A response to the Asian
education model is by no means perfect...
Bob Choi
Whenever we talk
about education, we invariably bring up the merits and dismerits of
standardized tests. It's commonly acknowledged that these
tests do not measure the true abilities of the students other than their skills
in scoring well in the tests. As long as we understand their limitations,
these tests will cause no damage. And since we don't have any viable
alternatives to rank the students, standardized tests are considered as a
necessary evil.
With the exception
of vocational or professional education such as law, medicine or engineering, I
generally take a dim view on the effectiveness of education in general. I once checked the background of the Nobel laureates in Literature of
the last 30 some years. I expected that many of them would have
majored in their primary language at the university level. To my surprise, many of these
accomplished writers did not attend universities and only a couple actually "studied"
the language they wrote in!
Einstein was
arguably one of the most brilliant scientists ever lived. But he didn't do particularly well at
school. His intellectual accomplishment was
definitely NOT because he studied at a top university or under the best
professor of the time.
People often ask:
"With all the advances in modern education, how come we can't produce
another Einstein?" The answer escapes many of us even though
it is in plain sight...
If Einstein was a
young student today, he might not do very well in the standardized tests, he
would be ranked as merely average. He would not have the opportunity to
develop his full potential! That's the way I feel about modern
education.