What do Americans think of the hypercompetitive nature of education in Asian countries like Singapore and South Korea?

33 comments

1. I sincerely doubt it does enough good to justify the added pressure and the focus on a few key tests seems very limited.

2. I think it is a byproduct of a culture of competition. It seems kind of bleak and miserable from an outside perspective.

3. If they like it then more power to them. I’m not a fan of it, and I wouldn’t want my kids to feel that kind of pressure. Here in NC you can do two years community college then transfer to a state university with a guarantee that your credits will transfer. Easier and less stressful and expensive route then trying to go to a big name private school.

4. School isn’t that important. You don’t have to be an amazing student to make a good living.

5. It is not something the average American thinks about much. It does seem a bit dystopian from the outside looking in though.

6. In cultures where there historically hasn’t been enough resources to go around, they had to be allocated somehow, and a hypercompetitivee education system was one way to do that.

   The US has been comparatively much more broadly affluent for a longer period of time, so we haven’t had to do that. On the whole, I think we’re better off for it, and obviously our academic accomplishments speak to the success of our system.

7. What do you think of ghosting someone out of a friendship group for the sole reason of ‘not having the same grades as you’?

8. I’m not a fan of it. I think this is also direct correlation to why Japan and SK have such low birth rates. Unsure about Singapore though.

9. in some aspects its nice to see the fruits of the culture but in other aspects, knowing its not at all natural and comes from pressure of living up to a certain expectation and in many cases can cause issue to people’s mental health? i find that part hard to support.

10. It’s bullshit. Telling young people that getting into a handful of universities is a ticket to prestige and wealth entrenches classism and just burns out countless teenagers who would have been far happier being allowed to choose a path to higher education that feels best to them.

    And what’s the point of such competitiveness anyway? Creating an elite who think their society should kiss their asses just because of where they went to college? All of that is really in service to creating wealth which the social elite will reap the benefits of. Not the normal people who put in the painful work hours common in Asia.

    So, yeah, fuck all of that and anyone who defends it.

11. I think it’s directly correlated to the high suicide rate seen in some Asian coutries.

12. I think it sounds exhausting. We only live one life why spend it endlessly suffering over education. especially at teen years. have fun, be disciplined but not hyper-stressed.

    if that’s what you want. and you have a goal in life to get the best gpa and get to a certain career then i think that’s amazing.

    but on your own accord not because of your parents. find a way to have a balance

13. Makes sense. They had to play catch up. They caught up

14. It sounds like a sad childhood to me. I’m glad I didn’t grow up in that

15. It sounds like a sad childhood to me. I’m glad I didn’t grow up in that

16. We don’t think about it

17. Considering many CEOs and important people (doctors,lawyers. Etc) disproportionately come from that background in the United States seems good to me

18. I lived in Japan in the 1960s as a high schooler. Every year we’d hear about the high numbers of Japanese kids who committed suicide over bad grades. It was horrific, since most of us didn’t care that much about grades.

19. Having heard of it, it sounds rigorous, miserable, and painful.

20. Personally i like how it is in the states. If you have a good friend group they would probably encourage you to study/do your homework. Which even then wouldnt be competitive, just trying to help them succeed. School can be stressful as is without being competitive, i was always bad at history cause it was primarily memorizing random dates/events. If it were competitive id more than likely have given up, since i didnt like history class to start with. No need to make it competitive, if you want that, there are after school activities/clubs.

21. I feel that valuing education should be stronger among children in the US, but in an enrichment and self-improvement way, not in a competitive way.

    Better educated youth have better outcomes in general, so recognizing that it helps one to achieve whatever they want will help.

22. I’m very glad I don’t have to go through that system. I have good grades and work hard and all that, but SK/SG schools are on a whole different level of hellish from what I’ve heard.

23. It sounds like a suicide factory.

24. I think it’s detrimental to people, especially neurodivergent people, and contributes to the high suicide rates in some countries.

25. I don’t really think about it although I don’t think it’s a bad thing. Success should be competitive.

26. I’m not down with the idea of feeding children into a machine of stress and unhappiness just because it makes the line go up on the GDP graph.

    It’s emblematic of the modern world valuing economic indicators over human health and wellbeing.

27. I often wonder if the test scores themselves are just rigged.

    Once you make something so stupid matter so much, you just push people to lie about it.

28. I’ve gone through both systems. I prefer the American system because it provides multiple pathways that lead up to the top (academia-wise). In contrast, the Asian system defined your career and life by middle/secondary school. If you are a late boomer, you are SOL. Also, the culture doesn’t foster thinking outside the box, which I think is a key element in having an innovative society/economy.

29. Both hilarious and sad. I brought my children to visit friends in Singapore, when we were visiting Malaysia.
    My kids were 1 and 2 at the time. One of the aunts there told me (with a straight face) that she didn’t think my daughter was “Harvard material”. But not to worry because me and my wife could have a third child still. My daughter was the 1 year old.

30. Not good for physical and mental health. Also results in sub-par education

31. It sounds like memorizing things instead of thinking and creativity. Like a paper tiger of sorts.

    I’ve been a B/C student all my life and it’s worked well for me. I didn’t stress myself out and had plenty of times to play with friends and create memories. I was happy. Now as an adult I’ve done really well and am still happy.

32. Their hypercompetitive culture doesn’t yield better outcomes than countries without it. You can compare [worker productivity](https://time.com/4621185/worker-productivity-countries/) whereas no Asian country breaks the top 10. Japan at #20 and South Korea at #30. Those cultures tend to produce extremely high suicide rates and low birth rates. So they’re working their asses off for.. nothing really.

    Singapore’s success is built on a foundation of an abused underclass. The only reason citizens have a good quality of life is because cost of foreign labor is dirt cheap. 1 in 5 households have domestic helpers. 1 in 3 in above median households. And many of these are live-in/daily situation. Easy to spend more time at work or enjoy hobbies when the time you’d spend cooking dinner, doing laundry, and childrearing is taken care of by someone else. Not to rag on them too much, it is an amazing country to visit, with kind people and the best food in the world.

33. Education in the West and education in Asia are two very different things. The whole philosophy is different.

    Asians largely subscribe to a Confucian model of pedagogy. The teacher is the master. He straight-up tells you what is correct. You further your learning by going home, opening your books, and memorizing shit. You further your learning by repetition. It encourages efficiency and conformity.

    Westerners largely subscribe to a Socratic model of pedagogy. The teacher guides you to find what is correct through reasoning and logical techniques. You further your learning by discussions, cooperative projects, and hands-on activities. It’s less efficient, but encourages outside-the-box thinking and collaboration.

    Success within the Asian way of doing things is accurately judged by standardized tests, thus making things more competitive. The Western way of doing things, you’d need essays and activities to see how bright someone is.

    As a doc who trains docs, I train a good amount of folks who did med school in India. This difference couldn’t be any clearer. They have encyclopedic knowledge, but struggle immensely to apply it when things aren’t cut and dry. Their western-trained counterparts may have to fumble through their notes and aren’t as quick on their feet, but once they get going they come up with creative solutions/approaches.

    I find the general approach to education in the east to be very limiting. Humans are not drones or AI. Creativity is our one advantage.