Before I relate my high school experiences, I would like to draw attention to the very important distinction between education and schooling. Mark Twain wrote, “I have never let my schooling interfere with my education,” and that is an adage by which I have always conducted myself. Asian parents have a reputation for a very heavy emphasis on education, a reputation that is simply not deserved. In my experience, and in the experience of other Asian children I knew, most Asian parents are actually against education. They are in favour of schooling — which is an entirely different thing — and oftentimes actually at the expense of education.
This is not necessarily a bad thing, at least not for everyone. In fact, it probably benefits most of the children of Asian parents. Now, this isn’t the place to get into a discussion about standardised intelligence test scores and bell curves, the roles of nature versus nurture in academic performance, and so on. But one very obvious effect of such heavy parental emphasis on schooling is the fact that Asian children tend to do better on average in test scores than their non-Asian peers. However, I think this boost in the mean comes at a great cost to the people at the higher end of the curve. It’s unclear to me how the authoritarian aspects of Asian culture affect the standard deviation of the Asian curve. But I do know for a fact that at least some people at the higher end are discouraged and even prevented by their parents from making full use of their abilities; and I am talking not just about intelligence, which is difficult enough to quantify, but creativity.
Throughout my life, I was always punished by my parents for coming up with ideas which not only were they simply incapable of understanding, but for which the questions that led to them would have never even occurred to them in the first place. And while my personal anecdotes may not count for very much, when multiplied by hundreds or perhaps thousands of people with similar backgrounds who share these experiences, the effect becomes evident in the world. People of Asian descent make up a disproportionately high percentage of what might be called “intellectual professionals” in Western nations, but look at the authors of the best-selling books on science or other brainy subjects in any bookstore, look at the lists of speakers at popular public lectures at universities or other intellectual institutions and at culturally-influential events where big ideas are discussed, and you will find people of Asian descent woefully underrepresented, especially relative to their overrepresentation otherwise.
In my observation, there are among Canadians and Americans of Asian descent in science, when compared to the non-Asian population, many technicians and few pure scientists, many who carry out and implement other people’s plans and few who come up with their own, many who improve on the designs of others and few who originate new ideas. Again, this is not necessarily a bad thing; society needs builders as much as it needs architects. But it surely does need scientific architects, and in my opinion and experience, an obsessive emphasis on schooling is actually detrimental to the development of such talent.
I don’t want to give the impression that I think school and education are mutually exclusive. In fact, I learned a lot from school, not only because I had excellent teachers, but especially because of the opportunities for socialising that I otherwise would not have had. I have never met such a wide variety of people from different social and economic backgrounds in one place since leaving high school. And even though I attended Catholic school, I was still exposed to a pretty wide spectrum of religious opinion. (I would even say that Catholic school is probably one of the best institutions at producing atheists, especially of the most vehemently anti-religious kind.) And while the people I have met in university have come from a more diverse selection of ethnic and religious backgrounds, they have tended to be alike in their socioeconomic stations. So, while Mr. Clemens is correct that schooling should never be mistaken for education, nevertheless, I think that school can actually be a very good place in which to get an education.
– davinci
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