Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Post Script
- Wow…where do you begin. What an experience...so different than my current world of northern New Hampshire. Like many trips, you usually end up like Dorothy…declaring “there’s no place like home!” But I think that’s a good thing, because you should love where you are living.
- Here are some of the dominant impressions about Chinese education:
- The enthusiasm of the students, teachers and staff is incredible! Everyone we observed and spoke with seemed ecstatic to be in their school.
- The principals, high school students, middle school students, and elementary school students all expressed the strongest belief that they were in the best school, that they were lucky to be in the best school, and that they must take advantage of this opportunity because it is truly the key to them being successful in life. They were very appreciative that their parents worked hard to give them this opportunity and therefore they must take advantage of it.
- Everyone valued education and what it can do for them…way beyond what I have ever witnessed in the US.
- However, I think you really have to be careful about jumping to conclusions about the Chinese schools. They are really so different from ours, and those differences so reflect the difference in our cultures and societies. We are trying to educate the masses…that what America has always been about. Just like it says on the Statue of Liberty, “give me your poor….”
- China’s schools, certainly for the one’s we saw are for the elite. There are over 1200 elementary schools in Beijing, and each has an application process. So we truly saw the crème de la crème. If you applied such a screening practice to American students you would see equally polite, well behaved, enthusiastic, hard working, and successful students. That selectivity is also what allows them to have class sizes that we would abhor! Perhaps that selectivity also allows them to have such no frills classrooms. The teachers were always standing in the front of the room, displaying Powerpoint presentations and calling on attentive and enthusiastic kids who jumped out of their seats when they responded.
- Their students were delightful… just like ours. That’s the joy of working in schools; especially elementary schools.
- All of us would love to see a typical school. Malcolm, the Aussie who visits China 15 times a year, stated the typical school has all the same discipline problems that we do.
- We didn’t see any special education/504/remediation classes…they don’t exist in these select schools. That reflects their survival of the fittest philosophy.
- Nor did we see any parents; but that’s because they’re all working. I don’t think there are many stay at home moms. I also think that the parents turn over the educational responsibility to the schools; they help with homework, and they clearly establish and reinforce the importance of education.
- I think the value of the exchange programs is that it helps the kids realize that as Thomas Friedman puts it; “the world is flat”. Technology has flattened it and our students need to take advantage of that phenomena. If they don’t there will be plenty of Chinese kids that will. I think most importantly the exchanges will lead us to realize that the entire world needs to work on saving the environment; protecting the planet. One part of the world can’t do it alone and such it’s our exchanges that will lead us to working together to save the world!
