Category: U.S.edu

## max-HIS: options #CSY,XR

Posted on by tiger40490

Due to 1) drug risk 2) grandparents needing my help in twilight years, I will consider these options below.

— 1) First, keep current job despite low bonus (see live with$0bonus^forgo best flexibleHours+commute+workload, Grandpa’s wisdom@PIP #mlp++), until they let me go or until boy is mature enough to leave SG .

In Feb 2020 mail, CSY said “I think the best way to avoid all of those is to find an ideal permanent job (go through the process once) and continue to work for a long time.” The chief “maximization constraint” is not really job loss at MLP, but rather the challenges of next jobs — PIP, bonus humiliation, stress, … I would have to give up my parachute.

— 2) If I lose this job

Plan A1 — go to U.S. right away and work for 6 – 12M, while looking for SG job. XR was surprised to hear this plan: Once settled down in the U.S., immediately start looking for a SG job that I feel confident about.

  • Wife would need to quit working and hire a maid.

Plan A2 — go to U.S. right away to set up home for family. Find a drug-free high school or a religious/charter school, and pray for the best.

  • main problem is boy’s character development, not academics

Plan B1 — Give myself 3M to find a SG job around 140k i.e. my target during the 2019 job search.

  • Need to accept the FOLB peer comparison pain + and face the PIP risk

Plan B2 — Give myself 1M to find a SG job around 80k quickly, to reduce PIP risk. Perhaps a junior or contract job.

  • Compared to B1, B2’s main downside is FOLB. Rely on those passive incomes

— 3) For the B-plans:

if not happy, go to U.S. on my own for half to to 2 years, on H1b. XR’s suggestion is “a few years”, confirmed in Jun 2020 mail. Grandpa also suggested a few years.

if not, take plan A2

[17] school(anywhere)bad influence: %%def

Posted on by tiger40490

See also risks@bad(or top)学区]US

Many immigrants think the majority of U.S. primary/middle schools (those rated below 8) are unacceptable compared to their home country’s standard. I tend to feel the average school is good enough.

On the other hand, I feel the U.S. youth culture is dangerously loose. This culture poses more threat than the academic standard.

Q: When considering U.S. relocatino, what’s the #1 risk to boy?
A: perhaps drugs (sex, youth gangs) in U.S. but in such environments, the bigger risk to the family is my health and stable marriage. As a parenting coach said, if a kid has mom + dad together, then any risk would be mitigated.

Q: How do we define “bad influence” in and outside my son’s school?

I want my son engaged, i.e. to put in consistent effort on something, possibly non-academic. Bad influence are harmful:

  • studying is silly and not cool
  • racism
  • bullying

Many of these could be present in Singapore schools, but I’m not worried, because I’m familiar with the environment — known risk. If I were to move to China I might worry about bullying.

Q: is it possible for a middle school to have mediocre rating, presumably due to academic, but positive learning environment? (Jack, you were skeptical….)

I don’t want to miss out a reasonably “positive” school due to its low rating like 7/10.

Based on my homemade theory shown below, I *guess* a 7/10 school will likely have half the students not serious about studies.

Q: Is it possible that a large proportion of these fellow students could be a positive influence, or at least no bad influence?

There will still be some small population of students who are serious academically. They can resist the bad influence even at that tender age.

Look at the American colleagues in our office or any office. I bet they didn’t all go to a middle schools rated 8..9..10. (This rating is not so accurate across states.) Did they get bad influence? Possibly, but they survived fine. If I myself were a 11 year old and go through a 7/10 middle school, I think I will experience but survive the bad influence.

There’s also bad influence in the very top high schools — drugs and sex…. My high school in Beijing was a top 5 school among hundreds of high schools and regularly receives foreign government ministers as a show-case school. The reputation was the #1 “most strict” high school in Beijing. But friends told me I was the only male student who never smoked. There were lots of porn, and some petty thefts. Lots of bullying and bloody fights. How many students survived the bad influence? Well, looks like 100%. At high school level, we kind of knew good and bad. We were almost young adults.

If my son doesn’t cope well in a middle school, I’m prepared to move. If we rent then move will be easier.

only need2provide Good-Enough env4kids

Posted on by tiger40490

I don’t need to spend dozens of weekends with son just to “cultivate” learning interest. It failed completely.

I don’t need to compare how much financial resources other parents throw on their kids. I only need to provide a “good enough” nurturing and conducive environment. I think grandpa and German would both agree.

Within this “good enough” environment, how academic they become is up to them — their interest, their absorbency, their self-discipline etc. Grandpa and I were both academic types.

Berea college work-n-study

Posted on by tiger40490

Junli said work-n-study is common in the U.S….

My Morgan Stanley intern Sher Sanginov shared his experience there.

  • All students, whether international (10%) or (90%) local, receive full scholarship + free boarding + food. Low-income students are the main target population for Berea, but average income students can also apply but need to pay some. Total fee is 130k over four years.
    • funding by endowment + donations
    • I think this scheme promises to be a quality education (esp. for my son) at a very low cost

Work-n-study — See https://www.berea.edu/student-crafts/students-at-work/

Throughout Year 1  to 4, Students work for 10 hours/week for various departments of the college, and get paid $7/hour. During 4-week winter break and 10-week summer break, school doesn’t take care of students, so student can either

  1. get an external internship if successful, or
  2. go home, or
  3. continue to work in school — pay for boarding but easily affordable if student works 40 hours/week. Sher did that. Sher believed it’s relatively easy to find school job during the breaks. Job can be from same department (more suitable) or other departments.

Freshman internship — Few students can get outside internship in first year. To compete for freshman internships, students need project hyperlinks on the resume, like web/mobile projects done in high school. Once the resume is selected, the internship interviewers will ask some algo or data structure questions. Students should have studied them in Year 1 anyway.

— Type of work

Students can work for any department. For first year, most CS students don’t get CS work, more like cleaning jobs:( For 2nd year onward, it’s more likely to get CS work?

Sher stressed many times — The stronger you are, the more likely you get CS work, like “student programmer”. Teaching Assistant jobs are plenty.

Q: What if the work is too menial, like cleaning? Still better than playing games. Sher said if easy job, then you can finish work early and do something on your own.

Q: what if you don’t like the job assigned to you? All students must work, so if you don’t like your assignment, you could request a change, starting in Year 2. majority of students can cope. If you don’t like it you can raise it to the school. Because such complaints are rare, school can resolve it.

 

U.S. beat Chn edu #grandpa

Posted on by tiger40490

My dad said the right level to compare two countries’ education system is not at primary/secondary level, but university level or higher. He felt outstanding students are produced in universities.

I agree that the pre-U systems only prepare a foundation and platform. The strong foundation achieved by the Chinese numeracy education may not produce good mathematicians but they do produce good math students for sure.

If you say a nation BB has superior education system than nation AA, but AA universities produce many top researchers, top innovators, top thought leaders, in both green fields and brown fields, while BB universities produce solid experts in “brown fields” but not leading the world in any field… You better think twice.

Compare USSR vs U.S. In terms of pre-U level math education, US was weak, but look at the output of US universities…

Therefore, he said U.S. education system is the best in the world. I can see that

  • lots of domestic talent across all fields — humanities, sports, arts, life science, finance, ..
  • U.S. continues to attract global talents in all fields
  • In my familiar domains of math, engineering and computer science, I see many home-grown talents in the U.S. produced by the education system. Per million population, it’s higher than China or India, even though the average standard (in these subjects) at secondary level is much higher in China than U.S.
    • I believe in terms of talent, the U.S. technical education is not weaker. The U.S. system develops local students effectively.
    • However, many students have weak foundation in math, perhaps because the pressure to practice and pass exams is much lower than in Asia. If you use the average math standard as a gauge, then U.S. math education is indeed weaker than China.

U.S. community colleges: a graduate’s personal reflection

Posted on by tiger40490

https://www.forbes.com/sites/civicnation/2018/12/12/community-college-is-more-important-than-you-thinkheres-why looks like a first hand experience

  • For a private college, “loan application I’d submitted in order to pay the college’s pricey tuition had been rejected because of my family’s financial background” — the more you earn the harder it is to get a loan
  • full-tuition scholarship is more possible at community colleges
  • The realization that I could be challenged academically and have the opportunity to take courses I truly enjoyed without having to carry the burden of hefty tuition was freeing. For the first time in months, I felt genuine excitement, pride and, mostly, relief.
  • In contrast, ivy colleges are all private and expensive ($50-60k/Y), mostly for the affluent families
  • “enrolled in courses I was genuinely looking forward to taking”
  • The community college “also helped me become more prepared to transfer by giving me access to resources about financial aid, loans, and scholarships. I would not have those resources or opportunities if I hadn’t gone to the community college.”

conducive learn`environment: engag`even if academically mediocre

Posted on by tiger40490

biggest item in my checklist for that environment is peer influence.

I feel north (or south) Edison might be pretty good.

Bayonne and JC feel all right.

—

When I say “conducive/positive learning environment”, what do I want for my son? Here’s how I answered Mr. Omoloju of RJB school:

First and foremost, there should be no safety concern or negative influence. On top of that, something to engage his energy — Perhaps a minor academic subject; perhaps sports or arts; perhaps coding/robotics… As my friend Alok put it, enough programs to keep the students busy.

Another friend, Jack He, pointed out that some average schools would have some bad students (presumably more than in top school) creating negative influence. Jack felt parents can counter that effectively.

Q1: What if my son falls behind on academic benchmarks while engaged in some of these extra-curriculum programs?

Realistic and big question for the parents. (The write-up on 2-scenarios has more to say about specific solutions, but here I focus on the parent’s attitude.)

A: I tend to feel that he could catch up later academically. No hurry to beat the benchmarks. Many people rise up on the benchmarks in late high school. In college, there’s no standardized benchmark.

A: I have always felt Singapore and China are too focused on book knowledge as measured on standardized benchmarks. Now, if my son is learning meaningful things but falls behind on those benchmarks, I have reason to feel relieved that those challenging benchmarks are not so very important in the U.S. system.

In reality, I believe at the middle/elementary level, grades are mostly due to effort — by the student or by the parents’ push, rather than talent. I know for a fact the at middle/elementary level, U.S. peers on average do not put in the same level of effort as Asian immigrant parents, so my son is unlikely to fall behind unless in a super-competitive school. If he puts in more effort than his classmates but still falls behind, then parents need to accept and be extra-supportive.

A related question:

Q2: is it possible for an academically mediocre school to provide a conducive learning environment?
A: I tend to believe yes. As explained in the PE/SE/SA post, Academic rating depends mostly on parent’s push. If the average parental effort in families of the school population is mediocre, then the conducive learning environment will not produce a top academic result.

Conducive/positive/motivating environment does not mean competitive; academic rating is competitive. Parent’s push is arms race.

I believe my view is radically different from most Chinese parents… Peer pressure. I may yield to it, but I hope I have the backbone to withstand the peer pressure.

“Conducive” is more specific than “positive”.

2 worrisome scenarios I posed to Mrs Omoloju #RJB

Posted on by tiger40490

I first elaborated my concern over safety and conducive learning environment free of bad influence. I told her about “lawlessness”, engagement, commitment … Then I described to her :

  • Scenario 1: my son enrolls. Not much learning on math. Some progress on English, social studies and science. Some extra programs to keep him engaged rather than bored. Conducive learning environment, free of bullying or bad influence. No social isolation … but in terms of academic benchmark, he’s falling behind not within the school but compared to the Chinese/Indian “neighbors”.

Considering The FI factor in my PE/SE/SA framework, it would be parent’s decision whether to move school. Mrs. Omoloju feels it’s better to work with the school to address the concern, to achieve the progress parents want to see. Teacher could provide advanced content or a completely new subject for him (not really helping with the benchmark scores). Parent could get him extra classes outside the school.

 

  • Scenario 2: bad influence from fellow students who are not really motivated and not putting in serious effort in anything. Perhaps they have low self-esteem and no respect for learning, knowledge, competences or any serious effort. As a result, my son is not engaged.

It would be a big problem throughout the school. Mrs. Omoloju suggested we work with the teacher. If both the teacher and parents work hard to push the kid, the bad influence could be contained.

Remember the Staten Island boy who survived a bad middle school? If my son suffers, I need to move school.

strict 校风: commitment+enforce by school

Posted on by tiger40490

Some students, esp. the older ones, refuse to cooperate. Tough kids… We have seen those, at least in the media.

The effort would be mostly on parents to change these kids, as I said to Jack.

Does the school have enough commitment to engage with these kids and contain their influence on the entire school?

If the schools’ academic standing is below average, is the school committed to work hard? By definition, half of all students are going to be below-average.

What I want to see is committed effort by the school. That’s exactly what I see in many China middle/elementary schools (Today I will not talk about China senior middle schools). I think that’s good commitment.

However, the regular China schools don’t produce many successful adults as many U.S. schools do. Paradox!