Tuesday, December 09, 2008

Stupid amerikan kids and intelligent indians ones.

To be part of the South Indian middle class(sim) involves, among other things, a form of chest thumping i call Amerika down down.
It involves various forms of insults, the most common one among middle aged sims is how they love to point out the superiority of Indian kids, especially south Indian, over Amercikan kids.

This hypothesis is proposed every time a South Indian name flashes on the screen of an Amerikan spelling bee telecast or an Indian wins some Intel or NASA scholarship. This incident is followed by self praise, self kudos and self back patting.

"Indians kids are smart and hard working!", "Look at how we are beating them in their own language!". Krishnamurthy and Swamis make up a big portion of students in the finals of spelling bees.But are AmeriKan kids really dumb and their school system so pathetic as my various self-congratulating friends claim? This belief is so prevalent that a large number of Indian parents return to India during the kids formative years(3rd standard till 10th atleast)!

The main argument on side superiority is our superior brain.Proof? Indians invented the 0!But that's for later. Can a group of people really be mentally more gifted? This idea generally flows from the observation of Afrikan/Afrika-American/Jamaican/Ethiopian athletes winning race after race in the various events of the Olympics. So OBVIOUSLY some traits like physical capability in their case and raw brain power in our case are more present in special groups.

Other than a total lack of proof to support the argument, there are sad repercussions of it. Our tough school system is not analyzed deeply enough thanks to this myth. The inferior Amerikan school system supports sports,extra-curriculursand even sex education! yuck!

"Not for US!" say sims.we don't need all that, a child's physical fitness is not the measure of his well being! his ability to know the capitals and flags of over 60 countries is. Can the ability to know the various types of grasslands thorough out the world compensate the skills learnt from taking up a drama or cooking class??? "YES it can!" again the sims.

The pressure an average Indian kid comes under is not only destructive but the following social stigma that s/he faces is something Indian society should be ashamed of. Most of these kids are the exact versions of Chinese gymnasts who are separated from family when young and then trained to perform in an Olympics or maximum another. Nobody knows the mental effects of such gruelling training on the Chinese children.

As for Sim's children, the mental effects are well documented.They become a sim. They force their children to take violin/vedic-maths/karate/abacus-maths/sloka-chanting and other such nonsense. They bask in the glory of their sons and daughters cracking top exams but rue about how children in their good old days were innocent and nice once the children take to drugs and alcohol under these pressures.

Any "superior" performance that an Indian kid delivers should be attributed to nurture and not nature.The Chinese gymnasts are responding to the nurture of a forced regimen of physical training.American kids are responding to the regimen of a comfortable life with little pressure to deliver academically only. They deliver in sports, in theatre and so many fields.Sim children are responding to the regimen of the Sim family. A regimen where a kid is known by his report card only.

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