a system where they don't have to follow the rules. Making a blanket statement that the system is failing boys only based on the fact that her son does not like conforming to the system is over simplification and generalization.

I'm aware that you disagree with the author. What I'm saying is that it's not just this lady's child that's having trouble, there are many kids who don't like being cooped up in a classroom for hours a day.

There is a lot of sentiment that schools are failing kids.

https://www.google.com/search?q=schools+are+failing+boys

https://www.google.com/search?q=schools+are+failing+girls

https://www.google.com/search?q=schools+are+failing+children

Many modern parents tend to coddle their kids. With the Internet and social media, we get to hear more of their complaints. The situation is exactly how it was from years, the only difference is we hear more about it now. There is always negative sentiment about everything, that does not mean it is wrong. A lot of kids don't like milk and vegetables, but does that mean we should stop feeding them? If a small number of children have nut-allergy, does that mean we stop making food that contains nuts for everyone else? Schools have worked for ages. They may be failing some boys but most certainly not all boys.

>> I think asian kids achieve more things because their culture enforces discipline, hard-work and obedience from a young age.

What do they achieve more of? I keep hearing how the US needs to change education to be more like other countries so they can compete on tests, but why change when you're winning on innovation? Or do we attribute that to something else?

I am just going to give you one example. At least 11 out of the last 15 spelling bee champions are of asian descent[1]. I don't know about changing the education system. I actually don't agree with the author of the original article but to answer your question, the innovation that US is so proud of has major contribution from Aisans also and is not something you can attribute entirely to Americans. The reason there is so much innovation could also be due to the fact that US is a developed county with abundant resources and most asian countries are not. When you don't have to worry about pollution, population, food etc, the mind gets freed up to think about innovation and creativity.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Scripps_National_Spelli...

I used to do the spelling bee thing. I did ok, would generally make it from my school -> local -> regional, but not beyond that. That's because I was good at spelling from all my reading, but I didn't study for the bee at all.

Now, the kids who did really well at the spelling bee, they didn't have time to read. Their moms were making them spend 3 hours a night with the little spelling bee booklet, learning how to spell every possible word that could be asked, and forcing themselves into the rhythm: "'Rote'. May I have the language of origin? 'Rote'. Can you use the word in a sentence? 'Rote'. May I have the definition? 'Rote'. R-O-T-E". (Hilariously, I once watched a girl do the whole routine over the word "talons", even getting "the eagle had sharp talons" as the sentence, then spelling T-A-L-E-N-T-S. Her mom made a fuss over microphone placement and got her back into the round)

Is this a worthwhile thing to do? What useful things does this method teach? Spelling is extremely good, but like I said I'm pretty good at spelling because I read a lot. Maybe I could have been the Spelling Bee Champion if instead of reading, I'd memorized the entire word list. Then I would be extremely good at spelling "prestidigitation", that's for sure.

Spelling bee was just an example of what people achieve with persistent effort. I understand the use of the said skill is debatable. The key is that most asian families enforce rules on kids and the kids do well in their life. Asian families set higher expectations and do not pander to their kid's childish desire to play minecraft or chop wood.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/04/08...

They achieve more of all the things that schools try to teach. Math, Science, Extra-Curricullars etc. In general, skills. Skills that can only be learned when you're disciplined enough to do the work that is assigned, which I believe is what the parent is referring to.

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