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| Thread: Americans and ignorance... |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 · «PREV |
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dimis
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posted December 06, 2009 11:58 PM |
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@ Corribus,
I think you miss my point, and I will explain in a minute. So, "good" implicitly means better than something else. To be honest I didn't have sources other than my experience, but searching with google about the statistics of the international students in USA, the following comes up: here, which I briefly skimmed. Moreover, on top there is another link with 2009 statistics; here; I also skimmed through that one. Let's look on the most recent one (second link), although I believe the statistics shouldn't have changed a lot through recent years. So, in 2008/09, there were about 670,000 international students. Under the section "Highlights from Open Doors 2009" we can see a breakdown among the top participating countries. Let's stay on the top 20, because in 2004/5 we have only 20 listed. If you forget Japan, Canada, Germany, United Kingdom, and France, which are classified as "developed", the rest of the countries are usually classified as "developing". If you sum those numbers for the first 20 (with the exceptions above), you exceed half of the amount of international students - if I did it correctly it is around 415,000. Bottom line, just by a majority vote among the international students, your claim probably follows trivially. But is this the sort of comparison that you want for your country ? I don't think so; we are talking about the most powerful country on the planet.
But in any case, I tend to agree with you, that for the given syllabus, the work that is done in universities seems to be of good level. My minor objection is on some low-level maths courses (this is where I have experience), where you see students endlessly repeating the same thing until they learn it by heart, and essentially, they never learn the "why"; all they want to achieve is find the right sequence of keystrokes in their calculators that gives the right answer. But again, this is not my main objection. However, my primary objection is on the curriculum, which probably means I am against the curriculum up until someone finishes high-school.
@ Death,
Before you think you have the right impression about the way I form my conclusions, check if you have the slightest personal experience about what you are talking about.
@ Doomforge,
I don't have a personal experience about Poland, and I am clueless about the curriculum as well. So, I can not say much; in fact I will say nothing until you give me something substantial.
Anyway, speaking of international students, let's come for a moment to the broader class of immigrants in USA. I am one of them, and I have met a whole lot more around here and if you forget the students, the vast majority is essentially economic refugees. But almost all the people (immigrants) I have met have a fairly serene life. And I think we can now see one of the good things in this country; if you do your job, you will get paid (which is unfortunately not necessarily true everywhere). At least this seems to be the case. Besides, this is why they stay here. Many of them have tried to go back after some years in US, they failed (read: went bankrupt), and then came back here to start once more, and most of them made it again! The reason that I mention immigrants is twofold:
- One of the arguments in the thread is, "we (people in US) don't have to learn about the rest of the world, the rest of the world comes to us".
Well, yes ... they come. However, it is not mentioned, that most of these people typically couldn't make it in their country, and they seek their future in another country. And what I am trying to say here, is that the impression that is formed about the countries from where these guys come from is somehow prejudiced, and as you can guess they promote not a very good picture of their country. This is the easiest and most convenient way of contrasting their experience in US and in their home country; they feel better this way as humans. For example, if you talk to Greek immigrants, most of them have such a strange perception of reality for Greece that it is even hilarious to talk about; my belief is that this more or less holds for the others as well. After World War I and II (and in between), Europe was bleeding, so, many people might have found it easier to just leave and start from scratch in US. But as the years go by, the motives become more questionable because it is kind of silly to believe that Europe lacks somehow in infrastructure. Anyway.
- The other reason was briefly mentioned above; if you are willing to work in USA, you will find a job (or create your own business) that will typically give you more than if you did that in another country.
So, if you look at the reasons about crime earlier, they sort of point that there is something wrong with the system (including education here). It is easy for some people to "hide" in the suburbs because they are well off, but there will still be people in the buses and in the trains who stoop over their bags and have conversations with the bags. Problems hidden, are not problems resolved; they are just hidden.
And you might be wondering why I care about these things ? It is not my country afterall, right ? Well, yes, but being the most powerful country, USA gives the pace to many other countries (if not all). If Dow Jones or Nasdaq decide to dive one day, then the next calendar day you feel a "slap" from East to West. In other instances, governments want to follow "americanized" policies for a better society. How do you define "better" of course is another issue. Not everything is healthy. For example, there are all those labels that you can see on products or boxes of products that you buy - examples - however, although they are funny, I think they indicate a not so healthy society. And of course all of them have a reason; someone in the past won a case with an appropriate lawsuit. And guess what ? This is not what people in other countries want.
I know. It is difficult to be criticized and be the center of attention all of the time, but whether we like it or not, USA is the most powerful country in the world. So criticism will be there for sure. If Lesotho was in place of US, then people would look critically at Lesotho. In general you look at the leaders because they are doing something right. But of course when that criticism comes into play, I think the people in US once more just hide behind excuses of the form "you are jealous", or something similar. Well, are they ?
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TheDeath
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posted December 07, 2009 12:22 AM |
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Quote:
My minor objection is on some low-level maths courses (this is where I have experience), where you see students endlessly repeating the same thing until they learn it by heart, and essentially, they never learn the "why"; all they want to achieve is find the right sequence of keystrokes in their calculators that gives the right answer.
You think that's different here, or in other parts of the world? It's always going to be like that. That's how some people are, not the country necessarily.
Quote:
@ Death,
Before you think you have the right impression about the way I form my conclusions, check if you have the slightest personal experience about what you are talking about.
I didn't say I have the right impression how you form your conclusions, I said you may be a bit too over-generalizing -- and think that only in the US, and because it's the US (not just the people) that it happens. Not so.
But of course I have no experience with the US, I only posted because I am in an European country and you used it as comparison to the US education system. 
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dimis
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posted December 07, 2009 12:28 AM |
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Edited by dimis at 00:31, 07 Dec 2009.
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Quote:
Quote:
My minor objection is on some low-level maths courses (this is where I have experience), where you see students endlessly repeating the same thing until they learn it by heart, and essentially, they never learn the "why"; all they want to achieve is find the right sequence of keystrokes in their calculators that gives the right answer.
You think that's different here, or in other parts of the world? It's always going to be like that. That's how some people are, not the country necessarily.
I knew that this part would be misinterpreted again, but I couldn't figure out a way of writing it more compact. So,
- I do not object at all for the students who want to do whatever is necessary to just pass the course because they don't care about the subject.
- My minor objection is on the method that is followed for learning (read many repetitions of the same concept as if you are 10 years old).
- And also partially that they have to learn how to use a calculator instead of trying to understand the method. But of course when they say that they are "soooo lost" with what they are taught in class, we keep our ears shut ...
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TheDeath
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posted December 07, 2009 12:38 AM |
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Except for the calculator part, it's the same here. 
The calculator part seems pretty practical though. Doing computations by hand won't improve your algebraic skill at all, arithmetic is done by calculators these days anyway (and even algebra, but you still have to know its purpose).
Or by "calculator" you mean a computer algebra system?
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dimis
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posted December 07, 2009 12:55 AM |
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Calculator. Example.
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TheDeath
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posted December 07, 2009 01:02 AM |
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Quote:
Calculator. Example.
oh right those are closer to CAS than a normal calculator -- we call them "scientific calculators".
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