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Why Are Indian Kids So Good At Spelling?
theodp writes "Slate's Ben Paynter looks into why Indian kids dominate the Scripps National Spelling Bee, and concludes it's because they have their own minor-league spelling bee circuit (having the discipline to spell 7,000 to 8,000 words a day probably helps too!). Indian-Americans make up about 1% of the US population, notes Paynter, but this year an estimated 11% of the competitors at Scripps will hail from regional contests run by the North South Foundation. The NSF competitions function as a kind of nerd Olympiad for Indian-Americans — there are separate divisions for math, science, vocabulary, geography, essay writing, and even public speaking — and a way to raise money for college scholarships for underprivileged students in India. BTW, Strollerderby has the scoop on Whatever Happened to the Spellbound Kids? (RIP, Ted Brigham)."
It's probably because parents in many other countries are way more interested in driving their kids or excel in social activities or in sports than in intellectual pursuits (or not driving them to excel in anything at all). If my parents and community had supported my academic interests as much as they supported my little league career, I'm sure I would have won a lot more spelling bees too. Much as I think Asians often push their kids *too* hard, it would be nice to be able to spell "necessary" consistently today without needing a spell checker.
Ah screw it, spell checkers have made spelling obsolete anyway. And I can still throw a pretty mean curve ball.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
All well & good, but they can't even spell colour correctly so i'm none impressed thus far....
You pot effurt in, U git resuld
I saw a statistics, saying that 90% of Indian immigrants have a degree- the highest rate of any immigrant or native group.
Some societies promote knowledge and mental discipline as keys to success. Others have come to prefer art, sports, and pursuit of whatever makes you feel good at the time. I'll let you categorize appropriately.
(Disclaimer: I know I'm overgeneralizing, but it's fun and it makes me feel good)
I would bet many couldn't spell Apu Nahasapeemapetilon!
Ah screw it, spell checkers have made spelling obsolete anyway.
True. And it'll get totally useless with software that can wreck a nice beach.
What's wrong with sports? Sports teach leadership and teamwork, which are arguably just as important as being able to spell "necessary" without a spell checker. Some parents might need to find a better balance with regards to sports vs. the rest of the curriculum but that doesn't mean that sports don't have their place.
There's also the fact that 1/3 of this country is obese to argue in favor of expanded sports/PE instruction.....
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
I think you're on to something. In school I played on the hockey and ruby teams because that is what made you socially acceptable. I was much more interested in science but hid the fact. It helped me socially that I usually ended up sitting in the hall during math and science classes. The other students assumed it was punishment but it was actually because I aready knew all the material. The teachers would privately tell me to find something constructive to do. I grew up to be an engineer, my daughter couldn't believe it when she found out I was actualloy not concideed a geek in school.
Is it just me (and I am running a 102 degree fever, so it might be) or is the summary basically gibberish? It starts off talking about Indian kids being good at spelling, and ends with something about the "spellbound kids" (whatever the heck that is) and Ted Brigham who is apparently dead. I am very confused.
Hay, I'm Indeen u unsensative klod!
The ducks in the bathroom are not mine. [http://www.27bslash6.com]
As an Indian, the most obvious answer to me is that their parents push them to try harder.
I can spell too. I know the english language well enough to communicate my thoughts across, except in certain fields where few words exist and the reverse dictionary lookups don't work for me. Who cares that they have the ability to spell any word in the english language, no matter where it came from? Yes I know I can spell a majority of the language, but I have better things to do than study the fucked up book called the dictionary. I don't need spelling in my future career choices. I can write an essay (with 5 days notice), I can write a resume (no bull). What really counts in this world? Money. Being able to spell something is only a slight advantage. It astounds me that people are willing to work every day on learning words when they will only use 20-30 thousand of them on a normal basis.
It's probably because parents in many other countries are way more interested in driving their kids or excel in social activities or in sports than in intellectual pursuits (or not driving them to excel in anything at all).
There's little point in an Indian parent driving their child to excel at sports. India has the worst Olympic history of any nation, per capita. They are a world power only in Cricket. It would make sense that they gravitate towards trivia contests.
Not just parents, peer group. I'm sure plenty of /.ers are more than familiar with the general anti-intellectual sentiment found in many schools, especially among the 'cool kids' and young-ish age groups.
However hard one tries, it's difficult to remain motivated when having a wide vocabulary or advanced mathematical skills singles you out as 'weird'. A competitive academic environment, on the other hand, not only keeps motivation up but if anything pushes kids to spend extra time on their work, to help them 'win'.
In either case, though, a balance is needed. Overly pushy parents and excess competition seem to lead to social problems and feelings of inadequacy.
Hold on, we're not talking about native Americans here?
It's probably because parents in many other countries are way more interested in driving their kids or excel in social activities or in sports than in intellectual pursuits (or not driving them to excel in anything at all).
It's weird, I read the article and came up with a completely different reason than the summary. And that reason is right in this text:
Just as Kavya Shivashankar has inspired the next wave of Indian spellers, Kavya found her bee mojo during the post-Spellbound boom. Before Spellbound, the 2002 documentary that featured Indian-American Nupur Lala's run to the 1999 Scripps title, many first-generation South Asian parents saw NSF as a way for their children to assimilate—the best way to understand a culture, after all, is to learn its language. They used the North South Foundation events as a sort of SAT prep, teaching their children to use phonetics, etymology, and word roots to suss out answers. "Our focus is not on competition," says Chitturi. "Winning becomes an outcome of you focusing on learning. You are competing against yourself, not these other people."
It seems like it's about assimilation and success to Indian-Americans as well as a great competition against yourself instead of another human -- minor league circuit or no minor league circuit. Then introduce a documentary outlining how one Indian kid succeeded by doing this and parents start picking up on it on a large scale.
If my parents and community had supported my academic interests as much as they supported my little league career, I'm sure I would have won a lot more spelling bees too.
But it's not like you had to be good at only one thing. My parents encouraged me to just be well rounded but it turned out I was terrible at sports and I loved playing trombone, reading and participating in math league. I'm sure the Indian kids get pushed to excel in sports as well but it is obvious that the cultural assimilation is very important to their parents because they most likely consider that as necessary on the path to success.
My work here is dung.
The difference is the emphasis a particular culture places on an activity vs race. We notice these particular differences in sports and entertainment because it is in our faces most of the time, but academics, neighborhoods, food consumption, jobs, etc are all influenced by our culture. As a white male southerner, I'm introduced to gun use, Protestant church, pig based barbecue, college football, etc. That's what I do.
Is immaculate spelling really a useful thing these days? There are so many online that spell words incorrectly, usually on purpose, and yet their messages still get across crystal clear (for the most part)... is this, like cursive writing, something that has outlived its usefulness? Should everything be truncated to shorthand abbreviations of the previous words in order to save time writing or conveying our messages? Will knowing how to spell 7000 words get you anywhere in life? I'm thinking no.
Why are African Americans so good at Sports? Why are Latin American kids so good at baseball?
Oh wait, those are politically incorrect, isn't it? We're not allowed to talk about that.
How is the article ANY different?
Sent from your iPad.
Okay, I know this is a bit off-topic, but I'm a bit embarrassed to actually ask any of my Indian colleagues this to their face and thought that the faceless strangers of Slashdot might be able to help.
Is this phrase, "please do the needful," some kind of Indian colloquialism? Back in the day, I suppose that a lot of Indians learned English from the British and passed it down through the generations, but I've never heard a British person use this phrase. My Indian colleagues use it a lot. I mean, like all the time when they're asking you for something. It's a phrase that I honestly don't think I've heard anyone of another ethnic background use. I'm not racist; I don't really care if they use the phrase because I understand what they are saying, although it did catch me off guard the first few times I heard it used in conversation.
I guess I'm just looking for some insight because I'm genuinely curious what its etymology is. Is it a direct translation of a common Indian-language phrase? Is it just one of those idioms that develop over time in a region? Is it something that was popularized by one or a small group of people at some point in the distant past?
ruby teams make you socially acceptable? I thought nerds/programmers were outcasts in school. Ahh nvm, bad spelling in a topic about good spelling, carry on.
I gave up on spelling bees in 6th grade when I lost the class bee because the teacher thought "atmosphere" was spelled "atomosphere" and refused to let me get the dictionary and prove I was right. I realize real bees are checked and double-checked both before and during the competition, but that episode so turned me off that I decided never to waste my time memorizing lists of words.
You save only 59 seconds over 8 miles by going 75 instead of 65. Do you really have to pass that guy? Do the Math!
Perhaps it's the way they pronounce things. Dunno. In Finnish the words are said like they are written, and we do not have spelling competitions because that would be, well, silly.
Stupid people worship jocks because it is easier to imagine being strong than being smart. This would be fine if it didn't have devastating consequences for society.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
I was about to reply to you and give you hell for assuming these Indian kids were from other countries but then I realized the summary said "Indian-Americans" not "American Indians"...while that's confusing at least it's not the generic "native Americans".
0x09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0
As a European, I never understood the big thing about the US spelling contests. I'm not against them, mind you; but even if you can spell perfectly, you'll still need to know the grammar to support your spelling. Otherwise, you're still going to get it wrong.
Yes, you'll still need too no the grammar too support you're spelling. Otherwise, your still going too get it wrong. My spelling is perfect means not I right English very good.
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
All very well until you try to talk about that little lamb named "Mary Had"
If you're already obese (and many kids are), sports like football, soccer or baseball are not really recommended.
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Educated Indian immigrants are generally much better at English than educated North Americans.... probably becuase they actually learn the language in school, including the grammar. Also, almost all Indian post-secondary education is done in English. It doesn't surprise me that they insist that their kids speak - pronunciation aside - and write English to the same standard they do.
It is pitiful how many North Americans (Americans and Anglo Canadians, that is) have a degree but cannot write or speak their language to a standard that would pass overseas English language competency tests.
with small forums feeds / txts started the move to shorthand / abbreviations and spell check just makes spelling even more of thing of the past. The COURTS GOT that part right a long time ago.
When people are on tight call center metrics what makes you think they have the the time to spell 100% right? when they can just fail back to spell check and move to the next call.
I don't see any implication of 'better' or 'worse'. Simply that in a culture where a certain attribute is favored and parents drive their children toward success in that area, it should hardly be suprising that these children excel.
See: american cultures in sports, Indian culture and spelling, East-asian culture and math, French culture and cooking, polynesean culture and fishing, etc.
Write your representatives! Repeal the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics!
Not just parents, peer group. I'm sure plenty of /.ers are more than familiar with the general anti-intellectual sentiment found in many schools, especially among the 'cool kids' and young-ish age groups.
However hard one tries, it's difficult to remain motivated when having a wide vocabulary or advanced mathematical skills singles you out as 'weird'. A competitive academic environment, on the other hand, not only keeps motivation up but if anything pushes kids to spend extra time on their work, to help them 'win'.
In either case, though, a balance is needed. Overly pushy parents and excess competition seem to lead to social problems and feelings of inadequacy.
There's a reason all my best friends are of Asian descent, they're the only ones who seem to compete against me for grades everyone else just shrugs.
I reject your reality and substitute my own.
One of my colleagues mentioned this a while back. According to his religion, words are powerful. It's part of devotion to ensure that prayers are read and copied *exactly*. In some other cultures it's a different approach, where the meaning is more important than the words. I don't know if this affects how well their spelling ability, but I imagine that it does.
Motivations for hard work are usually pretty transparent.
As adults, we work hard to get money or status or personal satisfaction or, well, laid.
It's very clear that spelling bee winners work very, very hard. To me, incomprehensibly hard.
But what do these kids get? Do their peers look up to them? Surely no one would work that hard just for a scholarship or some cash. Or am I wrong about that?
Just wondering.
The Indian community does not go into spelling because there are many other successful Indian spellers as role models, nor because their parents value the exercise or because there is a supportive community of Indian spellers. It is Nature not Nurture at play here. this is not about the evolution of a culture through positive feedback, it is all about the Creator's wish. This is intelligent Spelling Design in action.
Nullius in verba
that is how you get off light for shooting him the cops just give out small fines (bribes) just ask Clancy Wiggum.
It's probably because parents in many other countries are way more interested in driving their kids or excel in social activities or in sports than in intellectual pursuits (or not driving them to excel in anything at all). If my parents and community had supported my academic interests as much as they supported my little league career, I'm sure I would have won a lot more spelling bees too. Much as I think Asians often push their kids *too* hard, it would be nice to be able to spell "necessary" consistently today without needing a spell checker.
Is a spelling bee really an "intellectual pursuit" though? It's rote memorization, and does not necessarily equate to true intellectualism; if you read the original writings of a lot of great thinkers, you see a lot of spelling mistakes, and I say this as a naturally great speller.
think "that is what school is for" and sign off on their obligation as if that statement alleviates them of any responsibility.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I am puertorican, and in Puerto Rico many people want their kids grow to be famous baseball players or basketball, etc. I was in little league and apparently I was pretty good. But after some years I lost complete interest. Right now I am about to graduate from my Computer Science degree, with a really good job offer and I have during my academic career achieved a lot of really good things. But my grandmother is always saying how good of a baseball player I could have been and how many millions of dollars I could have made, all of this despite all of my success. So definitely things like this do depend a lot in the culture, some are focused on academic success, others in sports, etc. As someone said earlier, it is all about life perspective.
No, actually pretty everyone in the world is better than native english speakers at spelling, because they learn English mostly by reading it, instead of learning it by listening and speaking it...
It would make sense that they gravitate towards trivia contests.
I never entered a spelling competition, but when I was a kid, we were routinely tested. I never had any difficulty with it (even though I am not Indian), but I put this down to the fact that I read a lot of books, not because I ever spent any time systematically learning how to spell. Reading was something we did for fun when we were being lazy, not because it was expected of us.
This was in the days when there was no internet to distract my attention with predigested snippets of text interspersed with other media, so I wonder if I would have turned out the same if I had to do my time all over again. Fortunately, I'll never have to find out, but given how much books have enriched my own life, I find it a bit sad to see how many kids have virtually no dedicated time spent reading.
"spell checkers have made spelling obsolete anyway"
Your mistaken if you think that kid's spelling can be improved using there computers alone.
I hate printers.
They are Americans, not Indian-Americans. You racist liberals need to stop the segregation. It's E Pluribus Unum, not E Pluribus Pluribus.
It's probably because parents in many other countries are way more interested in driving their kids or excel in social activities or in sports than in intellectual pursuits (or not driving them to excel in anything at all). If my parents and community had supported my academic interests as much as they supported my little league career, I'm sure I would have won a lot more spelling bees too. Much as I think Asians often push their kids *too* hard, it would be nice to be able to spell "necessary" consistently today without needing a spell checker.
Ah screw it, spell checkers have made spelling obsolete anyway. And I can still throw a pretty mean curve ball.
Unlike inner city black kids, they know who their fathers are, their fathers live with their mothers in a tradtional nuclear family, and they don't have an anti-achievement mentality where studying means "acting white" and will get you ridiculed and abused. Does it actually surprise anyone that these things make a measurable difference in scholastic performance such as spelling bees?
By the way, the reason half of you need spell checkers in the first place is because you were taught to read using that atrocious and profoundly anti-educational "whole word" reading method. You might as well be using heiroglyphics. You should have been taught using phonics so you would understand why words are spelled the way they are spelled. Then it would make sense to you that it would be spelled that way and it's no longer some arbitrary arrangement you have memorized and parroted. That's kinda the point of a phonetic alphabet. For teachers and especially the teacher's union, phonics has the tremendous downside of equipping you to do your own reading and independently educate yourself instead of having to ask Teacher what this particular arrangement of symbols sounds like.
Spelling bee champs don't go home with the prom queen. The pitcher on the baseball team does.
I know two of the people who were in Spellbound as kids (Emily Stagg and Harry Altman), and I've a met a third. This makes me wonder if this is evidence the set of high-achievers in US society is a) much smaller than one might think and b) determined at a surprisingly early age. I know, tiny anecdotal evidence but still I wonder...
Social skills are far more valuable than intelligence when it comes to getting promoted and landing high-paying jobs.
Geeks tend to hate this fact.
Why is it so surprising that kids from a culture that produces names like "Sivasubramaniam Raveendranath" and "Elamkulam Manakkal Sankaran Namboodiripad" are good at spelling?
Because if they don't spell well, somebody gonna get-a hurt, real bad.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVcePxjFujs
Tell that to the linemen on my high school football team.
meanwhile, American kids are at the mall buying fart spray. Adversity is key to motivation, which most American children never experience.
"Sports teach leadership and teamwork,"
Thats a myth. There can only be one leader in a team and most kids just want to play and have fun anyway, they're not interested in having an outdoors team building workshop with balls despite what some team coaches seem to think. When I was at school there was nothing worse than having some teacher take the sports too seriously as it just spoiled the fun. In the end I got sick of team sports altogether because of the borderline psychotic behaviour of some of the sports staff.
/.
This is a refreshing article. We usually don't see comparisons of The World versus America, showing our weaknesses. Thank the maker someone took the time to finally come out and say something about our lack of spelling bee champs.
...because their parents are disproportionately willing, compared to other parents, to force their children to spend untold hours performing rote memorization tasks that have highly questionable utility. E.g. memorizing how to spell words.
Not to troll or flame the US here - but maybe this is wrong question. Rather than asking "Why are Indian kids so good?" we should be saying "Why are all the other kids not as good?
Answer: Ding ding ding! The education system! It seems more likely that with the (stereotyped) Indian parents that actually care about their kids education, they will 'fix' the holes that the education system ignores (and beyond a stereotype, this is also a cultural thing - education is highly valued - as it should be. If that means picking up the slack that the 'system' ignores, so be it)
And that 'slack' could be anything - like being able to spell. Or do anything, for that matter (this is the same in the UK, by the way - not just a troll at the US. Numeracy and literacy has become 'measure' obsessed rather than "Can these kids do basic skill XYZ?" - spell, count etc.)
So in essence, what I'm saying is: Maybe the education system is failing everybody else, and only these American-Indian families (who actually value education) are smart enough to 'fill in the holes' (where the education system fails)?
In India people speak a number of native languages and English. Assuming that parents teach their kids one or two of these native languages, Indian kids are multilingual, making them better at language. And probably multilingual parents are a better role model to these kids than the average American parent who speaks just English.
no, I don't have a sig
It astounds me that people are willing to work every day on learning words when they will only use 20-30 thousand of them on a normal basis.
You don't have to work on it every day, but interesting words enrich your communication, and indeed, your life. I hope I can interest you in this: The Superior Person's Book of Words.
Don't worry, it's a short book, and it's funny.
The answer is simple. Asian parents constantly stress the importance of academics and hard work. On the other hand, American parents think it's important to have their kids do a million different activities unrelated to academics, and even worse, they value socializing too highly. Well, what they seem to value more than just socializing is being popular. It is important to socialize, but overdo it and it gets in the way of excelling in school. Then there's the entitlement mentality that keeps being pushed on kids, that they're special and deserve the world. Too many American children's cartoons are obsessed with the notion that it's important to be yourself. Everyone is taught that you're only living life if you're doing something perceived as exciting, be it something like skydiving or partying. So of course your average American kid isn't going to see the value in academics. So ultimately, it's a cultural issue.
Don't worry, at least I got your joke.
Though considering the hysterical brands of spelling here, this is a funny article.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
OK, pet peeve of mine, these hyphenated Americans. Are they Indian, or are they American? If American, who cares what color or race they are. If they're Indian, why are they participating in the American school system? Hyphenating tends to perpetuate stereotypes, and makes it seem as if the person isn't proud to be American. I am a native American - I was born here. My ancestors were Cherokee, Apache, German, Italian, Scottish, and who knows what else, but I don't hold onto those as my heritage. I'm proud of my ancestry, but I am an American.
There is a strong divide between (very generally) Western and Asian cultures. In the West we tend to believe that talent and ability is innate, and that your success in life will be down to the use of your gifts. Contrarily, Asian cultures believe that success is directly proportional to the effort the person puts into it. The psychological evidence is they are essentially correct.
[FUCK BETA]
You could of given us some examples there.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
If you think Indians, at least as a specific case, learn English by reading it, you are mistaken. And while it may not conform precisely to what Americans narrowly define as "correct" English, English happens to be very common in urban India.
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.
So to an immigrant family, having a child who can truly master this horrible mess is a sign that they've arrived, established themselves and put down roots. A point of great pride, a tremendous achievement. To the established population, the ability to spell is taken for granted and the ability to spell well is just a nice-to-have.
Alas, we don't have this custom in England. A pity, really. I was good at spellings at primary school, so it would have been fun. I remember I once got into a huge argument with the teacher over the spelling of a certain word for more than one very small person, because it meant I only got nine out of ten that week. She cited the dictionary; I cited The Hobbit. The mark stood :-(
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
I remember traveling on trains in India with a little portable Scrabble game. As soon as it came out, all my carriage mates would crowd around & soon begin offering suggestions. Even the little kids seemed better at Scrabble than I was, and everyone had a great time. I would imagine that this love of words would translate pretty well to US spelling bees.
If they can spell their own names, of course they will be a whiz at regular words. "Bill", "Joe", and "Mary" haven't a chance against "Dhananjay" "Jagannatha" or "Chandrakanta".
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
It's interesting to see international students coming to study in Australian universities, some of them talking about 14-hour high school days, 6 days a week. No sport, no other real activities. Just hardcore study.
Then there's lazy Australians doing the same courses...and funnily enough, getting similar marks - especially when it comes to assignments and projects which require lateral thinking, or presentation (reports and whatnot) - and no, its not just the language boundary.
Then when it comes to getting a job, they struggle due to social skills, teamwork, initiative and just generally how they may be as people.
I'm actually Indian by birth (even though I largely consider myself Australian). My parents drove me to excel in *everything* - sport, music, studies, socially. They believed that being all-rounded would help you more in life than purely intellectual pursuits. And they were right. It builds you up as a person which helps you all through life. I know another Indian who was dux of the school, and also someone who did very well at sports and music.
I do think parents should support intellectual pursuits, but I don't think pushing kids to excel in sports and whatnot is a bad idea.
The racial stereotype is often that Asian Americans and Indian Americans are often more intelligent that others. I think this stems from the fact that typically that many of the best minds from Asia (which includes India) come to the United States for their higher education. When you've got billions of people, and you pick the cream of that crop, and send them over to the US, they're going to represent their race particularly well.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Overall weight is much more a factor of diet. While extreme exercise will help to lose weight, eating better is preferable and a much more sensible option. It's still pretty stupid to try to balance out a crappy diet with lots of exercise, you'll probably just end up really malnourished and sick.
Personally, I don't exercise to lose weight, I do it just because it generally makes me feel healthier and more spritely. I actually have been aiming to gain weight for the last 6 months..
which is totally what she said
http://www.nytimes.com/1999/07/04/magazine/a-patel-motel-cartel.html?pagewanted=all
you got a motel almost anywhere in the usa, and its likely to be run by an indian guy with the last name of patel
why?
basically, its a phenomenon of the immigrant experience: one random guy goes from country A to exotic foreign inscrutable country B. what should he do there? well, he tries career X, and he's successful at it. he writes home about it, and pretty soon a bunch of other guys, relatives usually, from country A are interested in pursuing career X in country B. its not because the patels are better at running hotels than the guptas and the ganeshes, or the chos or the mcneils, for that matter, but simply because people pursue what, and who, they know, that works
same goes with spelling bees and indian americans (but not american indians. i never understood why columbus made a silly mistake about where he thought he was, and we are STILL calling native residents of north america "indians". completely nonsensical)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
And better yet, he might be able to claim 30 years of experience in Ruby when looking for a job, depending on when he graduated.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Is it not because Asian immigrants to the US are usually drawn from a particular demographic, of above-average wealth and education, and don't represent the average Asian?
Which Indians are we talking about here....
Except pushing too hard is cyclic. Every generation of immigrants has an ebb and flow until everyone is "American".
20 years ago it would have been Asians that excelled:
Generation 1) Steps off the 'boat' and busts ass to make better life for kids, forcing kids to work hard.
Generation 2) Remembers parents busting ass and does the same.
Generation N) Always grown up in the 'good life' and doesn't really think working hard is required, ends up middle of the road.
I've seen it happen with African Americans. I have friends that own some property in Idlewild, MI, which from the stories I've heard from their grandparents used to be "The place" back in the day with 3+ night clubs, etc. Now every lake is depressing. 1920s era houses in disrepair, nothing mowed, houses being foreclosed, because this generation doesn't have any clue how hard their grandparents had to work to build it up.
-
One of the biggest 'surprises' (that I joked about to Indian friends) after my travels to India was that there are dumb Indians. I traveled Sikkim for a week before the rest of India. I'd say 90% of Indians I met had no clue where I was talking about. With one 'college student', when I stated that the US was much larger than India and I could still at least point in the general direction of all 50 states he proceeded to argue that India was much larger than the US.
In the US my interactions have only been with Indians (and most foreigners) either at a higher school of education or at my job, where they have to have a Masters or PhD to get candidacy. Meaning only the top % of best and brightest even make it to US shores. All the Americans I work with that have kids all are letting their kids do 'normal' stuff, what ever they want. All the 0th gen Chinese and Indians have them enrolled in academic stuff.
Nature AND nurture are both working in these kids favor. I'd be more interested in the statistics of 1st vs 2nd vs 3rd generation of ANY culture in these and other 'academic' tests.
Finally, I wouldn't really consider a spelling bee the pinnacle of academic achievement, it's rote memorization.
> Much as I think Asians often push their kids *too* hard,
You mean like this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkN9VdjgDwM&feature=related
OK it's a UK comedy show but I'm sure it's still relevant to the topic :).
If my parents and community had supported my academic interests as much as they supported my little league career, I'm sure I would have won a lot more spelling bees too.
Two things: 1) Indians aren't "Asians" unless you're from London. 2) Just anecdotally... India has a great track record, culturally, for caring a whole shitload about things that don't matter in the slightest. I think it's a combination of the ambient mysticism that says "anything is possible, even a yogi floating through the air by pure force of prayer or chi-power", and the triviality of most of the many, many, MANY lives there compared with the intelligence of the people and the lack of opportunities. I mean, there are a shit-ton of them, they're just as smart as us but most of them can aspire at best to earn a pittance doing work that in a first world country would put them on a 60k+ a year income. That intelligence just finds something to care about, and you get results like this.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
I was also on a ruby team. Only cause the diamond team cut me.
And what's the deal with airline food?
Ah screw it, spell checkers have made spelling obsolete anyway.
Say that to the manager I knew who had to transcribe ideas from a brainstorming session onto a whiteboard. It was embarrassing to watch him struggle.
The Asian mentality is very different from Western mentality in my experience. Though most everyone loves and wants their kids to succeed, Asians seem to put aside personal wants in order to provide more to their kids. I'm not sure if this comes from the generally American love of individuality, but I think Americans are fulfilled more by what they experience than other nationalities. For example, some Asian parents would wonder why I'd want to take a barista position at a local coffee shop just to have the experience. They'd say, "but you can read how to do it in a book." Or, "I've already done that. Let me tell you how." It seems odd to them that one would struggle to learn something when the knowledge can be gained more easily on other ways.
I never understood how a spelling bee was an intellectual pursuit.
Spelling in English anyway is just massive memorization. It doesn't seem to involve skills like problem solving or critical thinking.
Part of it may have been that when I was a kid we only had spelling bees but no competition for kids that where good in Math or Science like me.
I guess it is nice that they do well but I don't see it as being all that big if an intellectual pursuit.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
If you're already obese (and many kids are), sports like football, soccer or baseball are not really recommended.
"Obese" is a very loosely used word these days. I'm "obese" (BMI ~33), yet cover ~110 miles/week on my bike and play soccer reasonably frequently without any ill effects (indeed, I'd like to be doing more, but don't have the time).
seriously people, if you watched the documentary spellbound its pretty clear what is necessary to excel at that competition:
- A fairly intelligent child
- Demonic parents that life vicariously through their children
- an incredible will to exceed in sth. and feel superior to others, even if it's something so shitty like a f... spelling contest
They still have the problem in that you can't understand a fucking word they say when they pick up and answer the support lines over there.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Why are Indian kids, in US, and male, all the feeble, geeky, eye-glassed types? Why do they not excel in sports? Why do *any* musical talent often get nipped in the bud after a few classes? Why do they not participate in group activities more? Why do they insist on mugging up things and being bookworms in general? Why do they, and their parents, so much ignore the 'healthy mind in a healthy body' maxim?
Sure, the ability to spell is certainly good, but is that the only thing in life? Come on, it is just one language. How about a healthy life? exploration of other talents and interests, and such? Why this singleminded obsession with spelling bee?
How many of these spelling bee kids go on to become anything spectacular? Do they become anything more than worker-bees? Do they become leaders? Do they become inventors? scientists? humanitarians?
That is pretty condescending. Could also be that rather than spelling everything out phonetically as emphasized in the American spellings, the non-American speakers learn by Reading, Writing and Speaking.
when they can just fail back to spell check and move to the next call.
Looks like you might need more than just a spell check.
I agree in that I think it's a cultural thing. But to the topic, I don't think Indian or Asian Americans are any more gifted in the area of spelling. This would be like asking why do so many African-Americans are good at (American) football. And it's funny, because if THAT were the question, it would probably be considered racist, and yet it seems to be okay to assume that because someone is Asian-American they are supposed to be really smart or good at spelling.
Individual talent aside, it all depends on what a culture values. Just like if you have parents who like to read, you probably enjoy reading also.
But for those of us who struggled with "i before e" tell me this: Name or ask anyone to name last year's winner of the National Scripps Spelling Bee. Fame is fleeting.... :)
(By the way, if you're not a natural speller but want to get better, I recommend turning auto-correct off--if you see the same word popping up with the red underline, you're likely to get tired of having to fix it and finally learn how to spell it. I know that helped me as an adult.)
If you've never been modded as "flamebait" or "troll," you've never tried to argue a minority viewpoint here!
Thats a myth. There can only be one leader in a team
Not true at all - teams often have multiple team captains, and individual team units often have their own leaders. Take football for example: you may have the offensive team leader (with the quarterback being the most visible) but there are typically leaders among the subgroups like offensive backs, defensive backs, O linemen, D linemen, receivers and linebackers.
When I was at school there was nothing worse than having some teacher take the sports too seriously as it just spoiled the fun.
This is all too often true, but that's not a failure of sports, but rather a failure of the school leadership.
That is probably not PC, but it's true. There are universities in the US that turned out Nobel prizes in technology than the entire nation of India - and India has four times the US population. In fact, I have read that are single high schools in the US that have turned out more Nobel prize winners than the entire nation of India.
Or, forget prizes, how about earth changing technologies such as nuclear power, heavier than air flight, or man on the moon - 41 years ago. I think it's fair to say the US has more than it's share of technological accomplishment.
When it comes to world-changing tech companies, there is absolutely no comparison, the US has: Apple, Adobe, AT&T, Cisco, IBM, GE, Microsoft, Oracle, Intel, Motorola, Google, HP, IBM, and dozens more. I can not think of anything from India.
As I understand it, in India today they almost obsessive about how their children do on standardized tests, and the like. But when it comes to actual accomplishments, not so much.
Indians probably dominate for several reasons.
Firstly, most Asian countries have an extremely competitive nature to education. The education is also very geared to memorization of topics on standardized tests. So you have a culture that from a young age is already being molded to basically just memorize stuff, and a lot of it. Most Western education systems do not have such an emphasis on fact memorization.
Secondly, English is an important language in India. Since there are hundreds of local dialects English is the only 'standard' by which businesses can communicate. Parents also are very keen on the importance of learning English.
Thus it's not surprising that the only major English speaking/Asian styled education system country excels at the spelling bee. Though I would say that as you get farther and farther away from 1st generation immigrant parents, this effect should become smaller.
To be clear I'm not saying that they're 'better'. My own experience has been that many Asian countries are very good at the 'process' of doing things. Whether that's memorization, or the consistent creation of a good. However once you deviate even slightly, or a new unknown problem arises, in general Asian countries tend to deal with these situations more poorly than their Western counterparts.
Again this is 'in general'. I've of course met extremely brilliant and innovative people from Asia and beyond. However your 'average' worker/engineer/programmer from Asia that I've seen tend to fail when presented with a 'out of the box' problem.
Well, obviously they also need a grammar checker too. "Your" and "there" are spelled perfectly fine in your example, they are merely misused.
SpyDock: Scientific Python in a Docker container
There spelling is grate. Its they're grammar which may have a few errors. Heir brains.
Spelling Bees were never a good test of spelling ability anyway. Any time in the real-world where you have to spell a word, you have the opportunity to look at the word which is a tremendous help in identifying misspellings. You can also correct your errors, which most bees disallow.
Uh...no, India is considered part of Asia, just as the middle east is.
I'm guessing you didn't make the Geography bee. ;-)
If you've never been modded as "flamebait" or "troll," you've never tried to argue a minority viewpoint here!
To a degree it helps with reading comprehension if you have a wide range of vocabulary. Knowing the origin of words, and different prefixes and suffixes also help. Plus knowing weird words is great for cocktail parties and picking up girls who like the nerd type.
Unless you make an effort to live and work among superior people most of the country is a (Katzian definition) Hellmouth. Americans are brutish and willfully ignorant, most are superstitious (from religion to astrology), and they fetishize their stupidity and ignorance in their popular entertainments and choice of elected officials
Translation: Me, and people who think like me, are the "superior people," and anyone foolish enough to think they should run theuir own lives rather than have them run by Ivy league educated elites from a large Eastern City are " brutish and willfully ignorant."
I guess that "all men are created equal" bit just flew over the heads of you and your fellow "superior people"...
I think you're spot on and I've never heard it phrased this way.
Next Question: How do we get regular people to imagine themselves solving difficult problems? Quiz shows, Detective Novels, and some science fiction have smart people as heroes.
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
OMFG! I'm so shocked at this article submission. I'm so shocked i can't even laugh...jesus! I think we should up this and get one about black athletes. Something like: "When will blacks dominate hockey, they already dominate other sports." Seriously not sure how kosher this is /.
$action = empty(PHP) ? backToC() : unset(PHP) ; "when the concrete cases are understood, the abstractions are readily
And, as we spend more time in English-speaking countries, we get worse and worse at spelling. After a decade in the US, I started to make spelling mistakes that I'd have never made when the written word was a whole lot more important in my understanding of the language than speech.
Being a native speaker of a language where there's not a big conceptual difference between the written word and speech, many times I wish English made more sense.
And then they show up fat and ugly at their 20th high-school reunion....
If you've never been modded as "flamebait" or "troll," you've never tried to argue a minority viewpoint here!
Yeah, and basically being illegal immigrants, those kids must stay inside all the time or ICE is gonna grab them and they will soon be spelling at those shitty places they show in the SlumDog millionaire movie, that is the way that basically 99% of India looks like.
I prefer to teach my kids how to beat the crap out of smaller kids and get their lunch money. The old American way.
Really? Last time I checked, India was in Asia, which means Indians ARE Asians. I will admit they aren't the Chinese/Japanese/Koreans that Americans usually think of when you say "Asian".
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Why are Indian kids so bad as basketball?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
quiet true, ever sins eye got myself a spell check her I've Nevada lucked back
Thats a myth. There can only be one leader in a team
Not true at all - teams often have multiple team captains, and individual team units often have their own leaders. Take football for example: you may have the offensive team leader (with the quarterback being the most visible) but there are typically leaders among the subgroups like offensive backs, defensive backs, O linemen, D linemen, receivers and linebackers.
I've never played American Football, but would you really have all that stuff for a children's sports lesson? If so, it sounds like you're taking it too seriously. The PE teacher for the children at the school next door seems pleased if he can simply have all the children running around, regardless of what they're actually doing. (Often they seem to be playing variations on Tag, but I'm not sure if this is just a warm-up, a way to get everyone involved, or what the kids do because they think it annoys the teacher.)
Sports might teach leadership and teamwork to those who enjoy it, and want to participate. Those who are forced into it only learn to hate them.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Being a native speaker of a language where there's not a big conceptual difference between the written word and speech, many times I wish English made more sense.
Being a native speaker of English, many times I wish English spelling made more sense.
Its a fair balance that is needed. Pure excellence in examinable academics goes that far. Guess why India does not have a ...so economyand daily comfort is not the issue. Thinking outside the box
huge fraction of inventors...its middle class is as big if not bigger as the whole of US
or traditional way is an issue. Knowledge of spelling is good but thinking of how to make that home made rocket go higher in your back yard with your friends is good too !
I lucked out in my early education where the "cool kids" were also the ones who were excelling academically. It was the popular kids who played chess during free time or were reading the thicker novels during reading time. It probably had something to do with being in a magnet program but it really instilled a value in learning.
Say that to the manager I knew who had to transcribe ideas from a brainstorming session onto a whiteboard. It was embarrassing to watch him struggle.
Ah, a real manager would have picked on a volunteer to do the writing. Always remember the weasel way.
OK, I'll chew on this one since it's probably one of the more interesting posts. There are a number of reasons.
The US has vast resources and it's difficult to get here.
The Early Europeans had to be hardy enough to endure sea voyages that would be worse than life rafts today.
They got here, exploited the vast resources, and created a new and improved system based on the previous empire.
Now they had even more: Vast resources, a unique Republican form of government, and of course the vast oceans in the way.
The whole thing is a "filter" for high achievers. Anybody who doesn't appreciate the system doesn't come. The system works well, the Oceans and/or immigration procedures weed out the weeklings. Even the current problem with illegal immigrants is doing this. The smart ones don't get caught. It's a filter.
Of course, we have an incredible running start; but the jogger looks tired. Everybody talks about how the US isn't running as hard any more. It's a huge head start though. It would be interesting to see where this stands 100 years from now.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
"It's a damn poor mind that can only think of one way to spell a word." -- Andrew Jackson
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I'm sure plenty of /.ers are more than familiar with the general anti-intellectual sentiment found in many schools, especially among the 'cool kids' and young-ish age groups.
Try growing up in the black community. There's a real pressure to "keep it real" and remain "authentic" by rejecting intellectual pursuits.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
I gots this heres email from my boss...
"We start next week on getting a new account created so scripts\processes that are using can be changed. The password not passed to everybody.
I haven checked but believe from ****** commit yesterday that someone again is ms using it.
Once we get our processes changed we can see how much account still be used and give the IS dept time to change there process."
That is unedited except taking a name out and that the comment system cleared up the double and triple spaces...
I dread imagining what kind of communications will come from a whole generation that can't spell and don't know the difference between there, their and they're... (was very tempted to put hole instead of whole...)
LOL. Whooosh.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
"Sports teach leadership and teamwork,"
Thats a myth. There can only be one leader in a team and most kids just want to play and have fun anyway, they're not interested in having an outdoors team building workshop with balls despite what some team coaches seem to think. When I was at school there was nothing worse than having some teacher take the sports too seriously as it just spoiled the fun. In the end I got sick of team sports altogether because of the borderline psychotic behaviour of some of the sports staff.
You are half right. The link between sports participation and leadership skills has been shown generally to be a myth, however there have been links between sports participation and teamwork. For a citation, look at page 224 of this pdf from the Journal of Leadership Education.
Additionally, I call [citation needed] on your reasoning for why sports do not build leadership. Maybe there can only be one leader in a team for most sports, but I would argue this is not a universal truth -- you could easily play a modified game of capture the flag where there are still 2 teams, but participants are broken up into "squads" of 3, with each squad having its own leader. Furthermore, if you choose sports with relatively small teams and then rotate leaders, everyone will get a decent exposure to being in the leadership role. You create a false dichotomy between "just playing and having fun" on the one side versus "having an outdoors team building workshop with balls" on the other. The study I linked provides some interesting conjectures about the disconnect between the perception that sports builds leadership and the reality, and mostly what I got from it actually agrees with your last couple statements -- the problem could well be that sports staff don't know how to properly make the sports environment a valuable leadership- and teamwork- promoting experience, and thus focus on promoting athletics to the detriment of possible leadership and teamwork promotion.
If you depend on a spell checker, you'll rape what you sew.
but have you considered the following argument: shut up.
You all know "do the hustle". Someone needs to write a hit song/dance called "do the needful!"
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
You sure it's not the amount of Hentai that they provide you with? ;-)
Well, this article is apparently about immigrants from India doing better at spelling bees than other people living in the states, recent immigrants or not.
You're definitely right about the most nobel prizes going to US residents, but if you look closer at who actually won them, you'll see that a large number of those again are first generation immigrants. I haven't checked how many of them are second generation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_laureates_by_country
My guess is that it has more to do with the number of high level education facilities and the availability of financing than anything else. They're soaking up bright minds from around the world. If India could support them, they might go there instead.
We are all God's parents.
You could of given us some exemples their.
FTFY
Generalizations are generally incorrect.
In India - we do have anti-intellectual sentiment in colleges, people think that talent and ability is innate, getting good marks while being lazy is better than getting excellent grades after hardwork and so on and so forth.
The difference I can see is that most asians who attempt spelling bee are kids whose parents who have immigrated to foreign countries.
These people usually are much more hard working and also have a high pro-intellectual sentiment - which then shows up in their kids too.
rajmohan_h@yahoo.com
Mostly it is because the American Educational systems for the last 40+ years has been dumbing itself down to make the less intellectual feel better. It is a misguided belief that all people are capable of being the next Albert E. Not that there are people that can not learn, it is that some do not have the ability to excel. Unfortunately the same people that have the idea that all can excel are the same people that set policy while ignoring the wishes of the parents, many who can not afford to send their children to private school for the better education offered there.
Me dont no why. U tell why Indians spell good, Kimosabe.
-Tonto
"They said I probly shouldn't fly with just one eye," "I am Bender. Please insert girder."
Stupid people worship jocks because it is easier to imagine being strong than being smart.
Alternate explanation: people worship attractive people. Jocks tend to be more fit, and thus more attractive. Spending your life indoors sitting in a chair leads to pale skin and weight problems. It should come as no surprise that traditionally "geeky" past times don't help (and often hurt) one's physical appearance.
Okay, there are multiple leaders on the team. 3 people learn leadership while the other 55 people learn to be sheep.
They get good because they practice daily with ridiculously long names!
Being the leader is only part of the leadership equation. The leader also needs followers for the team to work. Learning to recognize good leadership and cooperate with that leader is a good lesson. Learning to pick the right leader is probably far more valuable for everyone than just learning to be the leader.
It's their lack of tweeting, texting, IMing, and 13375p33k. like zomg FTW!!!!!!!11!!!eleventyone!!1
Yea you probably wouldn't see all that in a PE class, but he's probably talking about extracurricular leagues, where the kiddies would definitely be learning about all the different positions and how to play them.
Exactly what you need, more poorly educated, semi-literate 'leaders'. Vote Tyson/Simpson for the next presidential ticket.
There are no LOLCats and LOLDogs in India... They're LOLLunch and LOLDinner.
Yeah but if you can get past the quasi-Aspergers asocial-little-kid-with-academic-ability stage (god knows we've all spent years, sometimes our whole life there), you'll find that the guy who owns a home with is wife, earns $85k a year building control systems for giant hydraulic mining robots and has also put effort into developing himself to his fullest extent as a man - that guy ends up coming home every day to a hot dinner AND having regular threesomes, while the pitcher on the baseball team is a fat has-been at the same age.
Every detail in this post is based on a true story.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
I came to a very odd realization the other day - I have no idea what an Indian "jock" looks like. There are certain countries where the vast majority of immigrants to the US are in technical fields - engineering, computer science, you name it, and India is definitely one of these, at least in my part of the country. It's very easy to end up with a warped image of a whole culture if you're only exposed to such a small subset of it - I'd never use my CS classes as a representative cross section of white America.
Hello Einstein, we are talking about spelling bee in this country, not India. Indian kids born in this country have the same accent as any other kid born here. Except when they talk they don't tend to use double negatives such as "I don't know nothing" like some of the population do.
A lot of normal people admire jocks because sports are exciting, and because the participants have better social skills; they don't call everyone stupid and then wonder why no one respects them. Don't be an arrogant twit, man.
Qxe4
I've never played American Football, but would you really have all that stuff for a children's sports lesson?
I'm not referring to PE classes, I'm talking about extracurricular sports.
Was that post written ironically? It's hard to catch sarcasm online...
If it wasn't, the proper idiom is "would have", not "would of". The part that probably confuses you is you always hear "would've", which is a contraction of "would" and "have", but sounds like "would of"
If you did mean it ironically, I apologize ;)
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
I read a study recently that divided kids into two groups (4th 5th and 6th graders). One group, every time the kids solved something, they said, "good job, you're really smart." The other group they said, "good job, you figured it out." Later on, when the kids came on to something they couldn't solve, the ones who were told they were smart just gave up. The other group was more likely to keep going until they figured it out.
In essence, there is scientific evidence to back up your intuition.
Qxe4
Er... there I go. A whole rant using "would" instead of "could", which is what you said. Still, same principle applies, just replace every instance of "would" with "could" in my previous post. That teaches me to not use the preview button to actually preview...
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
Not recommended? Really? If your overweight then don't do activities that start improving your health one will just get more overweight. Granted an overweight person won't be put on first string right away (lineman excluded) but if you practice and get in shape then you can make yourself and your team stronger. Telling overweight people that they shouldn't participate is counterproductive and may result in depressing them leading to more overeating.
open source sub sim. I might start coding again for this. http://dangerdeep.sourceforge.net/contribute/
--you're not your
open source sub sim. I might start coding again for this. http://dangerdeep.sourceforge.net/contribute/
NSF what?
This might also be called the "Pakistani Dunkin' Donuts Phenomenon" as well.
But I think the BETTER answer is this; We often get very smart Indian's and Asians in the US, because those two countries represent about 2 Billion people. The people who can come to the US, are the entrepreneurs and over-represented by College educated immigrants. Those going to University are already the cream of the crop.
Couple that with India's many languages, and English language education, and you've also got a boost on the development of the language centers in young brains.
It's like the Obnoxious American stereotype -- the ignorant, midwestern, overweight person who goes to Paris and says; "If it weren't for America, you guys would be speaking German." And of course, that over-represented clod doesn't get the obvious rebuttal; "If it weren't for the French, you Americans would be speaking English." That works on about two different levels.
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
Yet. You're overstressing at least your knee joints.
Whooooooooooooosh!
And? I hated English and foreign languages when I was in school. Still had to take them though.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Well, I can:
There x their x they're.
It's x its.
Whose x who's.
Compatable x compatible.
And the list goes on, but I'm not a native speaker, there's a lot of errors for me to learn yet...
In other languages, people can group words using their written form (e.g., seeing whether they're written with an S or a Ç).
Other languages also show a lot more care in preserving words in its original form (e.g. German ingenieur = French).
That English is a smorgasbord of terms from different origins certainly doesn't help.
This is totally true — I didn't start misspelling English words until I was well into university — I was a major in English —, only because I would always utter them mentally in French — yes, French's my mother tongue. But thanks to diachronic linguistics, I always know how to figure out spellings. :D
"The body may heal, but the mind is not always so resilient." -- Deus Ex: Human Revolution
I know... I mean who doesn't know that it was really 8000 years ago!
I am so very sorry, sir. I do apologize for your problem, sir.
There's also nothing worse than a coach with no competitive drive. With no drive, there will be no morale or enjoyment considering the nature of sports is competition.
I would say that even if another nation has a higher average intelligence/academic accomplishment (how ever you want to measure that), the intellectually elite (those people who blow the bell curve and make all the "smart" kids feel dumb) in the US are just as smart at the elite in India, Japan, China, wherever.
The accomplishments you mentioned come from a relative handful of brilliant people. The US does have good academic resources available to those who want them and has a lot of wealth available for technology, research, and businesses to turn that intelligence into technology. I think that the US also encourages more "adventurous" pursuits of success which results in higher highs and lower lows for our great minds.
P.S. I now blame my (white) parents for the number of times I had to use spell check in this post.
Steal my band's record! Seriously,
I hated English* and foreign languages too. I would not be in favor of forcing anyone to take them either. Education works best when the student is motivated and interested. Forcing them to study subjects they hate only takes away time they could be doing something they like and are good at and will use in the future. I would have preferred to have no disinterested students in my science and math classes as well.
*English was particularly bad. For as many times as I was told "there is no right answer" I sure as hell found a lot of wrong answers.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
>There's also the fact that 1/3 of this country is obese to argue in favor of expanded sports/PE instruction.....
But it's not making any difference, and never has. If you are worried about obesity, replacing PE with a science-based class on nutrition would be FAR more helpful.
Most kids learn nutrition at home, which pretty much means that only kids from intact and non-dysfunctional families will learn anything about it.
Too many kids do not know how to think about hunger, and the different types, and to listen to your body's request for certain types of food (protein, carbs, and yes even some fat). Instead most kids skip meals and eat junk, and when they "crash" they drink an energy drink or carbonated sugar syrup.... this type of metabolism ensures the kid will have zero energy for any sustained PE, and besides that NO amount of exercise will undo a diet of nutrition-less snacks.
I am not kidding, but compared to most diets, kids would be better off if they replaced that garbage with ANYTHING which had some basic level of nutrition in it, so they're not accustomed to being hungry for soda all day. Compared to soda, unfiltered beer (or even Malta) would be a hell of a lot better...
Because they worship cows. That's right.
Contrarily, Asian cultures believe that success is directly proportional to the effort the person puts into it.
That's true as far as it goes, but it depends how you define 'effort'. In particular, Japanese / Chinese / Singapore / Indian cultures put a huge emphasis on time spent, and on hard work. They don't put much emphasis, in my experience, on 'work smarter not harder'. So you end up with incredible feats of memorisation, rote learning, and physical skill, but without quite the range of creativity, ingenuity and focus that you get from western cultures. When I was in university I met several Singaporean students on exchange. They had unbelievable work ethic, the "get up 3 hours before lectures start and revise solidly for that time" sort. They far outstripped me if ability were to be measured in number of words from the lectures which you could quote verbatim. And yet when asked to do something outside the curriculum, they were not only stumped but slightly confused as to why you would even WANT to.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
Why? I sort of get your football thinking - linemen can be somewhat encouraged to bulk up - but soccer requires agility and provides an incentive to slim down. Baseball as well to a degree, although you have more standing still than in soccer. I'm thinking steroid or other "bulking up" drugs are probably not a huge issue in youth sports (high school, traveling teams may be a different matter, but I'm thinking in terms of recreational sports leagues).
Here's a good read.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
I was mainly just thinking of a kid's motivation. For me it was all about girls. Even with all my geekiness I still wanted to be the most wanted guy on campus as far as women were concerned. I was never into sports, completely anti-social was the best way to describe me then. Seems not much has changed.
I guess the lines have changed since I were a lad. We were taught that India was part of the 'Indian subcontinent', and India wasn't considered part of Asia. I was flabbergasted when I was told in London that referring to what we (in Australia) would without prejudice call "Asians" (ie. China, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, maybe as far south as Indonesia) are there referred to as "oriental" and would be highly offended to be called "asian", which they reserve for Indians and Pakistanis.
What a strange world we live in.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
It's really just selection bias; these are kids of parents who emigrated for studies and/or jobs. Which in turn means that they (the parents, that is) were among the top of those who try every year. Given an average proportion of reasonably concerned parents, it's no surprise that the kids of such parents turn out to be smart.
On the other hand, the rest who stay back in India are not generally so good, at least at overt arts like spelling. I for one am in India, and most of my peers' spelling and grammar is just atrocious!
SOUNDS acceptable when spoken, but in fact, is actually "there is(singular) a lot of errors(plural)", which is incorrect; most native speakers would say (and write) "there are a lot of errors", but it would SOUND like the (non-existent/incorrect) contraction "there're".
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
It is just a guess, but it could be the that most Indian languages are written in Devanagari script. In Devanagari, what you read and what you write are the same; no phonetics are necessary. Exposure to that could have caused this. Or it may be a rear end talk.
Other than that, Indians and other Asians are obsessed with numbers, anything that has a number on it is worth having. First rank.. hell yeah. A million dollars.. yep. Arts and research are what losers do because they cant be measured and my ignorance is as good as your knowledge. What good is it?
PS: I'm an Indian.
You will never have experience until after you needed it.
He's talking about when they move 'back' to India for the high rates of pay as phone support techs.
Is 1563649 a prime number?
By your choice of the word 'campus' I infer that by 'kid' you mean 'late adolescent'. That's a dark time for us geeks, and things don't really improve until we're in our (sometimes late) 20s. Luckily, being geeky is kind of the real life term for "putting all your stat points into intellect so you can train faster". It's a loss early on but it pays for itself later in life. :)
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
The US has vast resources and it's difficult to get here.
India has vast resources. Certainly vast human resources. How is an advantage to be difficult to get here?
The Early Europeans had to be hardy enough to endure sea voyages that would be worse than life rafts today.
What does that have to do with anything?
They got here, exploited the vast resources, and created a new and improved system based on the previous empire.
Same with India, no?
Now they had even more: Vast resources, a unique Republican form of government, and of course the vast oceans in the way.
How are the vast oceans helpful? Are you implying that the US has less to worry about militarily? If so, you are way off base. US military expenses are staggering by any measure.
The whole thing is a "filter" for high achievers. Anybody who doesn't appreciate the system doesn't come. The system works well, the Oceans and/or immigration procedures weed out the weeklings. Even the current problem with illegal immigrants is doing this. The smart ones don't get caught. It's a filter.
Again with the oceans, has that been a factor in the last century?
Of course, we have an incredible running start; but the jogger looks tired. Everybody talks about how the US isn't running as hard any more. It's a huge head start though. It would be interesting to see where this stands 100 years from now.
The US will not be the world economic leader by then, I feel certain of that.
Yeah, I'm not saying you can't lose weight by eating crap, but it really doesn't mean you're going to be healthy or feel very good..
which is totally what she said
Again, native English speaker. Or are you trying to say that native English speakers tend to develop accents as if English were _not_ their native language the moment they set foot in a country with a non-English language as the dominate language?
"I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
NEWSFLASH: If members of a certain ethnicity are naturally good at something they tend to have competitions in that area.
There is a strong divide between (very generally) Western and Asian cultures. In the West we tend to believe that talent and ability is innate, and that your success in life will be down to the use of your gifts. Contrarily, Asian cultures believe that success is directly proportional to the effort the person puts into it. The psychological evidence is they are essentially correct.
This idea is the same one behind the book NurtureShock. Watch how the parents from Hong Kong talk to their children versus the way American parents talk to theirs when it comes to ability and performance.
Let's play video games with mailmanZERO
The accomplishments you mentioned come from a relative handful of brilliant people.
Statistically, shouldn't India have 4X as many brilliant people?
The US does have good academic resources available to those who want them and has a lot of wealth available for technology, research, and businesses to turn that intelligence into technology.
Why doesn't India have all that? The US was no BFD 150 years ago.
I think that the US also encourages more "adventurous" pursuits of success which results in higher highs and lower lows for our great minds.
That might explain a better economy, but academicians typically do not make the big bucks.
I'm pretty sure that they're just putting on that accent because that's what their employer wants them to do. All part of the experience, you know?
Is 1563649 a prime number?
parents in many other countries are way more interested in driving their kids or excel in social activities or in sports than in intellectual pursuits
Don't forget that spelling is very language-bound. In Spanish, for example, it is both way less useful and very easy to learn compared to English.
Phonics doesn't work well with English. Any rules beyond the most basic (b is for bat) has far too many exceptions to be useful. Given the words rough, and through, how do you pronounce bough? If you used either of the "rules" you used from the examples you'd be wrong. Does Phonics tell you why through the preposition is spelled one way, but threw the past-tense verb is spelled another? Nope. Hukt On Fonics Wurkt Fer Me!
Mary had a little car,
She drove in manner deft
Every time she'd turn right
The damned little car turned left.
Inane Comments are Generously Disregarded
> there is(singular) a lot of errors(plural)
Funny, I didn't know it (actually, I'm still in doubt whether _a_ lot of errors wouldn't be a singular expression, not a plural one).
But what's funny is that, in my own language, it's incorrect to write "there are errors".
This a classical mistake in Portuguese (the right form being "There is errors").
The reason? It's because, IIRC and someone please correct me if I'm wrong, this is similar to "It is raining"... i.e., "errors" is not the subject of the phrase.
In this case, I'm in doubt which is trickier: English or Portuguese... thanks for the remark.
This is made quite clear by your last statement.
You're* Their*.
It would be interesting to do a genetic test of the spelling bee winners, and see if perhaps they have some genes that are present at a higher rate in the Indian population.
I had the pleasure of meeting the champion from spellbound, Nupur Lala, when we were both undergraduates at the University of Michigan. We became great friends and, along with another friend, shared an apartment our senior year. Although she is undoubtedly a genius, Nupur is far from the stereotype of the over-achieving Indian kid. She loves her family and is proud of her heritage, and her parents are likewise very proud of her. Her parents didn't, however, force her into academic competition or drill her with thousands of words per day. They did instill in her a love of learning and gave her a great deal of gentle encouragement when she showed a passion for language.
I think Nupur's example shows that very high-achieving young people, Indian or otherwise, need not be humorless robots driven by overbearing parents. She's a fun-loving, friendly, and extroverted woman who has the support of an engaged family that values academics without pushing too hard. She attended public schools her whole life (on through UM, go wolverines!) and likewise found teachers and peers who inspired her to further develop her talents.
In the end, what I'm driving at is that my experience with an Indian spelling bee champion contradicts a lot of stereotypes about Indians and Indian families, as well as those about high-achieving students. In her case, triumph is all about passion, inspiration, and love, not ethnicity.
Anonymous Luddite: "What do you think of the dehumanizing effects of the Internet?"
Andy Grove: "Not Much."
That because Indians are taught to spell "mathematics" as:
MA-thee-MA-tics
it would be nice to be able to spell "necessary" consistently today without needing a spell checker.
I used to be good at spelling. Really good at spelling.
Problem is, I then learned German, and the consistent spelling and rarity that vowels lose quality means that when attempting to apply the same rules into English, I screw up all the time.
"Separate"? The second vowel has lost all its quality and just become "Sep-uh-rate", so what should the middle vowel be anymore? It takes time and effort to remember a separate pronunciation for every word that indicates the correct spelling. And even then, memory is a fickle thing, and the parallel spelling-pronunciation that one learned long ago has just defenestrated itself, so good luck on the good spelling.
It's definitely something that needs to be practiced, or else you just look ridiculous.
(Yeah, I added the "ridiculous" once I realized I used "separate" and "definitely" in this post already.)
WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
I think it all boils down to ability to earn and get food.
I am an Indian and this is my 2cents
Parents of these kids are mostly immigrant parents and kids are possibly first generation kids. So, these parents, back in India, have to be good in education/business to earn well to lead a comfortable life and get food, else you can't lead a happy life. I mean, other people lead a happy life too, but I am talking about majority.
If you are in sports in India, or any other field, you have struggle to make a decent living. That's why you don't see Olympic medals coming to India, even with Billion Population.
Competition is brutal.. you have to be smart, or you are really good in politics (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/south_asia/10227680.stm)
These immigrant parents pass on the genes to 1st generation kids.. so you see so many good spellers or Indian in any field related to education.
Note to self: Check status of Kids of india origin in 100years and compare with non-indian kids of 2010.
I heartily recommend reading the article. It's not about some miracle food/eating plan. From the preface:
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
I have never understood the concept of a spelling bee. English words are difficult to spell because of all the foreign influences and no consistent rules. Why would anyone other than etymologists care about these issues? Why would anyone care about the spelling of "sangfroid" or "arbitrage" if they don't know their meanings. It seems a waste of time to memorize spellings of thousands of words without knowing their meanings. You might as well memorize the shapes of all Egyptian hieroglyphics without learning the language; about as useful.
I also don't understand why people on here seem to equate spelling ability with general intellectual prowess. Spelling bees are exercises in pedantry.
Lemme know when Coach starts fielding 50 linemen.
You should just change your sig to "Americans: please stop using French words if you don't know French". "à la" is such a minor part of the problem :)
Le français vous intéresse?
Someone needs a humor checker.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Sadly, Chris Rock had a great routine on that. He said that it was sad to grow up in a neighborhood where you got more respect coming back from prison than coming back from college.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Nonsense! In the West we realize that it's all about the connections, who one is related to, connected with, descended from, that's already been researched over and over again, back to Jensen's work in the early 1970s.
Jensen ascertained that the principal causal factor in success in the U.S.A. was the family one was born into.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
Indian language/script/numbering has always been more advanced than the rest.So mastering a language probably comes naturally to them. If english had adopted any indo-aryan language script (like how it adopted the numbering system) we wouldn't have had no spell bee champs.
No, but they do tend to bully the other kids...
You know, like surprising a kid with a vacuum cleaner... And using it to suck him in a very intimate/inappropriate place... If you catch my drift...
Not that I've participated in that kind of activity as either abuser or victim. But I've heard the screams...
What they generally should be doing is correcting their eating habits (much more important than exercise for weight loss), and focusing on appropriate exercises (things that will not unduly stress their joints due to their obesity). Playing sports is probably not the best thing for them health wise.
What is? I dono. Possibly low impact aerobics?
Note, They includes me. I have always been over weight, even when I was highly active athletically. Why? I eat WAY too damn much, much like most of our nation I suspect.
Do Or Do Not, There Is No Spoon, There Is Only Zuul. Everything in the above post is probably opinion.
Testify! We all know the world was around 75,000,000 years ago when Xenu was using DC-10s to drop H-bombs into volcanoes.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Why all the outrage with this spelling bee == cultural thing?
I mean no one is complaining about the recent influx of Asian women in the Nathan's Hot Dog contest at Coney Island (along with more Asian men in general)? OMG, the INSANITY! What about the kids!......
If it's all about preparing kids to make up their own minds(think for themselves), then I'm for it. And the current options ('Robotic' Indian super spellers or duh-witted American jocks) just don't cut it-- if you look at it, either can't ignore peer pressures of name brands, American Idol or getting an MBA... and just be "themselves", which is the real problem the article should be pointing out.
Yeah sorry, posted too quickly after seeing the tagline for it. The strange thing is that I have seen that guide before, a few years ago, but back then I didn't care because I didn't realise I was slowly growing overweight, and that the reason for my generally poor mood control was because of lack of exercise and a rather poor diet.
which is totally what she said
As a corollary, we also believe that all children are gifted, in their own way.
This creates a lack of need for effort.
And meanwhile, US kids are encouraged to not care about spelling, lest it interfere with learning the topic at hand and the practicing of expression, including creative expression.
Two theories. I wonder which has better results as far as outcomes analysis goes?
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
This is clearly the answer: India's long tradition of marginally entertaining and excruciatingly difficult competition seemingly only for the sake of being ridiculed by outsiders.
Take cricket for example...
Rote memorization says very little about the cognitive powers of the brain. Spelling well is hardly an indicator of how smart somebody is, or how good they'll be at problem-solving, negotiation, and other pertinent real-world skills.
Intellectual endeavors are great and all, but spelling is about as intellectual as NASCAR is athletic.
Sports and PE instruction can be (usually are) two different things. Kids benefit very little from playing a sport in gym class for an hour a day, but would benefit immensely from a personal fitness course for an hour a day. I'd recommend shit-canning organized sports during school time and replace them with a hybrid PE/Health course that teaches kids how to exercise and eat right.
It's absolutely true. It's unbelievably frustrating. No one noticed when I placed in our school's science fair, or when I made Dean's List in College, or when I get another college Degree. But everyone of them knows when Jermaine is supposed to get released from prison.
The worst is that one gets accused of "selling out" or self-hatred because they reject the anti-intellectual current and work to excel in life.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Alternate, alternate explanation: it would be really fun to be a (rock star, athlete, actor, race driver) and make lots of money, so in general, we tend to worship those people because we'd like to be them (and we'd like to make lots of money).
Was that post written ironically? It's hard to catch sarcasm online...
If it wasn't, the proper idiom is "would have", not "would of". The part that probably confuses you is you always hear "would've", which is a contraction of "would" and "have", but sounds like "would of"
If you did mean it ironically, I apologize ;)
The question is do Indians make better Grammar Nazis though?
Swimming is excellent as a a sport with low impact on your joints.
Dilbert RSS feed
Asian cultures believe that success is directly proportional to the effort the person puts into it.
...in bed. (Or at least it sounded like a fortune cookie when I read it)
I don't know how things work there, but talking to your physician about it is recommended.
'round here kids can stop attending sports classes if they deliver proof they have sport classes elsewhere (of course, paid by the parents).
Dilbert RSS feed
My comment seems to have been lost.
All those sports require running, and since those kids have much more weight, that puts stress in their knees and other joints, with possible long term effects.
Recommended sports are swimming (excellent), biking, rowing and basically any that doesn't rely on them running.
Dilbert RSS feed
What's wrong with sports? Sports teach leadership and teamwork,
This is crap parroted by sports to further their programs at the expense of programs that actually matter and require teaching. There are LOTS of ways to teach leadership and teamwork. In fact, in contrast, Japan and China excel at teaching both and generally without sports. Its part of their culture and "group think". Same is true for teamwork. Just like in America, the popular "group think" is, "sports teaches leadership and teamwork"; no matter how incorrect that may be.
Besides, social sciences CLEARLY shows leadership is an inherent part of being human which really does not require much teaching. And the areas which do require teaching are absolutely not taught in athletics. Time and time again, leadership is naturally asserted. Accordingly, a natural pecking order always falls out and leaders are naturally established. What follows are, well, the other people. The fact that roles in athletics are ASSIGNED actively defeats nature's role and other natural leadership capabilities.
Sports tend to elevate those capable of physical feats. Hundreds of years ago, and more likely, thousands of years ago, that made a lot of sense. It might even explain why their genes are still around today. These days, it makes little to no sense at all. These days if you want to get a head, its NOT by physical agility and strength. In short, not only does sports teach negative aspects of humanity (oppression by physics prowess), it emphasizes other aspects which are least likely to benefit humanity or themselves in the long run; as in, not brain power or higher learning.
What we can authoritatively say about athletics is, if you actually "learned" teamwork and leadership (which for most actually means shut up and follow), then you're dumber than a bag of hammers. If you learned teamwork in athletics, that means your parents, friends, and extended family all failed horribly, because that's where its actually learned.
To be clear, I don't have a problem with athletics. Everyone should enjoy competition, feel victory and defeat. Heck, the exercise alone is beyond rebuke. It absolutely does help with character building, social skills, learning reasonable expectations, even brain chemistry, so on and so on. There are lessons to be learned. Good lessons. Just the same, leadership and teamwork are not inherent qualities generally learned or taught by association. The fact this is commonly repeated means their brainwashing has been very successful - so their future funding won't be a concern.
Now if you want to argue sports can help improve social skills, I won't outright disagree. But then again, you'll find they are generally poor activities to do so. And if social skills were truly of concern, you'd see everyone following in the footsteps of the fairer sex as by all measure they appear to be experts as social skill development.
Innate talent can easily be squandered when it is not focused in the right direction. Someone had once said (and I mean a famous person) -- "Success is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration"
In other words, intelligent hard-work is the key to success in any field.
Nearly all of them have dark hair - no blondes! :)
so how is it, working for Sarah Palin?
You can't handle the truth.
Boy that's rather dismissive.
I suspect that if progress in intellectual pursuits resulted in as much endorphin and oxytocin release as progress in social interaction does, more people would jump on it.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
You could of given us some examples there.
Apparantly, could of and could have are new your and you're.
Have you seen how many letters are in an Indian persons name? No wonder they are good at spelling!
BMI is the worst measure to gauge obesity, there are many factors that need to be considered to determine obesity. I workout 5 times a week for more than an hour each session, weights and cardio, I don't smoke, don't drink, eat healthy. I am broad shouldered. Yet according to the BMI I am obese. My son who studies Human Movement and podiatry tells me that the BMI is the biggest load of crock ever.
You never catch me alive
The best athletes are smart and the fans recognize that. It takes both brains and physical ability to be a top athlete.
This is totally wrong, Chinese are very big on the whole 'destiny' idea.
The 'West', or at least the modern West, is built on Protestant work ethic.
The explanation of why stupid people worship them is irrelevant to why smart people worship them. That you confuse the two indicates which camp you are in.
Learn to love Alaska
And those have coaches where they are people who wanted to go pro in that sport but lacked the ability. I've never played in an extracurricular league that wasn't dominated by coaches that wanted to win at any cost. There's a reason why most kids leagues have written rules on play time, guaranteeing a minimum. If they didn't, the psychopath coaches would bench the weaker kids and play their son (they always have a kid on the team who is the "best" on the team, no matter how bad they are) and the next strongest players and ignore all the others.
Learn to love Alaska
That you are so quick to divide the world into smart and stupid people shows you are in the camp of arrogant pricks. Too bad.
Qxe4
Why are the Indians, objectively, lackluster in everything else.
Objectively again, homeland India is a third world mess.
Despite frequent attempts by the power that be to portray them as highly accomplished (the next superpower, etc).
Probably, I just always think of my dad with Swimmers Shoulder, but I assume that if you aren't pushing your self doing laps it probably isn't an issue.
Do Or Do Not, There Is No Spoon, There Is Only Zuul. Everything in the above post is probably opinion.
No, sports teach an us-them mentality where your team deserves to win more than the other team, regardless of how well you or they play. Sports teach you to set meaningless goals and achieve them. The act of goal-setting is somehow valuable. Instead of doing your best in all pursuits, you only need to do enough to beat the other guy. Also, anything you can get away with in pursuit of winning is acceptable and encouraged. I teach high school. This is the substance of my discussions with students about their sports victories. Every time one of my kids tells me that they won a game I ask them how they did it and what would the other team need to work on to beat them next time. 90% of these questions result in blank looks. When they are on the losing side, they seem to learn more. This is ironic in the face of how losing is treated in school sports. Of course, the kids are players and not coaches, so they don't instinctively know these things, but if they're not learning to think like a coach (leadership and teamwork), what's the point?
Also, I would be very happy if all the money currently used for school sports was used to expand the PE department. They are not the same. Everyone has a chance to participate in PE, and only a small handful of students can play on the school teams. That's as it should be in an enterprise where competition is used to form a team, but let's not pretend that school sports benefit the student population as a whole. Except, I guess it makes them more enthusiastic consumers of sports.
When the axe came to the forest, the trees said, "Look out - the handle was once one of us."
To be fair, I've never used Sparknotes, but I used to shelve them fairly often when I worked at the library while in high school. I don't have any of the technical spelling training required to win a spelling bee, but I do have a good vocabulary because I read a lot.
When the axe came to the forest, the trees said, "Look out - the handle was once one of us."
What someone *is* is irrelevant to what they are called. Turks are Asians, yet people don't generally say "he's Asian" when describing them. In fact, everyone from Libya to somewhere around Myanmar/Burma is "Middle Eastern" and from east of there "Asian." At least in the USA...
Or are you arguing that you say "he's Asian" to your friend and he immediately pictures a white Russian living in Siberia? Or a Turk? Or an Israeli? Yes, people refer to the 6 Day War as those damn Asians shooting up each other.
Just because you could call someone something doesn't mean that they are called that something.
Learn to love Alaska
That you are so quick to divide the world into smart and stupid people shows you are in the camp of arrogant pricks.
I divided nothing. There exist smart people. There exist stupid people. Or are you denying that there are smart or stupid people? I'm merely passing along an observation about those whom others have placed into such categories. you don't make any comment against the observation, but instead attack the person making the observation. As near as I can tell, that means that you agree 100% but don't like the implications. Otherwise, you'd have been able to muster some complaint about the observation itself, and you haven't.
But feel free to make up stuff about me only seeing the world in smart or stupid, with no gray area between. It makes it easier for the stupid people to attack arguments, when they get to make up an easier one to attack.
Learn to love Alaska
prowd to bee an indiean!!!!
Or are you denying that there are smart or stupid people?
Nope, I'm just mentioning that your a prick. And somewhat arrogant.
Qxe4
BMI is the worst measure to gauge obesity, there are many factors that need to be considered to determine obesity.
I agree. Even if I got my weight down to where I'd really like to have it (90kg - 30 less than I am now), I'd still be considered "overweight" according to my BMI.
That was kind of my point - the term "obese" gets thrown around way too much.
Yeah, they didn't really mean "there is no right answer", of course. If they meant that literally, then you shouldn't bother trying since no matter what your answer would not be right.
What they were implying is "there is more one right answer" not "there is no wrong answer" which is apparently how you interpreted it.
Obviously, given the assignment, "Write a paragraph explaining the difference between rhyme and verse.", there are (infinitely?) many ways to do it correctly.
but writing "There is no difference. They are the same thing." is one of infinitely many possible wrong ways to answer.
...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
Then you should be modded down for being an off topic fucktard. Go fuck yourself. If all your are going to post is personal attacks on those who voice correct opinions you don't like, you should stay off the Internet.
Learn to love Alaska
"Ah screw it, spell checkers have made spelling obsolete anyway."
No Indians nor spelchekker users here at /. anyway, we would have noticed, so who cares?
"you may have the offensive team leader"
That crap is just a destresser for those with an overexpressed 'Hunter/Gatherer' genome, who need that kind of sports to feel manly enough to face the boss next day.
(Ooook)
We call you Neanderthals while we are sipping our appletinis.
Very funny! Very true.
hehe......if you think people should admire or respect you for nothing but IQ, then you should stay in a cave.
Qxe4
I've always seen the fact that contests such as these exist as a symptom of the fact that the spelling sucks. Imagine for a moment that in C++ you had to use the keyword "new" with some classes but "fresh" with some other classes, that both keywords did exactly the same thing and that there was little structure as to when to use which and that there were lots of exceptions. And then the same for the other keywords and the various braces and parens.
@wallerbyrd: You are right 'and' wrong. Innovation needs prosperity and vice-versa. I can bet you would eat your words if you wait for another 15 years.
India got independence from the British in 1947, and as per records, then the literacy rate in India was between 7-12% (and in some Indian states hardly 2%). In that period India faced widespread famines, at least 3 wars. India was actually surviving on aid, and even required wheat imports from US to save itself from famines. Regarding all the "earth changing technologies such as nuclear power, heavier than air flight, or man on the moon" which you refer to as American achievements of the last 40 years, well, it would have been laughable for Indians to think about it when the first priority was to feed and educate its millions of people.
India currently has around 70% literacy rate (and more than 85% amongst the young), is more-or-less self reliant, has a strong service industry and a large GDP that is largely based on internal growth. Most Indian IT companies like Infosys, Tatas, Wipro etc were established in early 1990s and are growing by around 20% a year. Surprisingly when Obama stopped the project constellation at NASA because of the heavt cost, India gave its Ok to the manned Chandrayan-II moon mission.
As far as accomplishments go, what could be a bigger accomplishment than a fact that a nation of billion people that was almost broke in 1991, which was always referred to as a land of snake-charmers, is a strong economy, and a vibrant democracy. Compare India to any other colony of that era, and you would find it to be either broke, or nearly a terrorist nation.
Btw, make a visit to MIT, Stanford or CMU and find out the number the Indian grads. (It nears 40% at MIT and CMU). And the best part is that many are willing to return to India.
I guess you have never witnessed, or participated in, a good quiz.
Chat with other atheists http://secularchat.org
There are no spelling bees in Mexico because the language is phonetic: if you pronounce it right, you can spell it right 99.9% of the time. While doing well in a bee may be impressive from an abilities standpoint, it is pretty much just a spectator sport. I'd like to see brains and effort instead spent on fixing English.
Table-ized A.I.
Oops, the fucktard lies again. I never said anything of the kind, so quit lying to find something to attack. You are the one that started all this with lies about dumb people, apparently defending your idiot mother.
Learn to love Alaska
This clearly shows just how dumb jocks are. How can an activity that has leaders and followers teach all of them leadership?
It is complete and utter bull of course, one of those dogmatic facts people have latched onto with no evidence whatsoever.
Really, THINK about what the term leadership means and how it works in a group. Leaders need followers, followers do not learn to lead. That is like saying being a soldier trains you to be an officer. Oh, no it doesn't. That is why officer training is a separate part.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
This is all too often true, but that's not a failure of sports, but rather a failure of the school leadership.
Are you suggesting that the school leaders needed more sports education growing up?
Considering spelling an intellectual pursuit is akin to considering playing wii Tiger Woods major physical activity.
Sure it is better than nothing, but there are a heck of a lot better things you could be doing with your time. I will not care in the slightest if my kids can't spell. In fact, I am a horrible speller - I admit it, but who cares? As I type this all my mistakes are auto-corrected anyway. I fail to see how not being able to spell will have any effect in modern society.
Having well rounded math and grammar skills is much more important than having spelling skills.
what's so intelligent about spelling anyway ? I bet a well trained parrot could learn how to spell quite a few words correctly
beware he who denies you access to information for in his mind, he already deems himself to be your master (SMAC-ish)
The could probably care less what the GP thinks.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
BMI is useful as a first approximation, but no more. But if yours is over 30 you're probably a crap soccer player - you need an odd shaped ball.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Say it with me. "BMI has no relevance at the individual level". I don't know why people go around telling their individual BMI and saying that the whole BMI system is flawed. The BMI is a tool for dealing with populations of people. In any population, there will be outliers, people who are not fat with high BMI because of high muscle mass, people who have too much fat yet have a healthy BMI because of low muscle mass. These are outliers, and in a population discussion, it is OK to have some anomolies. You may also very well have a high BMI because you have extra fat, even though you do a lot of exercise. This depends a lot on the diet you consume along with doing the exercise. Even if you do exercise, which is a good thing, a lot of extra fat tissue is still a big health problem. Not as much as if you don't exercise, but still, it is a health problem. And there is no denying that the United States, and many other places in the world have a big problem with too many people with too much extra fat tissue.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
But what do you do with the kids who aren't interested in anything. How do you figure out if the kid is interested in science until you give them a good chance? I really don't see a problem with the way schooling is done for the most part. Up until you get to highschool, all the students take the exact same courses, because it's all basic stuff that everyone should understand. Once you hit high school, you can branch out and focus on the subjects you have discovered that you like. You like shop (auto mechanics, wood working, metal shop), take those courses. You like physical activity, take the PE class. You like music, take the music class. We didn't even have to take math after grade 10 if we didn't want to. The only class we had to take every year was English, and that's arguably important no matter what field you want to work in. Being able to read something, understand it, and being able to put your thoughts down into words is important no matter what you go on to do in life. Granted, they probably could have varied methods of teaching to different students, or just incorporate reading, essay writing, and presentations into the other courses, to make students a little more willing to do the work, and make the material more relevant. Sure you can't just start programming full time as an apprentice type situation in high school, and focus on nothing else, but that's probably a good thing.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
But what do you do with the kids who aren't interested in anything.
Every kid is interested in something, it's biological. If your child isn't interested in anything, you're doing something wrong. Probably killing his natural curiosity by teaching him that learning is a chore that should be mandatory instead of something that brings you joy as you increase your understanding of the world around you.
The only class we had to take every year was English, and that's arguably important no matter what field you want to work in.
Other than spelling and grammar, English is unimportant in essentially every field. We stopped doing spelling and grammar in 7th grade. I have never once thought to myself "Boy, good thing I read The Scarlet Letter in 11th grade, or I'd have been screwed!". High school math, physics, and chemistry come in handy every single day, even outside of my work.
Sure you can't just start programming full time as an apprentice type situation in high school
My best friend in High School did exactly that. Well, it was contract work, but that's not the point. He ended up dropping out of high school for it. The nature of our school system drives away really smart people, and that's a shame. We should be adapting our school system to fit our brightest students, not the other way around.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Yeah, I get all that. My problem is that they never told me how to derive the correct answer. In math & science, there's a method to solving problems. They teach you that method in class, you practice it on the homework, and then you do it in the exam to prove you learned it.
In English, they expect you to pull a bunch of words out of your ass, and proceed to mark you down for everything you left out, and everything you got wrong. This, despite the fact that they never tell you how to come up with correct answers, or how to check your answers.
This was my experience not only from 7th grade to graduating high school, but in college classes as well. I tried pretty hard to figure out how to do what was expected of me. Asking my professors "how do I figure that out?" "how do you know that" "how do you know this is a symbol and not meant to be taken literally?". I never got any good answers, and I'm pretty sure the only reason I passed is because of the amount of class participation. I certainly could not have passed based on the grades I got on my papers.
So yeah I had problems in English class. And after suffering through it, I don't feel like I got anything out of it. In fact, I probably held back the class with my constant questions, much like the slackers in my math and science classes held them back. We both would have been better served by spending our time doing what we were interested in and staying out of each others way.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
hehe....you get upset so easily. Do people call you smart because of that? Or is it because of your unusual eloquence?
Qxe4
I had a problem with English class too, or probably more with the teacher(s), in high school, but once in college, the assignments were no longer so dull and I got A's. I "tested out of" English 101 in college by writing a single essay in a blue book sitting in an auditorium for a couple of hours.
I was getting an F in English in my senior year of high school basically because I didn't turn in the papers I was supposed to turn in, and I was not allowed to go on a band trip to Canada with an F on my record, so I just dropped the class - didn't need it to graduate, already accepted to colleges, etc. went on the band trip and got an "I" (incomplete) on my report card instead of an F. Wish I had dropped it sooner.
I'd say there are methods to good writing too, but maybe they are harder to teach well than math. I've never tried to teach someone to write, though I do help my son occasionally with grammar, but he's a pretty good writer for a fifth grader. He has more trouble with math than with language (though he does OK at that too) - go figure!
...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
That does not back up his intuition. It demonstrates that effort is relevant, not that it is more important than innate ability. In any case saying which is "more important" is hard when both are obviously necessary to get anywhere. If you are mentally retarded you are going to have problems getting ahead no matter how much effort you expend. If all you do is sit and stare at a wall, your innate ability is irrelevant.
What such a study would do (if we had a link to back i up), would be to demonstrate that a certain psychological technique is more effective than another. Thinking that effort is more important may be a good psychological technique, even if it isn't true. Because it can push you to expend more effort, which will help you get further even if your own effort was only 1% of the equation.
Well sir, if you are interested in discussing innate talent, then you ought to start here, which evidence suggests it is mostly a myth. When investigated, there is little real evidence for innate ability.
Qxe4
Indeed, in Britain Indian kids prefer outplaying the natives at Cricket.
It seems then that while a nonnative accords the verb to the grammatical object (lot), a native goes for the intended object (errors). In an acquired skill (in this case English as a nonmother tongue) the tendency is that of emphasizing more the technical aspects, whereas "naturals" (English-tongue natives) go for the contents, confiding that their peers will "interpolate" the mistakes and see the meaning through anyway.
This makes German culture an Asian one then.
Could you give a precise reference please? Or at least Jensen's first name? (It's the Danish equivalent of Johnston... not easy to track down.) I'm interested in what you wrote.
Funny, I thought all immigrant's children were forced to read Afferbeck Lauder, as part of the "catching-up with the locals" curriculum. But again clichés abound and, as a Strine colleague of mine told me, we (the Northern hemisphere lot) have a tendency to glorify the southerners for their oddities more than they would like it.
You don't get it. You, not they, have the problem. In fact, if those who speak intelligibly don't get the support line job. The phone people are carefully selected so as to deter rude North American and British customers from abusing them, by confusing and bewildering said customers.
Anglophones are not the only people afflicted by inconsistent spelling. The Francophones have their lot of trouble as well. "La Dictée" is something any French-speaking kid is tortured with in schools to redress the failings of their tongue's orthography, yet, with all probabilities a French is bound to make spelling mistakes as abundant as North Americans do. There is no strict equivalent of the "spelling bees" in France, but there is "La Dictée" by Bernard Pivot, whereby he recited the text on TV for the French to write the text and then the correction was done live for everybody to check their results. Same idea but in a more "egalité"-rian spirit. Also there are spelling championships, which make the "Scripps Bee" pale in comparison, but more directed to adults and open to all nationalities (not only French natives).
Nah, just that the liars on the Internet get annoyed that I call them liars and think they've upset me, when I'm just amused over the trash that manages to work a computer but can't form a coherent sentence. Did your mommy come down into your basement and turn on the computer for you? I bet she has an elevator to get down there because she's too fat to walk the stairs.
Learn to love Alaska
My mom is dead. I'm an orphan. Thanks for rubbing it in. I've lived a miserable life.
Qxe4
I'm sorry your parents are dead. They didn't have a chance to see you grow up into the disappointment you are today. Nor the even bigger loser you will be in 10 years.
Learn to love Alaska
I had a stroke about 10 years ago and I use spell checkers quite a bit as a result. I can tell you that spell checkers are reasonably good but they are just way off the mark when you just do not have any clue as to what word you are really attempting to use.
The spell checker that is built-in to macs are reasonably OK but there are many many words it just does not have a clue on. Of course there are times when I am not sure wither and i have to ask a friend which word to use (and its spelling). I have seen similar behavior in other word processors so the issue is just not with macs. I have a Merriam Webster application (for Macs) and that is plainly worse than the Mac version. I suspect that it is because the English language is so darn complicated. The rules are way to complicated and it is not so surprising that people from other than English speaking nations have such a difficult time with learning English.
Take for example a simple word link "WIND" it can either be fast flowing air or an action to wind the clock (and maybe a few others as well). Now having a unique word for each possibility
would be murder for everyone.
I do not know what the answer is but there should be one out there .
It was Arthur Jensen, in an article series published in the Atlantic Monthly back in 1971 or 1972, or thereabouts...
What's wrong with sports? Sports teach leadership and teamwork,
These days if you want to get a head, its NOT by physical agility and strength.
But it doesn't hurt ;)
I have spent quite a while reading about the science of IQ and innate ability. It boggles my mind that some people doubt that people have different genes and that genes have an impact on performance in many situations. I don't care to discuss it because I've found discussions on this topic to be particularly fruitless and pointless. I suspect the reason for that is that the problems people have with this theory are political in nature and not really about the science.
In other words you are closed-minded and unwilling to read real evidence that contradicts your world-view. Way to go. That will be more a detrimental barrier in your life than genes ever will be.
Qxe4
Nice strawman. Nothing like that can be inferred by what I wrote and you know it. This is exactly the kind of thing I was referring to when I said that I've found discussion on this topic to be particularly fruitless and pointless.
If genes do make a difference in intelligence, it hasn't been detected in any experimental/research evidence. As the paper I linked to shows, the observed differences can be explained by things like very involved parents, or growing up in an environment of alcoholism, or other things. If there IS a difference from genetics, which is likely as you say, it is at the very PEAK of cognitive ability, which very very few people reach (if anyone).
This would match what we see with our physical limits: anyone can become much stronger than the average dude. Anyone can squat 250lbs, for example. It is only at the far limits that we find the physical makes a real difference in capability. Some people can 900lbs, but many people will not be able to. Not many people ever get anywhere near the limits of cognitive capability though, so in practice, as the research shows, genetics don't seem to matter.
Qxe4
Adoption studies refute this. I will cease responding to this now.