Nearly twenty years ago when I came to the United States, I came to receive an edge in the form of a graduate education in, what was then and what is still, the best educational system in the world. So did a number of my friends. As time progressed, our justifications for staying on changed: for the last few years Viji and I have said to each other that living in the U.S. gives our children an edge. I think highly of the American school system, and even though my compatriots rue the lower standards of Math education in American elementary and middle schools, I think this is more than adequately compensated for by the creativity that is fostered in students.
But, lately, I've begun to worry about the The World is Flat argument made by Thomas Friedman. If the field has been leveled for students across the globe, then, are the work ethics of our children, here in the U.S., such as to let them compete effectively with the hardworking, ambitious kids from Bangalore and Beijing?
My buddy Balan Menon has expressed this concern well:
..There is an issue brewing on the horizon. And it has to do with our children. In ten years, assuming she does a masters, Maya, our older daughter will be in the work place. In ten years, the global work place will shrink further and will make absolutely no difference whether an employee sits in Mumbai, Moscow or Madrid. I returned from India a few weeks back and had an opportunity to speak to some 12 to 15 year olds in Palakkad, Kerala. All of them (and this is the norm) attend tuition classes, after school hours, so that they can hone their competitive skills at entrance exams for admission into Engineering, Medical and other lucrative fields. While this takes away childhood as we know it, these kids in India become a bunch of lean, mean competitive machines, competing against my kids who are for the most part lost in Sponge Bob country. Our kids, growing up here, will be blissfully unaware that there is a Tsunami coming their way.
How will our children cope?
Monday, June 13, 2005
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3 comments:
The case for people making their way westward in their 20s definitely made and continues to make sense. However, people are so used to continue doing the done thing. Until even 10 years ago it made sense to continue living in the west past your 30s where the standards of living for normal professionals was much higher than in India (or other parts of Asia). Today however, people need to rethink whether it makes sense to continue living in the west once you've had some years of good exposure, seen what good and bad practices are, saved money (multiplying by 45x or 80x) and want to actually "live". Today material goods are freely available in India. Information flow and (sometimes excessive) media, indeed, makes the world flat. The diverse economies of Asia offer a range of industries for the young to build a career in (I know in the UK unless you work in something related to Finance you aren't going to be make big bucks, on average). And if you talk to young parents in India today, although they do complain that the environment is extremely competitive (exactly the thing I want for my kids), they do talk of various clubs and other activities that help children do things that are not purely academic.
At the end of the day, there's a lot to be said for living in one's own country. My parents (my Dad first came to England to study in the early 1950s) moved back to India from London in 1971. One day, recently, I asked him "do you think you did the right thing by moving back?" We were both aware that we would have been considerably richer as a family and his four children would have grown up being British. His answer was an emphatic "YES, it was the right thing to do". There are so many things one cannot measure in terms of dollars and pounds!
I don't know for a fact, but I bet that for many years US
students have scored less on standardized tests and are "behind" their
European and Asian counterparts. Many of my foreign colleagues in
graduate school had done more things earlier than I had. Yet there are
still a ton of smart and innovative business/science thinkers produced
by the US system. Perhaps there is some benefit to some Sponge Bob as
well as extra math homework after school?
It was some time when I was in graduate school that the number of foreign born mathematics graduate students exceeded the US born. There was a rapid growth from year to year. People were bemoaning the loss of mathematics aptitude or desire from US candidates. I'm curious if growth has slowed. One positive about the US system is that it seems to attract such interest from people around the world and many, like yourself, end up staying. This can only improve the education of children here. Afterall, it becomes our collective system after some time. I think these sorts of global phenomena are not rapid and swift like tsunamis. There are many pressures that cause and ebb and flow including politics. When it comes to our children, I think they'll compete (or not) based on many local factors over global ones. I worry more that I get home from work too late to engage with and help them with their education.
Good to see your blog, Ramesh.
The assumption that traditional education is working (at least
somewhere) is a fundamentally flawed assumption. 98% of people in US
are either dead or financially unable to meet obligations by the age of
65 according to the SSA - regardless of educational background.
Education is not working anywhere to provide quality life. Hence my
personal move into business ownership. I knew I would not be able to
leave a high-paying Accenture job to my kids! I had to "own"
something.
And Indian and US education alike prepare people (by assumption - what
arrogance!) for a job. We are woefully under- or unprepared even to
start and run a business. We are woefully unprepared in ALL soft
skills
areas - public speaking, communications, relationship building,
"thinking", leadership and self esteem.
Gates and Dell are but two extreme examples of how useful dropping out
of school was. The society should and will move strongly into a
network
of independents collaborating to create value. Education will become
practically oriented (in other words we will see more of U of Phoenix
type models or a educational disruption as pointed out by Clayton
Christensen). Academic education will gradually become unnecessary and
irrelevant. "Mentorship" models will evolve - aka Dronacharya or
gurukula concept - with an "e" prefix.
Rgds
Kanth
PS: This is a vision that will be realized as definitely as night
follows day. The question is of course, how many people are ready to
believe it right now. Also, how much more damage will happen before
the
vision is achieved...
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