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Young Asians need to smash the stereotype of dull test-takers
By Christopher Lin |
May 14, 2013, Tuesday
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AT the beginning of every summer, what seems like half the population of my high school, a renowned AP and IB dual-certified international school enrolling predominantly Asian American students in a so-called American educational environment, is sent off to SAT cram classes, eight to 12 hours a day, five to seven days a week, for one or two months - usually the entire summer.
With dozens of competitive international schools and hordes of tiger parents, Shanghai (and soon many more Chinese cities) supply thousands of students to expensive, private academies whose sole purpose is to teach students how to ace standardized tests.
While a lucrative business is created, do students really profit?
Students may see enormous risss in test scores, and schools may see drastic improvements in college matriculation. But if it is true that Asian Americans are collectively dominating in elite high schools and universities, is it also true that Asian Americans are dominating in the real world?
Collective juggernaut?
This is not so, and that the reasons are not hard to find.
If we Asian Americans are a collective juggernaut that inspires such awe and fear, why at the same time does it seem that so many Asians are so readily perceived to be, as I myself have felt most of my life, the products of a timid culture, easily pushed around by more assertive people, and thus basically invisible?
The social stigma of a quiet, unsociable Asian with low emotional intelligence is so prevalent in America that if you are an Asian person who holds himself proudly aloof, nobody will respect that, or find it intriguing, or wonder if that challenging facade hides someone worth getting to know. They will simply write you off as someone not worth the trouble of talking to.
For the past decade the proportion of Asian American students at elite colleges has boomed, and this increase is widely attributed to our skyrocketing scores on standardized tests. These scores in turn can be attributed to skyrocketing attendance at cram schools.
Throughout Shanghai and other major cities in China, one can find "cram schools," or storefront academies, that drill students in test preparation after school, on weekends, and during summer break.
"Learning math is not about learning math," said an instructor in one session I was pressured to enroll in. "It's about weightlifting. You are pumping the iron of math." Students at these cram schools learn quite simply to nail any standardized test they may need to take.
Colleges have a way of correcting for this imbalance: The Princeton sociologist Thomas Espenshade has calculated that an Asian applicant must, in practice, score 140 points higher on the SAT than a comparable white applicant to have the same chance of admission. This is unfair to the many qualified Asian individuals who are punished for the success of others with similar faces.
Even grimmer is the problem that arises with the ever-growing number of Asians scoring at unprecedented percentiles: the bar will only rise higher and increase the number of hours needed to spend at cram schools.
Not only are the advantages to scoring high erased in this manner, but the countless hours dedicated to mastering test-taking skills are also countless opportunities lost for more meaningful forms of enrichment. These opportunities that develop character traits such as leadership and responsibility, emotional intelligence and cultural competence, are what may reverse the growing trends of a timid and invisible culture.
We will need more people who are willing to stop doggedly pursuing official paper emblems attesting to their worthiness, to stop thinking those scraps of paper will secure anyone's happiness, and to dare to be interesting.
Christopher Lin majors in financial economics and art history at Colombia University. E-mail: cl3083@columbia.edu
With dozens of competitive international schools and hordes of tiger parents, Shanghai (and soon many more Chinese cities) supply thousands of students to expensive, private academies whose sole purpose is to teach students how to ace standardized tests.
While a lucrative business is created, do students really profit?
Students may see enormous risss in test scores, and schools may see drastic improvements in college matriculation. But if it is true that Asian Americans are collectively dominating in elite high schools and universities, is it also true that Asian Americans are dominating in the real world?
Collective juggernaut?
This is not so, and that the reasons are not hard to find.
If we Asian Americans are a collective juggernaut that inspires such awe and fear, why at the same time does it seem that so many Asians are so readily perceived to be, as I myself have felt most of my life, the products of a timid culture, easily pushed around by more assertive people, and thus basically invisible?
The social stigma of a quiet, unsociable Asian with low emotional intelligence is so prevalent in America that if you are an Asian person who holds himself proudly aloof, nobody will respect that, or find it intriguing, or wonder if that challenging facade hides someone worth getting to know. They will simply write you off as someone not worth the trouble of talking to.
For the past decade the proportion of Asian American students at elite colleges has boomed, and this increase is widely attributed to our skyrocketing scores on standardized tests. These scores in turn can be attributed to skyrocketing attendance at cram schools.
Throughout Shanghai and other major cities in China, one can find "cram schools," or storefront academies, that drill students in test preparation after school, on weekends, and during summer break.
"Learning math is not about learning math," said an instructor in one session I was pressured to enroll in. "It's about weightlifting. You are pumping the iron of math." Students at these cram schools learn quite simply to nail any standardized test they may need to take.
Colleges have a way of correcting for this imbalance: The Princeton sociologist Thomas Espenshade has calculated that an Asian applicant must, in practice, score 140 points higher on the SAT than a comparable white applicant to have the same chance of admission. This is unfair to the many qualified Asian individuals who are punished for the success of others with similar faces.
Even grimmer is the problem that arises with the ever-growing number of Asians scoring at unprecedented percentiles: the bar will only rise higher and increase the number of hours needed to spend at cram schools.
Not only are the advantages to scoring high erased in this manner, but the countless hours dedicated to mastering test-taking skills are also countless opportunities lost for more meaningful forms of enrichment. These opportunities that develop character traits such as leadership and responsibility, emotional intelligence and cultural competence, are what may reverse the growing trends of a timid and invisible culture.
We will need more people who are willing to stop doggedly pursuing official paper emblems attesting to their worthiness, to stop thinking those scraps of paper will secure anyone's happiness, and to dare to be interesting.
Christopher Lin majors in financial economics and art history at Colombia University. E-mail: cl3083@columbia.edu
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