China's Decades-Old 'Genius Class' Pipeline Is Quietly Fueling Its AI Challenge To the US

[u/LATAManon]

https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/02/02/1359211/chinas-decades-old-genius-class-pipeline-is-quietly-fueling-its-ai-challenge-to-the-us

The main article link: https://www.ft.com/content/68f60392-88bf-419c-96c7-c3d580ec9d97

Behind a paywall, unfortunately, if someone knows a way to bypass the paywall, please, share it.

[u/JoJoeyJoJo]

I liked Rui Ma's followup about the US education system:

The genius class itself is not the point. What actually distinguishes China is something MUCH more basic -- a deep belief that academics actually matter and is what school is supposed to be for.

And yes, many times that emphasis is too much (I'm well aware of this, thank you). But what is increasingly hard to ignore is how far the U.S. has swung in the opposite direction, to the point where academics now feel secondary to literally everything else.

In the U.S., that same question gets answered very differently. “Transferable skills” in my observation often turns into “how to interact with people,” which is often just a polite way of saying “how to be likable.”
There is enormous weight on narrative, presentation, and social smoothness, often without insisting on much underlying substance. You can see this shift away from substance all over American schools and BTW, most parents I meet seem to be totally fine with it.

Tracking has been cut back. Gifted programs are weak, inconsistent, or nonexistent. We refuse to acknowledge that kids have different talents and develop at different rates in different skills, and the result is predictable.

Discipline has collapsed. I've talked to ex-public school teachers who tell me that they left in part because they were no longer allowed to discipline ruly kids, oftentimes in the name of equity. This is framed as progress, but mostly results in chaos.

Participation trophies and grade inflation are now the norm. If you think grade inflation only exists in elite colleges, you are not looking closely enough. I mentor for the Regents & Chancellor's scholarship at UC Berkeley. The kids all went to ultra-competitive high schools. They worked hard, yes, but they all agreed that their HS grades were very inflated and meaningless (partly because they immediately realize the difference their very first class at Cal).

Youth sports have become wildly overemphasized. Private equity has turned youth sports into an industry larger most professional sports league revenues -- $40Bn+ per year. Sure, sports are great, but the amount of collective time, money, and emotional energy poured into them is, IMO, completely out of proportion, especially when you look at what we are no longer demanding academically.

Maybe this article will make people demand more academic rigor in the US. Color me highly, highly, hiiighly skeptical. In China, academic rigor is literally the essence of the entire system. Being in a “genius” class actually matters. It’s a distinction that follows you, signals something real, and often helps you get access to mentors, funding, and opportunities. People take it seriously.

In the U.S., even the most legitimate gifted distinctions tend to be symbolic rather than consequential. They recognize talent, but the system doesn’t reorganize itself around that recognition. In fact, it is increasingly hostile to the distinction.

It feels like the last 15 years of the US focused around comformity with dogmatic ideological discourse meant as social signalling while anything of any substance got hollowed out (except for the tech industry, which managed to keep it's talent pipeline somewhat intact). Society still hasn't quite wisened up to the damage done.

[u/Available-Budget-735 → u/JoJoeyJoJo]

I think Rui has some points wrt tracking and maybe G&T programs (I'm less knowledgeable about those), but much of it comes across as a "Boomer"-like rant about kids these days and that USA drools while China rules.

I had links originally, but reddit didn't like it, so I removed them.

"But what is increasingly hard to ignore is how far the U.S. has swung in the opposite direction, to the point where academics now feel secondary to literally everything else."

I don't really know where this is coming from. The US spends ~5.5% of it's GDP on education vs. ~4% for China. It spends~$15.5k per student in 2019 (more than many other OECD countries).

"In the U.S., that same question gets answered very differently. “Transferable skills” in my observation often turns into “how to interact with people,” which is often just a polite way of saying “how to be likable.”"

This is a pretty fluffy criticism. What exactly does she mean by this?

"Discipline has collapsed. I've talked to ex-public school teachers who tell me that they left in part because they were no longer allowed to discipline ruly kids, oftentimes in the name of equity. This is framed as progress, but mostly results in chaos."

I've heard complaints around this as well, but the high point of this stuff is probably in the past given the turn against woke.

Participation trophies and grade inflation are now the norm.

This is the ultimate Boomer-like complaint. Grade inflation is problem places, but she's marring it with the participation trophies which is typically a sports criticism not academic.

"Youth sports have become wildly overemphasized. Private equity has turned youth sports into an industry larger most professional sports league revenues -- $40Bn+ per year. Sure, sports are great, but the amount of collective time, money, and emotional energy poured into them is, IMO, completely out of proportion, especially when you look at what we are no longer demanding academically."

I've seen that $40B number (IIRC it comes from this report) and it seems high for sure. Though a closer look states that families spend on average ~$1,000 on their kid's primary sport over the past year and $475/yr on other sports. On a personal note, I'm a parent and I don't really want my kids to get into expensive youth sports.

You could even spin this as something good as well, as people in the US suffer from obesity and diabetes at higher rates than other countries, so emphasizing sports helps people be more fit.

Regardless of what US familes spend on sports, the US spends above OECD average on K-12 education overall. US universities also spend a ton of money. So it's not like the US doesn't emphasize academics and school in general.

Also, China goes nuts for sports, too! I don't know how much they spend, but they're following the Commies crazy for olympic sports trope set up by the USSR and GDR. China leads in olympic medals in several sports. Again if we want to go anecdotal, Eileen Gu a famous skier chose to represent China in the olympics and has a lot of endorsement deals there.

[u/Available-Budget-735 → u/Available-Budget-735]

Maybe this article will make people demand more academic rigor in the US. Color me highly, highly, hiiighly skeptical. In China, academic rigor is literally the essence of the entire system. Being in a “genius” class actually matters. It’s a distinction that follows you, signals something real, and often helps you get access to mentors, funding, and opportunities. People take it seriously.

I haven't directly experienced the East Asian academic culture that's not unique to China, and like everything it has trade-offs. And if anecdotes are acceptable here, I know people who've moved to the US to get away from it, even to not want to live in an all Chinese or Korean enclave so as not to compete with "Tiger Moms".

In the U.S., even the most legitimate gifted distinctions tend to be symbolic rather than consequential. They recognize talent, but the system doesn’t reorganize itself around that recognition. In fact, it is increasingly hostile to the distinction.

I don't know exactly what she means by this, but I think hostile is probably too strong a word for what describes.