I think part of it too is that America values overachieving a bit too much, to the point where people just get too stressed out. We expect kids to be superachievers...we tell them that if they want to go to college and succeed in life, they must get straight A's, be a member of every single club/sport/organization that ever existed, do 294837273 hours of community service, etc., but they still want to have lives and hang out with their friends and such...and where do you get the time for all of this? When do you get to sit down and relax? You don't, and so the stress builds and builds and, in worst-case scenarios, causes you to act out. Many kids who committed heinous acts often leave their peers puzzled because they seemed like such good kids. It's just too much pressure. When you combine the stress with influences from the media, such as the seeming normality of violence, you have a recipe for disaster.

There indeed need to be some major changes in our society. Major.

Sometimes it's a challenge just to get them to pass, and it's not that hard. ANYBODY can do it.


If you're really serious, then that'll have to be done. Not so much the straight A's, because any idiot can ace the standard classes required to pass, but to show improvement over time and to take hard classes to prepare yourself. However, about 2% of us will actually have to do this, the other 8% will have it easy, and everybody else will fail or drop out. And to be honest, it's actually easy once you get used to it, which took me about half a year. Besides, you'll be in for a nice surprise when you decide to go to college/university and get hit with 6 hours of homework if you just slacked through high school.


It all depends on what kind of person you are, no amount of pressure or media will push a good person to do crap.

This post has been edited by dre: Feb 26 2008, 09:52 PM

I gotta LOL at this. No offence at Americans out there, because I appreciate America's openness, creativity and contribution to the world, but seriously, I don't respect their culture.

America values overachieving? I don't know about this, but you should seriously come and take a look at Asia. Asians are much more stressed out, especially in education. Koreans, for example, value their education and their system is so exam-oriented that to fail a major public examination means failure in getting into universities. In Singapore, people fight over limited spots in their national university to the point that they study so hard until it changes their whole culture, moulding them into what they are now - a society that is scared of the future, taking every chances now to prepare for the worse. And don't even get me talking about Malaysia. Everybody here competes for the coveted JPA scholarship - JPA being the Public Service Department. Each year, thousands of scholarships are offered to bright students that get straight A1's and they are sent to prestigious universities everywhere. The ironic part is that there are simply TOO many students scoring straight A's and too few scholarship spots. We (as in, the students) are born into a system of rigorous examination-based education and to get a less than exceptional result in our public examination means to forfeit on that scholarship and go to a private college instead (which many people can't afford).

Overachievers? Our Asian world is full of them. The smart ones get smarter and brighter, the idiotic ones gets left out and become society's gangster/rubbish/thugs/hooligans.

I think the problem with America is the culture. Since the advent of the Hollywood era and sex symbols like Marilyn Monroe, Americans create a liberal, Western culture that reflect sophistication, modernisation and everything that 'should be'. The problem with this is that Western culture isn't perfect, and it appalls me that many Americans are actually stupid! Not stupid in the sense of retarded, but stupid in the sense that they do many foolish stuff, i.e. not valuing their future, dropping out of schools etc. This applies to teenagers only, mind you. I did this IQ test on Tickle and my score is at least 30 points higher than the average American (according to their statistics). I don't intend to brag that I'm a genius (I am one of the top scorers in my school though) because my friends got just about the same marks that I did for the IQ test, but I really am surprised that the average American teenager knows less than they should.

Is it because of the education system itself? I think so. Western education system focus on personal development and creativity that it neglects knowledge and the important things that should be learned. Over here, knowledge comes first. My friend who is in Australia studying at their high school before entering university told me that their syllabus is at least 2 years behind ours - in the sense that we already learned what they are learning now. Yet, it surprises me that we are labelled 'third world country' and they are a modern, 'first world' country.

So the central root to America's problem is the culture. I don't think there's much to be done, because that Western capitalist idealism is so deeply rooted that it's hard to change their mindsets now.

@above post

You realize asia is going through the same cycle america went through, right?
Lets go from early 1900's to now
You had the boom in industry and people fighting for their rights
You had the "biggest and best" buildings competitions and gimmicks "world's tallest building" and such
You have Freedom Fighters

I could go on, but I doubt anyone would know exact things i was talking about.

There is a definate cycle, and i can remember reading more than once that Japan and other Asian countries are following in the footsteps of america on the road to immaculate economy.

again@above post

Did you somehow magicaly grow up in america and then shoot across the world to grow up in Korea again? Well then, you don't have a well informed idea of what America is really like. Yes, the schools are pathetic but you can obviously see people on the internet trying to improve themselves and each other daily. There are overachievers, but unlike you and your people we aren't forced to do anything. We have the freedom to do whatever we want. Capitalism trumps all cards. Anyone can become rich and powerful, it is all just drawing straws.

@topic

I skip school quite often, but it's usually because I don't feel like going to a boring jailhouse-like setting for 6-7 hours to learn about the same things a google search + logic could teach me in under 2 hours.

6 hours of homework comes sometime at around Grade 12, or at finishing school. At university, you don't really "get" any "homework" (in the sense that you don't get assigned any day-to-day practice sheets), but the "real" homework is that one big project that makes up your term paper. All the rest doesn't get marked.

Well, that's according to one of my friends at church who goes to university. I don't know myself, since I'm only in grade 9.

Also, if you're going to take hard classes, take them because you need them to get a good standing, not just because they're hard and you want to show off. Like me, I write Grade 11 and Grade 12 contests while I'm still in Grade 9 because I want to get really good at math and be favoured for a spot at a certain university program, with all those tests plus whatever else I achieved under my résumé's belt.

This post has been edited by tricky77puzzle: Feb 27 2008, 11:41 PM

So if it's not graded, you won't bother? Lol.


10th grade 2nd semester: AP European History, PE, Honors Pre-Calculus, CP Chemistry. Ended up with 4.5 gpa, spent about 1 to 2 hours of homework per night. 11th grade 2nd semester (currently): Spanish 2, AP Calculus BC, Physiology and Anatomy, CP English 11. GPA in progress, spending about 2-4 hours of homework per night, mostly because of math. 12th grade I doubt I'll be spending much more.

I didn't say that. I like to get all the practice stuff out of the way before its assigned.



How do you get a GPA of 4.5? I thought the highest was 4.0 (A to A+). Unless, of course, I'm wrong and the maximum is actually 5.0 (100%)...

Anyway, you probably won't get about 6 hours of homework in any part of your education life. Maximum would probably be 5. Of course, in China, it's a different story... even in grade 9 people get about 3 horus of homework a day.

This post has been edited by tricky77puzzle: Feb 28 2008, 12:08 AM

Well, obviously you misunderstood my intention. I think you thought I was criticising America, while in fact, I'm not.

I said I admire America for its creativity, openness and innovation. Without America the world would be much, much further behind, as in, primitive and not technologically advanced. This is a fact, because America has top technology institutions like MIT. The freedom granted to civilians in America is also a good point. I never did once mention that America lacks overachievers because I know there are many bright students there. Yet, somehow, these intellectual students are labelled 'geeks'. Where's the d