Stereotypes of Education

I was speaking with a mother whose child just got enrolled in Josiah Quincy School for K-2. The parent is herself an educator, and is Chinese (a mandarin speaker who is fluent in English). Anyway, I valued her opinion because her child is basically only a year or two ahead of mine. Looking at JQS in terms of parents ratings, they are among the highest in the city. I also went there as a child, but started in the 1st grade. The only started Kindergarten, the year I started first grade in fact. A lot of Chinese when I was growing up, wanted to get into this school because it was 70% Chinese. It was not just that it offered bi lingual classes, a lot was the fear of sending there kids to a place where Chinese would be a minority. They felt their children would be safer in a school with more Chinese kids. My mother wanted me to go to JQS because it was right down the street. I probably want my kids to go to the Curley, for the same reason, but if not the Curley, JQS might be nice.
But surprisingly this parent hated JQS. She said that her child is getting five worksheets of homework a day and he is in K-2 and that is in addition to class work. All the worksheet are the same crappy circle this match this kind of crap that doesn't really teach you anything except socialize you to fill out forms and paper work. She said that in addition to that, if your child can't finish his worksheets in class, that he won't be able to go outside and play, so basically her kid didn't play outside for 2 weeks. She herself being an educator said, there are other ways to work on fine motor skills. Cutting, coloring, a lot of different stuff. And why just do it all the same way? And that playing outside is very important for learning social skills and gross motor skills especially for someone so young. I was shocked to heard this and I mentioned the higher rating of JQS and she said that this must have something to do with the difference between Chinese and American culture.

That for Chinese it's not just important for kids to do writing writing writing. The development of skills, social and physical, are extremely important to the Chinese.

Read that again.

I was amazed by this too because the stereotype is basically the opposite. That Chinese, and Asians in general are all about drills and memorization and that it is Americans who are about being social, having fun, and being creative. I would have to say that my experience at Kwong Kow Chinese school as a child supports this stereotype. But I have noticed that educated people coming over from China now have a much more modern and holistic outlook on education. I mentioned this stereotype and she said, "I know!"

But that basically the difference there might be that Chinese Culture gets all the drilling and obedience type of stuff done at home, where as in an American family the kid doesn't really listen to the parents and so the parents want the school to be the place where all the drilling and obedience is hammered in.

That is an interesting way to look out it but I think there are families that will both support and contradict this. My mother was pretty open, but that was in response to her father (my grandfather) who was very strict.

What I really come away with is that these notions of Cultural difference have some truth to them but are in themselves stereotypes that don't always hold up to scrutiny. For instance, let's look at the Beijing Olympics. The stereotype should be that, the super Chinese athletes are good, but they are robots and lack personality and that Americans win from self determination and something that comes from inside of them shown in many a Disney and Rocky movie, and they have great cheerful good sporting personalities. But the Chinese male gymnasts who won the gold, were very humorous in their exhibition pieces, one pretending that the pummel horse was an actual horse that threw him. He tried to find the head and was listening to it and whispering to it. Like a true American, I have now idea what the name of this gymnast was.

Michael Phelps won a ton of medals, but ended up having no personality when being interviewed and took off right after he won all his medals instead of cheering along his fellow Americans or heck, enjoying himself in Beijing and China for a while. Did he have somewhere more important to be? Please.

Btw that clip that went viral of the Chinese hurdler that tore is achilles again, and then went back to hop his race and kiss the last hurdle was epic... emotional...and so open. This are all things that Chinese are supposedly not and which Americans supposedly are. Famously are. Stereotypically are.


Okay let's talk Kung Fu.

The criticism of Kung Fu is often that Traditional Chinese Kung Fu is all about drills, forms, top down, listen to the master, hiding information and mystifying what can easily be explained.
(The mystifying stuff is Merlin, and he was a Westerner if he existed.)

Americans, whether it is American Yoga, or Americans version of Jeet Kune Do, or MMA.. is supposed to be about being more realistic, learning for yourself from first hand experience, and with adults it is kicking ass, and with kids it is having fun and good sportsmanship.

But I see a lot of not that good white guys that seem to be all about bowing, and following rules, and drills, and everything that they criticize Chinese Masters for. In fact an American will usually want to do a ton of conditioning, as a group. Doing tons of reps of physical exercises that everyone knows before they stepped into the school, and which make you stronger, but are not necessarily going to improve your fighting. The exception to this is real boxing gyms and coaches who have a traditional lineage of their own and this end up teaching and talking much the same way you would hear the traditional Chinese master talk, that is if you can understand Chinese.


As for traditional Chinese Kung Fu, of course there are drills. But drills and class is actually only a small part of how would learn Kung Fu in the traditional way. Just like in Karate Kid, you would learn a lot about Kung Fu through actual labor, and instead of sparring, the villages would be in fights all the time... which is why people had to learn Kung Fu. A lot of Kung Fu was finding you own way while the teacher's words would guide you through those personal experiences which you had to go through on your own. (because you didn't spend forever with the teacher, at some point you grew up and moved on with the rest of your life because you probably learned Kung Fu to teach your village or your family, which you now had to go start.)

Class was to teach you how to practice. Practice and experience is what  gave you questions that you would then have to answer. You may have to think of the answer yourself, or you could ask the teacher if he or she was available. It was these questions where the real learning started. It's just that most people, don't actually ever practice hard enough to get to these questions, because of a lack of interest in the first place, or laziness. A hardworking disinterested person, who had to fight, would still have those basic moves to fall back on and therefore, might fight well enough and not have any questions. In fact being able to survive might very well answer all of their questions.