The Legacy of Rice Paddies and Math Tests

1. Chapter 8 Rice Paddies and Math Tests

2. Journal Entry: • How important do you think cultural legacy is ? • What do you need to do become good at math ? • Do you believe working hard helps you become smarter ?

3. Chapter 8 Summary: Gladwell explains that tending to rice paddies requires constant hard work and vigilance. In order to have your rice paddy be successful for harvest you must rise before dawn everyday and work the whole day attending to the fields. The amount of work you put into the fields directly affects how successful the harvest will be. For Western farmers we learned to use large farm machinery to reduce the work. But in China and other Asian countries the rice paddies are so small and on steep mountainsides that it would not accommodate such machinery. The result is that rice paddies still require hard, personalized, individualized manual labor to thrive.

4. Chapter 8 Summary: Gladwell discusses how English has words for numbers that take longer to say and are less logical than the words for these numbers in Asian languages. For example we say “seven” for 7, whereas in Chinese 7 is pronounced “qi.” Because they can say numbers faster, they are able to remember larger blocks of numbers. When counting higher, the Chinese use a more logical system than we do, saying “ten-one” instead of “eleven” for 11 and building from there. The result of both of these factors is that it is easier to remember and learn numbers in Chinese. As a result, young Chinese children can count up to much higher numbers than young American children, and doing math problems is much easier for them.

5. Chapter 8 Summary: Gladwell figured out these two seemingly random facts to explain how Asian countries always outperform Western countries in math. Gladwell asserts that part of the reason is the combination of hard work and persistence that is ingrained into Asian cultures from rice paddy work, and part is from the language advantages they have in their numbering systems. To show the impact of persistence, he tells the story of a woman named Renee who was taped trying to solve a math problem on a computer. He describes how she persisted for a very long time until she got the answer right. Most Western students do not have that sort of persistence. Gladwell cites a test administered worldwide and how the results show Asian countries answer the most questions. They try the hardest for the longest amount of time. They also perform the highest on the math portions. The connection is purely cultural. Because of their heritage and language, Asians have the advantage over Western cultures in math. When considering success, we cannot leave heritage out of the equation.

6. Chapter 8 Study Guide Answers: • In order for rice farmers to cultivate rice paddies they must carve fields into the mountainside in elaborate series of terraces or constructed from marshland and river plains. The rice paddy has to be irrigated so channels must be dug from the nearest water source and gates built into the dikes. The paddy has to have a hard clay floor and be fertilized repeatedly. Wheat fields are different by not having to be irrigated in water and not so difficult to cultivate and keep a steady food supplies. • Human beings store digit in a memory loop that runs for two seconds and chinese language allows them to fit all those numbers in two seconds. • Being a rice farmer is very difficult and requires lots of problem solving and calculations making them become smarter.

7. Chapter 8 Study Guide Answers: 4. The relation between the famous rice paddy farmers quote and asian math students is it relates back to western college campuses where asian students are known to stay longer after everyone else has left because they're woking harder to succeed. 5. The 10,000 hours rule fits into this argument because every story discussed in this book involves someone or a group working harder than their peers. 6. The videotapes revealed revealed the secret to learning mathematics is attitude and willingness to work hard for twenty two minutes. 7. You can predict which countries will be best at math by looking at which national cultures place the highest emphasis on effort and hard work.

8. Group Activity: • For this activity the class will yell out math problems the fastest to problems on the board and whoever wins is the Rice Emperor and wins a free surprise.

9. Individual Activity: • In this next activity the class will write about a unique skill they have and decide if they want to show it to their partner, to the class, or not at all.

10. Closing Activity: • For the closing activity write down one important thing you gained from this rice experience. ( Please don’t throw the paper at us)