Ben
...
Once upon a time, The schools were all more or less the same. Then the first Chinese family move into town. Bearing a good education for their kids in mind, the parents went on investigating the statistics of the schools. Without much effort, they soon find out the best school in town with slightly higher score in terms of academic performance of the students. The family bought a house close by and enrolled their kid in that school without any hesitation. As a result, the academic score increased even more if not significantly in the school, simply because the contribution and smartness of the Chinese kids.
Before long and before people notice it, the school moved so ahead in its academic performance with outstanding scale after 5 or more Chinese families did the same thing as the first one did. The school soon became a well known school at least in the Chinese community. The real estate around the school started booming, because most Chinese would buy houses near the school. They’d even voluntarily offer more than the asking price in order to secure a bid, some times the competition to bid an offer could be fierce.
And soon the majority of the student body became Asian with Chinese leading the way. By-passing the school’s play ground is like that you walk into a neighbourhood in China. English is only their first language in class alone. The kids proudly lead the way in academic scores, but with minimal community involvement and interaction, and with some who had to write TOEFL in order to be admitted into college. To most parents’ disappointment, while only a few phenomenal kids got into an University in the top 25 ranking, many of them stormed into heavily Math and Science orientated Universities that an average high school kid with a GPA of C can easily get in, like University of Waterloo in Canada.
The rush to get kids in a well-known school remains the same among Chinese parents, like a religion. The myth of the so called well known school remain the same too. The scenario that no one want their kids to be left behind is so understandable and almost sympathetic. But where are human wisdom, common sense, and personal interests of the kids. Deep down, the whole famous school rush is driven by the questionable definition for success and the parents’ personal 'GaoKao' mentality. It may not necessarily benefit the kids, but it for sure hinders the Chinese kids to develop into a more versatile or all-around person into the society. After all success can be achieved in so many areas, and personal happiness can be in so many ways. Academic excellence is only one of them.
