Educational Changes in China

This week’s article summary is A Shifting Education Model in China.

As we near the end of the school year, this article summary is a reminder of the need for both traditional and progressive teaching to support student learning.

Education in China is renowned for teaching content, most commonly using ‘rote’ teaching methods. But the Chinese government is growing increasingly concerned that its citizens aren’t nimble thinkers and creative problem solvers. (An interesting example of this is that China produces few fiction writers.)

China is gradually making changes to both its educational program (What is taught) and pedagogy (How it’s taught) in order foster more greater creativity, imagination, and independent thinking from its students.

Two specific examples mentioned in the article are project-based learning and an emphasis on a more well-rounded educational experience.

For China the emerging equation is as follow: 

Its educational system that disseminates exemplary knowledge content—facts and concepts—in a nationalized, one-size fits all structure + Some aspects of the Western educational system, particularly more progressive elements, that foster independent creative thinkers and questioners =  A well educated citizen who possesses the knowledge and skills and who can also innovatively respond to the ever changing world.

Maybe Trinity should be an educational consultant to China!

Joe

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China is pushing to move away from rote instruction, aiming to nurture cognitively nimble and socially committed graduates.

China is reshaping its national exam to focus on a broader range of topics and cognitive skills and, in turn, move away from teacher-dominated lecturing. The new test requires that students employ complex analytical skills, mixed with broader knowledge across various subjects.

Chinese schools aspire to outshine their American counterparts, ironically pulling from the West’s progressive playbook. 

China’s widening education agenda draws from a blend of educational ideals, ranging from those of John Dewey to Mao Zedong.

China’s national exams, known as gaokao, have served as the channel for getting ahead in Chinese society since the 10th century. “Exams may have no use for me,” a 26 year-old graduate stated, “but I cannot realize upward mobility” without doing well. She rose from a tiny rural village by scoring fourth in her county on the national exam and winning a coveted spot in a top Beijing university.

The intense expectations for learning woven into the age-old exams—not to mention a longstanding Confucian faith in literacy that still underlines Chinese culture—continue to produce stereotyped whiz-kids in math and graduates with extremely sharp memories, based on international assessments. 

But it’s increasingly clear that didactic teaching and regimented exams have failed to produce young people who foster technological innovation or design breakthroughs in engineering. China remains far behind in the arts, cultural invention, or academic research. Beyond a handful of fiction writers--many now living in exile--the country has seen few notables emerge in the humanities.

The nation’s bulwark of meritocracy has also begun to crumble, a wake-up call to government leaders. Faced with slim odds of winning a university seat, the count of high-school students sitting for the national exam has declined by more than 10%. A rising share of top scorers dodge what are often arcane Chinese colleges and head overseas, especially children of the growing nouveau riche. China’s ambitious reform of college admissions now sends a clear message to secondary-school students and their teachers that a narrow focus on rote learning is not be enough to ensure entry to higher education.

But whether the remake of testing in China will truly move teachers to shift their emphasis away from drilling on facts to analysis and critical thinking isn’t clear. In certain cases, this type of questioning is exactly what the Chinese government continues to stamp out. “Teachers may talk about the pro-democracy uprising at Tiananmen Square in 1989,” a Beijing graduate student said, “but it’s not asked on the national exam, so students don’t take it seriously.” 

And the shrill polemics of some government leaders continue to dampen inventive thinking inside schools. “We must, by no means, allow into our classrooms material that propagates Western values,” China’s Minister of Education recently stated.

A handful of  schools, however, already practice Western-style teaching strategies through what are known as “learning-oriented classrooms.” Students take on projects or tackle neighborhood problems. There are also emerging autonomous schools, which are a bit like charter schools in the U.S. in that they’re government funded yet possess the freedom to determine how to teach their students. These progressive schools require students to engage in complex topics, delve into multicultural literature, and become fluent in English. They attract the offspring of Beijing’s booming bourgeoisie, children of corporate and government elites—kids often bound for college overseas.

While America’s policy malaise now focuses most on what the country’s education system should not do—don’t overtax kids, don’t centralize learning standards, and so on—China’s educators and parents are increasingly asking how to ready their kids for a more open society and nimble economy. And there, the blossoming debate over the core aims of education invokes both material and moral priorities spurred by an obviously fraying social fabric, as vegetable carts dodge sleek BMWs on city streets and children of migrant workers—families that make up one-third of Beijing’s densely packed population—are largely excluded from high-quality public schools.

This prompts calls for Chinese teachers to cultivate stronger character, for students to become well-rounded, rather than being forced to walk the treacherous “one-plank bridge” over to a college seat, based on a single test score. 

And ultimately, despite this broader societal push, it’s difficult for Chinese families to kick back when they’re trying to support their children, especially when both parents must work to make ends meet. Many pay for tutoring, sports activities, and music lessons—seeking a competitive edge for their youngsters. 

Amid this swirl of fresh reforms and novel aspirations for their schools, Chinese leaders talk about exporting a “third model” of education to other societies--how to enliven schools, still fortified by demanding national exams, while moving beyond the West’s self-centered values and the former Soviet Union’s stultifying classrooms. Asked what this unprecedented form of schooling looks like, educational pundits in China respond with “We don’t know yet.”