For the most part, American children aren’t great at math. But Chinese children tend to be excellent. It’s consistently found Chinese students at the top of the academic pile and Americans much nearer the bottom.

In Lenora Chu’s book “Little Soldiers: An American Boy, a Chinese School”, she begins to reveal the cultural differences that lead to this gap. The differences she notices in children’s focus and discipline are dramatic, but she also notices cultural differences that influence how Chinese schools are run, and the reason why its students test so well. Along with factors such as highly trained teachers and an emphasis on memorizing before pursuing deeper understanding, the difference comes down to a belief that has begun slowly making its way across the US: achievement is the result of hard work, not natural ability.

This approach comes from a firm belief that anything is possible with hard work, with chiku, or “eating bitter”. Studies show that for kids who score poorly. Chinese teachers believe a lack of effort—rather than of smarts — is to blame.

Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck, author of “Mindset (心态)”, is responsible for making up the terms “growth mindset” and “fixed mindset”. Chinese students are trained to have a growth mindset: if they aren’t doing well, they’11 work harder, and they’ll be successful. American children tend to be trained to have a fixed mindset about academics: their abilities are largely predetermined and static. If they aren’t doing well, it’s because they’re not good at it.

In America students are told that learning is fun and easy. But real learning is actually very difficult and takes suffering and anxiety. If you’re not willing to go through that you’re not going to learn deeply. The downside is these students often give up when something gets hard or when it’s no longer fun.

Daniel Anderson, a famous psychologist, believes it’s important to distinguish television’s influences on children from those of the family. We tend to blame TV, he says, for problems it doesn’t really cause, overlooking our own roles in shaping children’s minds.

One traditional belief about television is that it reduces a child’s ability to think and to understand the world. While watching TV, children do not merely absorb words and images. Instead, they learn both explicit and hidden meanings from what they see. Actually, children learn early the psychology of characters in TV shows. Furthermore, as many teachers agree, children understand far more when parents watch TV with them, explaining new words and ideas. Yet, most parents use an educational program as a chance to park their kids in front of the set and do something in another room.

Another argument against television is that it replaces reading as a form of entertainment. But according to Anderson, the amount of time spent watching television is not related to reading ability. TV doesn’t take the place of reading for most children; it takes the place of similar sorts of recreation, such as listening to the radio and playing sports. Things like parent’s educational background have a stronger influence on a child’s reading. “A child’s reading ability is best predicted by how much a parent reads,” Anderson says.

Traditional wisdom also has it that heavy television-watching lowers IQ scores and affects school performance. But here, too, Anderson notes that no studies have proved it. In fact, research suggests that it’s the other way around. “If you’re smart young, you’ll watch less TV when you’re older,” Anderson says. Yet, people of lower IQ tend to be lifelong television viewers.

For years researchers have attempted to show that television is dangerous to children. However, by showing that television promotes none of the dangerous effects as conventionally believed, Anderson suggests that television cannot be condemned without considering other influences.

From self-driving cars to care bots for elderly people, the rapid development in technology has long represented a possible threat(威胁) to many jobs normally performed by people. But experts now believe that almost 50 percent of occupations existing today will be completely unnecessary by 2025 as artificial intelligence (AI) continues to change businesses.

“The next fifteen years will see a change in how we work, and a change will necessarily take place in how we plan and think about workplaces,” said Peter Andrew, director of Work pace Strategy for CBRE Asia Pacific. A growing number of jobs in the future will require creative intelligence, social skills and the ability to use artificial intelligence.

The report is based on interviews with 200 experts, business leaders and young people from Asia Pacific, Europe and North America. It shows that in the US technology already destroys more jobs than it creates. But the report states, “Losing occupations does not necessarily mean losing jobs—just changing what people do.” Growth in new jobs could occur as much, according to the research. “The growth of companies that have the speed and technological knowledge will directly challenge big companies,” it states.

A report by Pew Research Center found 52 percent of experts in artificial intelligence and-robotics were optimistic about the future and believed there would still be enough jobs in the next few years. “The optimists pictured a future in which robots do not take the place of more jobs than they create,” according to Aaron Smith, the reports co-author. “Technology will continue to affect jobs, but more jobs seem likely to be created. Although there have always been people out of work, when we reach a few billion people there will be billions of jobs. There is no shortage of things that need to be done and that will not change,” Jonathan Grudin told researchers.