18+52+37+47+56=210 for China. Each child could pick up to 3 answers. The average number of jobs the Chinese children picked was 2.
For USA/UK the average was about 1. Very few children selected more than one answer.
That's weird. What a weird poll. Were there only 5 possible choices? I would have told you I wanted to be a veterinarian at that age, if I answered at all. (I did not become a vet, I became a failure lmao)
I wanted to be a naval pilot engineer at four. I’m colorblind, terrified of heights, not fond of authority, sloppy, and scatterbrained as hell. It’s quite possibly the worst possible job for me. To be fair, part of the reason was that I hated the word “bellybutton” and thought anyone who said ”navel” instead had the right idea, so it’s not like I really understood that part of it.
Not an engineer but I took calculus 1, 2, 3, discrete math, linear algebra, statics, dynamics, and probably others I'm forgetting.
Since school, I needed one trig function for calculating distance between lat/long coordinates that I looked up on Wikipedia and plugged in to a program.
Statics is good fun. That was one of those courses i spent 40-50hrs a week on.
That knowledge is great for other applications too. For example, it helps with visualizing of how tension laid in fallen trees on saw crews for trail maintenance.
I still use statics at work but i could in theory get by with just basic FEA guess and check.
I get where you're coming from but i have to disagree. What your describing is not math but econ, a different subject. Math is about how to calculate stuff with least effort.
I agree with you, its no longer math at thst point, but the application in the service of other fields.
What I am advocating for is that math at most of secondary school level should be taught on the practical basis. Math theory should be treated as a field of specialization. Much like how language is taught after people get over the basic literacy portion.
That's reasonable, but some theory is also good to know. In language class we discuss not just the content of an article but also how it is written. Language itself is a tool here, similar to math.
Another important aspect of school is to ensure that everyone is exposed to many topics. That's why we have art classes even though most people don't become artists. It let's everyone know that this topic exists and what it is about.
The practical implementation of teaching math is bad though, as you said. Sometimes it is just rote memorization, which is the complete opposite of what it should be. I hate that.
How are Electricians needing to do so much math? Its basic calculator and lookup table stuff? I mean a janitor does more complication calculations when they dilute cleaning products and estimate how much they will need for a given room.
It says all the children were given an option to pick up to 3 answers. Given the small sample size, it's likely there were questioned by the same person and that person didn't convey that to children properly.
This poll annoyed me so much I googled it. It's just a really shitty poll. There is no reason to believe the 5 listed jobs is a subset of the answers. This is an infographic summarizing a single question from a survey that seems to be commissioned by LEGO.
I just figured if 3000 people responded, they should have 9000 picks. Since we only see a few hundred it seemed like it’s a very small subset of the total answers.
We know more about our solar system than our oceans. We might have mapped a bit of the floor, but we don't know what is between the surface and the ocean floor.
We are both actively exploring the stars and the ocean. There's still a lot we don't know and there's still plenty of species being discovered in rainforest all the time.
Bacterias and viruses are also something that you can never finish exploring and there are for sure weird creatures like tardigrades that are still undiscovered.
You're just in time to discover genetics, epigenetics, biomechanics of nutrition, chemistry, biochemistry, how to make custom creatures from DNA building blocks, protein folding applications, mysteries of how the brain works and even math as mature as it is also has tons of undiscovered parts.
Sure you might be too late and to early for a couple of specific things but science discovery is absolutely exploding and random average Joe types are discovering things all the time. I think on the contrary now is one of the most likely things where you can just flat out discover something about the world that nobody has discovered before.
The thing I find most surprising is that this many kids want to be teachers. It doesn't sound like something kids would typically be interested in, nor do I remember me nor my friends ever wanting to be teachers.
I wonder if kids pick that because its one job that they understand and attribute positively (to some degree - "a teacher is someone that teaches kids like me at a school and we have fun") whereas jobs that their parents have are more nebulous and more negative in their mind ("my parents leave for the day and then come back angry? I don't want to do that").
That was exactly my conclusion as well. At first I was surprised that kids would want to be teachers (having known a few - it’s not a great job! Terrible pay, not much respect… you’ve got to love it). But then I suddenly realised - what jobs would kids know about? All of them would know a teacher…
I know a former teacher in China who told me that it's a very respected profession there, in the same way that doctors and lawyers are respected in the west.
I knew lots of kids who wanted to be teachers. Ask a kid that age to list their favorite people and their teacher will pop up often, because it’s someone they know. Teaching is something tangible to them.
I also knew several adults who wanted to be a teacher, but quit shortly after starting because they literally couldn’t afford it due to unreasonably low wages. We should really treat good teachers better.
I think this may have to do with the fact that China regulates social media with regard to its effect on society, whereas it's the wild west in English-speaking countries. I don't agree with all of their criteria for regulating media, but I feel like there's probably a good middle-ground to be reached. It's well-documented how harmful social media has been to people of all ages.
Unless I misunderstand, in China it's illegal to distribute VPNs, but simply using one and accessing the wider net is fine. That implementation isn't great, but it could also be a lot worse. Effectively it means anyone who's tech savvy enough can leave the walled garden whenever they like with practically no consequence. Though, it still requires some group of people assume the legal risk of setting up and hosting the VPN infrastructure.
I feel like there must be some means of achieving the same effect without criminalizing people just for providing a service. Like, defaulting to a garden of public and private webpages that meat the standard, but still with some means of leaving that garden provided you pass a minor techincal barrier to entry.
Also forcing every social media site and glorified-website-app to default to chronological sort every time you close the browser tab or leave the app. It's a simple change, but it would do a lot.
For teachers, I guess they're the biggest figure for students as they grow up. Confucian culture emphasizes enormous respect, and tbf, conformity to teachers.
I grew up wanting to be a YouTuber, and now work as a professor somewhere in East Asia with deep Confucian influence. The teacher-student dynamics here is truly shit.
For sure, their space program feats and plans are incredibly exciting, and things we might see in our lifetime. There's a hopeful star-trek-esque optimism about space rn.
I'm not sure about teachers salaries, I'd have to look it up, but I do know teachers are well respected societally.
I felt that when I went to the Chengdu science and technology museum. Everyone was in awesome of the space program and the kids really wanted to get involved.
Contrast that to the Melbourne or Canberra science museums and space technology isn't really at the front.
Not China but in my country teachers would often get benefits like how US soldiers do.
So for example some apartments had reduced rent and most private schools would accept your children for free and pay off lunch, clubs, school trip fees, etc.
So even tho teachers weren't rich they weren't completely on their own either. Maybe a similar thing happens over there?
Being an astronaut was defo something I idolized as being a kid. Then I got older and realized what it'd take to actually live that life, and the risks involved in rocket travel, and things like muscle dystrophy from being in zero G too long. Not to mention all the schooling and training needed. And it's all for... not much, really. Like, at the end of the day, space travel does not actually help humanity that much. Now, satellites have certainly changed things a shit ton, but like, we're not going to other planets anytime soon. We're not gathering resources from other planets. We're not terraforming. Our "going to outer space" is parking your ass in a station in orbit and living with reduced QoL while you run experiments in zero-G. Just like, nah, fuck all that noise.
I mean, if given the chance would you rather have a job where you can chat about your hobbies and get people to send you money and gifts related to your hobby?
No child is picking "Soul crushing office work" are they.
Pre-COVID. I wonder what it's like now. Anecdotes from people who work in education seem to say it was pretty devastating for child development, but it's hard to tell if it's above and beyond the perennial "this new generation is totally fucked" sentiment.
69 Comments
echolalia@lemmy.ml · 90 pts · 267d
18+52+37+47+56=210 for China. Each child could pick up to 3 answers. The average number of jobs the Chinese children picked was 2.
For USA/UK the average was about 1. Very few children selected more than one answer.
That's weird. What a weird poll. Were there only 5 possible choices? I would have told you I wanted to be a veterinarian at that age, if I answered at all. (I did not become a vet, I became a failure lmao)
JoeBigelow@lemmy.ca · 32 pts · 267d
I wanted to be an electrical engineer, then I saw all the math and settled for electrician, then I saw all the math and settled for Janitor
idiomaddict@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 267d
I wanted to be a naval pilot engineer at four. I’m colorblind, terrified of heights, not fond of authority, sloppy, and scatterbrained as hell. It’s quite possibly the worst possible job for me. To be fair, part of the reason was that I hated the word “bellybutton” and thought anyone who said ”navel” instead had the right idea, so it’s not like I really understood that part of it.
untorquer@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 266d
Unfortunate, i know lots of engineers who never learned math.
clif@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 266d
Not an engineer but I took calculus 1, 2, 3, discrete math, linear algebra, statics, dynamics, and probably others I'm forgetting.
Since school, I needed one trig function for calculating distance between lat/long coordinates that I looked up on Wikipedia and plugged in to a program.
... Statics was fucking cool though.
untorquer@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 266d
Statics is good fun. That was one of those courses i spent 40-50hrs a week on.
That knowledge is great for other applications too. For example, it helps with visualizing of how tension laid in fallen trees on saw crews for trail maintenance.
I still use statics at work but i could in theory get by with just basic FEA guess and check.
Gonzako@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 266d
Man, I really can't get why ppl hate math.
Knoxvomica@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 265d
If it doesn't make sense, it sucks
SapphironZA@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 265d
Math is mostly taught as theory. It should be taught in practice.
Teaching people how to calculate an inventory, or taxes in a spreadsheet, is much more useful than teaching them differentials and number theory.
Its like teaching people carpentry but never having them make anything with it. You just quiz them on which tool and material they need to use.
Prime@lemmy.sdf.org · 1 pts · 265d
I get where you're coming from but i have to disagree. What your describing is not math but econ, a different subject. Math is about how to calculate stuff with least effort.
SapphironZA@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 265d
I agree with you, its no longer math at thst point, but the application in the service of other fields.
What I am advocating for is that math at most of secondary school level should be taught on the practical basis. Math theory should be treated as a field of specialization. Much like how language is taught after people get over the basic literacy portion.
Prime@lemmy.sdf.org · 1 pts · 265d
That's reasonable, but some theory is also good to know. In language class we discuss not just the content of an article but also how it is written. Language itself is a tool here, similar to math.
Another important aspect of school is to ensure that everyone is exposed to many topics. That's why we have art classes even though most people don't become artists. It let's everyone know that this topic exists and what it is about.
The practical implementation of teaching math is bad though, as you said. Sometimes it is just rote memorization, which is the complete opposite of what it should be. I hate that.
SapphironZA@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 265d
How are Electricians needing to do so much math? Its basic calculator and lookup table stuff? I mean a janitor does more complication calculations when they dilute cleaning products and estimate how much they will need for a given room.
Redex68@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 267d
It's also possible that these aren't all of the available answers and they only selected the ones they thought are interesting.
ThirdConsul@lemmy.ml · 7 pts · 267d
It says all the children were given an option to pick up to 3 answers. Given the small sample size, it's likely there were questioned by the same person and that person didn't convey that to children properly.
Or they are all very focused on only 1 path.
echolalia@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 266d
Mmhmm, I also noticed that, which is why it's the second sentence in my post.
It's a survey of 3,000? It's still possible that only one person was giving the survey to the Chinese students.
But yeah, it does look like the Chinese students got different instructions or had them explained differently or something. Just a strange poll.
Brickhead92@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 266d
You need to give yourself more credit. You didn't become a failure, it was within you the whole time; you were always a failure...
That concludes my Pep Talk®
dogdeanafternoon@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 265d
I think it’s pretty obvious this is a subset of the answers.
So it seems like, given 3 picks, only 1% of kids are choosing YouTuber as an option. That doesn’t really seem ridiculous.
Edit: it’s 3000 kids total, not per country. So I guess 3% if these are the only 3 countries included.
echolalia@lemmy.ml · 8 pts · 265d
This poll annoyed me so much I googled it. It's just a really shitty poll. There is no reason to believe the 5 listed jobs is a subset of the answers. This is an infographic summarizing a single question from a survey that seems to be commissioned by LEGO.
Article from the "Harris Poll"
I couldn't find like, an academic paper describing the poll. There's no methodology for it I can find. It's just some corporate fluff piece, frankly.
Yep, only 3 countries. This is just a trash poll.
dogdeanafternoon@lemmy.ca · 0 pts · 265d
I just figured if 3000 people responded, they should have 9000 picks. Since we only see a few hundred it seemed like it’s a very small subset of the total answers.
Very shitty poll indeed.
echolalia@lemmy.ml · 0 pts · 265d
Friend, the totals are percentages, not absolute counts
dogdeanafternoon@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 265d
HOLY SHIT. Please no one pay attention to me
Four_mile_circus@lemmy.ml · 56 pts · 267d
Born too late to explore the oceans.
Born too early to explore the stars.
Born just in time to remind you to hit that like button, share with your friends, and subscribe so you don't miss a thing.
The West is lost.
CanadianCarl@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 266d
We know more about our solar system than our oceans. We might have mapped a bit of the floor, but we don't know what is between the surface and the ocean floor.
UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 265d
We should send our billionaires down there... for research purposes of course.
olafurp@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 265d
We are both actively exploring the stars and the ocean. There's still a lot we don't know and there's still plenty of species being discovered in rainforest all the time.
Bacterias and viruses are also something that you can never finish exploring and there are for sure weird creatures like tardigrades that are still undiscovered.
You're just in time to discover genetics, epigenetics, biomechanics of nutrition, chemistry, biochemistry, how to make custom creatures from DNA building blocks, protein folding applications, mysteries of how the brain works and even math as mature as it is also has tons of undiscovered parts.
Sure you might be too late and to early for a couple of specific things but science discovery is absolutely exploding and random average Joe types are discovering things all the time. I think on the contrary now is one of the most likely things where you can just flat out discover something about the world that nobody has discovered before.
zakobjoa@lemmy.world · -13 pts · 267d
"The West"
Sibling what.
Four_mile_circus@lemmy.ml · 23 pts · 267d
Devjavu@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 265d
I actually don't think they would prefer that.
Ummdustry@sh.itjust.works · 11 pts · 267d
that place where the sun sets homie
Midnight1938@reddthat.com · 23 pts · 267d
Dont worry, they will all be increasing shareholder value
HiddenLayer555@lemmy.ml · 21 pts · 267d
"DUHH, IT'S BECAUSE SPEECH IN CHINA IS CENSORED AND YOU'LL LITERALLY GET SENT TO A XINJIANG CONCENTRATION CAMP IF YOU TRIED BEING A VLOGGER"
orca@orcas.enjoying.yachts · 19 pts · 267d
You can see a mix of escapism and “how do I fast track as much money as possible?”
HakFoo@lemmy.sdf.org · 4 pts · 267d
Thwn I'd expect higher figures for musicians, swayed by the top .01% that suck up all the fame and royalties.
Redex68@lemmy.world · 16 pts · 267d
The thing I find most surprising is that this many kids want to be teachers. It doesn't sound like something kids would typically be interested in, nor do I remember me nor my friends ever wanting to be teachers.
salvaria@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 16 pts · 267d
I wonder if kids pick that because its one job that they understand and attribute positively (to some degree - "a teacher is someone that teaches kids like me at a school and we have fun") whereas jobs that their parents have are more nebulous and more negative in their mind ("my parents leave for the day and then come back angry? I don't want to do that").
Redex68@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 266d
I'm assuming that as well, but it's still surprising to me.
sobriquet@aussie.zone · 2 pts · 265d
That was exactly my conclusion as well. At first I was surprised that kids would want to be teachers (having known a few - it’s not a great job! Terrible pay, not much respect… you’ve got to love it). But then I suddenly realised - what jobs would kids know about? All of them would know a teacher…
LyD@lemmy.ca · 8 pts · 266d
I know a former teacher in China who told me that it's a very respected profession there, in the same way that doctors and lawyers are respected in the west.
binarytobis@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 266d
I knew lots of kids who wanted to be teachers. Ask a kid that age to list their favorite people and their teacher will pop up often, because it’s someone they know. Teaching is something tangible to them.
I also knew several adults who wanted to be a teacher, but quit shortly after starting because they literally couldn’t afford it due to unreasonably low wages. We should really treat good teachers better.
ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml · 14 pts · 266d
They need to run this survey again now that the Chinese space station has an air fryer.
stray@pawb.social · 12 pts · 265d
I think this may have to do with the fact that China regulates social media with regard to its effect on society, whereas it's the wild west in English-speaking countries. I don't agree with all of their criteria for regulating media, but I feel like there's probably a good middle-ground to be reached. It's well-documented how harmful social media has been to people of all ages.
rmrf@lemmy.ml · 6 pts · 265d
This might be a hot take, but I think it started with tying internet identities to real identities.
AppleTea@lemmy.zip · 4 pts · 265d
Unless I misunderstand, in China it's illegal to distribute VPNs, but simply using one and accessing the wider net is fine. That implementation isn't great, but it could also be a lot worse. Effectively it means anyone who's tech savvy enough can leave the walled garden whenever they like with practically no consequence. Though, it still requires some group of people assume the legal risk of setting up and hosting the VPN infrastructure.
I feel like there must be some means of achieving the same effect without criminalizing people just for providing a service. Like, defaulting to a garden of public and private webpages that meat the standard, but still with some means of leaving that garden provided you pass a minor techincal barrier to entry.
Also forcing every social media site and glorified-website-app to default to chronological sort every time you close the browser tab or leave the app. It's a simple change, but it would do a lot.
Flickerby@lemmy.zip · -6 pts · 265d
Careful, that's dangerously close to a Dessalines ban talk right there
TenderfootGungi@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 265d
China has a space station that makes the ISS looks like a 1950 station wagon.
BlameTheAntifa@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 265d
China actually has a viable space program, so being an astronaut actually seems attainable. And do teachers in China actually make a fair living wage?
nimrod06@lemmy.ml · 8 pts · 265d
For teachers, I guess they're the biggest figure for students as they grow up. Confucian culture emphasizes enormous respect, and tbf, conformity to teachers.
I grew up wanting to be a YouTuber, and now work as a professor somewhere in East Asia with deep Confucian influence. The teacher-student dynamics here is truly shit.
Jankatarch@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 265d
Some children geniuenly respect landlords more than teachers because it's in line with teachings of "the modern philosopher Andrew Tate."
dessalines@lemmy.ml · 7 pts · 265d
For sure, their space program feats and plans are incredibly exciting, and things we might see in our lifetime. There's a hopeful star-trek-esque optimism about space rn.
I'm not sure about teachers salaries, I'd have to look it up, but I do know teachers are well respected societally.
notgold@aussie.zone · 5 pts · 265d
I felt that when I went to the Chengdu science and technology museum. Everyone was in awesome of the space program and the kids really wanted to get involved.
Contrast that to the Melbourne or Canberra science museums and space technology isn't really at the front.
Jankatarch@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 265d
Not China but in my country teachers would often get benefits like how US soldiers do.
So for example some apartments had reduced rent and most private schools would accept your children for free and pay off lunch, clubs, school trip fees, etc.
So even tho teachers weren't rich they weren't completely on their own either. Maybe a similar thing happens over there?
UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 265d
Something wrong with the public schools they work for?
Ep1cFac3pa1m@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 267d
We’re cooked
manuallybreathing@lemmy.ml · 5 pts · 267d
I'd love to see this redone today, except i suspect kids in the us and uk all want to be like, _s_hitler
geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml · 5 pts · 267d
Lot of aspiring young rappers in China it seems
ICCrawler@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 265d
Being an astronaut was defo something I idolized as being a kid. Then I got older and realized what it'd take to actually live that life, and the risks involved in rocket travel, and things like muscle dystrophy from being in zero G too long. Not to mention all the schooling and training needed. And it's all for... not much, really. Like, at the end of the day, space travel does not actually help humanity that much. Now, satellites have certainly changed things a shit ton, but like, we're not going to other planets anytime soon. We're not gathering resources from other planets. We're not terraforming. Our "going to outer space" is parking your ass in a station in orbit and living with reduced QoL while you run experiments in zero-G. Just like, nah, fuck all that noise.
cassandrafatigue@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 265d
Doing science in cool jungles sounds much more fun, while being both safer and more if an adventure.
Deep sea seems like about the same risk but closer to home.
Darkard@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 267d
I mean, if given the chance would you rather have a job where you can chat about your hobbies and get people to send you money and gifts related to your hobby?
No child is picking "Soul crushing office work" are they.
eldavi@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 267d
most of the influencers i follow do both and i was getting the sense last night that some of them do the former to make the latter more bearable.
Rooster326@programming.dev · 1 pts · 267d
I mean not when the kid pretending to be a roach bum on twitch makes more than I make in a lifetime every single day.
If the turns were tabled - as they were 20 years ago - you'd still have kids wanting to be soul crushingly rich.
MoonMelon@lemmy.ml · 4 pts · 267d
Pre-COVID. I wonder what it's like now. Anecdotes from people who work in education seem to say it was pretty devastating for child development, but it's hard to tell if it's above and beyond the perennial "this new generation is totally fucked" sentiment.
MTK@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 266d
It's funny when you just read the numbers and it's like the top pick for a US child is to be 29
UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 265d
I wanted to be free. Maybe next life.
SleepyPie@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 267d
On the upside, maybe western youngsters value having a personal life they enjoy more.
olafurp@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 265d
I wanted to be an inventory that makes crazy gadgets or as wealthy as Scrooge McDuck.
MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 265d
See? UK is a 90% version of USA.
GhostPain@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 267d
"I'm not seeing the ROI on these "teachers", China.
Have you thought about AI?"
Ex-crypto bros everywhere.
etherphon@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 265d
LiamTheBox@lemmy.ml · -8 pts · 265d
Country that teaches the west is evil want to become the west genocide army.
How convenient.
rmrf@lemmy.ml · 12 pts · 265d
What?