Parents educated in other countries see mixed blessings in American education

In 1979, Charleen Chiang came to the very first time to the United States from Taiwan after graduating from the National Taiwan University. She had been able to come on account of her outstanding grades and was pursuing a degree in computer science.

“American standards for education are too low and teachers need to prepare students more for college,” said Chiang, the mother of sophomore Emily Chiang.

Many parents, especially those who have been educated in different countries with different systems, often believe that their children do not work hard enough or as hard as they did.

According to Chiang, to even be able to come to America to study, immigrant parents had to work extremely hard. Naturally, they often push on their expectations onto their children.

Students often ignore their parent’s comments about working harder when parents bring up their own educational experience, dismissing them as biased. However, after scrutinizing Taiwanese education during Chiang’s time, students can judge the veracity of their parent’s claims themselves .

“Our average school day was nine hours long and we would study for four to five hours each day,” Chiang said.

Additionally, according to Chiang, students had tests and quizzes every single day in each subject. Her finals were also 40 percent of her overall grade when compared to Saratoga’s average of 15 to 20 percent. She believes that by placing so much emphasis on the final, students must work harder to master all the material and therefore end up with a better understanding of the subject.

Other parents believe that the U.S. schools provide “more versatile classes and training.” One such parent is Patty Ding, mother of sophomore Evans Ding.

Yet another difference between current American education and Ding’s education is the variety of classes in the curriculum.

“All the students [took] the same classes at the same time [in Taiwan]. There were no electives,” Ding said.

Ding believes the lack of variety of classes in Taiwan pushed students into classes harder than what they could manage or made those who were already familiar with the material feel constrained.
Pravin Madhani, father of sophomore Akshay Madhani, who went to school in India, believes that his children are more studious than he was, a somewhat rare sentiment from a parent.

“In my time, we did not have such a big workload and so many different courses to choose from like honors and AP classes,” said Madhani. “Subjects were not as advanced and intense as they are today.”

Like Ding, Madhani said that the greater variety of electives and tracks is a great benefit of American education.

Despite the benefits of such diversity, Madhani is not satisfied with the college admission process in America.

While Madhani was accepted into colleges based completely based on grades and college entrance exam results, the U.S. system “is quite a subjective process.”

College applications are almost always a source of consternation for students. Madhani believes that the college admission process would be much simpler for both parents and students if it was just based on grades rather than on extra-curricular activities.

While some parents may firmly believe their education was better, there is no right or wrong way to teach students.

As Madhani said, “[American education] is good in some aspects and not so good in some aspects.”