Posted on 05/30/2016 3:54:06 AM PDT by Cronos
..About 70 of the 285 final round competitors in this year's bee had South Asian names.
Apart from winning the last nine spelling bees in the US, Indian-American children have also won the last five National Geographic Bees ,which tests the geographic knowledge of millions of American children. From 2005, the winning rate of Indian-origin children in these two competitions has been well over 80%.
But what explains this extraordinary success by a group that makes up less than one percent of America's school-age population?
...In academic competitions, especially those focused on math or science, Indian-American youngsters do very well - nowhere near as spectacularly as in the spelling and geography bees, but at five to 20 times the rate of their population size.
These competitions include the Siemens Science Competition, Intel Science Talent Search, Mathcounts, and US Presidential, Rhodes, Truman, Churchill, and Marshall Scholarships.
But in other fields like music and athletics, Indian-Americans either barely hold their own or are non-existent at the top level.
..For example, in the 2013 All-National Honor Ensemble, 45% of the musicians in orchestra and 13% in the band were Asian-Americans, but just 2 and 1%, respectively, were Indian-American.
In athletics and team sports, Indian-Americans actively participate in high school but are virtually absent at college level and in professional sports.
No one of Indian origin (with a very minor Indo-Canadian exception) has ever played in any professional sports league: American football, baseball, basketball, or ice hockey.
There is also no one in the lists of emerging talent, for example, the top 100 high school prospects in baseball.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
Glad it worked out for you...sounds like a rather difficult situation, but in the end, it was nuns that saved you from destitution - and your parents that knew enough to put you there.
VJ’s family is from Fiji (Islands)
Most regaled Indian athletes are cricketers. Not a sport we follow here.
Things like spelling bees and geography bees in particular are just a matter of study/practice and its been my observation that most Indian children spend a lot more time studying. Its not magical.
Here is an article providing more detail focused on Asian study habits but its all the same.
http://www.greatschools.org/gk/articles/parenting-students-to-the-top/
“Because they’re serious about academics.”
No, they are not. Indians make the worst college students.
True = perhaps proper use of the English language and grammar/punctuation would be more apropos - and have paper questions/problems - in cursive.....
I say “congratulations” to those students for their achievements.
“Reading, writing and arithmetic” are no longer being taught in our schools, it’s things like the “common core” nonsense that has taken front stage and lowered our kids educational standings worldwide. Time to ditch all the flowery teaching ideas and get back to basics.
“If they stuck with words like cat. dog, house and car, they would eliminate nobody”
You obviously haven’t been to an American high school lately
It’s because they want to be the ones signing the paycheck on the front in order to pay the guys that endorse the paycheck on the back.
My son-in-law,(who is Caucasian)recently hired by a very large well-know tech firm, had to take over a project that was headed by an Indian because he screwed it up and couldn’t figure out how to fix the mess. He also had problems working with the company people.
Not to disparage people from other ethnic backgrounds, but Caucasians are just or more capable.
Because their parents beat them until they bring home medals.
Does anyone else see the humor? Read the title and then the surname of the author.
“No, they are not. Indians make the worst college students.”
I wonder if that’s due to the same sort of factor that my ex, who grew up in China, explained to me. Competition to get the best middle school grades and marks on standardized tests was intense, so that you could get into the best high schools. Basically only students from the best high schools had any chance of gaining admittance to the best (or any) universities in China. And at, only the students with the best grades. But once in university, the students felt they had “made it” and could coast through getting their degree.
She also told me about doing badly on part of the tests she had to write at the age of 14 (or so), basically eliminating her chance at going to the best high schools or university. One test basically decided her future, at least academically.
Ah, somebody did catch that before me. I’m thinking of a former coworker who was raised speaking Tamil. I can say her name right now, but have forgotten how to spell it.
Because, as Thomas Sowell has reminded us, people of different ethnicity are also different in other ways. This is another obvious truth that horrifies the left.
Way to go, author. Tell us at the very last of the article. Major fail. Just because you can spell doesn’t mean you can report.
I’m a teacher & learned the phonics way. It is, hands down, the best way to learn. I can phonetically sound out almost any word & you can use it to sound out words in French & Spanish.
Our school has about 3 different reading programs going & can’t figure out why the reading level is so low. Phonics......it’s basically free. Each new expensive program is like square wheels on a bike.
Or maybe they should have different divisions. Just like video games, you could work your way up to esoteric and full language levels (Tiers 1-5)
The Tiers 15-20 could be for urban-yutes, with words like "and" and "the"...maybe "axe"
It is no accident that Indian-Americans usually come up under the headline of “model minority.”
Their families stress: study, family, faith, respect. Sports and entertainment are never considered as endeavors worthy of pursuit, considered frivolous. These are serious human beings.
They contribute and ask for no credit or accolades. Polite, quiet, and kind. No riots, no hate for their adopted country. You will have a better chance of being hit with a meteor than being at a protest of Indian-Americans. They adopt and adapt, while maintaining affection for the mother land; as all immigrants before them have done. And they leave America better than they found it.
The British had tests taken at age 12 that determined if a student went to high school for college or went to vocational school. I think they’ve stopped those tests but the legacy lives on in many other cultures previously effected by the Brits.
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