The stereotype that Asians are good at math has probably haunted every Asian reading 8Asians at one time or another. It’s certainly not a new topic, and 8Asians covered this topic in 2008 and twice in 2007. This week the Taiwanese enforced the “Asians are better at math” stereotype when Taiwanese schoolchildren excelled in a U.S. sponsored world math speed contest. In addition Taiwanese excellence in math was a topic this week in this years’ annual ASCD conference, where a paper was presented on “Academic Excellence: Learning from Taiwanese Excellence”.
These two headlines caught my attention since I was born in Taiwan and moved to the U.S. when I was two. Throughout my academic career, I was always known as the math geek. I suppose there was good reason for this, as I did excel in math. I don’t say this to brag, but I did get an 800 on my math PSAT and Math Achievement I (now known as the SAT Subject Tests). I was even on Math Team as co-captain. So I was a perfect fit for the stereotype, and probably the type of math student you hated, as I perpetuated the stereotype you were subject to in school.
But lest you start hating me too soon, I should explain why I was the math geek. My mom, who immigrated to the U.S. and never finished college, made sure math was my life. Before I was the age of five, my mom had drilled the multiplication tables into my head, so that I could recite every permutation up to 12 times 12. If I messed up, I got a slap on the back of the hand with a ruler, so I had plenty of incentive to get it right.
I guess when you get that much of a drilling in math, being a math brain isn’t that hard. Now that I’m an adult and a parent, the tables are turned on me, and I have to make the decision on how much math do I inflict on my daughter, who is fast approaching four. She doesn’t even recognize all the numbers yet, and still stumbles sometimes counting past 10. I tell myself this is okay, as she’s not even four, but something in the back of my mind still nags at me, since I was already past addition and starting on multiplication at the age of four. And there it is again: do you let your child be a child or do you force them into becoming a math brain so they can succeed later?
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15 Comments to “No, Seriously: Asians are Good at Math”
Phil wrote:
I used to love math in grade school, but now I hate it unless it’s like basketball statistics lol.
If you want your child to learn anything, but you don’t want to be too strict, you can always find ways to make it fun. If not, you can always bust out the bamboo stick.
There’s so many games that involve Math and other subjects that your daughter can benefit from. Math Blaster was great for me.
You can also kill 2 birds with one stone and give her a math game in Chinese!
Posted on 01-Apr-09 at 3:44 pm | Permalink
Efren wrote:
From what I remember when I taught Asian American studies, many books cited that Asian immigrants taught their kids to excel in math and science to compensate for their own perceived non-fluency in English. The language of math and the sciences appear to be a level playing field that supposedly didn’t require as much proficiency to succeed, until of course, you look at the levels of Asians in upper management in these fields in the US, academically and otherwise…
I actually do enjoy math myself, though the imminence of taking physical chemistry in the fall in pharm school with its tons of calculus is making me very, very nervous….
Posted on 01-Apr-09 at 4:07 pm | Permalink
Ernie wrote:
Heh. Efren, I never thought about it that way. I always assumed that my parents put pressure on me on math as “a gateway to a good job,” whether it was the engineering route or the Calculus to OChem so you can become a doctor route.
Posted on 01-Apr-09 at 6:17 pm | Permalink
Jeff wrote:
I need to show this to my kids: “Look! You’re supposed to be good in math!”
I do regret taking the Daughter out of Kumon, though. So does she.
Posted on 01-Apr-09 at 7:25 pm | Permalink
Dick Richards wrote:
Asian kids are better in Math because they start studying earlier. They study hard. And, their parents (my wife) is a cool homework Nazi. My kid will be much smarter than I.
Posted on 01-Apr-09 at 9:37 pm | Permalink
daniel wrote:
Starting early never hurts, and helping your daughter get a head start will tremendously help her out. However, I have to say I don’t quite agree with the idea of making your kids into “a math brain so they can succeed later”.
Some people that had difficulties in math end up avoiding it altogether and shunning any type of math-related careers. Introducing math at an early age will help your kid out and at the very least, she won’t avoid those type of careers altogether.
But just because you’re doing well in something doesn’t mean that you’re interested in doing that full-time.. I used to be a huge math geek in school, and I always thought I would be pursuing a science/math-related career when I grow up. Fast forward to now, and I’m working in a completely different field.
I guess to me, the “good in math = success” equation is… misleading.
My 2c.
Posted on 02-Apr-09 at 12:43 am | Permalink
Jason wrote:
My mother was an accredited teacher in Taiwan before immigrating to the US and bearing kids. Her attempts to assist me academically as I grew up really consisted of nothing more than memorization — memorization of the multiplication table, memorization of passages from textbooks, memorization of stats and numbers. It never made much sense to me — I always thought it was more important to comprehend what I was reading rather than be able cite passages — and stopped being useful at all once I hit college where the burden is on the student to actually think about things and synthesize opinions and conclusions.
In grad school, as I entered a program dominated by Asian-educated students (comp sci), I saw much of the same… classmates would spend their time memorizing and copying and pasting blocks of code, rather than exploring functions and algorithms and learning how to best employ them. I’ll point out that this is more a trait particular to people who just really shouldn’t be in the field in the first place — but at the same time I also remember my father telling me when he was studying medicine in Taiwan, memorizing books was all he ever did. He’s been doing the exact same technical job for going on 35 years now.
I don’t really have any kind of sociological insight into this and my exposure is admittedly limited and biased, but I tend to wonder if they’re all products of the same methodology. Are Asians good at math? Sure, but most likely because that’s the kind of thing they’re taught to do, and I suspect that it’s the kind of thing that the Asian style of teaching/learning is particularly geared towards. Beating the multiplication table into a kid’s head is a pretty easy example of this.
Posted on 02-Apr-09 at 7:41 am | Permalink
Marchukim wrote:
I think it depends on your definition of success. I don’t think one necessarily needs to be a “math brain” in order to be “successful”.
My dad wanted his kids (my older brother and I) to be math geniuses. He did the math drill thing and it worked for my brother. It didn’t work for me and actually helped me to develop a math phobia. I am terrible when it comes to math.
I’ve learned through my studies (M.A. in counselling psychology) and my experiences (mom of 2 little boys) that if you want your kids to learn something, make it fun. If they find something enjoyable they will take it upon themselves to learn all about it. When it comes to math there are tons of games you can play where your child can learn without realizing that they are learning. This approach is great for parents too, because you can see your child taking the initiative to learn which is much more enjoyable than hitting them with a ruler (in my case it was a chopstick).
Posted on 02-Apr-09 at 1:11 pm | Permalink
Amyable wrote:
I suggest a book titled “Outliers” by Malcolm Gladwell (author of Tipping Point). One chapter goes over why Asians are better at math. It doesn’t necessarily explain why Asian Americans are better at math (are we really?) but does have a good theory on why Asians are better at math.
Posted on 02-Apr-09 at 8:40 pm | Permalink
Tim wrote:
@Amyable: While Malcolm Gladwell’s theory is interesting it doesn’t explain why Asians who speak English are better at Math. As Ernie points out Math is more universal, and my mother made me do my multiplication tables in English not Chinese, in which case I’d lose the advantage the Gladwell claims when doing math in the Chinese language.
Posted on 02-Apr-09 at 9:00 pm | Permalink
Dick Richards wrote:
In the west, Asians tend to seem better in math because they are generally -compared to the other races. I really believe it is as simple as they start earlier and study harder. Also, being good in Math is cool in the Asian community.
Come to Tokyo and you will find two math sterotypes. Chinese are better than the Japanese but not as good as the Russians. Chinese and Russians are “immigrants” in Japan and study much harder than the Japanese.
Posted on 03-Apr-09 at 5:28 pm | Permalink
Daniel W. wrote:
I tend to agree with the view that this stereotype has more to do with upbringing, work ethic and personal support/highly regarded subject. In high school and in college, I saw very little differences between the Asian and non-Asian students that excelled in Math or pursued those academic disciplines. Maybe a few or so “appeared” to have exceptional abilities, but they all have to study in some way.
Regarding the rote-memory, I’m not totally sure but I think that most subjects requires some level of the rote-memory technique. Not just mathematics, but also other languages–ohh especially the Chinese characters…would be so hard to learn and remember without using that technique. IMO.
Posted on 03-Apr-09 at 7:38 pm | Permalink
ann wrote:
This is just an interesting fact that might or might not add to the discussion. There is a reader’s digest issue from 1950 that mentions a math contest between a Japanese engineer and one of the first American computers ever built. Using the abacus, the engineer soundly beat the computer at addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. I imagine it is as mentioned, that the simple computations are memorized from an early age.
Posted on 03-Apr-09 at 7:40 pm | Permalink
Dick Richards wrote:
My nieces are 3 and 5 years old and they can use the abacus (そろばん）They go to a special sensei every week. They enjoy it. I wont comment if it is appropriate to be pushed into but I tell you they will be “good at math”. They are teaching my son and he cant speak a language yet.
Posted on 04-Apr-09 at 2:17 am | Permalink
윤선 wrote:
I am Asian and I fail at maths. Big time. There must be something wrong with me. XD
Posted on 04-Apr-09 at 6:28 am | Permalink
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