My self-esteem plummeted this week. I thought I had been spending my 2 million minutes productively. In an average week of 10,080 minutes, I spend approximately 5,040 minutes at school or doing homework, 510 minutes doing music related things, 180 minutes volunteering at the Humane Society, 630 minutes either getting ready for my day or getting ready for bed, and an estimated 3,360 minutes to sleep. That leaves me with 360 minutes to do whatever I want. Yay. But apparently that amount of free time would be a disgrace in Indian or Chinese cultures. I swear, kids who live in India or China and go school there don't even have time to blink. Can I point out a logical fallacy? Hasty generalization. Picking 2 students out of about 20,000,000 students is a hard task and the selected students are bound to only represent two genres of the high school scene. I don't believe the hard-working dedicated student category was filled, which is what I believe a good bunch of students are. The documentary 2 Million Minutes made me feel like a minority because I actually care about doing well in school. I shouldn't feel like a weirdo for working hard. Maybe I should live in China.
No that's a bad idea. After watching that documentary, I can't dispute the fact that there probably are smarter, harder working students in China and India who set higher goals and expectations for themselves than we do. However, most American students are more well-rounded: we are smart but also create time for ourselves to do things we enjoy. And just because we don't want to become doctors or engineers doesn't mean we aren't setting our sights high. I want to become a professional musician and play in famous orchestras around the world. The odds of that happening are slim, just like the odds of becoming a doctor or lawyer, but you cannot tell me that I don't have my sights set high. I will flip.
Which brings me to flipping out during the movie at least 3 times. 1) When Neil said that he didn't try at all on the PSAT yet qualified for a National Merit Scholarship and gets to go to Purdue on a full ride scholarship, I about blew a gasket. The thoughts running through my head: "How come I work my tail off to do half the things that he does and what do I get for a reward? A nice pat on the back. Pathetic." He seemed like a good student, just lazy, which is probably what the documentary was trying to get at. 2) When the boy from China said he spends half of his time playing computer and video games I was so mad. I wish I could play video games for half of my afternoon and still get the grades that he apparently does. 3) I hate it when people disparage their own capabilities. The boy from China said he was really surprised that he got picked for the national math championship EVEN THOUGH he was the top math student in his entire school and in the top 100 in China. If I was that smart I would totally think I should get picked for the math championships. It's mean but I think it was good that the documentary showed the foreign students not making it in to their colleges of choice. It made me feel better because these students that I had put up on a pedestal didn't turn out to be as high and mighty as I thought they were. It made me feel like the things I want to do and the colleges I'm aiming for are culturally acceptable.
Whoa, now quickly on to "For Once Blame the Students." I just have one thing to say about this article. Teachers do make a difference about whether a kid wants to work hard in that class or not. If a teacher is super chill, a student probably isn't going to work that hard. If a teacher is super strict, students are going to be frightened into working hard. But, in some cases, I do agree with what Welsh says about looking at the foreign students' work ethic to see that education in America really is a privilege and not a right.
I like how Rose talked about Vocational Education and how teachers odn't know what to do with students who don't want to try. I think that since both my parents are teachers and I know how much they get frustrated with students that don't try hard is the reason that I try hard in school. I feel that I owe that much to my teachers. I could relate to the title quote: "I Just Wanna Be Average." I know that I have expected less for myself because I thought other students were better than me and because if I set my expectations low, when/if I surpass them, I will feel even better.
But, gosh. I feel so inferior.
I definitely agree with you that the point of the documentary is that Americans are well-rounded, which is actually necessary for success. The Indian and Chinese students didn't achieve their goals, and maybe it is because they were too narrow-sighted.
ReplyDeleteAnd the part about Neil and the PSAT. Oh. My. Goodness. I studied and prepared so much for the PSAT! It's amazing how he was able to just stroll into school, take the test without much thought, and receive a full ride scholarship to Purdue. I hope he continues good work and doesn't waste his abilities. I greatly admire people who don't have to study and somehow manage to do well on tests. It's mind blowing.
No matter how smart you are, if you can't talk to people or have high self-confidence you won't go anywhere. That's one main thing the case-study failed to point out.
ReplyDeletePlummeting self-esteem is never good. Sorry about the rough week!
ReplyDeleteI just want to say breaking your week into minutes like that was unbelievably cool.
And I also agree with the hasty generalization. In a sense I wanted to believe, "Oh, they chose a boy and a girl from two asian cultures, so it must represent Asia as a whole." But thinking about it more, the documentary didn't focus on gender and education at all. They could have done all boys or all girls, and still would have had the same argument. So I feel that this selection was a sneaky way of appearing to represent a wider population than it actually did. Hence "hasty generalization."
My self-esteem took a hit too! It was so frustrating to hear Neil talk about how he didn't have to try at all in school and on the PSAT and still get rewarded.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what Andrew said about how you broke down your week. It's amazing how much time we really have and how we spend it.
I absolutely agree with you! The entire time I was thinking oh my gosh, I don't study nearly as much as the Chinese and Indian students! But I think that was what the documentary was trying to say. I think the fact that the Chinese and Indian students didn't get into their first college was kind of going against what the argument was. But I must say that it made me feel a little bit better too.
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ReplyDeleteAfter watching Two Million Minutes I felt as if I should drop whatever I was doing (stop watching that video for one) and begin working my tail off.
ReplyDeleteAnd I so agree...watching that video I was thinking "HASTY GENERALIZATION!"
And how did you break up your week like that? That was awesome!
(Sorry I deleted my first comment...I realized I didn't capitalize an "I"...so I had to delete it!)
This is the second time I have seen this. The first time I had the same plummeting of self esteem, but after watching it for the second time, I feel a bit differently. I am glad that I live in america because we have the opportunity to have fun. There are so many kids in china and India that they have to work that hard to get to the top. In america, we have the same goals but we can get there while having a life. Also, the director of this documentary was extremely biased in choosing american, Indian, and Chinese kids. I'm sure there are plenty of slacker kids in foreign countries and there are definitely a lot harder working kids in the united states.
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