Hey, Perry Link, his adviser, wrote my first year Chinese textbook! Brings back fun memories. (Example sentence: “狗是我的朋友，我的朋友是狗.”)
On the overall article, though, I'm more or less going to agree with the_fell_bat, but I think from a slightly different angle. I understand the idea that's being conveyed by the story, that success can come in many different forms, and that as constituted the Singaporean system (among others) has issues with providing no more than a somewhat distorted proxy for talent and success, leaving some, like Mr. Lim, out of the opportunities to pursue and be rewarded in spite of what is in retrospect indisputable talent.
This is fine as far as it goes, but I think the example itself is illustrative of the same sort of mindset which is supposedly being critiqued. The message is, "hey, maybe some people who get bad grades might still be successful... by getting good grades at even higher ranked schools." Well, I guess, but in the end it's essentially using the same measuring stick: in truth, some people aren't going to be evaluated highly on a scale that focuses on academic success, whether a rigid and stodgy one or a creative and enlightened one.
The issues that it avoids confronting are "What is talent?" and "Why should we care?" The first one is a little bit more straightforward: is it a score on a test, or a grade in a class, or a degree from Oxford, or a new solution to a problem or a beautiful poem, or is it speed, or strength, or how many hot dogs you can eat in a single sitting (the current world record stands at 66 in 12 minutes), or something else entirely? There are infinite possible scales on which someone can describe talent, some more arbitrary or less so than others. Which is why the second question is the more important of the two: implicit in any choice of benchmarks is a value system underlying it.
This article seems to be arguing that one set of benchmarks is a better indicator than another for talent (e.g. Princeton + Oxford trumps NUS), and so is implicitly backing one particular idea, which must derive from beliefs about what constitutes something to be celebrated as talent (in this case, academic success). There's nothing wrong with that, but, fundamentally, why should we care? Is academic success inherently good? Do we value its byproducts (new ideas or ways of thinking, solutions to problems, long books that nobody ever reads except other academics)? Should academically successful people be rewarded or honored? If so, why? Do they contribute more to society's knowledge or happiness or security? Is there some sort of justice argument that those who contribute more or work harder should be rewarded?
On the overall article, though, I'm more or less going to agree with the_fell_bat, but I think from a slightly different angle. I understand the idea that's being conveyed by the story, that success can come in many different forms, and that as constituted the Singaporean system (among others) has issues with providing no more than a somewhat distorted proxy for talent and success, leaving some, like Mr. Lim, out of the opportunities to pursue and be rewarded in spite of what is in retrospect indisputable talent.
This is fine as far as it goes, but I think the example itself is illustrative of the same sort of mindset which is supposedly being critiqued. The message is, "hey, maybe some people who get bad grades might still be successful... by getting good grades at even higher ranked schools." Well, I guess, but in the end it's essentially using the same measuring stick: in truth, some people aren't going to be evaluated highly on a scale that focuses on academic success, whether a rigid and stodgy one or a creative and enlightened one.
The issues that it avoids confronting are "What is talent?" and "Why should we care?" The first one is a little bit more straightforward: is it a score on a test, or a grade in a class, or a degree from Oxford, or a new solution to a problem or a beautiful poem, or is it speed, or strength, or how many hot dogs you can eat in a single sitting (the current world record stands at 66 in 12 minutes), or something else entirely? There are infinite possible scales on which someone can describe talent, some more arbitrary or less so than others. Which is why the second question is the more important of the two: implicit in any choice of benchmarks is a value system underlying it.
This article seems to be arguing that one set of benchmarks is a better indicator than another for talent (e.g. Princeton + Oxford trumps NUS), and so is implicitly backing one particular idea, which must derive from beliefs about what constitutes something to be celebrated as talent (in this case, academic success). There's nothing wrong with that, but, fundamentally, why should we care? Is academic success inherently good? Do we value its byproducts (new ideas or ways of thinking, solutions to problems, long books that nobody ever reads except other academics)? Should academically successful people be rewarded or honored? If so, why? Do they contribute more to society's knowledge or happiness or security? Is there some sort of justice argument that those who contribute more or work harder should be rewarded?
(Continued next comment)
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