Education Why Asian cultures seem so much better at maths, incredible!

It's not enough to be interested. You have to be really rather good at it. What East Asian cultures tend to teach is that learning is a valued and even noble pursuit in itself, that one should try to excell at one's endeavours and be wise in one's actions, and that continual striving to enhance one's mastery is a way of life.

Prowess with the abacus is just one way in which that shows, and it is not just for adding up. You can do some really complex maths on an abacus if you understand how maths works --if you know how to translate the relationship between numbers into patterns on an abacus.

 

Except that since we lack the maths skills, we won't even get the job of fitting boilers because the Poles will be undercutting us with cheaper labour costs.

 

I gave abacus a try in primary school before I moved here, it's just a matter of memorising all the patterns. addition is fastest on it because it's easiest on it. it's just like solving a rubrics cube, just need to memorise all moves.

what I am amazed at is people on Countdown during numbers round.

Master Nexxo here teaches us the ways.

that is pretty much all there is to it, don't forget the 1 child policy that makes the parents put all their hopes onto their single child. starting from primary school, the kid will not have any play time.

 

At school I was really good at maths but once I got to A-levels I realised I was good at applied maths and couldn't get my head around conceptual maths. I think it was more to do with methodical thought set and not being able to imagine the numbers any more.

Also I came across my primary school reports when cleaning the house out and you can tell the point where maths just click for me. One year I "couldn't multiply" and the next I was "developing my own strategies". There is a part of teaching in this country where teachers wait and hope for this spark before actually teaching their subject. Its no surprise that those that have clicked end up in top sets in most schools.

As a trainee science teacher I have tried to teach some subjects by setting out a research topic and most of my SEN set group turned straight to Wikipedia. The pupils who found other websites and processed the information rather than copy-paste to notes where the ones that did well.

I agree with Silver after seeing this and you really should push for your school to use it as a support tool rather than having pupils rely on it. I also try to set homework which cannot be answered by the internet so maybe you could encourage this approach as well. My younger sisters school set research topics as homework and see just re-writes information from the internet and doesn't take it in.

KavinBlack there was a push in English schools at least to not teach the subjects but to develop pupils into "responsible citizens" that still exists today. All lessons planned should have some focus on developing their personal skills. I know in my SEN group again I have to build in ten minutes of conversation time linked to work for some of the pupils. Another part of the strategy was to link all work to real-life situations and local concerns so they can be armed with all the correct information to form their own judgement.

I agree, they should train pupils brains at a younger age for this information processing as learning in a secondary school can only benefit. One thought for teaching is this wait until the pupils are ready to learn at different levels and stages. There is no reason why you can't accelerate their rate towards a higher, more complex level.

Its not just them subjects that can't get employment. The problem with employment in the UK is all the jobs exist in the South East. As a first class physicist from a respectable university with family ties in the north west I found it impossible to get a job. All the talk of their being STEM graduate shortages is rubbish, its because all STEM subjects aren't where the graduates are.

 

Well, that is a second thing i dislike in people. You can get a job, but not where you live. What do people in USA do ? They bag their stuff, sell their house and move to other side of the country if the job is good enough. What an asian does ? Same, or in case of Japanese, they travel through half country every day .

What most people in Europe do ? Complains that there is no job 5km from where he lives.

Just a comparison - i moved because of the job a distance equal to a distance between central London and Coventry. Sure, not much. I have coworkers who moved a distance equal to a distance between central London and Newcastle, only because they got a job here (in Bratislava).

Or just look around you, all the people from central Europe in UK - they moved over 1500km just to get a better paid job - even if it is a job most of you in UK wouldn't even do.

If you want a job and there is none in your neighborhood, move elsewhere. If it means moving from one end of the country to the other one, do it. Or you can sit on your bottom and complain how there are no jobs.

 

This reminds me of how chimps can remember numbers flashed up on a screen for a second.

 

Firstly the central Europeans near and around my town can't find work after moving here either so its not just myself that couldn't find a job. They're lucky as the state doesn't expect their parents to support them until they're 25 despite moving out for over 4 years at uni.

When I was looking for jobs in other parts of the country the first thing I would look at was salary and find out how much I would take home after taxes. What I found out after that was that I could afford to live in the parts of the country where the jobs are with extra money form somewhere for deposits and general living costs. I wasn't looking at anything fancy but even ex council homes split into shared occupancy were still outside of my reach. Also as public transport isn't reliable and overpriced, commuting into anywhere isn't worth the money/hassle either IMO. In short in less you have money saved up from somewhere or the bank of mum and dad its not worth moving for a job in the UK.

Also I love teaching as a job but I'm only training still. Once I have trained the teaching jobs in the north again aren't great and to move to the South East wouldn't be affordable on the starting salary.

 

Yes, what a revelation, I wonder how many youngsters in the UK want to be a teacher?

 

Desire to teach doesn't come from being good at a subject. I'd say it has more to do with what you want to do, specifically do you have an aptitude or desire to help people learn.

Also, I'd love to know exactly what sums can be done with an abacus. Basic math, sure, but what else?

 

Well, Confucius was a big proponent of self-improvement through learning. There is also the concept of "Dao" (or "Michi" in Japan): the path of the continual practice and honing of one's skill at something, and striving to get as close to perfection as possible. This discipline is valued in its own right and perceived as an aspect of self-actualisation.

 

It does make you wonder why there countries have failed so badly, if they are so clever and academic

 

Well it takes more than being academic to get on in the real world. Also there is this
http://www.vieweird.com/only-in-japan/

(Actually I have no idea if or what Asian countries have failed)

 

Care to elaborate?

Both China and Japan both seem to be getting on extremely well. China's a rapidly growing economic and military power that gives even the most successful Western countries a run for their money, somewhat literally. Japan is a globally recognized center for modern technology with an enviable nationwide quality of life and availability of technology. South Korea would also be difficult to call a failure, while not a massive world power they are a quite advanced and modern country. To me, those are the big three countries that come to mind when high Asian academic standards are brought up.

Southeast Asia has plenty of other countries which are much less advanced but is a country where much of the population is still in rural areas doing agricultural labor really included in the discussion of high Asian academic standards? And can they really be called failures when many such countries have economic growth greater than most Western countries? The little guys aren't always little forever.