Kenneth - Grammatical point well taken. In fact, it proves my point. The Indians I know are highly educated in the sciences, mathematics, finance, medicine, and the arts. It literally makes my head spin. I’ll give them a pass, for the moment, on politics. But even there, they’re making progress. Our own current crop of graduates can’t hold a candle to them. True, there’s Apu and the 7/11 pump jockeys. But even they flaunt a work ethic that’s hard to beat.
Hispanics most closely support your argument. They also are hard-working to be sure. But they work with their hands. This is the work that Americans could do but no longer want to. There is a difference between immigrant groups. There is a difference between immigrant groups and us. I continue to maintain that immigration is not our most pressing problem. Our problem is having turned the issue into a political football at the very time when we seem to be breaking apart in so many ways. It provides our political leadership with a scapegoat; an excuse to point fingers elsewhere.
You cannot deny that our educational system is broken. When we continually question tests instead of the tested, we have turned things seriously upside down. As such, our children do not learn. The latest pc racial bias can be made to explain everything. How dare we expect a kid to answer 4 when asked, “What does two to plus two equal?”! We rather view it as innovative, original. It can be argued that in some numerical systems 2 + 2 could indeed equal 5 (or any number). Little Johnny is a genius after all. We are indeed blessed!
While in India last, I happened to pick up a paper and noted the headline, “Crisis In Public Education”. I began to read, expecting to see the same template as ours. In fact, it was quite the opposite. The author made the point that schools were too strict. It was right after year-end examinations. There had been several suicides.
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It's impossible to generalize about the educational systems in the US versus those in other countries, like India for example which happens to be a Third World country.
ReplyDeleteAs for the "highly-educated" Indians, that is usually the type that escapes to the US on skilled visas creating the illusion for many Americans that ALL Indians are naturally blessed with high intelligence. We should lose sight of the fact that those in the US are in fact the "cream of the crop" and any generalizations about India and Indians using them as a point of reference might be skewed. In fact, I have travelled India extensively and my overrall impression is that the "average" Indian is on par with the "average" American...
J
I'm not generalizing about 'intelligence' which you are correct in saying is 'average' overall, and is what it is. I'm speaking specifically about 'policy' with regard to education in general.
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