I don't mean to belittle their childrens' accomplishments, but these are all smart parents who have a decent background in math and science (through the undergraduate level engineering curriculum). And yet their focus and their metric of accomplishment is not academic or science/math focused. Socially, it is very acceptable to excel at sports, or even music/arts. Being very talented in math or science can be seen as nerdy and not as relevant to development of a child into a well adjusted adult.
I'd like to take that one.
I'd agree that the focus/metric of
conversation is not academic or science/math focused. Every parent brags on their kid's sports achievements because not every kid has to be involved in that sport, and every kid can find their own niche in which to excel. Parents learn not to brag on their kid's academic math/science achievements because every kid has to participate in those activities, and just due to the sheer numbers (let alone their performance) not every kid is going to pitch a physics no-hitter or get invited to the math all-star team. It becomes impolite to always point out how strong your kid is in math & science.
Just about every kid is on a sports team because they volunteered (WTE of Blackhawk parents). Not so for the students in the school system.
But I think responsible/motivated parents are still nudging their kids toward the hard-core subjects, if for no other reason than "Don't turn out like me!!" The difficulty is mentoring your kid (especially if you lack the science/math chops) or finding a good mentor. I'd say our high-school's mentors were running at about one out of every four teachers. Maybe one in six when you add in the admin/exec staffs.
Another issue: I don't know how it is on the Mainland anymore, but Hawaii has a very strong subculture of people who value working to live, not living to work. (Hey, maybe that's the main culture and the career types are really the subculture.) Many locals may appear to be lacking ambition in their low-wage clerical jobs yet are actually renowned in Hawaiian cultures of hula or music or watersports. Many local musicians have the chops to succeed in LA or Nashville but... they'd have to live in LA or Nashville. So people take a job to pay the bills but they mainly want a steady source of income that doesn't interfere with their other 128 hours in the week while they live (not "work on") their hula or their music or their other skills.
A neighbor and surfing buddy was recently unemployed for four months. Did he ramp up his career search, networking and spewing out resumes and pursuing interviews? Well, he did politely take one interview that I lined up for him, probably to maintain eligibility for unemployment compensation. But he spent most of his time surfing with his kid to get him ready for the local grom tournament. In a couple years they might explore homeschooling so that the kid can spend more time in the water and pursue those corporate surfing sponsorships. His kid's good in math & reading-- he's a student at the Kumon center where my kid was working-- but right now he's more interested in snapping off a layback cutback than in nailing the Siemens science fair. He won't get a better opportunity for the surf tour by waiting until he's finished his college engineering degree.
Oh, and Dad landed a good sales job at a local company. Frankly it's a step up in both salary & quality of life. His reputation (and the coconut wireless) eventually attracted a phone call and a handshake.
To some extent our local balanced-life attitude bleeds over into science & business. We're always trying to boost those fields here but we're always reading press stories of those efforts being stymied by Mainland professionals who shy away from raising their kids in the local school systems. (Luckily those Case & Obama kids seemed to do OK at Punahou. Maybe the stigma will change.) Hard-charging career-oriented enthusiasts are greeted with some skepticism if not alarm-- "Hey, brah, try wait, eh?" Heck, there's even the term "Hawaii Navy" to describe the difference between us MidPac laid-back steely-eyed killers of the deep and those East-Coast career-o-phobics with broomsticks stuck up their assets. Or so I've been told.
I may not have appreciated this in my 20s, but today I kinda like the local subculture's emphasis on work-life balance. I think it leads to more well-adjusted adults. Sure, encourage a kid to get better at math & science so that they can improve their chosen fields. But maybe it's not such a bad idea for them to follow their interests and spend a little more time surfing. Eventually one of them can synthesize a better surfboard composite or a code a better computer-aided shaping algorithm.
I'm glad I encouraged our kid's science interests (even if she doesn't like chemistry as much as she loves concrete) but these days I miss my surfing & taekwondo buddy.
