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I was talking to my girlfriend about education systems between our two countries and she kept telling me about how hard Hong Kong education is and how most students don't get past the form 5 level and have to either come to America or go for a technical school in Hong Kong.
Is there really that much of a gap in education between HK and the US because it really seems like most of the Hong Kong students who are just finishing form 5 and coming to America to study aren't actually that smart (Their math is around pre-calc and science around basic chem 121 level). I know that in my high school, most students were in at least 3 AP classes by senior year and 70% were in AP Calc / AP Chem which would put them a bit ahead of what I've been seeing from the Hong Kong students.
I just wanted some insight on what the level of education form 5 was compared to the US (senior year)
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On February 22 2010 16:00 Vivid.Angel wrote:
I was talking to my girlfriend about education systems between our two countries and she kept telling me about how hard Hong Kong education is and how most students don't get past the form 5 level and have to either come to America or go for a technical school in Hong Kong.
Is there really that much of a gap in education between HK and the US because it really seems like most of the Hong Kong students who are just finishing form 5 and coming to America to study aren't actually that smart (Their math is around pre-calc and science around basic chem 121 level). I know that in my high school, most students were in at least 3 AP classes by senior year and 70% were in AP Calc / AP Chem which would put them a bit ahead of what I've been seeing from the Hong Kong students.
I just wanted some insight on what the level of education form 5 was compared to the US (senior year)
Rofl you go to some rich white school or something?
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It may not be about the content but the level of comeptition in hong kong, and asia in general. You have 1023941423589234 students taking the same test and the difference between "passing" and "failing" could come down to a single problem.
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On February 22 2010 16:05 Tenryu wrote:Show nested quote +On February 22 2010 16:00 Vivid.Angel wrote:
I was talking to my girlfriend about education systems between our two countries and she kept telling me about how hard Hong Kong education is and how most students don't get past the form 5 level and have to either come to America or go for a technical school in Hong Kong.
Is there really that much of a gap in education between HK and the US because it really seems like most of the Hong Kong students who are just finishing form 5 and coming to America to study aren't actually that smart (Their math is around pre-calc and science around basic chem 121 level). I know that in my high school, most students were in at least 3 AP classes by senior year and 70% were in AP Calc / AP Chem which would put them a bit ahead of what I've been seeing from the Hong Kong students.
I just wanted some insight on what the level of education form 5 was compared to the US (senior year) Rofl you go to some rich white school or something?
QFT
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Mystlord
United States10264 Posts
You overestimate the American education system or haven't experienced it for yourselves.
Edit: Actually, I don't want to derail the thread so I'll just remove that...
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On February 22 2010 16:05 Tenryu wrote:Show nested quote +On February 22 2010 16:00 Vivid.Angel wrote:
I was talking to my girlfriend about education systems between our two countries and she kept telling me about how hard Hong Kong education is and how most students don't get past the form 5 level and have to either come to America or go for a technical school in Hong Kong.
Is there really that much of a gap in education between HK and the US because it really seems like most of the Hong Kong students who are just finishing form 5 and coming to America to study aren't actually that smart (Their math is around pre-calc and science around basic chem 121 level). I know that in my high school, most students were in at least 3 AP classes by senior year and 70% were in AP Calc / AP Chem which would put them a bit ahead of what I've been seeing from the Hong Kong students.
I just wanted some insight on what the level of education form 5 was compared to the US (senior year) Rofl you go to some rich white school or something?
Wtf? I took 7 APs 11th/12th grade at a poor ass 75% asian school.
What does being white and rich have anything to do with taking a lot AP classes?
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Come to my public school in California, there is a huge gap. Our dropout rate is something crazy like 25%.
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Pretty damn hard to make a blanket statement for all of America's whole public school system. Some are amazing, some suck.
I've lived in Kansas City my whole life (going to college in Denver now) and it is RIDICULOUS how segregated it is. Here is the short truth:
Middle/Upper class white people live on the Kansas side and have a great public school systems. On the Missouri side (which is much more heavily black) in the KC, MO district the public schools are terrible and any middle/upper class person there who hasn't moved goes to a private school.
Also, that terminology "don't get past the form 5 level" is funny. It's like they must defeat their enemy to learn.
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And yea sounds OP went to a rich white kid school like mine...
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Yeah, that's true. I live in a middle class/ upper class Seattle area and the school is primarily students from a program called accelerated progress program. What I was wondering mostly was what level of academics are form 5 hong kong students expected to know like what level of math, science, history etc. are they supposed to be at.
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On February 22 2010 16:22 qq3sleep wrote:
Wtf? I took 7 APs 11th/12th grade at a poor ass 75% asian school.
What does being white and rich have anything to do with taking a lot AP classes?
where is this "poor ass" asian school? if your school had the funding for 7+ AP classes for its students, it is not a "poor ass" school.
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On February 22 2010 16:35 johnnyspazz wrote:Show nested quote +On February 22 2010 16:22 qq3sleep wrote:
Wtf? I took 7 APs 11th/12th grade at a poor ass 75% asian school.
What does being white and rich have anything to do with taking a lot AP classes? where is this "poor ass" asian school? if your school had the funding for 7+ AP classes for its students, it is not a "poor ass" school.
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Just based on cultural differences, I would say that students in Asian countries are generally better than American students. They just take education way more seriously over there. Students there study as though (arguably because) their future depends on it and teachers are actually respected as benefactors for society, while in America, most students don't give a shit and teachers are seen as people with an education, but too mediocre to move into another field. Many American teachers aren't motivated to teach either, and they don't have an incentive to teach well either because the powerful teacher's union makes certain that teachers' compensation and job security is completely separated by from performance.
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On February 22 2010 16:35 johnnyspazz wrote:Show nested quote +On February 22 2010 16:22 qq3sleep wrote:
Wtf? I took 7 APs 11th/12th grade at a poor ass 75% asian school.
What does being white and rich have anything to do with taking a lot AP classes? where is this "poor ass" asian school? if your school had the funding for 7+ AP classes for its students, it is not a "poor ass" school.
My school had a number AP courses, and it was the "urban" school. The "rich white kids" went to a whole different school. Needless to say, we weren't segregated through race, but rather through intellect.
We had some wealthy students, yes, but most were lower class. The reason we probably had funding was because we had great arts programs and that our principal was the closest thing you could get to the Asian stereotype of being strict when it comes to education. Our science/math was decent when you got past aiding the people who thought math was stupid and had to have classes for writing checks as math courses. We also had a few AP courses and DC courses as well.
I was already in Calculus 3 by the time I got into college.
I'm sure that in reality, not every school in East Asian countries are super amazing like we like to think. We had foreign exchange students from China/Japan who were definitely not superb in math. At the same time, not all US public schools are crap. There are a lot (many in my own state) but not all of them.
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Asian education system is flawed in so many ways that i'm surprised some one like OP bring it up as a comparison.
Sure, kids get told long division before grade school. They probably spend like 12 hours a day study but guess what?
When they hit college. Most if not all will just burn out and that's why you don't see Asian colleges on the same level as Western schools.
Then out of the thousands maybe just maybe you get one or two geniuses who probably move to the west to fully pursue their interests unlike Asia where the school basically determines your social standing but not really anything else.
The schools in the west are crap in comparison but they help weeding out the dumb and lazy people.
Just my 2c, don't flame.
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On February 22 2010 16:32 Vivid.Angel wrote:
I live in a middle class/ upper class Seattle area
Where? Laurelhurst? Mercer Island? Bellevue? Clyde Hill? Medina? Lakemont? Newcastle? Newport Hills? Somerset? Overlake? Redmond? Kirkland? Issaquah? Lake Sammamish? Where man? Where?
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United States22883 Posts
The best of the best at both schools aren't going to be much different. The problems that face US primary/secondary schools mostly effect the middle and lower levels of students (and they are very big problems like dropouts) but the kids who take all AP classes won't be much different than their Japanese/Chinese counterparts in the math and science (although I'd love to see how they compare in analytical thinking and the social sciences.)
I think we definitely have a more egalitarian system though, where you've got more mobility to improve if you're not a good student in 7th grade. When they do the national math/science tests, do all students at their highschools take them, or only at the top tier?
On February 22 2010 17:27 haduken wrote:
Asian education system is flawed in so many ways that i'm surprised some one like OP bring it up as a comparison.
Sure, kids get told long division before grade school. They probably spend like 12 hours a day study but guess what?
When they hit college. Most if not all will just burn out and that's why you don't see Asian colleges on the same level as Western schools.
Then out of the thousands maybe just maybe you get one or two geniuses who probably move to the west to fully pursue their interests unlike Asia where the school basically determines your social standing but not really anything else.
The schools in the west are crap in comparison but they help weeding out the dumb and lazy people.
Just my 2c, don't flame. Something like this, but the OP is mostly talking about highschool. Let's just say that no matter my field of study, I'd prefer the average American public university over any Japanese/Chinese school including Tokyo/Tsinghua/etc. unless there was a very specific engineering focus.
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I will refrain from talking about other Asian countries since I'm Chinese and I've experienced only Chinese education.
The problem with Chinese schools is that the whole system is designed so the student get a good score at the end of high school.
Good score => good university => better earnings + easier life + your parents won't look at you funny.
When I was doing my 7th grade in China, The school focused on math, Chinese and English and nothing else.
Later on, you would get chemistry, biology or physics or some humanities subject.
Believe it or not, I've not done a single physical education class since 2nd grade. When I arrived at Australia, Kids half my size could run faster and I was hopeless in any of sport.
The whole culture at school is to get a better score. Your score is your life, you go to school at 7am, come back at 7pm to eat, then heads out for private tutorials, get home at maybe 11pm. then you sleep, then you repeat the whole process again the next day. you do this for 6 days a week and get like a week of holiday per year.
It is definitely the most miserable time of my life and it was only the beginning for me. Imagine the amount of stress and pressure on a senior year kid. I wouldn't be surprised if so many kids kill themselves over it (Chinese government probably hides this figure).
Sure, we can ace tests and memorize shits but what happened to personal development?
Take any kid from a Chinese school, test him outside his norm like public speaking and you will quickly see how one dimensional this system is. Are we doing education to better ourselves or are we doing it just so we can pass the tests?
Kids who score 75/100 are considered hopeless and ask to quit or transfer before the senior year because the school want to have a better college acceptance ratio.
Then you have a system where people from outside of Beijing or Shanghai have to score significantly better than locals to get accepted into the top tier universities (which are all in capital cities) then you will quickly realize how fucked up it is.
It is absolutely brutal. I don't know what AP classes are but I assume it is some sort of advanced program. You do AP Classes, you still have a plan and goal of where you going and what level you are at, in China, you do these classes just so you can keep up with the people around you, you don't develop interests, you don't get to find out what you are good at or not good at. If you suck at math but good at humanities too fucking bad, you still need that score to get in a good university.
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United States22883 Posts
AP is just Advanced Placement, and I think they have a standard curricula around the country. At the end of an AP class, you take a standardized test on the subject, scored 1-5. Some of those classes are worthless as well (AP US History is more about memorizing dates than teaching you anything useful about history) but if you get a 4-5, it's worth college credit. It's especially important in math/science.
5 on AP Calculus BC is going to get you waived past a full year of freshman calc (calc 101/102) in college, and the same goes for AP Physics/Bio/English/etc.
So when people talk about Americans falling behind in math and science, they're not talking about the kids who are doing well in AP classes. Those kids are already working at a college level.
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United States33502 Posts
On February 22 2010 17:27 haduken wrote:
Asian education system is flawed in so many ways that i'm surprised some one like OP bring it up as a comparison.
Sure, kids get told long division before grade school. They probably spend like 12 hours a day study but guess what?
When they hit college. Most if not all will just burn out and that's why you don't see Asian colleges on the same level as Western schools.
Then out of the thousands maybe just maybe you get one or two geniuses who probably move to the west to fully pursue their interests unlike Asia where the school basically determines your social standing but not really anything else.
The schools in the west are crap in comparison but they help weeding out the dumb and lazy people.
Just my 2c, don't flame.
Did you just perform the ritual to summon moltke?
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On February 22 2010 20:59 haduken wrote:
Sure, we can ace tests and memorize shits but what happened to personal development?
Take any kid from a Chinese school, test him outside his norm like public speaking and you will quickly see how one dimensional this system is. Are we doing education to better ourselves or are we doing it just so we can pass the tests?
Kids who score 75/100 are considered hopeless and ask to quit or transfer before the senior year because the school want to have a better college acceptance ratio.
It is absolutely brutal. I don't know what AP classes are but I assume it is some sort of advanced program. You do AP Classes, you still have a plan and goal of where you going and what level you are at, in China, you do these classes just so you can keep up with the people around you, you don't develop interests, you don't get to find out what you are good at or not good at. If you suck at math but good at humanities too fucking bad, you still need that score to get in a good university.
I don't know about China, but in Hong Kong parents love having their children develop certain skills (such as music and yes, public speaking). There are even annual competitions for students of all ages to participate (and they do... well I did and I saw a lot of people haha).
I believe my friend had an average lower than 75 (in Hong Kong), and that was considered pretty good since very few people scored higher than 80, let alone 90. He came to Canada to finish his senior year and performed better than pretty much everyone. The main point is, in HK he was average, in Canada he was awesome.
Oh, and isn't form 5 equivalent to grade 11?
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EPT
