Topic started by maya (@ ip-111-116-57.stockton.navipath.net) on Fri Jun 15 21:45:26 .
All times in EST +10:30 for IST.

is just me or do all of you agree with me when i say that children in india are educated better than in any other countries. although a only a few in india are fortunate enough to go to school, they are learning much more than in any other countries. compared to the curriculam there, america as well as europe is behind. if a kid passes 2 nd grade from india, he is on a easy cloud for the next three years. so what do you say?

Responses:

• Old responses
  
• From: Amitabh (@ 204.115.121.242) on: Mon Jun 25 09:23:30
  
  Rousseau and Fedup,
  Thanks for your support. Do you guys have any thoughts on what we can do to improve?
  
  I also blame the parents a lot. I have seen so many parents who are paranoid about what their kid should become. They cannot accept the limitation of their kid and keep on loading expectations on them.
  
  BTW Rosseau, I am from North India and still agree to your view that it was stupid to think everybody knows Hindi in our country and declare it as a National Language. The only true official language India has is English.
  
  Anyway, I am very much interested in learning a South Indian language. Can you suggest which one will be easier for me to start with. How shall I begin? Any books etc??
  
  
• From: maya (@ a060-0038.snfc.splitrock.net) on: Mon Jun 25 19:23:54
  
  well, go with malayalam. it is kind easier than tamil to learn. get some books and if you are out of india (foreign countries) they have classes on the weekends. 1 hr each most of the time. but an easier and lazier way are cd-roms. go to indian stores and get it from there.
  
  
• From: Misguided Soul (@ tcache-wq01.proxy.aol.com) on: Mon Jun 25 19:50:49
  
  As far as I know both Thamil and Malayalam languages are tough to learn... but nothing impossible.... So try....
  
  Ganesh
  
  
• From: Sugrutha (@ 65.11.240.45) on: Mon Jun 25 21:00:38
  
  No language is difficult to learn, if you have exposure to people speaking it. In TN, there are many Hindi teachers who have passed the Pundit exams, they can read and write Hindi well, teach the grammer excellently, but cannot speak Hindi fluently. While in Oman, I met a rajput farm-worker from Bihar, who spoke Tamil like a pro, without the slightest accent, because many of his colleagues were from TN. Amitabh, you must try and pick up a language that your friends speak.
  
  
• From: Raju (@ fw2.nhs.uk) on: Wed Jun 27 09:24:29
  
  Isn’t it true that the Education in India is based on memorization just to get through exams. Students tend to / or been taught to memorize studies, rather than being creative or self initiative. Through the memorization technique (not really understanding the whole concept) students tend to do very well in exams. But when it comes to practical or pursuing what they have learnt in a real world, they find it difficult.
  Therefore it would be wrong to suggest that the overall India education is better than western countries.
  
  
• From: maya (@ a060-0029.snfc.splitrock.net) on: Wed Jun 27 15:44:02
  
  i never actually thought about that. i don't have too much experience in the indian education system, so maybe thats why. you are right. but atleast they do much better on the tests than they do here. but that doesn't do much good either when you think about it. but i am sure on the way, the tend to memonrize a few things here and there for life but not all. when i made this comment i wa mostly thinking of the math skills indians have. i mean 99 percent of silicon valley is made up of indians. believe me they are. i live close to silicon valley and half of the indians i know work there. actually almost all of them. i guess they are really good at math. i think they should have mosre activities to help get the concepts through the children's head. likes learning games like jeopardy with soial studies. or math games and more labs on science. all labs doesn't have to be so complicated as disecting a frog but as simple as explaning gravity's force in 3rd grade but dropping two things that weights different. so many people are visual learners. it doesn't cost that much money for schools, just you thing shtat we use in daily life.
  
  
• From: maya (@ a060-0566.snfc.splitrock.net) on: Thu Jun 28 02:09:16
  
  i mean just the things that you use in daily life
  
  
• From: Raju (@ fw2.nhs.uk) on: Thu Jun 28 04:54:41
  
  Maya,
  
  We need some students from India to respond to our commands. I studied in India from age 6 to 10. Then I moved to UK, been here for about 23 years now. Before the age of 6 I was in Singapore. So like you, I don’t really have too much experience in the Indian education system.
  
  Any way, the education experience I had in India was mainly to do with memorization technique. But if you are talking about Maths, then that’s different. When I moved to UK, I was alot ahead in Maths than my counterpart students in UK. The standard was so low for that age group I couldn’t believe it. My strongest subject has always been Maths. I went on and got a degree in Maths.
  
  The other aspect of the India Education I found was that it was very strict.
  We had take mid term exams and final exams to proceed to the next year. If you fail you will be stuck in that year till you pass.
  In UK children age 6 to 10, are not in under pressure with their education nor they take any serious exams. There are exceptional parents who would push children beyond their limit.
  
  I suppose there are pros and cons to the above statement.
  
  
• From: MAYA (@ ip-111-116-205.stockton.navipath.net) on: Thu Jun 28 16:29:36
  
  I AM SO ANGRY ABOUT HOW IN INDIA YOU HAVE TO TAKE SO MANY TESTS. I THINK IT SHOULD BE LIKE HOUW IT IS HERE AND IN UK. WEEKLY TESTING THEN SOME UNIT TESTS AND A STAR TEST OR AN SAT TEST. THATS IT AND MAYBE THEY COULD AVERAGE UP THE QUATER GRADES TO SEE IF THE KIDS GRADUATE
  
  
• From: Sugrutha (@ 65.11.240.45) on: Thu Jun 28 21:07:33
  
  I have the NCERT textbooks from class 1 to class 12 for science and math with me here in the U.S. When I compare with the US text books, subject matter wise, they are not very much ahead.
  
  I think it is mainly to do with parents. Indian parents even here are very devoted to the academic progress of their children. For example, I recently attended my son's eigth grade passing out. 11 students were picked out for the president's awards for straight As for 3 years in succession in all the quarters. Although the percentage of chinese and Indian students is only 30% of the class strenghth, there were 6 Indian children, 2 chinese and 3 white American children among the 11 children. Also I beleive that Indian and chinese children never go below the B-grade. This is what my son tells me.
  
  Here, although there are no monthly tests and quarterly exams like in India, there are constant tests and quizzes. The assignments are also graded and goes into overall grade for each quarter. The pressure is more distributed, I would say.
  
  And the other significant thing is the emphasis they place on Social sciences. My younger son who is now in fifth grade, knows a lot about local governing bodies, how to take up civic problems with the Mayor, and then escalate it to the Congressman or Senator. While in fourth grade he attended workshops aimed at racial and multi-cultural tolerance. In some chools there are also workshops on homosexuality tolerance, since there is a growing nimber of children coming from families with parents of the same sex. They were taught about the oppression and exploitation of the native populations by the colonialists, and why there was a need for native reservations. (I wish our schools talked more openly about castes, various discriminations and reservations in the same fashion)
  
  A lot of American parents feel that the the new generation American kids are not grasping oppurtunities as well as the immigrant children. They feel that the new breed of kids, from what they see from the interns and fresh college recruits in their companies, lack responsibility and accountability, that they themselves used to have while they were same age.
  
  
• From: maya (@ ip-111-123-205.stockton.navipath.net) on: Fri Jun 29 00:09:46
  
  i love the fact that in the american society, they teach the kids a great del about tolerance. i wonder what would happen if there was a guy or a lesbien in india. i mean people there are not used to dealing with that kind of a thing. kids here would still be breathing fine if they come to see soemthing bigger than that. when i go to india, to tell you the truth my relatives are very strong believers of the whole caste system. i don't have much freinds because they don't let me hang out or talk with people that are say not doing that well financially as well as by their family names. well we travel, i cannot go a normal restaurant which is close by but i have to wait to reach a five star one. here the kids are taught at early age that we much treat everybody equally. i wish they taught that in indian schools too.
  
  
• From: Shakespeare (@ 202.88.233.18) on: Fri Jun 29 02:45:14
  
  My pop sociology / anthropology textbook tells me that :-
  a.) the asian child is ambitiously backed (read supported/goaded as the case may be!) by the parents.
  b.) the asian child comes from cultural backgrounds that have been unbroken for thousands of years.
  c.) the Indian tradition of vedic mathematics and learning by rote finds ready application in computer software.
  d.) the western system of individualism and selfdeterminism probably do not countenance too much parental involvement in the academic activities of the child. In fact a German friend once told me that by the time you are about twentyfive and have not found a life partner or at least a steady, then your parents will be really worried! The western child is very much on their own. Whereas the Asian child is an investment into the future for his parents.
  
  As for tolerance I really don't know. The incident of the black man being dragged to his death with a jeep, the Rodney King story, the dot busters, the puerile witch hunt of a testosterone packed Clinton. All these spring to mind.
  
  America is a young civilisation.That phrase is in itself a paradox. I had an American friend who wanted to know the age of a few old handwritten sheets of Urdu with illuminations which she had picked up in Delhi. She had shelled out a few hundred dollars, so I didn't want to tell her the truth. Finally, upon her insisting, I told her very cautiously that these were not more than about a hundred years old. That floored her. What she asked me in reply floored me in turn. "100 years is not old enough for you!!" she asked me, vastly surprised.
  
  What India can learn from the west is self reliance, the work ethic, national pride, honesty and integrity.
  
  Shakespeare
  
  
• From: maya (@ a060-0010.snfc.splitrock.net) on: Fri Jun 29 16:29:43
  
  although america is a young country, they have a strong foundation. when did india start to have the republic government system in which people's voice was sounded. not too long ago. but america had it exactly 225 yrs ago. but the main thing is that it was part of the birth of the new country.india had the monarachy system for quite a while. the monarchy just thought about a suggestion fromt he people and made a decision. they did not have any idea how it worked or didn't work among the people. but when america was born, it had the republic government. so that from the start, every decision was based on the people's believes. i mean a parents who is in the house or the senate know whats is best for their child than a king whose child does not have the experience of a normal student. most of the educational system was made by the monarchy of india. but when we got the republican government, they never found anything wrong with it because they haven't experienced the difference.they are to used to it. i also think that no politican will stand up to the plate even if he found something wrong with it because he would fear the support of the others.i am for the parental pressures but not that much. here in america, kids have the oppurtunity to learn but they are not. most of them waste it. thats is because they don't have that determination at all. but if it was an indian kid they would want to because they wanted to make their parents pround. either that or they don't want their parents to kill them. but honestly, parents in india need to be a little more understanding about a child's abilities.
  
  
• From: Indian (@ acbd8b53.ipt.aol.com) on: Fri Jul 6 21:13:00
  
  Glad that you all are concerned about education.Check out these articles:
  http://www.nilacharal.com/news/rajan/index.html
  You'll get a feel of indian education system.
  
  

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