A Chinese high school class,
observed by about 30 Americans
A few weeks ago, I went to China as a participant in the People to People Citizens Ambassador program. People to People is an organization that was begun by President Eisenhower in 1956 to promote interaction between professionals around the world. It also runs leadership programs for students and I have recommended students for it over the past 5 years. I was among almost 200 people involved in education that travelled to China: mostly teachers from all grade levels and from all over the U.S.A., but also some involved in educational organizations and companies. A few participants were from other countries, like Brazil and Great Britain. There were also about 20 guests, including my wife.
We flew to Beijing, spent two nights there, then on to Guiyang in Guizhou Province in southwest China, where we spent four nights. In Beijing, we mostly got acclimated to the country and saw tourist sites like the Great Wall and the Olympic area. In Guiyang, we met with educators and visited schools within our own delegations. There were nine delegations: science, social studies, early childhood, curriculum, research, gifted, reading, standards, and technology. I was part of the Technology in Education delegation, which had over 30 delegates and was the largest.
It is difficult to compare Chinese and U.S. schools, especially at the high school level and beyond. That's because after junior middle school, students either go on to high school (senior middle school) or technical school, depending on their aptitude and test results. So the high schools only have the more academically inclined students in attendance. The pressure on the high school students is immense because only a certain percentage with the best grades can go on to a university education. Education is highly valued by the society and teachers are highly respected by the students. The high school we visited is a boarding school and the students are expected to self-study, quietly every night in their dorm after 9 p.m. There are no computers or cell phones allowed in the dorms. A point system is used to both punish and motivate students. The points reflect not only grades in their subjects, but also their participation in daily exercises and morning recitations. Students are expected to show up 7:30 a.m. for morning recitations of Mao Tse-tung and other "philosophers." If any students points fall beneath the expected level--are you ready for this?--their parents must come to school and sit with them IN CLASS. Do you think they have big discipline problems, even in big urban high schools? Even with class sizes being over 50 students? To give you an idea of the lack of discipline problems: after 9 p.m., the boarding school was supervised by only 5 teachers that lived on campus. That's all it took to supervise about 2000 students! Just in case, I guess, there was also a police station that adjoined the campus.
A CLEAR PURPOSE
In the United States, if you asked any teacher "What is the purpose of education?", you would get either an answer that many educators would disagree with, or, more honestly, "I don't know", or "I'm not sure." Because we really do not have a common goal, each district's is different. In China, with basically a national curriculum, the answer a professor of education gave, without hesitation, was "To produce a good, self-regulated person." I like our independence, but I sometimes wish we were that clear as a nation about what it is schools are supposed to accomplish.
EVALUATION
How are teachers evaluated, at least on the high school level? A real surprise: they receive evaluations from the students.
OUR VISITS
The educational visits began with a conference at Guizhou Normal University after which the Technology in Education delegation exchanged views with a delegation of Chinese teachers involved with I.T. and Ed. Tech. Our delegation's leader, Bob Moore from Kansas, gave a good overview of educational technology in American schools. Their delegation was headed by a professor who laid out Chinese philosophy on educational technology. He said that there are basically two types of information: structured and non-structured. He defined structured as that which is mathematical and can be accomplished by computers. Non-structured is that which cannot be accomplished by computers: it is meaning and understanding, and cannot be tested. I, and many of us, was surprised by this distinction, because I assumed the Chinese would be inclined toward a rigid understanding of information and learning and that it would all be based on testing. Their educational philosophy is heavily influenced by Confucianism, which discounts the role that technology plays in learning. In The Book of Changes, one of China's ancient revered books, it says, "What a book can tell is limited." They apply that logic to computers and say that consciousness and thinking cannot easily be expressed by computers and the Internet.
It seems that holding to those beliefs about technology in learning will allow the Chinese to maintain better control of students' thinking, but in the long run, will restrict the progress of the nation in other areas, as the world, including Chinese students (90% of whom have computers and Internet access at home, as well as celll phones), become more familiar with and reliant on technologically advanced devices. Perhaps many American schools are moving too far in the opposite direction, but that is, after all, where our students now live and maybe we have no choice but to go there to stay relevant?
Furthermore, the professor contended that over use of computer technology can weaken the imagination of students. I think there is some validity to that, although I have not seen any valid studies that support that so far (just anecdotal observation). He cited a study that he himself had conducted: he had one math class use a geometry software called, Geometry Palette, and another did not use it. On a final geometry test, the class that did not use the software scored 20% higher. I take him at his word, but one would need to know more about the study--the software, how it was used, how the study was conducted--and apply it to numbers of other classes before one can begin to judge its validity.
In any case, they do use computers in their education, but only in the universities do they use the Internet. In primary school, they begin computer use in 4th Grade. We saw fairly modern computer labs in the urban schools. The greatest area of application of educational technology is in teacher presentation. In almost every urban classroom that we visited, both in the high school and the primary school that we visited in Guiyang, the teacher had a presentation screen hooked up to a computer using PowerPoint presentation software.
High School
Observing classrooms in session and meeting teachers was very interesting. In the high school, what I saw was inferior, or at least, not superior, to the type of classroom one would typically find in a U.S. high school. I was envious, though, that the students greeted the teacher with reverence, bowing and all. Otherwise, in the high school, the kind of learning I witnessed was pretty much strictly directed learning, with the sage on the stage imparting wisdom and the students reciting answers from the book back to her. The sage did use a PowerPoint presentation with pictures and used music, mostly to cue the students, letting them know when she was beginning and ending.
Primary School
It was in the primary school classrooms that I observed teaching that was at least equal to some of the better primary school classrooms in the U.S. Without understanding the words (except in the English class), I saw excellent teaching going on. Unlike in most American primary schools, students were taught by subject-area teachers. There seemed to be special teachers for all subjects: math, science, English, reading, of course, art. I observed a science lesson in a science lab that was interactive and can best be characterized as cooperative discovery learning. Students in this 3rd- or 4th-grade class were seated in groups of four or five and were given materials to do their own experimenting. (They were learning about air: each was given a plastic bag with which to "catch air" with; then, each group was given a beaker to see what happens to paper at the bottom of a beaker inverted into water after making predictions). The students were enthusiastic and quite involved, as they were in a very dynamic English class I observed (the teacher had the students singing and dancing while learning), in an art class (teacher had the students represent facial expressions using various media), a math class and a reading class. As in the high school, most of the classrooms I saw had a presentation board hooked up to a computer. We were told by the teachers that their curriculum has two parts: one is designed by the government and the other by the school, the latter having lots of input by teachers. Teachers design PowerPoint presentations using the Internet. Students get lessons on the computer beginning in 4th grade, but no Internet.
Professional Development
Professional development, at least at the primary school level, is quite impressive. Teachers observed other teachers: younger teachers mostly observed older ones. In fact, teachers are required 2 observations a semester. The observations are/can be interdisciplinary. There are teams of teachers that meet twice a week to discuss how to teach their content areas. There is also a district/national organization of teachers in which subject area teachers meet to learn/discuss best practices. Retired teachers are hired to observe and advise newer teachers.
For Students Falling Behind
For students in the primary school that fall behind, a group effort by the whole class is expected to help such students. Better students are especially expected to help in the effort. In addition, students falling behind are assigned extra remedial class and home work. All students are expected to engage in self-study, online or otherwise. The big social networking portal is called QQ.
A Visit to a Poor Rural Village
Rural education is very different. We visited a remote, poor ancient village on a Saturday and the school was not in session. The school building was relatively new and it was built with help from funds from People to People. But is the quality of education there as good as we saw in the urban schools? Unlikely. And, little doubt, we saw the best of the urban schools at that. In any case, the resources are certainly uneven. Even though the building was recently built, the 6 classrooms it contained can best be described as resembling our old one-room school house. What was their educational technology? Old desks, some bookshelves, a blackboard, and a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling.
MY MAIN CONCLUSION
From my observations during this trip, combined with some reading, I think I can make at least one conclusion. China can do just about everything we can, only faster and cheaper. I maintain that one thing that we are better at is the production of a fairly large number of creative and innovative citizens. (Although that assessment is disputed by some). From what I learned about their secondary and higher education, the Chinese are not about to make a great leap forward on that front. That is because, in addition to their adherence to traditional,ancient philosophies of education, the government ultimately cannot afford to let people do too much critical thinking. To do so risks instability and loss of control by the Chinese Communist Party. So, not that much threat there, I don't think.
The Enemy Within
It is from within OUR end where there lurks the greatest danger of "blowing it": that is, losing our edge in innovation. It is our national obsession with testing, combined with budget cuts that are inevitably coming in this terrible economic climate that are the forces threatening creativity. Too much focus on testing crowds out time for creativity. And, sacrificed by the budget axes in coming years will, most likely, be technology education and other practical and fine arts: those subjects that, more than any others, promote and enhance innovation and creativity. And when we have lost our last edge, what will be left?
