It's nice to see the politicians doing their jobs. 99 percent of the time we never hear about it because the news agencies only go after sensational screw-up stories. It makes a change to see them reporting a "good" story.
It's very interesting to see the comparison there, but I do have one point to make.
People like Einstein would have slipped through the Chinese system of education completely. Einstein had a pretty lacklustre academic record at school, from what you've said, that would've been it for him in China.
The American system of picking "gifted" students out based on IQ does have it's problems but on the other hand it will rarely let a gifted student slip (if the system is working). The Chinese system would seem to sacrifice the gifted section of the populace in exchange for a larger proportion of people doing well. When was the last time you heard of a Chinese genius and when was the last time you heard of an American genius? I'm not intending to put the Chinese system down or anything, maybe the reason I've never heard of a Chinese genius is due to the language or the government not releasing research or something along those lines.
It is probably more to do with the relative needs for education in each country. In rapidly developing China it is far more important to have a large number of average graduates to fill out the rapid growth technical sector. Whereas in America, they already have the large numbers of scientists but what they need is the geniuses to make the breakthroughs, driving innovation, which is the fundament of any high tech society.
Slashdot Mirror
It's nice to see the politicians doing their jobs. 99 percent of the time we never hear about it because the news agencies only go after sensational screw-up stories. It makes a change to see them reporting a "good" story.
It's very interesting to see the comparison there, but I do have one point to make.
People like Einstein would have slipped through the Chinese system of education completely. Einstein had a pretty lacklustre academic record at school, from what you've said, that would've been it for him in China.
The American system of picking "gifted" students out based on IQ does have it's problems but on the other hand it will rarely let a gifted student slip (if the system is working). The Chinese system would seem to sacrifice the gifted section of the populace in exchange for a larger proportion of people doing well. When was the last time you heard of a Chinese genius and when was the last time you heard of an American genius? I'm not intending to put the Chinese system down or anything, maybe the reason I've never heard of a Chinese genius is due to the language or the government not releasing research or something along those lines.
It is probably more to do with the relative needs for education in each country. In rapidly developing China it is far more important to have a large number of average graduates to fill out the rapid growth technical sector. Whereas in America, they already have the large numbers of scientists but what they need is the geniuses to make the breakthroughs, driving innovation, which is the fundament of any high tech society.
... and give me my Wii!
"Or better yet, how about the government just stay the eff out of things for a change and let's see what happens, and deal with issues as they arise?"
Yeah let's just let people start dying before we start taking even the most basic precautions...
At which point the final truth is revealed! Al Gore invented it! (ugh, that joke is getting a little stale now) :D
And then they'll find out that the patent for it is so tightly secured that noone can use it...