I think we all agree that there are both good side and and shortcomings in Chinese and american education value. Since I was brought up under a typical chinese family (got my phd in US but under chinese education path), and now I am more exposed to americans, I can see the difference in some very concret ways. Let me tell you a story (real one).

I know an American (collegue) who are very acdemically successful (at least in my eyes). He is highly motivated, curious, creative and hardworking. When he was young, he was a geek (still is), bright and creative. But he was NOT acdemically excellent at all when he was in school. He told me he spent most of time in his own scientific lab he built up in his bedroom since he was 11 year old, he didn't want to spend a lot of time on his school course work because he found he could learn a lot more by doing his science project, reading and exploring by himself than doing repetive homework. So he ended up with a B student and went to an ordinary university with a major he loved (EE). When was a freshman, he took some of EE courses in senoir level because he already had enough background by learning himself in high school. The professor in the class liked him very much and often asked him:"How do you know all of this stuff". He "boasted" to me he got B in this senoir level class. I was like:"what, B? why B?", he said his math background was still not good enough. I asked:"why didn't wait until you had enough math background?", he said:"why wait, I was eager to learn more". The higher education he pursued, the more he exceeded. He earned his PHD with a very original research idea, and now he has bunch of people working for his unique, cool stuff. Once I told him:"If you grew up in China, you would not able to go to college and you probabaly would be nothing." On the other hand, you may say:"If he was an excellent student in high school, he would be able to go to elite university and he would be more successful". But think about it, in order to do that, he would not be able to spend his time on his science passion where he learned most of knowledge and developed his caree. So what is the balanced point? Once I met his mother and asked her to comment on his son when he was young. The mother was very proud of him and praised (kua1) him in a delightful way. She said three things about his son:1. he always marched on his own drum beats. It is a such nice quality (that is her original words). He was not influencd by other people easily so he did not have any teenage problems.2. He took seriously what he said. When he was 7 or 8 year old, he once came home and told me:"mom, Carter is my best friend". And I found he meant what he said: he trusted, supported Carter. They are life-time friends now.3. when he was around 6, I saw him and his friend digging a hole on the ground. I was very interested in seeing them doing it, and just told them put the dirt back when they finish digging. They digged and digged, very very deep...

I think the way his mother credited his son is very interesting. She loves him as a real person with good charecter and quality, not something I expected to hear at the begining.

There are enough people who are able to enter the eilte school just disappear later, and there are also enough people who go to the ordinary college turn out to be successful. School is not the dominant factor...

Hope to hear more disccusions.