Comments left for David Brooks opinion in NYTimes on Virtues and Learning…
Grant WigginsHopewell njNYT Pick
Having spent time teaching teachers in China on how to teach for understanding and critical thinking, I can say that Brooks has written a very superficial piece here. Yes, the teachers (and their students) work extraordinarily hard: I worked with teachers 10 hours a day, in a building with no heat in winter in Beijing – and then when we went home, the teachers stayed to de-brief for 2 hours. This went on for 2 weeks – during the teachers’ vacation. Yet, numerous times, in the middle of busy interactive workshops, clumps of teachers were sound asleep – and we were told that this was very common in schools and universities by other teachers. The core motives here are a funny mix of diligence for diligence’ sake and status, not ‘learning’.
A revealing story about how far they have to go: I began my workshop by quoting from Confucius on learning, and made some interpretive comments about what he was saying. There was an audible buzz in the room. I asked my translator what was up. He said: we never interpret Confucius. You just revealed in 1 minute the difference between east and west. 2nd story: 2 people deeply thanked me at the end for responding to their Qs – they were stunned that I had no script and was responsive to their ideas and wanted to have us all discuss them – unheard of in their schooling.
March 1, 2013 at 7:07 a.m.REPLYRECOMMEND20
Diana MosesArlington, MA
Verified
I’d love to see a discussion of the benefits and pitfalls of commentary on a mysterious text — and on the benefits and pitfalls of reading a text itself. I say this because a lot of learning has to do with interior listening, which then guides one through the exterior learning. Too much emphasis on exterior learning diminishes our skills for hearing interior guidance and “seeing” those great insights. At least, that’s my sense of learning — the key is listening, to the inside and to the outside, and achieving some kind of equilibrium between the two.
March 1, 2013 at 7:43 a.m.RECOMMEND1
chickenloverMassachusetts
The Indian subcontinent is glaringly absent in this analysis. Much of what you say abut the Chinese is applicable to peoples from that region. They assign a higher purpose to knowledge than just acquiring it, sometimes to the exclusion of emphasis on other equally important aspects of life such as physical well-being. Witness for instance the number of academic scholars from the Indian subcontinent and then try to count the number of athletic superstars!
March 1, 2013 at 7:04 a.m.REPLYRECOMMEND2
dave ddelaware
Certainly there are a myriad of cultural differences that predispose societies to different appeciations of learning. But if we are speaking solely of the US (as opposed to all Western civilization), egalitarianism and religion should be recognized as key factors.
The myth of equality demands a certain adherence to the norm (don’t get too big for your britches). Success is honored, but it appreciated more in terms of hard work and accomplishment of goals (get good grades/a degree) rather than learning or intellectual attainment.
Fundamental Christianity relies on blind faith and often rejects learning that might get in the way. In a nation where approx 70% of folks believe in angels, learning is often perceived as more on an encumbrance than a virtue.
March 1, 2013 at 7:04 a.m.REPLYRECOMMEND5
Mauri BaggianoEllicottville, NY
Simply put, Asian learning culture emphasizes wisdom as the ultimate goal of education. Western culture, especially today, emphasizes a knowledge-based curriculum over and above the practical use of that knowledge for the betterment of oneself and society as a whole.
As a consequence, Western students are less motivated to learn because they do not see how the knowledge they gain relates to their self-worth and how it is of value to their culture. A holistic approach to learning needs to become the goal of our well-meaning but failing core-knowledge based curricula. Our students need to come to understand and appreciate that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
March 1, 2013 at 7:04 a.m.REPLYRECOMMEND1
R. PreismanPort Ludlow, WA
This is an interesting contrast of cultural influences on learning, but leaves out the findings of Sugata Mitra and the role of innate curiosity. Cultural explanations of learning eventually boil down to the importance of discipline in learning.
A.N. Whitehead’s “The Aims of Education” still remains one of the best explications of learning nearly a century later. Pleasure in learning drives the student to self imposed discipline, which reverts back to pleasure in learning once education is complete. Sugata Mitra’s findings suggest pleasure (curiosity) is missing in cultural explanations, skewing the education procss without killing it completely.
March 1, 2013 at 7:04 a.m.REPLYRECOMMEND1
Jason ShapiroSanta Fe
Congratulations David, you has just discovered what generations of anthropologists, sociologists, and other social scientists could have told you – cultures are different, with different histories, values, rules, and understandings of how the world works.
March 1, 2013 at 7:04 a.m.REPLYRECOMMEND1
BMHZurich, Switzerland
“I’d just note that cultures that do fuse the academic and the moral, like Confucianism or Jewish Torah study, produce these awesome motivation explosions. It might be possible to champion other moral/academic codes to boost motivation in places where it is absent.”
When the US tries to fuse ‘the moral’ with academics we end up with ‘creationism’, ‘just say no’ and sex ed that stops at ‘abstinence’…hardly explosive leaps forwards motivationally or otherwise – rather dragging us backwards.
How about valuing education instead of denigrating it as elitist? I realize that would run afoul the GOP party line – so instead, let’s just talk about China…
March 1, 2013 at 7:04 a.m.REPLYRECOMMEND6
A. GordonMichigan
I often refer to our system as focusing on training rather than education. We are taught how to be good Americans, to fight for the home team, and to prepare to be good workers. And some educators would like to add indoctrination to the school mix, as in teaching of religious doctrine as if it were fact and enlightenment.
Mr. Brooks seems to agree with this, but then closes his opinion piece with a confusion of religion with morality and culture. The obvious direction he is heading is to boost the teaching of religion in the classroom, expecting this will lead by magic to a higher culture and deeper morality and “awesome motivation explosions”, whatever that means.
March 1, 2013 at 7:04 a.m.REPLYRECOMMEND1
Diana MosesArlington, MA
Verified
FLAG
I think the way out of the religion/morality/culture morass may be the concept of spirituality. That’s what I would combine with academic learning.
March 1, 2013 at 7:49 a.m.RECOMMEND
AristotleWashington
There probably are differences between Chinese and Western educational traditions and cultures, but Mr Brooks’s generalizations are probably over-broad and idealized.
March 1, 2013 at 7:04 a.m.REPLYRECOMMEND
TygerrrGreensboro
I finished public school in the 1970’s. There was no giggling in class, the work was arduous, the culture valued success in academic pursuits and moral rectitude. The majority of my family were and are teachers, at least for part of their careers.
Then came Reagan to spread the “government is your enemy” gospel, including lies about “failing public education”, “teachers are indoctrinating our children”, “schools waste tax dollars”, and “there’s no accountability”.
It took a few decades, but Mr. Brooks’ conservative friends have succeeded in giving us the public education they envisioned.
March 1, 2013 at 7:04 a.m.REPLYRECOMMEND4
Daniel A. GreenbumNew York, NY
It seems to be the difference between a shame culture and a guilt culture.
March 1, 2013 at 7:04 a.m.REPLYRECOMMEND1
JS MillLondon, UK
By chance I was at the opening of a big city high school sport meet. When the national anthem came on all the kids from the middle to lower economic level schools stood at attention most of them crossing their heart. The white fancier school kids just kept goofing around with their sweats and bags. It lasted for a good two minutes. I could even see some of the fancy kids were noticing they were pockets of resistance to the conformity of the anthem, but they didn’t stop. They seemed to mock the discipline and conformity their new competitors ere embraced.
March 1, 2013 at 7:04 a.m.REPLYRECOMMEND
MartinNew York
Fascinating. But if you could ask these questions 100 years ago, the differences would be smaller & somewhat different. My American grandparents (born in the 1880’s-90’s) and my parents’ families (born in the teens & 20’s) talked forcefully about education and learning in ways that have mostly vanished today. The primary goals of education were self-improvement, not self-marketability, and the ability to make a contribution to society & to the future, Now we have internalized the message that money is the meaning of life, the economy the purpose of society. China is apparently moving in that direction.
March 1, 2013 at 7:04 a.m.REPLYRECOMMEND1
TimGlencoe, IL
Fusing faith and reason is also a fundamental principle of Catholicism. The Church holds that Christ was both man and God. To separate faith and reason is to introduce division where there should be unity.
March 1, 2013 at 7:04 a.m.REPLYRECOMMEND1
SFGaleGuilford, CT
How you say in English? The proof is in the pudding?
I cannot help but question the relevance of these observations by Mr. Brooks and Ms. Li in light of current realities, which are in no small part extensions of past realities.
If the West in general, and Americans in particular, value ‘knowledge’, it is hardly evident in our current social, political and economic trajectory, particularly among our leadership class in business and politics. We have been in a thirty year decline in spite of ample warnings and evidence to the contrary. We have achieved a pinnacle of material accomplishment and are in the process of trashing it with material recklessness, all in disregard of knowledge and accessible wisdom to the contrary.
As for the Chinese moral virtue of learning, there is little evidence that it has translated into the moral virtue of living and governing. An apologist for the Chinese brand of totalitarian capitalism, or the Maoist brand of Communism before it can argue that these were aberrations of dire necessity, it doesn’t wash.
The truth is that if learning virtues are real, they becoming living virtues. Otherwise, they are little more than empty figments of cultural mythology, giving false comfort.
Or, as the blind man in Oedipus Rex noted: “When wisdom brings no profit, to be wise is to suffer.”
Mr. Brooks, read less; live more.
March 1, 2013 at 7:04 a.m.REPLYRECOMMEND
PraesidiusWashington, DC
Missing from this analysis is the idea of public service as a goal of education.
That goal is explicit at the land grant colleges and state universities in the U.S., such as the University of California. Also, read the speech of Woodrow Wilson (a great educator before being a political leader) on “Princeton in Service to the World.”
March 1, 2013 at 7:04 a.m.REPLYRECOMMEND1
Eric RTucson
The stereotype of the inscrutable oriental implies knowledge and power held in reserve, discipline, reverence for tradition, respect for ones elders and David’s favorite topic, humility. Why is it we see these qualities as both admirable and foreign? American (or western) culture has been spreading like wildfire throughout Asia, so it’s obviously not all bad. With globalization and cultural cross-pollination will we all wind up like Russia (another stereotype here), a nation of towering intellectuals so demoralized by ennui and increasingly limited opportunity that they take refuge in a bottle of vodka? Might the Arab spring lead to global mental drought? Or could we wind up like some South American countries, rallying around our charismatic leaders, retreating into protectionism and nationalizing foreign investments? As Ms. Fuller notes, it’s ” not so easily summarized as to draw conclusions in such limited space.”.
There’s a constant process of homogenization going on, and the cream will rise to the top regardless of it’s origins, if the process doesn’t skim it off or destroy it.
March 1, 2013 at 7:04 a.m.REPLYRECOMMEND
Mike MorganMaine
“Western students often work harder after you praise them, while Asian students sometimes work harder after you criticize them.”
If Asian students sometimes work harder after you criticize them, might they often sometimes work harder after you praise them? Ditto on the reverse, with American students. NurtureShock, among other books, has commented on this dynamic. Those who are praised often work less hard than those who are not — numerous studies on North American children have born this out.
March 1, 2013 at 7:04 a.m.REPLYRECOMMEND1
George HoffmanStow, Ohio
Mr. Brooks seems to conveniently pass over the historical fact that during the terrorist dictatorship of Chairman Mao around 20 million Chinese citizens were exterminated on the altar of Marxist/Leninist idolatry. And if American society, culture and its educational system are so morally bankrupt, why do so many foreigners want to immigrate here to pursue their own version of the American dream? I’ll take the America any day of the week, even if all he says about American students is true, which I seriously doubt.
March 1, 2013 at 7:04 a.m.REPLYRECOMMEND
Anais MalpicaHouston
This comparative analysis between East and West approach to learning is ridiculously simplistic.
March 1, 2013 at 7:04 a.m.REPLYRECOMMEND1
Hieu NguyenHouston
The idea that Asians study to become sages is not only ridiculous but also generalized. I was born in Vietnam, a country in the Confucian shere, grew up, and went to college there for a year before immigrating here, and I can tell you that most Vietnamese students, at least within my generation, go to colleges to learn skills in order to find good jobs. We choose majors and schools which guarantee us with stable and rewarding employment. We do not go to college to become sages with elevated moral standards.
American much?
March 1, 2013 at 7:04 a.m.REPLYRECOMMEND2
JamesDenver CONYT Pick
I cannot vouch for or contradict Mr. Brook’s classification of different learning styles as “asian” or “western.” However, Rachael Kessler, a pioneer in the field of social and emotional learning, taught that emotion drives attention, and attention drives learning. Those who teach by emphasizing the importance of virtues are appealing to the student’s emotions in ways that can and do drive attention and learning, and such methods should not be dismissed. This is particularly so since the “western” educational model appears to lack any theory of learning that incorporates the emotional aspects of students’ lives. (In my days in school, a principal emotional driver was fear. That emotion has much less relevance in teaching today.)
Success at educating students requires teachers to work with students’ emotional lives in a way that allows them to move beyond what they may bring to school from home and further allows them to engage in content being taught them. Until we develop theories and practices to encourage that movement, our education efforts will be insufficient.
March 1, 2013 at 7:03 a.m.REPLYRECOMMEND1
Josh HillNew London
Verified
Interesting, except that for several hundred years now, virtually every scientific advance has come from the west. And the reason for that was the objective Hellenic philosophy to which you refer.
I am not arguing against moral values — far from it — or hard work. Or for the kind of anti-intellectual bullying that characterizes the students who will be most productive and successful as “nerds.” That is nothing but harmful to students and to society.
Nevertheless, it is Western scientific objectivism that has revolutionized our knowledge of the world, and our lives. And that depends on respect for intellectual creativity. The Confucian emphasis on rote learning produces the scientific and technical equivalent of bureaucrats. They are great imitators and refiners, but they do little fundamental work.
“”It is almost a miracle that modern teaching methods have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiousity of inquiry; for what this delicate little plant needs more than anything, besides stimulation, is freedom.” – Einstein
March 1, 2013 at 6:52 a.m.REPLYRECOMMEND2
tompittsburgh
Verified
The economic systems that our country favors, doesn’t lead to knowledge for knowledge sake. We readily reject knowledge that interferes with economic advantage. How else to explain the rejection of global warming, or evolution?
The republican party take over by those with little knowledge but much greed is another example.
March 1, 2013 at 6:46 a.m.REPLYRECOMMEND6
Kevin RothsteinJarama Valley
Verified
One has to look no further than the current intellectual state of the Republican Party to realize that a significant portion of the country rejects intellectual, scientific discourse for ignorance and superstition.
When the Speaker of the House of Representatives, a man third in line to be the leader of the nation, states, on the 159th anniversary of the founding of his party, that taxation is tantamount to stealing, I know there is something terribly wrong with our country.
March 1, 2013 at 5:38 a.m.REPLYRECOMMEND69
GarrettWest Chester, PA
“Taxes are the price we pay for civilization.” — Oliver Wendell Holmes.
Let’s see…in whom do we have greater confidence….Mr. Justice Holmes or Mr. Boehner?
March 1, 2013 at 7:00 a.m.RECOMMEND3
ArunNJ
Verified
Mottos of the various Indian Institutes of Technology:
Work is Worship.
Knowledge is the Supreme Goal.
Knowledge is Power
Knowledge is for the well-being of everyone
Lead me from darkness to light (darkness = ignorance, light = knowledge)
Excellence in work is (true) yoga.
Effort yields success
One who aspires to wisdom, attains it.
You are the entire knowledge and science
Nothing is possible without hard work
Guide in the right direction (May we be guided in the right direction)
What cultural conclusions does Mr. Brooks want to draw from that?
March 1, 2013 at 5:25 a.m.REPLYRECOMMEND12
sdavidc9Cornwall Bridge, Connecticut
Verified
American high school students are a market for clothes, makeup, cars, electronics, music, food, hobbies, sports, and so on. From the standpoint of the real world (free enterprise), the ideal teenager is concerned with popular culture and a consumer of its products and fads, with a parttime job to enable the consumption. Concern with schoolwork will not make a student spend much money; concern with one’s social standing at school will.
So our consumer culture supports a lifestyle in which the consumer culture (and consumption) is important and studying isnt. Students who are interested in their schoolwork are generally an alienated minority and certainly portrayed that way in much of popular culture — brains, geeks, nerds.
Chinese students are often protected by their families from this consumer culture. Such protection is seen in America as old-fashioned, and we would not dream of using government power to restrict consumer culture from increasing its penetration of the high school by any means that was successful.
March 1, 2013 at 4:44 a.m.REPLYRECOMMEND37
Bosco HoBoston, MA
Verified
I don’t know about China, since the middle class is still in the formation phase, but Hong Kong SAR is as materialistic as you can get
March 1, 2013 at 4:56 a.m.RECOMMEND9
Bosco HoBoston, MA
Verified
By the same token, there are still plenty of wholesome kids in the heartland. Stereotyping a culture can be dangerous
March 1, 2013 at 4:59 a.m.RECOMMEND14
Bosco HoBoston, MA
Verified
Probably comparative education deserves a book and not a column because there are just too many variables
The “stuff the duck” methodology was not restricted to the Chinese. While drilling certainly has its benefits; sadly, the trend of American education is to emphasize performance over learning
Once upon a time, the suicide rate of students from Hong Kong, Japan and Germany were very high because the pressure to get into a university was high. People called it the education pyramid. Ironically, this is another unsettling trend in America when so many students wanted to get into Ivy League schools. Some are driven by parental and peer pressure. And stepping out is no longer an option
Access and affordability are universal concerns. On one hand, too little makes people do stupid things. Having a moral core is important. On the other hand, too much gives kids a sense of entitlement. Between two extremes, there are infinite possibilities of finding one’s niche in the world. But it is really about the modulation akin to Plato’s charioteering of the two horses. Veritas is an indivisible fusion
March 1, 2013 at 3:25 a.m.REPLYRECOMMEND7
Tim KaneMesa, Arizona
Verified
Mr. Brooks has, obviously, a superficial westerner’s view of the East. In fact, this column reads a lot like a 5th grader’s book report after reading one book comparing East and West. It’s embarrassing. He needs to spend some time in Asia first.
Asians value education because it confers status, just like titles and nice clothes do. As a result, much of education is a superficial pretense.In Korea, advancement is strictly the result of exam scores, not critical thinking. They may have memorized a lot but they don’t know what it means.
East Asians are more apt to feel shame but not guilt.Guilt means I feel bad if I did something wrong and no one is watching. Shame means I feel bad only if someone is watching. Thus much is a superficial facade without depth.
I recently saw the movie “Dead Poets Society”. The movie neatly demonstrates the dichotomy. There’s the old school teachers, insisting on discipline, joylessly, repetitiously running through latin vocabulary: rote learning – That’s Asia. Then there’s the protagonist: teaching his students to think. He isn’t just handing them jewels, he’s also teaching them to understand their value. The result is to ignite a passion to learn that leads to an explosion in intellectual and human growth. That’s western.
America’s science graduate schools are dominated by large number’s of Asian’s collecting status. But inside those departments, the true elite’s are usually the handful of Americans who were impelled by heir internal quest.
March 1, 2013 at 2:31 a.m.REPLYRECOMMEND58
Bosco HoBoston, MA
Verified
I am not here to defend Mr Brooks but your comment is so wrong at so many levels
To begin with, indeed there are kids who blindly seek prestige. It could be parental pressure, peer pressure or sheer youthful ego. But it is a universal trait these days. There are plenty of stories about kids wanting to go to Harvard, even if their live long dream is to be a grade school teacher
Stereotyping Asian students is even sadder. Many students in practical disciplines are either good in what they do or hoping for a good job
If you go to Silicon Valley, there are plenty of Americans, Indians, Chinese and Russians, to name a few. If you go to a hospital in Boston, the same story
The last paragraph is quite mind blowing in the 21st Century. Genius is genius. An Asian brain functions similar to an american brain when one has the aptitude for mathematics or music or what have you. In clinical psychology, perhaps one’s background may give one some advantage of understanding a client’s situation but compassion if not empathy is a universal trait. Good social workers are tough as nail no matter their skin color, even if they got different assignments because they speak the language or know the local community. The list goes on forever, but cultural differences are very different from racial supremacy
March 1, 2013 at 3:53 a.m.RECOMMEND15
Josh HillNew London
Verified
Bosco, I don’t think Tim was making a racial comment, or suggesting there was a difference in physiology. He was rather pointing to cultural factors. I’ve observed those same factors in my own technical field. Western engineers, particularly American ones, seek to innovate. East Asian engineers seek to refine and optimize. There is a fundamental difference in approach to a problem, one that is a consequence of culture and schooling. But it has nothing to do with race.
March 1, 2013 at 7:00 a.m.RECOMMEND3
tom mcmahonmillis ma
Verified
I’ll simply ask; What country pf the world has provided the greatest leaps for mankind ? What country produces the most cutting edge technologies in the world ?
The U.S. has a long way to go in educational reform but emulating Asian culture of teaching is not the way in American schools.
interaction, is key, act aloof, get your due, for no man is any different than you. The only thing holding one back is themself. No one else!
The information age is here, the sooner everyone realizes how intelligent they can become for free the sooner we’ll all be free.
March 1, 2013 at 1:51 a.m.REPLYRECOMMEND16
ckeownDubai
’emulating Asian culture of teaching is not the way in American schools,”
What is your point? I don’t read this article as advocating that; it is just pointing out a cultural difference.
March 1, 2013 at 7:00 a.m.RECOMMEND1
beethyCA
Verified
“…. Li cites the story of the scholar who tied his hair to a ceiling beam so he could study through the night. Every time his head dropped from fatigue, the yank of his hair kept him awake.” [Brooks]
Some of my friends and students mention similar ‘techniques’ once used in India and other Eastern cultures to make the students stay awake, but learn ?
I doubt that ‘forced to stay up’ and ‘learn’ necessarily go together, and successfully, all the time: rote memorization, maybe, but real ‘learning’ or critical analysis, maybe NOT !!
March 1, 2013 at 1:33 a.m.REPLYRECOMMEND12
Prof.Jai Prakash Sharma,Jaipur, India
Verified
It’s simplistic to say that the western learning process is solely oriented to acquiring cognitive qualities while that of the oriental societies gives primacy to moral virtues and refining the inner self. For, be it the East or the West, learning and knowledge combine both the cognitive and non-cognitive culturally relative moral aspects of self-improvement, making the learning a continuous life-long process of self-interrogation, and an all round development of the self. It’s thus the degree of emphasis on one or the other aspects- like more emphasis on cognitive intellectual aspects in the West, and emphasising the moral-cultural fiber of individual self along with intellectual development in the Oriental cultural context- that sometimes gives an impression of the two distinct orientations to be found in the East and the West. Didn’t Plato- the great Greek philosopher, and an inspiration for Western knowledge- perceive knowledge as a virtue?
March 1, 2013 at 12:14 a.m.REPLYRECOMMEND25
Diana MosesArlington, MA
Verified
And the Greeks sentenced Socrates to death.
March 1, 2013 at 7:34 a.m.RECOMMEND
cgehnerSeattle, Munich
Verified
Very interesting, but I don’t see the relevance.
If the conclusion is that we should try to become like the Chinese in our approach to learning, that is impossible – you cannot “unlearn” millennia worth of cultural and intellectual development.
We know that there are other “Western” cultures which do a lot better job of education. So if the goal is to improve our education, then studying methods from these other Western societies seems much more relevant.
The other question is whether the uninspired and uninspiring approach to education, which many Western/advanced societies are experiencing, is a by-product of the kind of values we, the West, have encouraged and promoted (money and consumption). For example, studying how long the Chinese attitude towards education survives through multiple generations in the US, would be quite interesting…
Feb. 28, 2013 at 11:43 p.m.REPLYRECOMMEND18
Elizabeth FullerPeterborough, New Hampshire
Verified
This seems to me yet another topic certainly worth studying and writing about, but not so easily summarized as to draw conclusions in such limited space. It’s so easy to fall into cultural stereotypes. Oriental students seek personal elevation in order to save face, to bring honor to the family, etc. But in a way aren’t the American students who’ll do anything to avoid being seen as nerds, who use “daddy’s money” to follow the latest trends, and whose parents give them that money so that they will “bring honor” to the family by being the coolest and most popular kids in school doing the same thing? You’re right — it’s about a different set of values.
What I hope you’re wrong about is that the influence of Hellenic culture, which emphasized skeptical scientific inquiry, somehow explains why we seem to have lost our educational compass. I think the problem has become not skepticism, but a lack of skepticism –a willingness to shut down scientific inquiry in order to cling to beliefs — beliefs that can be as different as market-centered or religious — that may seem to make life easier to get through. The question becomes how do we begin to see that what comes easiest is not always what is best?
Feb. 28, 2013 at 11:36 p.m.REPLYRECOMMEND42
Josh HillNew London
Verified
Perhaps it’s most accurate to say that in any society, skepticism and rationality and intellectual honesty are frowned upon by most. Just look at what happened to Galileo. We treat apostates no differently.
The achievement of Western society is that the handful who are not burdened by unthinking faith have managed to stake out a small ground for themselves, where they can express some of the truth without being burned at the stake.
This gift, which comes only with freedom from religious and political oppression, is fragile and always under attack.
March 1, 2013 at 7:14 a.m.RECOMMEND
Tom HironsPortland, Oregon
Verified
Both cultures are blending slowly into a more global context. Both cultures are learning to bend they’re learning norms. Each culture is competing for the same global customer.
If you build it….
Feb. 28, 2013 at 10:18 p.m.REPLYRECOMMEND
Elizabeth FullerPeterborough, New Hampshire
Verified
How sad to think that we have come to think that acquiring money is the grand motivator. Each culture is competing for the same global customer? Will chasing after that customer become our common goal? Is that what all cultures will ultimately have in common? I, for one, hope not.
Feb. 28, 2013 at 10:49 p.m.RECOMMEND41
Bosco HoBoston, MA
Verified
@Elizabeth, I won’t worry too much about it because they also have the same employer
While there are quasi-state sponsored mega corporations, the Ciscos of the world are global in nature. Asians, Americans and Europeans could even be on the same project
So the son of a Chinese friend of mine went to St Paul and then Harvard, He is now working for Flipboard (American startup) in Beijing. People still thinking in hard and fast delineations need to wake up and smell the coffee grown in S America and roasted in America
March 1, 2013 at 4:42 a.m.RECOMMEND4
SteveKy.
I get the feeling from the writer that there money side of things will never be enough to produce life-long lovers of learning. Many do run through college just long enough to land on a long-planned niche in society, and that may just be for immediate cash; but the Chinese model and the traditional American approach build in enough other values to make learners stick with education for multiple reasons.
March 1, 2013 at 6:59 a.m.RECOMMEND
Tom HironsPortland, Oregon
Verified
Culture change requires letting some things go. Changing customs, values, beliefs is actually pretty normal in advancing societies. Civilizations advance only so far as it can adapt to change.
For example in America natural cultural change is being disrupted by extremist members of the GOP. Need proof? Today the GOP is blocking basic R&D funds.
I see it as a good thing, global diversity is good.
March 1, 2013 at 7:10 a.m.RECOMMEND
Josh HillNew London
Verified
Elizabeth, I would argue that using money as the motivator, while sad on a personal level, is also a huge advance. It is one of the tools that is allowing us to grow into a vast eusocial meta-organism with great intellectual capability.
Money substitutes for the interpersonal motivational instincts that work only in the context of much smaller groups, e.g., the band or tribe. Money, laws, writing, and the like have all arisen since agriculture made larger groups possible, and are necessary only because of the size of those groups.
March 1, 2013 at 7:19 a.m.RECOMMEND
Donald SeekinsWaipahu HI
Verified
One of the (to me) most attractive aspects of Asian-style education is that learning should serve a moral or social purpose, which in my experience is sadly lacking in western (especially American) higher education. This seems to be true even outside of the Confucian countries. In Burma, where I did research for many years, I met intellectuals who defined their mission in life as helping their society develop and improve, despite the oppression of military rule (many of them spent long periods in jail, or worse). Burmese intellectuals are respected because they are not concerned solely with individual fulfillment in an academic “career.”
Feb. 28, 2013 at 9:47 p.m.REPLYRECOMMEND22
Diana MosesArlington, MA
Verified
I’m wondering how the current fashion of emphasizing education in service to job acquisition mixes with a model aiming for sagacity, not wealth.
Feb. 28, 2013 at 9:39 p.m.REPLYRECOMMEND47
Donald SeekinsWaipahu HI
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“Westerners tend to define learning cognitively while Asians tend to define it morally. Westerners tend to see learning as something people do in order to understand and master the external world. Asians tend to see learning as an arduous process they undertake in order to cultivate virtues inside the self.”
This is a good observation, Mr. Brooks. An important idea that one finds in East Asian education is that endurance and will-power are the keys to acquiring wisdom, which is more about harmony with one’s surroundings (especially other human beings) than knowledge of specific subject matter. When I taught university students in Japan, we were expected to lecture or otherwise engage them for 90 minutes, instead of the 45-50 minutes of most lectures in the States. The purpose of such an exhausting regime was to nurture the students’ capacity to endure. That students were exhausted, burned out and switched off from learning almost anything shows that the East Asian educational paradigm has its own problems and challenges.
Feb. 28, 2013 at 9:19 p.m.REPLYRECOMMEND26