| By Northstarmom (Northstarmom) on Friday, November 07, 2003 - 01:09 pm: Edit |
First, please do not respond to this as if it's any kind of put down of Asian families. I have long admired the academic work ethic that I have seen with many Asian students, and I'm trying to find out what kinds of things their parents are doing to help instill that.
I recently found out that in my area, there is a Sat. Chinese school in which Chinese kids go to learn Mandarin and about their culture. I also saw on a thread here, that a group of Asian parents had gotten together to have their kids get tutoring on the SAT, including on the SAT Writing.
Are these kind of things typical for Asian families to be doing? If so, what inspired it? Cultural practices in their homelands?
What are other kinds of programs that the families do to help their kids excel academically?
I am aware that Jews have some similar programs such as Hebrew school (I know that there is a religious component to this, but I am sure that the academic component such as learning Hebrew also helps their kids academically).
Are there any other similar things that people of other ethicities do to help their kids do well?
I am asking because I am wondering if these ideas could be useful to some of the groups of people in the US who are not doing well academically or on standardized tests.
| By Sac (Sac) on Friday, November 07, 2003 - 01:24 pm: Edit |
Northstarmom,
I'll take your post in the spirit in which it is obviously intended, and respond about Jews, rather than Asians. As a broad generalization in response to your broad generalizations, I believe the key is not Hebrew school -- which many Jewish children do not attend -- but much simpler: Books.
Again, dealing in generalizations, this is a tradition that originated for religious reasons (the Torah, or Books of Moses) then evolved for secular ones. Many Jewish homes are filled with books, and I'd guess that a disproportionate number of people who buy books and write books are also Jewish. It took me years to be able to get myself to write notes in the margins of a book, because I had been brought up with it as almost a holy object. One of my earliest memories is going to the library and getting my first library card at age five. I remember every detail about that experience.
Beyond that, there is a tradition in the Jewish religion of questioning. I'm sure you've heard references to splitting hairs like a Talmudic scholar. Books are not just to be absorbed, but open to analysis and debate.
Success in standardized tests really depends on vocabulary. Nothing builds vocabulary like reading. Reading comes from the pleasure, first, of being read to, and also from seeing the adults around you reading for pleasure. I really think it's as simple as that.
| By Aparent1 (Aparent1) on Friday, November 07, 2003 - 01:31 pm: Edit |
Northstarmom, there was an article about this in the NY Times just recently. Evidently other ethnic groups are beginning to sign up in droves for these previously all-Asian programs. Unfortunately only part of the article is now available online: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F30B17FA3B5A0C738EDDA90994DB404482
| By Thedad (Thedad) on Friday, November 07, 2003 - 01:56 pm: Edit |
Books is a good start. We live in a home where there isn't room for any more bookcases and D was read to from a very early age, to the point where she treated us as reading machines because first she was a little late in learning to read and then for a while because what she *could* read wasn't of any interest to her.
Role models help: the fact that there are times you could drop in and find all three of us reading.
Priorities. It's one thing to talk the talk, another to walk the walk. Education is a priority. To the point where housing choices--living in smaller, less desirable, costlier, etc. housing--were made on the basis of school district. Priorities including homework and creating an environment to optimize studying; we may have succeeded too well...the other night TheMom and I were talking quietly in the living room and D complained from the dining room that it was distracting. "Quiet" means no TV. Music, maybe, but generally ballet music, not anything with lyrics to follow. Priorities also includes an almost regular catechism of what homework is due when and what, if any, changes to our schedule(s) we have to make to accommodate this.
One thing we emphatically do NOT do is put out the "You must get an A" message. It's more like, "You need to work to your potential and ability." Of D's four B's, there's only one "I told you so" grade, that due to blowing her first test ever in high school. One of others, I wish she'd swallowed her pride and gone in on her lunch time to talk to the Calc teacher last year, she got the dreaded "89" but that's spilt milk over the dam.
| By Marite (Marite) on Friday, November 07, 2003 - 02:04 pm: Edit |
Northstarmom:
You may recall my discomfort about Asian-Americans as a label. However, if we limit this label to a few groups (Chinese, Japanese, Koreans and perhaps Vietnamese), there are a few generalizations that can be made:
Students are more likely to come from intact families--an important factor in student performance.
They may have been raised to think of their performance as a family matter rather than a purely individual one, thus putting greater pressure on them to do well.
They are more likely to study in groups; there was a study of students study habits at Berkeley done by someone at the Dana Center at UT-Austin which pointed out the value of study groups. By contrast, Latino and African-Americans do not study in groups as much.
I personally have no use for the cram schools, but I can see that they instill good work ethics.
In their newest book, No Excuses, Stephen and Abigail Thernstrom had an interesting observation. They claim that Asian/Asian American parents get upset if their children receive less than an A-; white middle class parents lower the boom when their children get a B-; alarm bells ring among Hispanic and African-American parents when the children receive a C-. We need to put this side by side with data suggesting that often tteachers have lower expectations of Hispanics and African-Americans. If both are correct, it is very difficult for these students to rise above low expectations.
| By Northstarmom (Northstarmom) on Friday, November 07, 2003 - 02:17 pm: Edit |
Thanks Sac and Aparent1.
Aparnet1, the NY Times article that you posted the link to became the first that I have ever paid to obtain. (Gosh, I hate how newspapers now charge for this service!).
Sac -- What you say about books is important, and has gotten some attention. I think, though, that the info about Talmudic scholars is even more important and is less well known.
A problem that I have seen in URMs is that they tend to come from families, religions and school systems that do not encourage questioning. The kid who is considered well behaved and intelligent is the kid who does without questioning what they are told and who is also able to spit back with no revision or questioning things they've read in books.
IMO the fact that they aren't brought up to think hurts them when it comes to academic pursuits, including performance on standardized tests.
I would like to learn more about Talmudic scholars. What would you suggest would be the best way for me to learn about this (keeping in mind that I start from knowing only what you've posted)? Is there anything that is designed to explain their work to people who didn't grow up in the culture and who thus lack basic literacy on the subject?
| By Northstarmom (Northstarmom) on Friday, November 07, 2003 - 02:28 pm: Edit |
Marite,
Would Indians not be in the group that you mention?
I missed your previous post about differentiation. Would it be possible for you to repeat some of that info again or to direct me to your other post?
Where I live is a small college city in which Asians are a low proportion of the population. Most are connected with the local universities, and the Asians at the universities come from all areas of Asia.
Many of them send their kids to the International Baccalaureate program that my son attends. I notice that across the board, the Asian students seem to be doing exceptionally well, so I haven't seen the differentiation among Asian cultures that may be more typical.
| By Marite (Marite) on Friday, November 07, 2003 - 02:55 pm: Edit |
Northstarmom:
My discussion appeared on the Gatekeepers Tidbit's thread on Wednesday at 5:45. One thing I did not mention is the socio-economic backgrounds of the families prior to immigration. My understanding is that the majority of Indians are of middle class background and thus put a high value on education. The same applies to the Asian families in your community, since so many of them are connected with the local universities. There are, however, Asian cultures where book learning is not so highly valued (think about all those students across South and Southeast Asia who attend madrassas). There are as well, immigrants who come from societies where education is prized but who, themselves, were little educated prior to coming to the US. This may account for the split between valedictorians and drop outs that I described for Fort Wright, AK.
| By Massdad (Massdad) on Friday, November 07, 2003 - 03:01 pm: Edit |
Marite,
How true your comments are. One only needs to a few miles north to Lawrence and Lowell Massachusetts, where one would find a serious asian gang problem along with a wide range of inner city problems. These are asian communities in crisis. I wonder how they fit the asian schema?
| By Marite (Marite) on Friday, November 07, 2003 - 03:43 pm: Edit |
Massdad;
My understanding is that the majority Southeast Asian community in Lawrence and Lowell is Cambodian. Cambodians have different values and attitudes toward learning than Chinese/Japanese/Koreans/Vietnamese, being Theravada Buddhists rather than influenced by Confucian values. Many are also conflicted about whether to maintain their cultural identity or assimilate. A good book based on fieldwork in these two cities is Nancy Smith-Hefner: Growing Up Kmer-American. I am also told that many Vietnamese parents are so busy earning their living that they do not pay enough attention to what their children are doing. Hence the gang problem.
| By Coureur (Coureur) on Friday, November 07, 2003 - 03:58 pm: Edit |
>>I recently found out that in my area, there is a Sat. Chinese school in which Chinese kids go to learn Mandarin and about their culture. I also saw on a thread here, that a group of Asian parents had gotten together to have their kids get tutoring on the SAT, including on the SAT Writing. <<
According to an article I read some time ago, this Asian (and especially Chinese) devotion to getting good SAT scores has an interesting origin and both good and bad consequences in the US.
In China there is a 2000 year tradition of the government giving fair and impartial civil service exams to all comers, and whomever passed was assured a lifetime of good employment and respect. Thus the concept of standardized testing a key to success has very deep roots in Chinese culture.
When transplanted to the US, Chinese immigrants and their children often view the SAT as the American version of this gateway to success. And they are partly right. The good result of this is that you see all those Asian kids with great SAT scores. The bad result is they sometimes assume that top grades and test scores are ALL you need and can't understand why their smart kids with no school involvement outside of academics didn't get into Harvard.
One thing I'm wondering is whether it will be very easy to transplant the obsession with the SAT and resultant study groups to other cultures that do not have such a long history of testing. I suspect it will be tough.
| By Perry (Perry) on Friday, November 07, 2003 - 03:59 pm: Edit |
The Hmong are another example of the differences among various Asian groups in the U.S. Here, you have a people from a rural, mountainous region of Southease Asia, who were recruited by the CIA to fight the Vietcong. After the war they were persecuted terribly by the communist regime. Some of them found it enormously difficult to become acclimated to American society, unlike, for example, many of the Korean or Chinese immigrants who have come from urban environments. It's an interesting contrast. Cultural background makes an enormous difference.
| By Massdad (Massdad) on Friday, November 07, 2003 - 04:04 pm: Edit |
Courier,
Your comment, "The bad result is they sometimes assume that top grades and test scores are ALL you need and can't understand why their smart kids with no school involvement outside of academics didn't get into Harvard" can be interpreted in a different way. Could it be that the admissions criteria are designed to screen out these kids to minimize the number of asian high achievers? We've had other threads on this topic, BTW.
| By Marite (Marite) on Friday, November 07, 2003 - 04:08 pm: Edit |
China, Korea, Vietnam and Japan all share in this tradition of testing, which is why the label of model minority tend to be associated with immmigrants from these countries.
But I have also noted a slightly different phenomenon: the social groups also act as bases for study groups. For example, one of my friend (Chinese) was asked by parents in his Chinese Bible group to help tutor their children in math. These, apparently, are kids who are doing above average in school, so they're not talking remedial math. I've been trying to urge our school to promote study groups through existing clubs and teams, but it's hard work.
| By Perry (Perry) on Friday, November 07, 2003 - 04:17 pm: Edit |
The study group phenomenon among some of these groups is quite interesting. I suppose part of it is attributable to the communal societies from which they come? Certainly, this tendency is more difficult to find among American born kids, who exist or have grown up in a more individualistic society and culture.
| By Cubfan (Cubfan) on Friday, November 07, 2003 - 04:32 pm: Edit |
I know of several asian groups that get together to study the game of Go which seems to improve abstract thinking.
| By Carolyn (Carolyn) on Friday, November 07, 2003 - 04:38 pm: Edit |
Northstarmom, I recently read an article (can't remember where off the top of my head) that discussed what Asian families do differently in terms of stressing education. In addition to everything mentioned above, there was one thing that stuck in my mind. Apparently, in many Asian families it is the norm for students to do their homework and study at the kitchen table while their mother works nearby. The author suggested that this helps to keep students focused on their work, minimizes distractions (i.e., TV, computers, etc) and re-emphasizes that everyone in the family is working for the same goals. This stuck in my mind because the smartest friend (non-Asian) I had growing up always did her homework at the kitchen table. She ended up with 1600's on the SATs, second in her class at Harvard, and with a
PHd. in Astrophysics from Princeton.
| By Xiggi (Xiggi) on Friday, November 07, 2003 - 04:45 pm: Edit |
Could it be that the admissions criteria are designed to screen out these kids to minimize the number of asian high achievers?
The data published by the College Board does not support the belief that asian-american have better scores in the levels required at elite schools. The asian scores are only SLIGHLY better for the average number. When you reach the 700+ scores, whites outnumber asian-americans by a formidable margin, mostly because there are 7 times more whites taking the test. In the upper verbal range of SAT-1 and SAT-2, asians trail white scorers by a substantial margin.
| By Kiddielit (Kiddielit) on Friday, November 07, 2003 - 04:46 pm: Edit |
Where else would you do your homework? (she asks in mock innocence). I am first-generation Polish-American and did all my homework in the kitchen. My very suburban, all-American daughters do so, as well.
| By Massdad (Massdad) on Friday, November 07, 2003 - 04:59 pm: Edit |
Xiggi,
Good data, but not the whole story, as you hint at. First, the question is not how average asians are treated - they are not applying to the elites anyway. The question is how the top scorers/high achievers are treated. The aggregate CB data only tells us how the group is doing, and your data needs to be normed against the number of test takers.
So, the question is not "how many high achieving asians are there..." but rather "how are high achieving asians treated relative to their high scoring non asain peers...". We already know that if we substitute latino or black for asian in the last sentence, the answer is "very well". Since caucasians are the majority group by far in this bucket, it is tough to ask the question for that group.
| By Massdad (Massdad) on Friday, November 07, 2003 - 05:01 pm: Edit |
The kitchen works great for study except my D has spouse's notebook computer there. At least we can see how many IM boxes are open, since she can't change screens quickly enough when we walk the kitchen.
| By Sac (Sac) on Friday, November 07, 2003 - 05:03 pm: Edit |
Northstarmom,
I'm sorry not to be more knowledgable about Talmudic traditions and how to find more about them. I think that if you just look at almost any reference under Talmud you will find the word "debate" used. Laws were passed down, but in every generation the rabbis (a word that actually means teachers rather than priests) debated over interpretations and applications of these laws. These debates were then also written down in books. And debated.
As with Asian Americans, Jews in this country also did not all come from the same cultures. But I have read that among Eastern European Jews, it was not uncommon that boys of four or five would already have been exposed to three or four languages -- Yiddish in the home, Hebrew at religious school, and the language(s) of the country in which he lived which. Given the political history of Eastern Europe, areas often changed hands, so that multiplied the languages even more. Languages were not just learned orally. With Hebrew, for example, you had to be literate in order to pray as well as to engage in the debates I mentioned. Of course, until fairly recently, you also had to be male to study Torah.
My suggestion that the key is books may seem obvious. But the more important point, I think, is that the key is books at the very earliest ages and then extending over a life time. I recently saw a young African American couple with their baby on public transportation, pointing out the letters on a sign to her as a way to play and keep her engaged. It struck me, because it was something I did with my kids, yet in the urban area where I live I see so many parents on public transportation just telling their children to keep quiet. When I looked at this baby's stroller, I saw it had a bumper sticker from UC Davis. These parents clearly were college graduates. So there is a class issue here, not just an ethnic one.
I, too, have heard that Asian American students once at college make more use of study groups than other students,including white students, and therefore do better. A counselor at UC's study center once remarked that when Asian American students get a B+ they will come in for help, often in the form of asking for a group. Other students often wait until they are in danger of failing.
| By Momstheword (Momstheword) on Friday, November 07, 2003 - 06:12 pm: Edit |
a HA. This explains to me why in our community some view getting tutors to help with B+ work as ridiculous and over the top, while others view it as a matter of course.
| By Xiggi (Xiggi) on Friday, November 07, 2003 - 06:28 pm: Edit |
Massdad~
Despite being far from complete and telling the whole story, I checked the existing data to find out the difference in admissions in a selected list of elite schools between whites and asians.
After having compiled that list, I compiled the number of students in both ethnic groups who could claim admission based on THE criteria: the is usually used to establish the "dominance" of asian-american students.
Here was the conclusion:
There were about 25,000 spots in the selected list of elite schools. From those, 14,120 or 56% went to whites and 5,703 or 23% went to Asians. Based on the numbers of SAT1 in 2003, that is about 2% of all whites and 6% of all asians who took the tests.
The 5,703 number is TWICE the number of Asians who scored higher than 750 on the Verbal AND 750 on the Math. It is about equivalent to the numbers of Asians who scored at least 700 on the verbal AND 750 on the Math portion.
In other words, it seems that all Asians who scored above 700 on verbal and 750 on the math SHOULD HAVE BEEN have been admitted in the school listed. Not bad, I would say.
Here are the details:
I. Admission statistics
ELITE SCHOOLS - (SOURCE USNEWS)
Table shows estimated freshmen entering in 2003, numbers and %age of whites and asians:
TOTAL FRESHMEN WHITE %- ASIANS %-- SCHOOLS
1,670 1,002 60% 284 17% = Harvard
1,185 ..770 65% 142 12% = Princeton
1,340 ..858 64% 174 13% = Yale
2,440 1,488 61% 439 18% = U Penn
1,020 ..693 68% 122 12% = Dartmouth
3,433 2,266 66% 584 17% = Cornell
1,750 1,050 60% 245 14% = Columbia
1,508 1,010 67% 211 14% = Brown
1,560 1,045 67% 187 12% = Duke
1,840 ..883 48% 460 25% = Stanford
1,050 ..473 45% 284 27% = MIT
..235 ..134 57% .63 27% = Caltech
5,970 2,448 41% 2,507 42% = Berkeley
25,000 14,120 56% 5,703 23% TOTAL
II. SAT-I STATISTICS
In 2003, there were about 670,000 White tests and 101,000 Asians tests.
The mean scores were:
Asians Verbal = 508; MATH = 575
White Verbal = 529; MATH = 534
In 1999, the scores were:
Asians Verbal = 498; MATH = 560
White Verbal = 527; MATH = 528
Students with 750+ Math
Asians = 6,000 in 99 and 3827 in 95
White = 14,000 in 99 and 9519 in 95
Students with 750 Verbal
Asians = 3,000 in 99 and 1476 in 95
White = 14,000 in 99 and 8976 in 95
In 1999, Students with 650+ Math
Asians = 27,000
White = 165,000
In 1999, Students with 700 Verbal
Asians = 6,000
White = 35,000
| By Massdad (Massdad) on Friday, November 07, 2003 - 08:32 pm: Edit |
Xiggi,
Interesting, but you really need a good statistics course, and preferrably a course on the interpretation and analysis of data. You would then understand that to appropriately analyse and compare data like this, you first need to look for outliers. In the admissions data, that's Berkeley. Why? First, it is a state school. (It's like the old IQ question "What does not fit in the following list..."). Second, Berkeley counts for fully 1/2 of the asians admitted to your dataset.
OK, so corrected, we have:
19,030 total, 11,672 white (61%) 3196 asian (16.8%). Not so hot for asians.
Now, consider the issue further: SAT score is only ONE factor in admissions. Any competent admissons officer will tell you HS record is more important than SAT scores. We all know of slackers that got great SAT scores and had mediocre grades (I was one) and we suspect that, given the discussion earlier in this thread, asians are less likely to be slackers.
But the truth is, we just don't have enough data. Any good data analysis course will tell you if you don't have the variables you know impact the outcome, you can't analyze or draw conclusions. And that's why this issue is so tough. So, Xiggi, see if you can get the GPA data, too. Then we can talk.
| By Xiggi (Xiggi) on Friday, November 07, 2003 - 09:53 pm: Edit |
Massdad~
I followed the major rules of statistics:
1.I select the pool
2. I draw the conclusions that I feel are important to support MY views.
The exercise was NOT meant to be a comprehensive analysis of all the factors used in college admissions and was NOT meant to be anything more than a common sense analysis of simple data. There was no need for regression analysis and standard deviation analysis as this was not based on a sample but on the whole population of students at a selected number of schools. In other words, the results are 100% indicative of what happened at the school listed in the pool.
That being said, the only objective was to debunk the old myth that asians are discriminated despite having higher scores. Even if you delete Berkeley and do not consider it an elite school, the numbers are quite positive for asians. I frankly do not understand that having 16% of the admission is "not so hot" while the 61% for white would be more than acceptable.
My knowledge of statistics may be lacking but I still believe that the population of white is more than FIFTEEN times larger than the asian population.
No matter how we look at it, the analysis of the SAT scores does not support the urban legends of discrimination. As far as GPA numbers, I am pretty sure that the patterns will be similar: a slightly higher average GPA for asians and very similar GPA in the highest ranges of the GPA.
The rest of the admission puzzle becomes intensively subjective but, unless I am mistaken, the remaining areas will again be quite similar for white and asians.
Oh well, time to do something more interesting 
| By Massdad (Massdad) on Friday, November 07, 2003 - 11:05 pm: Edit |
Xiggi,
You said " I frankly do not understand that having 16% of the admission is "not so hot" while the 61% for white would be more than acceptable. ".
Look at it this way: 30% of those scoring above 750 on the SAT in math were asian, yet they were only 16.8% of the elite entrants (less Berkeley). There. I just PROVED discrimination with the statistics. But of course I did not, you will say, because their percentage of high verbal scores is lower. WE DON"T HAVE ENOUGH DATA. There are other variables. Besides, an analysis of SAT scores misses the point. Why rely on them? Why not just say every group of any kind should be equally represented?
Look at the problem in a different way. Let us assume there is no difference in treatment. Should we worry, then, about the perception in the asian community that the deck is stacked against them? I think so: A great lesson I learned in the military was the importance of not only being fair, but appearing to be fair. If an individual or a group perceives "the system" to be unfair, we all have a problem.
You may chose to disagree, and I respect your difference of opinion. I would hope this exercise is not (at least not yet) a search for truth! Indeed, the numbers you present do tell interesting stories, such as the much greater asian representation at Berkeley, or the differrential performance between verbal and math in the highest bracket.
| By Fishmom (Fishmom) on Saturday, November 08, 2003 - 01:45 am: Edit |
hello
This is an interesting discussion. Both my husband and I are Chinese American, but we live in a rural area that is mostly Hispanic.
My three boys do well at school. Some have said it is because we are Asian American. I think most of it has to do with our home life and our expectations for them.
We encourage them to participate in outside activities but we keep things pretty low key at home. We rarely watch TV. No nintendo, play station, etc. We don't give them an allowance but they are paid for helping with the family business. My passion is reading so there are books EVERYWHERE. I think this is key.......instilling a love of reading when they are young.
I homeschooled the two older ones for three years. It was wonderful. Except for one month of sax lessons, my kids have never had formal (paid) lessons of any kind. We try to expose them to as much as possible, and when they show an interest in a certain subject or activity, we encourage them to explore that subject in depth.
I love this quote by William Butler Yeates: "Education is not the filling of a bucket but the lighting of a fire."
janet
| By Coureur (Coureur) on Saturday, November 08, 2003 - 03:52 am: Edit |
>>Could it be that the admissions criteria are designed to screen out these kids to minimize the number of asian high achievers? We've had other threads on this topic, BTW.<<
Are you suggesting that rewarding school involvement, sports, leadership, and other similar ECs are a deliberate attempt to "screen out" high achieving Asian students? If so, then we have a massive conspiracy on our hands involving adcoms and admissions deans from hundreds of schools across the country. Because nearly all colleges embrace these sort of achievements as desirable virtues. A conspiracy that huge sounds pretty farfetched to me.
| By Massdad (Massdad) on Saturday, November 08, 2003 - 01:38 pm: Edit |
Coureur,
As the one who posted the line you quote, of course, I think you are correct, that there is not a conspiracy etc. My point was not that adcoms sat around a conference table and said, "we've got a problem - this here group is dominating our classes. We've got to do something....". Rather, my point was two fold:
- how a simple, seemingly unrelated change, or a slight change in emphasis can tilt the landscape for or against a particular group, and
- how subtle and indirect bias could be.
With all the discussion over the past few years about the "importance" of a diversified class, one that does not just include "academic achievers", I am quite certain some "social engineering" is going on here. Is is to limit asians? I cannot say - I have no idea. Is it to help legacies, feeder prep schools, keep alums happy? Perhaps. After all, some of the big donor alums probably come from the era where one's squash skills were probably as important, perhaps more so, than one's academic skills.
Finally, all schools do NOT "embrace these sort of acievements". There are some that specifically emphasize intellectual etc. If you look at the 15 or so true elite U's, there are some interesting similarities.
To put on my conspiracy hat for a moment, you are aware that Ivy admissions officers meet regularly to discuss policy and so forth? Good chance to hatch and execute a conspiracy. Then, since the rest of the academic universe looks to the ivies for leadership, it's pretty simple to export the ivy approach to other institutions, through professional meetings etc.
I can tell you from my own professional experience at one of the ivies that others do look to us for leadership. This past week, I've been drafting part of the management plan for one of the recently awarded Biodefence Centers of Excellence grants. I received a call from another U that is leading another one of the regional centers. When I said I'd be happy to send them a copy of my draft and work with them to improve it, they told me that having a draft from my institution would make their job much easier, saying that a plan good enough for ------ would be good enough for them.
The point: it does not take a wide conspiracy to get a radical change in policy, even not so hot ones. Rather it takes the work of a few institutions viewed as leaders. The policies of the leaders tend to ripple through the rest of academe. Not always, and I'm sure (I hope) Marite can elaborate, disagree, support (at least offer a different perspective) on this.
Bottom line: admisson to the elites is a zero sum game, where every gainer is offset by a loser. In the absence of a clear understanding of how elite admission decisions are made, some group will always feel like they are losing out. Heck, just in these discussions, we've had virtually every group, minority or majority, opine that they are on the short end of the process. We need to be aware of the PERCEPTION of fairness, or lack of it. That's the issue.
| By Hkkick (Hkkick) on Saturday, November 08, 2003 - 01:41 pm: Edit |
Xiggi,
I am from HK.
I read your excellent articles and I do agree about unfair treatment agaist Asians.
Somebody is just a simple bad loser. He doesn't want admit that you are right.
I think he is from SF area.
Negative ethnic comparison deleted, borderline slur.
Hkkick, this is a sensitive discussion. Please write carefully. Another line like the one I deleted and you will be banned.
--Moderator Obiwan
Much text deleted.
Upon closer reading, the remainder of this post constitutes a personal attack. Poster banned.
HKKick
| By Marite (Marite) on Saturday, November 08, 2003 - 02:40 pm: Edit |
Massdad:
Regarding the leadership of Ivies, and especially of Harvard, I've heard totally contradictory evidence. Because of the populist bent in some quarters, it is often advantageous not to be associated with Ivies, or to come from certain parts of the country (think about funding for the arts as an example of the tensions between funding for excellence and funding for more popular access). Sometimes, I think that a claim that universities are waiting for Harvard to take the lead or that they cannot act unless the Ivies do so is a copout for their own unwillingness to bite the bullet and just do what they think is right, for example, in terms of ED.
When it comes to merit scholarship, for example, the Ivies do not provide any, but that has not stopped other universities from providing more and more merit scholarships to the detriment of really needy students. The trend was actually accelerated after the Justice Department went after the Ivies and accused them of price-fixing (when they tried to avoid bidding against one another for the same students by disclosing to one another to whom they were making offers and for how much).
Regarding ECs. That is an interesting issue. It is the one most likely to affect Asian/Asian-American applicants, ceteris paribus. Let me note at the outset that Ivies tend to focus on competing against one another (that is the origin of the Ivy League) not necessarily against the best teams nationally (eg. from the Big Ten or UConn). So they may not seek to recruit the very best football player, the one likely to be the next NLF star. But they do try to cover a range of athletics. Asians and Asian-Americans concentrate their efforts in a few of these fields. How many Asian football players, or hockey players have we ever read about? There are, however, plenty of tennis players. The same goes for different kinds of ECs. Jamimom might wish to correct me, but my impression is that the overwhelming majority of Asians engaged in academic ECs as opposed to different kinds of ECs (community service of various kinds). In terms of music, they are more likely to be found playing classical music than jazz or some other kind of music, whether instrumental or vocal. Their academic interests are also distributed in a narrower range of fields than that of the white population (how many can one think have majored in classics, romance languages, literature?) Again, liberal arts colleges, including Ivies, want to accept students across lots of fields and will hear from disgruntled faculty members if they feel that there are not enough students accepted into such and such fields.
This means, as Jamimom observed, that they tend to compete against one another for the same slots in a narrow range of universities and colleges. If one wanted to prove discrimination, one would want to look for two applicants with the same academic stats and the same ECs and see if the non-Asian were given preference over the Asian applicant.
Now I realize that my S fits the stereotype to a T. Will that work against him? Possibly. But if he does not get accepted into an Ivy, I would prefer to see it as showing that he did not have the distinguishing feature that would make him attractive to his top choice rather than showing active discrimination.
| By Massdad (Massdad) on Saturday, November 08, 2003 - 03:39 pm: Edit |
Marite,
Thanks. You shed so valuable light on this topic, especially your observation that a group, because of the social similarities of its members, ends up in de facto competition within the group when applying to elite universities.
So, to carry the argument forward a bit, an effort to build a broad based entering class, encompassing skills from pure academics to varied athletics, a variety of arts etc, will work against any group that, because of cultural reasons, is more narrow in its focus. This makes sense, and is consistent with what the elites say about their admissions. And this could well account for the perception of bias against asians.
How interesting!
| By Perry (Perry) on Saturday, November 08, 2003 - 03:40 pm: Edit |
In reagrard to Massdad's post --
I think his points are correct in many respects. It is inevitable that whenever an adcom shifts its admissions criteria or emphasis from one year to the next, no matter how subtle that change, that it will have certain ramifications for varying groups of applicants. Some of these effects, of course, are anticipated, which is why the policy was instituted in the first place. Others, however, cannot be expected and may produce surprising results.
I think what is interesting in the adcom process is the obvious human factor. The committees are composed of individuals who bring their own experiences, including biases, to the table. As might be anticipated, these experiences play a powerful role in determining how each of the committee members may perceive particular applicants. You may remember in the Gatekeepers (again) how Ralph or one of the other adcoms dismisses one of the applicants as "typically Asian" (my emphasis) and decides to wait for a "more qualified" one that will have a similar profile. As I also recall, one of the adcoms in that book was a young Asian-American, recently graduated from a selective college, who felt that Asian-American applicants were not getting the breaks or consideration that they deserved. There's much that could be read between the lines here, and it is regrettable that the author of the book did not explore them. In the final analysis, the adcom process is nothing more than a flawed mix of some ostensibly objective criteria and human subjective evaluation, with all the personal biases that it implies.
| By Xiggi (Xiggi) on Saturday, November 08, 2003 - 04:46 pm: Edit |
By reading Massdad's, Marite's, Perry's -and a few others- postings, I realize how much I have to learn! Thanks for peppering the boards with such eloquent, intelligent and sensitive posts.
X
| By Massdad (Massdad) on Saturday, November 08, 2003 - 04:58 pm: Edit |
Xiggi,
Actually, I think I've learned as much or more from you, and hearing your views on this and other topics. It is so valuable for me to hear views that disagree with mine, whether subtly or strongly. I learn far less by discussions with folks who agree with me than with folks who have differing views.
So please, keep it up!
| By Marite (Marite) on Saturday, November 08, 2003 - 05:23 pm: Edit |
Xiggi:
Ditto here. The best thing about discussions is learning to look at things from different perspectives, and if complete agreement is not possible, to agree to disagree without putting the other person down. Keep it up.
| By Perry (Perry) on Saturday, November 08, 2003 - 05:39 pm: Edit |
Xiggi -- We all have much to learn, which is also why your contributions are so valuable.
| By Thedad (Thedad) on Saturday, November 08, 2003 - 05:49 pm: Edit |
Great post, Marite. That one should go into a "Best of" thread somewhere.
Perry, I've projected myself into some adcom processes and you're certainly right about the idiosyncratic human factors. I know to a moral certainty that some EC's would impress me much less than others, e.g., I'm not wild about student government unless it can be showed that the SG actually accomplished something other than re-arranging chairs on the Titanic\\\\ patio.
Xiggi, to follow up with what others are thinking, I appreciate your presence. If nothing else, you can always be used as a bad example.
| By Perry (Perry) on Saturday, November 08, 2003 - 06:13 pm: Edit |
Thedad --
I know by serving on hiring committees how arbitrary these proceedings can be, even before an applicant is invited to an interview. In fact, sometimes these processes can be irrational to the point of defying all logic. I long ago gave up trying to figure people out -- it's simply impossible. I think the same dyanamics happen within adcoms: individual committee members may get attached to particular applicants; let their own biases drive their judgements; make assumptions about applicants that may be erroneous; are required to build each class according to the particular dictates of faculty or whoever, which may change each year; who knows? Sure, the adcoms have the test scores, the grades and class rank, most of which are flawed in their own way for purposes of comparing one applicant to another. In my view, it's a very messy process riddled -- inevitably -- with mistakes and sometimes (not always) poor judgement. How could it be otherwise?
| By Marite (Marite) on Saturday, November 08, 2003 - 06:16 pm: Edit |
Xiggi:
Thedad forgot to include a wink emoticon in his post!
| By Thedad (Thedad) on Saturday, November 08, 2003 - 07:05 pm: Edit |
Marite: I did!?!!
Perry: just so. This is why I'm fond of calling this a fuzzy-logic kind of process when everyone wants it very cut-and-dried, deterministic.
| By Xiggi (Xiggi) on Saturday, November 08, 2003 - 11:46 pm: Edit |
TheDad~
That was quite an oversight of my part! However, I have expressed my feelings about your incredible contributions to the boards in several other posts. I have always appreciated the combination of your sense of humor and the presentation of hard facts. I even like the subtle teasing, although I wont forget that "yoghurt/Texas" comment any time soon
"Is qui bene amat, bene castigat."
| By Thedad (Thedad) on Sunday, November 09, 2003 - 03:41 am: Edit |
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
| By Coureur (Coureur) on Sunday, November 09, 2003 - 10:33 am: Edit |
Mortua lingua sola est bona.
"The only good language is a dead language."
| By Marite (Marite) on Sunday, November 09, 2003 - 11:18 am: Edit |
So which dead language should we try to revive?
About 15 years ago, a new graduate of a top LAC was hired as receptionist. She had spent a couple of years in China and had wonderful Chinese language skills. But it eventually became clear that this had come at the expense of more traditional languages. One day, I came across her and a colleague (aboout my age). He was saying, by way of conclusion: "De gustibus non est disputandum." She looked at me blankly and said: "Am I supposed to understand this?" My colleague tried again: "It means. 'Chacun a son gout.'" She looked at me again, in some indignation: "Wo bu dong. I don't understand this, either."
Xiggi: I'm so glad to see that Latin is spoken in some parts of Texas, as well as French!
Thedad: The quote for your Graeco-Scythian novel has to be: Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes.
It's a beautiful New England fall day here today. Carpe diem.
| By Xiggi (Xiggi) on Sunday, November 09, 2003 - 01:51 pm: Edit |
Oh, this is what happened. When my parents announced that we would be moving to the El Paso/Jyarez borderplex from the Dallas/Forth Worth Metroplex, I immediately started my research. Realizing that the area was heavily populated by Latinos, I bought an English-Latin dictionary and started reading it with abandon.
However, the locals must be speaking a heavy dialect or some kind of obscure native tongue because they do not seem to understand me that well.
Brought to you by Dan Xiggi Quayle.
| By Marite (Marite) on Sunday, November 09, 2003 - 02:16 pm: Edit |
Xiggi:
When Charles de Gaulle visited Greece in the early 1960s, he prepared a speech in impeccable Greek. Trouble was, he spoke classical Greek, which none of those who heard him could understand.
As long as the locals are happy campers... Make that four cartons of yoghurt.
| By Massdad (Massdad) on Sunday, November 09, 2003 - 03:27 pm: Edit |
Xiggi,
What Latin dialect to Latinos speak? Latinish?
Where did you live in the DFW Metroplex?
| By Thedad (Thedad) on Sunday, November 09, 2003 - 04:21 pm: Edit |
Marite, I give, what's the translation? My Latin is a certain kind of camp Latin (very camp say some) and my Greek is miniscule.
| By May_1 (May_1) on Sunday, November 09, 2003 - 04:38 pm: Edit |
Well, [cough,cough] not so subtly returning to the topic...
At school I find that there are many study groups that the Asians participate in. The problem in joining these groups is that they're exclusive. If you're not asian, you're probably not going feel comfortable with those who speak, or can at least understand, a different language. I mean, even if English is their first language, most can at least understand the other language when its spoken by their friends. You almost feel as if you're an outsider.
Regarding the cram schools...As my high school was about 40% asian, many students attended these SAT/language schools on Saturdays.
One junior in particular comes to mind: Korean immigrant, impeccable student, single-minded in his slavish devotion to science, does ECs to get into MIT, did Saturday school for years; it ends up that I scored higher than him on my PSAT in sophomore year than he did in his, and that, as a junior, I had a higher SAT score than him. This erked him to no end. Sure, he does well academically, but the is utterly devoid of personality. The kid is a robot. (Not to say that academic success and personality are mutually exclusive)
| By Marite (Marite) on Sunday, November 09, 2003 - 05:16 pm: Edit |
The Dad:
Beware Greeks bearing gifts (from the Aeneid).
| By Marite (Marite) on Sunday, November 09, 2003 - 05:21 pm: Edit |
May 1:
You probably have a point. In our high school, though, where Asian-Americans constitute only 7% of the student population, they are very heavily represented in the academic teams. The teams are a form of study group. I'd love them to draw from a wider range of students or to use the groups formed on the basis of identity to become springboards for study groups. The principal and assistant principals (both African-Americans) agree study groups are a good thing, but they have not really done anything to promote them. Part of the problem is that their approach to raising achievement is to work on an individual basis.
| By Thedad (Thedad) on Sunday, November 09, 2003 - 09:19 pm: Edit |
Marite, thank goodness. I was worried that Dona Ferentes was a pop singer I didn't know of and that Timeo Danaos was a smoldering new film star. I could have actually asked D, who *does* have some Latin now, but it was more fun this way. Alas, as an epigraph it's a the wrong end the The Matter of Greece for my purposes. The decline and fall of Athens strikes me as one of those tragedies of history, inevitable [as things were] but sad nonetheless.
| By Marite (Marite) on Sunday, November 09, 2003 - 11:48 pm: Edit |
Thedad:
The literal translation is actually "I fear Greeks, even those bearing gifts." The Trojan horse can be used as a metaphor in the discourse of the clash of civilizations. How many countries in the Middle East are leery of American aid?
Is your D doing Latin-Vergil? My S is only in Latin 2, using a highly simplified version of Ovid's Metamorphoses.
| By Thedad (Thedad) on Monday, November 10, 2003 - 12:13 am: Edit |
Marite, no, alas. By design, D did a 2-3 in languages, 2 of Latin, 3 in French, doubling up with Latin 2 and French 1 sophomore year. However, she wants to take more Latin and maybe Greek in college. She even has a Harry Potter book in Latin...dang, she shoulda mentioned that about her Fantasy Club EC on her Yale app.
Funny, but the novel as much as it's about anything is about mutual influence of civilizations on one hand and what means "family" on the other.
| By Xiggi (Xiggi) on Monday, November 10, 2003 - 01:43 am: Edit |
Massdad~
My family lived across the street from St. Mark's School in an area called Preston Royal.
| By Marite (Marite) on Monday, November 10, 2003 - 07:57 am: Edit |
Harry Potter in Latin. I thought only Winnie the Pooh had made it into Latin (Winnie Ille Pooh).
My S had to give up Spanish 4 this year in order to take his math course, but is sticking to Latin. If the schedule works out next year, he'll take up Spanish again. But he has just found out that, if he wants to pursue math beyond the undergraduate level, he will have to take a language exam in either French, German or Russsian.
| By Professormom (Professormom) on Monday, November 10, 2003 - 09:16 am: Edit |
"But he has just found out that, if he wants to pursue math beyond the undergraduate level, he will have to take a language exam in either French, German or Russsian."
Normally the language exams for math grad students just require that they demonstrate a solid "reading knowledge" of the language. They don't need to speak it, they don't need to understand it orally, and they don't need to write grammatically correct sentences in it. The idea is that they should be able to read journal articles and books written in one of those languages.
Studying Latin and Spanish should help a great deal in picking up what is needed to pass a typical language exam in French, given the commonalities across the languages. Actually, I think studying any second or third language wakes up mental circuits that make it easier to acquire additional languages.
Reading foreign language articles in math professional journals isn't as hard as it might be in other disciplines, because mathematical symbols and equation notation are pretty much universal and there are cognates for many technical terms.
A good place for your son to start to get exposed to technical French would be an excellent journal called Crux Mathematicorum, published by the Canadian Mathematical Society. It is aimed at strong high school students who enjoy the kinds of problems typically found on math competitions. And, because it's Canadian, much of the content is written in both English and French. It's kind of amusing to compare the two versions of some of the problems.
Speaking of Crux reminds me of a fascinating item I read in the Wall Street Journal a decade ago. It cited studies which suggested that kids who learn a second language early on (e.g., Quebec kids, who generally study both English and French in school from an early age) acquire a mental flexibility which enhances math problem-solving and creativity.
| By Marite (Marite) on Monday, November 10, 2003 - 09:43 am: Edit |
Professormom:
Thanks for the leads. We'll try to look out for Crux.
I 'd been considering steering my S toward German, on the theory that if he butchered the language, at least I would not cringe!
French is my first language, so I'd be delighted if my S studied it (and he could communicate better with his French cousins whose English continues to be atrocious, never mind studying it since sixth grade). He learned Spanish because that is the language taught in our schools, beginning in 7th (and now 6th) grade. He decided to take up Latin because its predictable syntactical structure appealed to his mathematical bent. Unfortunately, my mentioning of all the exceptions to rules in French made that language less appealing to him. I can only hope he changes his mind in college!
Thanks again for the lead about Crux.
| By Jamimom (Jamimom) on Monday, November 10, 2003 - 11:19 am: Edit |
I have a son who butchers all of the Romance languages which unfortunately is all that is offered at his school--Latin, Spanish, French and Italian. He has the perfect mouth and speech patterns for German or Russian and through his voice lessons has learned some German. He does much better on the German songs than the smooth beautiful Italian arias.
He is strugging with his 3rd year of Spanish and hopes to either start Italian next year or German to help with his voice selections. He had to take the 3 years of one language ( a school requirement) or he would have ditched the Spanish. Since he, like your son took Spanish in Middle school, I had hoped that it would go easier than starting a new language such as Latin or French but I don't think it made much of a difference after the first quarter. Most of those kids in Spanish I had already taken some Spanish.
As an aside, this language thing followed some of my kids into college. Some colleges require 2 years of a language or passing their language proficiency test. My son in college did not pass the test but unfortunately did well enough to qualify for intermediate level language which was not easy for him. He should have started at the beginning again, especially since he was carrying a heavy load of academics in his major. He did not need this intermediate level language on his back as well. He just could not spend the time on it that the course required. So he did poorly in a class that could hve boosted his GPA had he gone into a lower level as he should have since he had only taken 2 years of that language in highschool during freshman and sophomore years. If language is not a kid's forte and he is just taking it to fulfill the requirements of a school, he should probably take it at a beginners level so he is not pressed to work too hard at it especially if his major is in another difficult area or if his grades are important because he is premed or prelaw or grad school bound.
| By Xiggi (Xiggi) on Monday, November 10, 2003 - 11:21 am: Edit |
I would think twice about pushing towards German ...unless he likes words like "Fussballweltmeisterschaftsqualifikationsspiel". Since math is his game, he might like "neunhundertneunundneunzigtausendneunhundertneunundneunzig". Everyday words in German
Regarding languages families, I still think that learning Latin helps to understand the construction of words and get hints at VERY difficult words in French or Spanish -or prepare for med school!. However, the commonality between Latin and romance language is far less that people assume, especially when it comes to the modern uses of the language. If it was that easy all the Romans would be able to speak and understand Latin.
Learning foreign languages requires considerable efforts but it is true that it gets easier when mastering the same families.
| By Jamimom (Jamimom) on Monday, November 10, 2003 - 11:26 am: Edit |
Professormom, your post brought back some long forgotten memories. I am fluent in German. Was even more fluent in my college years, but had no interest in taking German in college. I took one of those exams you are referring to. In my school, the exam consisted of translating a paragraph that the department secretary gave you--she just randomly picked one from a selection in a file she kept. You were allowed a language dictionary and pretty much all the time you wanted. A piece of cake, I thought. Well, the article was on the dynamics and mechanics of a jet engine. I don't think I could have half understood it in English, never mind translating into English and my dictionary was useless because of the the technical terms in the article. Thank God, German is a language that loves compound words that you can break apart and literally cobble together in English. I did pass the exam, but I would not have bet a pfennig on the outcome when I handed the thing into the secretary. I would not have been at all surprised if I failed the thing.
| By Marite (Marite) on Monday, November 10, 2003 - 11:36 am: Edit |
I gave up trying to teach my son French when he was 3 and I realized after months of wishing him good night, that he was still butchering "bonne nuit," and I just could not stand it! Our school only have a 2-year requirement for foreign languages. My S actually did very well in Spanish 3 and would have continued into Spanish 4 if it had not clashed with his math course. He enjoys Latin 2 (though his pronounciation differs from mine, which is very French). His reason for taking it had to do with its logical structure. When his Latin teacher heard that last year, she took him to visit an encryption lab where her nephew works. It was a real treat. Alas, our school does not offer either Russian or German. Next year may well be his last year in high school, so it's not a good time to start another language.
Your idea that my S could take a different language in college at the beginner's level is a good one. There would be no presumption of prior knowledge on anyone's part, and he could apply himself to studying it rather than blowing it off.
For what it's worth, I once graded the French exam of a young woman who had taken AP French and had minored in French in college. It was barely passable, even though this was her second attempt. The experience left all of us rather shaken.
| By Perry (Perry) on Monday, November 10, 2003 - 11:40 am: Edit |
I find it odd in this country that most high schools offer far more courses in Spanish and French than in German, especially when Germany has played a historically dominant role in European affairs and continues to be the central economic power on the continent. And yet, many high schools do not offer German. The reasons for the popularity of Spanish are obvious, but why French over German?
In another vein, my daughter completed her AP German at the end of 10th grade, and is now tutoring students in the language. Rather than continue her German studies immediately with university courses, she decided to take a few electives in her high school that she wanted to pursue. My hope, of course, is that she will not forget too much of it by the time she enters college since she wants to continue to study the language. She has a good ear for it, and finds that -- like Jamimom's son -- that it helps with her song selections and singing.
| By Marite (Marite) on Monday, November 10, 2003 - 11:43 am: Edit |
I have an anecdote about German, too. A German graduate student in Physics at Tufts decided to take care of the easiest things first--or so he thought. In his first semester, he decided to get rid of the foreign language requirement by taking the German exam. Lo and behold, he flunked. His problem? His English was limited, and he'd not brought a dictionary along, so he could not find equivalents for familiar German terms. I knew exactly how he must have felt when I took the French exam in grad school. I did not take along a dictionary and got stuck on a number of terms. So much for hubris.
| By Marite (Marite) on Monday, November 10, 2003 - 11:46 am: Edit |
Perry:
The lack of popularity of German puzzles me, too. Russian used to be offered at our school, but its popularity has dropped since the end of the USSR.
| By Perry (Perry) on Monday, November 10, 2003 - 11:56 am: Edit |
Marite --
Yes, it's strange. It could be a vestige of the post WW II legacy -- a definitive under appreciation for things German after the war. Although I think much of this post war animus has certainly dissipated, the lack of course offerings in high school could be a consequence of sorts. This is pure speculation on my part...
| By Massdad (Massdad) on Monday, November 10, 2003 - 12:05 pm: Edit |
Perry,
Actually, German was more popular in the immediate post war period than now.
Rather, I think there are more practical reasons for the popularity of French over German:
- French, dating back for several hundred years, was considered a language of culture and diplomacy.
- German was considered the language of science and industry. Before WWII, it was common to do one's graduate or postgraduate study in Germany, especially in chemistry and physics, the dominant sciences of that day. The top publications in chemistry especially were german, so one needed a knowledge of german to undestand the literature. Now, most of those journals have adopted english names and publish in english. You can still find a paper or two in German, but they ususally will have an english abstract.
| By Thedad (Thedad) on Monday, November 10, 2003 - 12:10 pm: Edit |
The German dept. at D's high school keeps hanging on, barely, as low enrollment threatens some of the classes.
Parts of the country have a French historical connection (Illinois, where I started taking French) and then, too, as my grandmother pointed out, French was at one time the major language of diplomacy. Worldwide, it's spoken much more than German. That said, my attempts at German sound like someone gargling while dying.
When I lived in Washington, D.C., I did a bit of translating in social & shopping situations for three chaps who came from Zaire...their French was like nothing I learned in high school but the feeling was mutual, I think, and it worked out well.
TheMom and I used to speak French when we didn't want Little Big Ears to understand but alas Little Big Ears is now Big Big Ears and her French is much more current and, while I wince at her accent--sacre tonnere!--her vocabulary and grammar are now both better than ours...daily practice does it. (Marite, she has one of the Harry Potter books in French, too.)
| By Marite (Marite) on Monday, November 10, 2003 - 12:20 pm: Edit |
Thedad:
And my French is nothing like that of my teenage nieces and nephews who speak a kind of franglais that would make members of the Academie Francaise apoplectic; it is, however, the lingua franca of French teenagers. I spent 10 minutes trying to understand what my niece was saying when she commented that "les vetements sont vachement chipes ici." It turned out she meant "cheap." Now, why could she not have said "bon marche"? (Sorry Xiggi, I still have to practice putting in accents).
| By Thedad (Thedad) on Monday, November 10, 2003 - 01:48 pm: Edit |
Oh...franglais. We speak that in our household comme d'habitude.
I actually think the AF is wrong-headed on trying to preserve the language, which like the Constitution, should live and breathe. Otoh, I'm middlin' conservative on English usage myself...but I don't try to put it in a straitjacket.
D has had three French teachers, only one of whom had what I would regard as an accent worth emulating. Her present teacher is of Vietnamese origin and has an accent you could cut with a meat cleaver.
Works in both directions, I guess. I once ordered k'ung p'ao gi (sorry for lack of tone indicators) and the waitress squinted at me, looked the menu, and said, "You mean number 16?" I was *so* deflated.
| By Xiggi (Xiggi) on Monday, November 10, 2003 - 01:53 pm: Edit |
Marite~ There is an easy way to bypass the accents ... just capitalize the foreign words. See how correct "BON MARCHE" becomes!
Regarding the languages taught in school, I have to admit to be quite perplexed by the discussion of Spanish or French being lesser choices than German or Russian.
I believe that it would be misguided to use the economic power of a country with the establishment of a school material. It was one of those ridiculous idea that forced me to take Japanses for 2 years in middle school when our school made Japanese MANDATORY. A few years later, Japan had lost most of economic might and the school changed it back to Spanish.
When looking at one particular language, one needs to look at the use of the language in the world, and well past the absolute numbers of speakers. French, English, and Spanish has become the official language of many, many countries and is widely used in diplomatic circles.
On the one hand, Russian is mostly spoken in the former Soviet Union while German is spoken in Germany, Austria and in a small part of Cookooland aka Switzerland. Coupled with the intrinsic difficulty of the language and the fact that non-natives have little chance to ever master it, the ratio of effort versus usefullness is not that great.
One the other hand, armed with French, one can travel throughout quite a number of African, Arabic, and Caribbean nations and have a very good chance to be understood. Spanish is obviously king in the Americas -except for those pesky Brazilians who got hooked on Portuguese!- while we know that English is fast becoming the universal language.
Obviously, I am not saying that Russian or German should not be offered in US schools. I am smimply stressing that there are ample reasons why French and Spanish are much better choices for the majority of students.
Lastly, you may get a kick of a "guesstimate" of the popularity of languages in the world.
1. CAN YOU GUESS IT ??? Number of speakers: 1 billion+
2. English Number of speakers: 508 million
3. Hindustani Number of speakers: 497 million
4. Spanish Number of speakers: 392 million
5. Russian Number of speakers: 277 million
6. Arabic Number of speakers: 246 million
7. Bengali Number of speakers: 211 million
8. Portuguese Number of speakers: 191 million
9. Malay-Indonesian Number of speakers: 159 million
10. French Number of speakers: 129 million
| By Massdad (Massdad) on Monday, November 10, 2003 - 02:00 pm: Edit |
Well, Xiggi, #1 would be chinese, or course. But only written. Another source I've seen mentions Mandarin as #1, Hindi ahead of English. It also has the following interesting factoid:
"English is far more world wide in its distribution than all other spoken languages. It is an official language in 52 countries as well as many small colonies and territories. In addition, 1/4 to 1/3 of the people in the world understand and speak English to some degree. It has become the most useful language to learn for international travel and is now the de facto language of diplomacy. In 2001, the 189 member countries in the United Nations were asked what language they wish to use for communication with embassies from other countries. More than 120 chose English, 40 selected French, and 20 wanted to use Spanish. Those who wanted English to be the common language included all of the former Soviet republics, Viet Nam, and most of the Arab world. English is also the dominant language in electronic communication. About 75% of the world's mail, telexes, and cables are in English. Approximately 60% of the world's radio programs are in English. About 90% of all Internet traffic is as well. However, the percentage of Internet users who are not native English speakers is increasing rapidly, especially in Asia."
| By Xiggi (Xiggi) on Monday, November 10, 2003 - 02:07 pm: Edit |
TheDad~
"Comme d'habitude"
This reminds me of one of my dad's favorite trivia questions. Playing trivia has been a favorite passtime of our family, especially during the holidays when the extended family -that could be easily confused with an United Nations delegation- gets together. Since everybody tries to trip the rest of the family, we get to hear some pretty arcane expositions.
Anyway, my dad loves to ask: Who wrote the original version of the famous song "My Way"? After laughing at the answers ranging from Frank Sinatra to Paul Anka, we all get to hear the original version.
Obviously, this would not have tripped Marite
| By Xiggi (Xiggi) on Monday, November 10, 2003 - 02:12 pm: Edit |
Massdad~
I also thought that Hindi would have been well ahead of English, considering the population. I think that Hindi should be at 600 million.
| By Perry (Perry) on Monday, November 10, 2003 - 02:20 pm: Edit |
Massdad --
I would say that english is not only the most widely used language in diplomacy, much to the chagrin of the French, but also in science, popular culture, and the internet. However, with the current animosity between the U.S. and the French over Iraq, the renaming of "French Fries" to Freedom Fries, and other such nonsense, who knows? -- maybe French will soon be out of fashion in our high schools, many of which are dropping language instruction anyway because of the enormous state budget deficits.
| By Marite (Marite) on Monday, November 10, 2003 - 02:28 pm: Edit |
It actually would have tripped me. When I was a teenager, American pop songs were translated into French. I can still sing the Everly brothers "Dream, dream dream" in French (though off-key). Then, my brother came back from university with a stack of classical music records and my musical allegiances shifted.
Regarding the foreign language requirement in high schools: of course, it makes sense to offer the most commonly used (or commonly requested) languages in a particular community. It's only when one goes to graduate school that one realizes the languages that were learned in high school do not match the graduate program's requirements.
Xiggi:
Hindi is spoken in India of course, but note all the Booker prize winners from South Asia. Not all are living in England. In fact, methinks that British literature is kept afloat by non-Brits. It must have started with Conrad.
| By Marite (Marite) on Monday, November 10, 2003 - 02:33 pm: Edit |
Perry:
Considering the number of French jokes about Belgians and pommes frites, I don't mind the renaming of French fries. In fact, I recently bought a bag of fries that I noted, after taking it home, was done "Belgian style."
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