GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

Thank you for the wonderful vignette. I always enjoy reading your posts.

This reminds me of my days as a student at one of the city’s specialized high schools. During my jr & sr years, I would volunteer to work freshmen orientation. One Asian parent of an incoming freshmen asked the Principal in very broken English how many students went on to Ivy League schools. The Principal’s response was thematically in line with Mr. Goldstein’s.

However, conversely as a fairly new teacher myself, I have a distinct respect for the discipline and studiousness that is implicit in traditional Asian cultures.

After all, it’s nice to be important. But it’s important to be nice!

My daughter wants to be a teacher all of a sudden nearly two years into her bachelor’s degree. A part of me might take it as a compliment. I have to figure out where she should consider teaching because NYC is simply not a place I’d advise any young teacher to begin a career and to be honest I can’t see my child working in any U.S. public school system given the direction Washington is going.

As to Chinese parents, it’s already best to have some optional things for the parent up your sleeve. Nobody has had more of them than me over the decades. Long story.

Great nuanced essay, and I’d love to hear more. I bet there’s a book in this.

Wow, you’re persistent. Just tell her something bad already!

Great piece. I remember learing what the SAT was in 7th grade watching some of my peers studying lists of vocabulary words during recess. “What are you doing?” “Studying SAT words. Don’t you know the Harvard acceptance rate?!” And that was decades ago!

You had an interesting experience with a Chinese parent. I taught for thirty years in the US public schools and had a few Asian students. Usually they were the best students I taught and earned the highest grades.

For sure, I never had a mother like this one and if I had I probably wouldn’t have been able to say something bad about the student either. However, I’ve learned that if you can’t say anything bad, then the chances are the parents will think you are lying anyway and you were hiding something.

In fact, I wished I had been able to say bad things about bad kids. I certainly taught enough of them.

I scanned the comments others left and didn’t notice anyone mentioning the recent 2009 PISA test results and how Shanghai students scored highest in all three areas beating out 65 other countries. Those same students even demonstrated a high ability for innovation and solving problems.

However, the US scored 23rd of 65 while China, Singapore and Finland were the leaders. China’s education system has been changing from the old methods of only memorization to using modern techniques to get students to think outside the box. It seems to be working.

On the other hand, do not’ expect Chinese culture, which is the opposite of America’s self-esteem speak only positive words culture, to change. In my opinion, the Chinese have the right idea and are only getting better. Life and survival is about competition and Chinese students will be tougher in a system that doesn’t use all warm fuzzy words to make everyone feel good while dummying down the textbooks and inflating grades to boost the facade of self-esteem.