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Carnivorous Sheep
Baa?21243 Posts
On January 26 2011 14:20 Hidden_MotiveS wrote: I'd like to see some studies done on the subject of whether a group of students from chinse schools have a lower measured creativity quotient than a group of students raised here. Interesting topic. The hell is a creativity quotient? | ||
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hifriend
China7935 Posts
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endy
Switzerland8970 Posts
Nah I'm serious. When I showed the Schindler's list to my wife, she was shocked, she asked if all that really happened. My company just recruited a dozen recent master degree graduates and I had to train them. I used to the occasion to ask if they knew who Hitler was. They had no idea. edit : I know this anecdote is not directly related to creativity. Saying Chinese are not creative is indeed a little racist and is not what I meant. But I am convinced that not knowing about history, art and other forms of culture really doesn't help to be creative. It's not that they're not creative, it's just that during the 20 first years of their life, they're forced to learn a lot of things by heart and by repetition, and the school programs are really focused on Mandarin and maths. | ||
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Hidden_MotiveS
Canada2562 Posts
On January 26 2011 14:54 Carnivorous Sheep wrote: The hell is a creativity quotient? You're right, Wikipedia says that there is no such thing as a standardized creativity quotient because creativity is so subjective. both sides of this argument just relies on truthiness, or things that feel right without necessarily being right. maybe you could look up some actual studies to prove or disprove your point. Because we lack a standardized approach to measuring creativity, it's actually really hard to find studies showing that certain teaching methods make people more creative. I think to really say that any specific race were raised to be (as a whole) more or less creative you first have to define what creativity is. I'd like to coin or use a term, useful creativity. I remember a TED talk about how when children in kindergarten were tested for their creativity quotients they were supposed to all be creative geniuses. They said that the kindergarteners were all creative geniuses because they could think up a hundred things that a paper clip could be used for (fishing hook), but when they grew up they could think up fewer ideas. (I don't know how many fewer ideas, the TED talk was rather unstructured and did not say). But the reason why the kindergardners were able to think up so many ideas was because they didn't know very much about the paper clips, their minds were still malleable. They would ask question like "well what if the paper clip were made out of cheese and weighed a ton? Then it could be used as statue". Well, that's just silly. Certainly, in the mind of the expert there are few options, but in the mind of the novice there are few, but even if building four spawning pools in starcraft is rather creative, is it really a viable build? Useful creativity is creativity that can be applied to situations to come up with a good solution. I'd like to say that useful creativity is creativity that comes from general knowledge of a subject. When people know a lot about a subject, they're usually able to be more creative in that subject. It's just silly to think of creativity as something that just comes to you. I find that the most creative people are the ones that know a lot about something and then work hard at it. Every time I use creativity now, I'm referring to useful creativity. One can gain general knowledge by reading theory and learn about about interconnections by doing. Learning theory doesn't really allow the separate ideas of a subject to connect, but learning by doing does. You could spend hundreds of hours learning the theory behind starcraft, but until you tested your strategies out, they would just be untested hypotheses. At the same time, if you didn't understand the theory and minute details behind starcraft: the build order timings, the unit strengths, the unit stats, the tech trees, the map scouting paths etc... then all you'd be able to do would be to regurgitate builds (assuming you learned the theory behind that build). Creativity requires knowledge. It requires knowledge about the theory within a subject field and it requires knowledge about the interconnections of the things within the field. Knowing that marines do x damage and medics(medivacs) heal y damage doesn't do much if you don't build both units at the same time. However if you don't know how to build medics, then you're even more screwed. That said, I think both sides of the hemisphere need to reevaluate their educational systems if they want students to learn how to be creative within their specific fields of specialization. The East has to focus more on teaching people hands on skills, and the West has to focus more on teaching theory. | ||
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AzTec
Canada178 Posts
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SpiritoftheTunA
United States20903 Posts
From living in China as of right now, I can confirm that the education system here is terrible for management and problem-solving skills; a lot of foreign consultants are being hired to solve management problems that Chinese people can't. There's very little QA for basic engineering problems (I've encountered pedestrian crossing lights that turn solid red without any warning, there's only stop and go, no flashing red for 'keep crossing but don't start'), and service is unspeakably bad (i.e. if you were to create a flowchart of how waiters and waitresses acted in most Chinese restaurants, none of it would make sense; it would just consist of people yelling at each other and eventually serving the customer). The education system right now trains the Chinese to do singular problems consistently and competently, but nobody's good at systemic problem-solving. All employees of all companies do not feel as if they have any responsibility for their individual job to contribute to the ultimate success of their company, they just think "I get paid to do exactly what I'm told, it's not my business to do anything else." Consequentially, you often get referred to management by lower service employees whenever they encounter any situation that isn't specifically laid out for them to handle. I can't speak for the education systems of any other Asian countries, however. This leaks a little bit into Chinese-American kids: a lot of the pushier parents push their kids to just focus on the quantitatively measurable stuff like standardized tests, squashing actual creativity. The American education system itself is also tending towards this (like with No Child Left Behind) due to the fact that the only objectively measurable things usually don't involve creativity. This is all anecdotal but if you guys lived in China for a month or so, you'd know :3 Oh just so you guys know about my possible biases, I'm a Chinese-American born in Indiana lived in the US most of my life, my parents are both native Chinese (but their worldview is way different from the majority of Chinese/ChineseAmericans anyhow) On January 26 2011 15:59 AzTec wrote: What the hell, I didn't even know there was a discussion to be had about this, it's just baseless racism. Naw, it's unfortunate that cultural habits often match racial lines really well but this is an issue of culture rather than race. EDIT: THIS COULD ALL BE BS WARNING:: I can't find the evidence for this right now but I once read an article contrasting the Detroit car engineering model with the Japanese car engineering model. What was interesting, if I recall correctly, is that in Detroit, cars are engineered completely from the top down: engineers design everything, then assembly line workers just build what they're told to build. Whereas in Japan, even though the basic car designs are done from the top down, every component-manufacturer and a lot of lower level workers have the right to give feedback about individual components of the car and possible suggestions for how to improve the cars. This kind of ties into 'creativity,' since the base laborer is allowed creative input, Japanese cars end up being better much quicker. Germany has a similar engineering model IIRC. | ||
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bearbuddy
3442 Posts
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DeckOneBell
United States526 Posts
Something like "Asians found to be more able to perform a repetitious task efficiently than comparable workers of different ethnic backgrounds, while slightly underperforming in tasks requiring problem solving and managerial skills" might be more accurate. Cultures have an effect on the people who live with that culture, seems a fair assumption to make. While the actual title may be misleading, the general concept doesn't have to be wrong. Different cultures have different methods to approach a problem, have different concepts of childhood, have different concepts of education, and have different... everything. No surprise to me. | ||
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Loser777
1931 Posts
There's no reward for originality? Really? Trying to generalize an entire country as having a specific "engineering model"... what is that supposed to mean? Just because you work in a certain country you design car a certain way? Just because you work in a certain country you are of that nationality? | ||
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SpiritoftheTunA
United States20903 Posts
On January 26 2011 17:20 Loser777 wrote: Trying to generalize an entire country as having a specific "engineering model"... what is that supposed to mean? Just because you work in a certain country you design car a certain way? Just because you work in a certain country you are of that nationality? Um why exactly can't styles of engineering be specific to cultures? Especially given that in my example, cars, such differences in engineering lie mostly on the lines of the amount of autonomy/influence each level of worker is given, which can definitely be specific to culture. And did I make any comments on the race/ethnicity/nationality of each individual worker generalized within a culture? Are you saying people aren't allowed to make generalizations at all? | ||
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bearbuddy
3442 Posts
On January 26 2011 17:20 Loser777 wrote: OP begins with an example about a math problem and education, and somehow bearbuddy gives a "lack of intellectual property rights" as an explanation for his perceived lack of originality. In this context, creativity and originality are distinct. There's no reward for originality? Really? Trying to generalize an entire country as having a specific "engineering model"... what is that supposed to mean? Just because you work in a certain country you design car a certain way? Just because you work in a certain country you are of that nationality? I'm just going with the flow of the discussion, and providing a phenomenon that I observe as a example seems to be more tangible than bringing up vague philosophical points. Excuse me if I seem to have sidetracked from the point, but I feel as though it contributes to the general attitude of the whole system/culture. Also excuse me for my reading comprehension, but I fail to see how being original and being creative are not intrinsically tied together. Of course, this is a sweeping claim that should not be made lightly, but my personal experiences have reinforced this point. Without patent for intellectual property, the resources spent on R&D can be allocated elsewhere. That is to say, there is no need to think critically when the breakthrough can be made by someone else, and there is no punishment for taking their ideas and making it one's own. The general unawareness or disrespect towards IP laws seem to indicate that originality is not championed to the utmost degree that we have in the Western societies. If my stereotype is incorrect, then by all means lead me to the right path. | ||
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sikyon
Canada1045 Posts
I believe that asian education systems and value systems basically try to take medicore people and turn them into top level people. You can't really teach something like in depth critical analysis, intuition and imagination, which are all staples of creative problem solving. Therefore, they do it through rote learning. Meanwhile, western education systems basically let medicore people perform medicore jobs, while outstanding people (perhaps with such skills) are left to rise to the top. At least that's what I've concluded. | ||
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Kalingingsong
Canada633 Posts
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jon arbuckle
Canada443 Posts
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Raii
Philippines194 Posts
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NIIINO
Slovakia1320 Posts
Today we are so well connected and mixed. But i think that in Asia people are better educated so there is probably bigger % of awesomeness. | ||
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QuanticHawk
United States32051 Posts
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kainzero
United States5211 Posts
On January 26 2011 15:01 endy wrote: Nah I'm serious. When I showed the Schindler's list to my wife, she was shocked, she asked if all that really happened. My company just recruited a dozen recent master degree graduates and I had to train them. I used to the occasion to ask if they knew who Hitler was. They had no idea. edit : I know this anecdote is not directly related to creativity. Saying Chinese are not creative is indeed a little racist and is not what I meant. But I am convinced that not knowing about history, art and other forms of culture really doesn't help to be creative. It's not that they're not creative, it's just that during the 20 first years of their life, they're forced to learn a lot of things by heart and by repetition, and the school programs are really focused on Mandarin and maths. i'm almost certain that they all know who hirohito is, and that if you ask most americans, no one knows who chiang kai-shek is. | ||
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zulu_nation8
China26351 Posts
On January 26 2011 15:01 endy wrote: Nah I'm serious. When I showed the Schindler's list to my wife, she was shocked, she asked if all that really happened. My company just recruited a dozen recent master degree graduates and I had to train them. I used to the occasion to ask if they knew who Hitler was. They had no idea. edit : I know this anecdote is not directly related to creativity. Saying Chinese are not creative is indeed a little racist and is not what I meant. But I am convinced that not knowing about history, art and other forms of culture really doesn't help to be creative. It's not that they're not creative, it's just that during the 20 first years of their life, they're forced to learn a lot of things by heart and by repetition, and the school programs are really focused on Mandarin and maths. There's no way masters degree graduates don't know who Hitler is. You have a very western-centric perspective of culture. Lots of Chinese people don't care to learn western culture because they are not westerners. Being cultured or intellectual also has nothing to do with creativity. | ||
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Slaughter
United States20254 Posts
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