From Mop:
How an American teacher would tell the story of Cinderella
The bell rings, and students run into the classroom. This class, they’re discussing Cinderella. The teacher asks one student to come up to the front and summarize the story. The student quickly finishes, the teacher thanks him, and starts to ask the class questions.
Teacher: Which characters did you like in the story? Disliked? Why?
Student: I like Cinderella, and the Prince. I don’t like Cinderella’s step-mother and her step-sisters. Cinderella is kind, adorable, and beautiful. Her step-mother and step-sisters were mean to her.
Teacher: If at midnight, Cinderella didn’t get into her pumpkin carriage in time, what would happen?
Student: She would turn back into a servant with dirty clothes. Aiya, that would be horrible.
Teacher: Therefore, you must be punctual, otherwise you might land yourself in trouble. Also, look around, all of you are very clean and pretty, you need to make sure to be clean or your friends will be scared of you. Girls, you need to be extra careful. When you grow up and go out on a date, if you’re not careful and your boyfriend sees you when you’re very ugly, he might be so scared that he faints. (The teacher pretends to faint, class laughs).
Teacher: Alright, next question: If you were Cinderella’s stepmother, would you stop Cinderella from attending the ball? You have to be honest!
(After a while, a student raised his hand and answers): Yes, if I were Cinderella’s stepmother, I would stop her from attending the ball too.
Teacher: Why?
Student: Because, because I love my own daughter, I want her to be queen.
Teacher: Yes. The stepmothers we see all seem to be evil, they don’t treat others well enough, but they treat their own children very well. Do you understand? They’re not evil, they just can’t love other children like they love their own.
Teacher: Children, next question. Cinderella’s stepmother forbade her to go to the ball and even locked her in. But why was she able to go and become the most beautiful girl there?
Student: Because her fairy godmother helped her, gave her beautiful clothes, turned a pumpkin into a carriage and dogs and mice into servants.
Teacher: You’re right! Think, if Cinderella didn’t have her fairy godmother’s help, she couldn’t have attend the ball, right?
Students: Yes!
Teacher: If the dogs and mice weren’t willing to help her, could she have successfully returned home at the last minute?
Student: No, then she would have successfully scared the prince (the class laughs).
Teacher: Cinderella had the help of her fairy godmother, but just the godmother’s help wasn’t enough. So children, no matter where you are, we all need friends. Our friends might not be fairies, but we need them. I hope you all have many, many friends.
Teacher: Now, please think about this, if Cinderella gave up because her stepmother wouldn’t allow her to go to the ball, would she have become the the prince’s bride?
Student: No! If that were case, she wouldn’t have been at the ball. The prince wouldn’t have met her, got to know her, and fell in love with her.
Teacher: That’s right! If Cinderella didn’t want to go to the ball, even if her stepmother didn’t stop her, or even supported her, it would’ve been useless. Who decided whether she was going to attend the ball?
Student: Herself.
Teacher: Therefore, children, even though Cinderella didn’t have her mother to love her, had a stepmother that didn’t love her, she still loved herself. Because she loved herself, she went to look for what she wanted. If you feel as if you’re not loved, or like Cinderella has a stepmother that doesn’t love you, what should you do?
Students: Love ourselves!
Teacher: That’s right, nobody can stop you from loving yourself. If you feel that others don’t love you, you need to love yourself; if nobody gives you opportunities, you should create opportunities for yourself. If you really love yourself, then you will find what you need. Nobody could stop Cinderella from attending the ball, nobody could stop her from becoming the queen, except herself, right?
Student: Yes!!!
Teacher: Last question, what’s illogical about this story?
(After a long time) Student: After midnight everything would transform back, but Cinderella’s glass slippers didn’t.
Teacher: Wow, you’re so smart! See, even great authors make mistakes. Therefore, making mistakes isn’t something to be afraid of. I guarantee, if one of you became an author in the future, you’ll be better than this one! Do you believe me?
The children cheer.
A Chinese teacher tells the story of Cinderella
Bell rings, students and teacher walk into the classroom.
Teacher: Greetings classmates.
Students: Greeeee—tiiiinngs—teeeeeacher—(elongated vowels)
Teacher: Today’s class, we’re discussing the story of Cinderella. Did everybody study in advance?
Student: Study? Who doesn’t know the story.
Teacher: Is Cinderella a story from the Grimm Brothers or Hans Andersen? Who was the author? When was the author born? What were the major events in the author’s life?
Student: …..(In whispers) It’s all in the book, can’t you read it yourself?
Teacher: What is the theme of the story?
Student: This must be an exam question.
Teacher: Alright, let’s start. Who can divide the story into segments, and tell me why you would divide it this way?
Student: The beginning and ending segments include…the body segment…in total…
Teacher: This segment has very vivid descriptions and precise wording. Everybody copy it 5 times for homework, then recite it. I will check next class.
Student: More recitations!?
Teacher: Not long, just that segment.
Student: So many recitation from other classes already…
Teacher: Let’s start analyzing the text, everybody pay attention. Who’s going to read the first part? Everyone else pay attention and conclude what the theme of this segment is.
Student: (reads)
Teacher: Here, everyone focus on this sentence. It is a metaphor. Is this a direct or indirect metaphor? Why does the author use it?
Students: (N number of people start to sleep)
Teacher: Everyone notice this word, if we exchange it with another, why does it not work as well as the original?
Students: (More people start to sleep)
Teacher: Did everybody notice, if I exchange the position of this phrase with the following one, does it work? Why or why not?
Student: I’m not you, how could I notice? (More people fall asleep)
Teacher: Why are you all sleeping? You need to know, if you don’t pay attention in class, you won’t get good grades, if your grades are not good enough you won’t go to university, and if you don’t go to university you can’t…You need to understand these principles of life!!!
Comments from Mop:
fengzi1989521:
Well put, this is education with Chinese characteristics!
想你了猫头鹰:
Memorable! A change in education structure must come soon! We mustn’t let the “New Theory on the Uselessness of Education” spread!
悲剧的悲剧:
If Chinese teachers didn’t teach this way, how can students handle the exams?
zz587:
The Chinese part brings back memories!
泡泡疯子:
This is so real, I feel as if I’ve gone back to elementary school.
小强不怕拖鞋:
Don’t know about American teachers, but when I was young that’s how they taught Language Arts, can’t believe it’s still like this after so many years.
永恒的春天:
Do you want to become as stupid as laowais? Always asking pointless questions..
猫扑伪法律达人:
Nowadays I sometimes open my Chinese textbook from junior high, and find the stories somewhat interesting. How did the teachers make them so disgusting in class all those years back? Dividing into segments, theme, fuck.
i八步后退【弱盟●弱盟成员快乐多】:
No wonder China can never win the Nobel Prize!!!
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So who can come up with a better education system in China which is not exam orientated? If not, this kind teaching will probably continue!
It’s just supply and demand, like everything else. If the tests didn’t demand information like segments, themes, author, publishing date, etc. than the teachers wouldn’t supply (teach) that information.
If teachers taught differently, than the students would complain that they weren’t teaching what they needed to pass the test.
Supply and demand, baby, supply and demand.
Awesome post!!
For anyone who has ever seen the Chinese education system can admit, the system is mostly used to turn the students into a wood chipper..
What do I mean by that you say????
The student will ingest a disgustingly large amount of information(wood) and then spit it out all over the forest floor in little useless bits after the exam.
We call it cramming in the States.
It has to do with Rote memory.
This could mean that tests are really testing mental capacities more than comprehension of the story. Think of this particular Chinese class as an IQ or Trivial Knowledge test.
We have these tests too in the states, and the teachers do teach the test alot… especially in high school.
The thematic and moral analysis of Cinderella in the American hypothetical is off, seriously off.
I was wondering if I was the only one who thought so. Evidently not.
yeah, while it’s sort of like how an American would discuss the story, the things the Teacher says are very very Chinese. Especially about the stepmother looking after her own child first – by american standards the stepdaughter should be treated equally, and the stepmother is considered a bad person for not treating the stepdaughter the same as her own child.
Thought exactly the same when I read it. Glad I saw your post before I began to scribble.
yeah, i actually missed the heading and thought that must be the Chinese teacher version until i read further down…that and the part about if you grow up to be ugly you’ll scare your boyfriend. as a kid, I only remember being taught that it’s “what’s on the inside” that counts
You’re absolutely right. I thought it was the Chinese analysis at first, until I read the other one. But they do a very good job of discussing the moral implications even though it’s from a Chinese perspective. And it’s not all wrong by any means; my English classes in college certainly had us ask questions like that about pieces of writing.
But I think, for example, you’d find that in the west, people would give very different answers. For example, they would likely say that the wicked stepmother forbade Cinderella from going to the ball simply because she’s wicked. Even though it *is* true that in the original story that the stepmother tries to get the prince to notice her own daughters, so maybe that’s a failure of analysis on our part.
And I have noticed that people who grew up in Asian cultures seem to be a *lot* better, on average, at paying attention to peoples’ motives and feelings than any other group I can identify. So much so that I’ve spent quite a bit of time trying to learn to be more perceptive by observing them.
If only the ruling party of China could be as careful in paying attention to its opponents and citizens’ motives, instead of demonising them whenever they say something against the party’s vision for an undemocratic, united China.
Agreed, but that’s really the point of the post. Obviously this post extols the merits of moral and ethical analysis, as opposed to contextual and rote memorization. Whether the teacher interprets it correctly or not, the teacher presents good moral lessons through a charming story (which is in essence, what fairytales are.)
Were she to analyze the actual Brothers Grimm story, the themes would be much different: namely the oppression of the elder classes upon the young, the futility of struggles lacking overwhelming or supernatural aid, and the symbolic significance of talking animals. But that’s for University English majors and other people that like to overanalyze.
k that went on a bit long. Anyway, great post!!
Yeah, I had to keep looking back up to make sure it didn’t switch from “American” to “Chinese”.
Growing up in the American education system, the first part is not that accurate. It’s pretty close though.
The teacher wouldn’t tell the girls that if they were ugly, boys will be scared of them. They think it’s wrong to tell children that some people are better than others. It’s not the teacher’s role to step on a child’s self esteem.
Everything is not so cut and dry. I think there are more similarities than differences. MANY American students fall asleep in class haha. I think the point being made here is that Chinese education is about retaining information, and American education is about discussion and self-expression.
Agreed, there were a few things off about the American example (especially the ugly part!) but the overall point was humorously made.
There is also a lot of influence from the way Chinese express things. I notice Chinese tend to tell people what they “should” do more often than English speakers.
Other than that, the moral interpretations are off. I suspect the original poster either isn’t familiar with or chose not to highlight certain cultural differences involving family relationships and gender.
I’m surprised some Chinese people actually realize this. It’s hard to change something that’s been that way for hundreds of years though. On top of that, you got parents that help their kids cheat. I’ve heard some Chinese on the mainland talk about how HK’s educational system is better. Is this true?
Love this comment:
“Do you want to become as stupid as laowais? Always asking pointless questions..”
Yes. Don’t be stupid. Obey, and without question!
Yeah it sounded like one of my students.
The whole disecting everything into pieces and talking about it like a machine would appeal to a lot of people. As a teacher I see the reason to use different methods for different learners. I simply hate the idea that many Chinese school teachers have of there being only a single right/correct answer. Most students when asked a question as adults or chuldren expect that when one student has answered “correctly” there can be no other answer.
Also they missed the whole expectation in a Chinese classroom of being spoon-fed the answers one by one. And the thing about not getting into a university and your life then being over is right on the money for every single student in China.
Yeah, in my experience those “pointless questions” are always the most important…
Guys (haha, AndyR, 社會是和諧的),
I believe the original Chinese commenter was being sarcastic, his point being that the questions Chinese teachers ask are the real pointless ones. Check out the original Chinese source.
Tingting, great post!
Those pointless questions are what fuels scientific and mathematic discoveries. No wonder China can’t get any awards in those fields.
They’re becoming more of an experiment that science couldn’t conduct because of ethics and moral reasons thanks to not asking those questions. And, well, toxin levels, too.
the american part only applies to a few top grade schools; or maybe, maybe, in college, at a rewarding seminar or lecture section
i got public american education for 2/3 of my student life, and most english teachers aren’t that creative or guiding; they ask students what they think about the text, and rarely if ever lecture something deep and meaningful; most students just bs their responses, since it’s english class and they most likely have not even read the text, much less have it memorized.
That’s ok, China has enough people so that the truly intelligent will burst through the mind-numbing education, leaving the retarded masses to toil behind them
Also, teaching non-Chinese stories in school? Sounds like race traitors to me!
Not sure about how real both stories are but the American class sounds like a moral teaching one where the teacher was always encouraging students to find the “right answer” while the Chinese one is a boring literature course. Chinese schools have moral teaching classes (思想品德课) too but those are usually the least interesting ones and today’s kids are just too old hand to believe in them.
and I doubt the *translated* Cinderella fairytale could be used in a literature class in a Chinese school. It’s a good satire to make people reflect though.
“the american part only applies to a few top grade schools; or maybe, maybe, in college, at a rewarding seminar or lecture section”
Er…I don’t think you’d find that kind of discussion in a lecture session. It’s obviously a forum that depicts primary level students and their teacher. That being said, I agree that most teachers wouldn’t discuss the moral of the story in such detail.
The talk of metaphors, text analysis and themes reminds me of high school English lit class, however students wouldn’t have been able to get away with such scanty responses.
China’s government spending on education is 2.2% of GDP compared to 3.7% in the US. 94% of China’s education spending is on tertiary education. Population is much larger in China.
The underfunding of public education in China results in an effective tax on poor rural China – local governments levy additional fees to provide primary and secondary education. This results in increased nonattendance (I assume – no Chinese stats on school attendance) which would explain a rise in the number of illiterate Chinese of 30 million since 1990.
I’m not holding up the American educational system as a beacon of light, but those are some pretty damning numbers to contend with.
A middle ground needs to be discovered. America’s education system isn’t great either, but China’s sure as hell isn’t getting the job done. Taiwan is the place that produces the Nobel Prize winners, not the mainland.
Actually I think all East Asian education systems are somewhat like this. The reason why Japan, Korea and Taiwan have more Nobel prizes than the mainland is most likely only because the scientific community in China is mostly destroyed in the cultural revolution. It’s hard to build it back up.
From what I’ve studied on the Japanese education system, it’s not like this….
“Do you want to become as stupid as laowais? Always asking pointless questions..”
I forget that only a few generations ago we were greeting our next door neighbors by swinging over to the next tree.
I would die in the Chinese education system from the monotony and pointlessness of it all. I’d have to drop out for sure
This is why I see so many people using phones, studying another book or sleeping during class lectures. They must be there but don’t see the presented information as useful. Why does this continue?
I graduated from both Chinese and British universities, I would say the analysis is quite accurate….
I searched a while online and found the American part of the post first appeared in Taiwan blogs and the Chinese part was later attached in 2007.
One Chinese blogger found the story interesting and did a little experiment on his own son and the kid’s answers to the ‘American’ teacher’s questions turned out to be more critical. Read it in Chinese,
http://www.sciencenet.cn/m/user_content.aspx?id=232576
Translation, anyone? Pwetty pwease!
Looking for someone who can translate Chinese Internet posts for you? Try the chinaSMACK personals!
Posted this in wrong area lol. Enjoy!
Little kid answers only. It will take too long in a comment lol
1. Cinderella. As if you need to ask.
2. No problems at midnight. When the prince sees the beautiful Cinderella turn back into her dirty clothes, he would think it was because of magic and that she was a kind hearted person. Because those fairies only use their magic to help good people.
After teacher answer:
As if that matters, dirty clothes can not hide a person’s beauty!
3. No, because Cinderella only needs to wear nice clothes to become the queen, while her step sisters can’t become queen even if they did wear nice clothes. And if her stepmother had let Cinderella go, Cinderella would become Queen, and even if she is a step mother she would still be the queen’s mum.
4. Skipped by father, as the boy stated his answer already in the first part.
5. Because when Cinderella did not have many things, she still gave food to a old grandmother. This grandmother was the fairy godmother and took pity on her and wanted to help her. (Father comments on how his son must have read a different version)
6. (If the mice didnt help her blablabla)
She still could return home, because as long as she hid in a place where the prince could not see her, her clothes would turn back and the prince would not recognise her.
Father comments (The next part would have been interesting, but my son’s friend came to look for him and he was in a hurry to go out and play.
I could only wait until he came back, and read the rest to him.)
After reading everything to him.
Son: That’s not right, Cinderella’s glass shoe was given by her real mother, it wasn’t magic. The teacher didn’t read it carefully enough! (Son read different version, anyhow, the big author wouldn’t have made such a big mistake!)
Son then came back awhile later and asked: If that glass shoe was transformed from magic, what would happen?
Dad: Well, the prince would not be able to find Cinderella using this method, but he would think of a different solution and Cinderella would also look for the prince. Even thought it would be alot more difficult, they would still find each other in the end!
Son: Wrong! The Prince could still use the shoe. Even if the glass shoe had transformed back into a dirty shoe, it would still be the same size, and only Cinderella would be able to wear it!
Thanks for the translation!
I learned English the Chinese way (in France) and try to teach it the American way (in China). Neither works…
We read Cinderella story when I was 3rd grade, and I don’t remember that we had this kind of analysis, and I lived in socialist country at the time. We read it ’cause it was fairytale, not because of morals. Stepmother was just bad, as she abused Cinderella, so Cinderella was awarded because she was good, and stepsisters punished for their evil.
There is a cottage industry in China, of making fun of China via comparisons with seemingly innocuous items from America.
I am not certain if this is sarcasm, self-deprecation, fake self-deprecation masquerading as modesty, penis envy, or some mixture of the above.
Personally, I am not going to completely give it up (“it” being props) for the American educational system just yet. I managed to graduate from a very well respected high school, and then a similarly respected college, with a command of math that many Chinese would find laughable. My maiden semester in college, it was amazing how many people were in remedial math with me; it seemed like nearly a 1/3 of my dorm was there! “Why, I thought this was such a good school, and here i am paying out of state tuition, too”, I thought to myself. “How come all of us are taking trig, why didn’t we learn this in high school? I didn’t ride the short bus, what happened”?
I wonder if China can iron out the stultifying stuff like lack of creativity and top-down education techniques soon. If they do, we are in trouble. I teach here in the U.S., and let me tell ya: we be in trouble triplicate, doods!
This reads like a Chinese person’s imagination of an American classroom compared to a (typical?) Chinese classroom.
The point of the comparison is obviously to highlight the overemphasis of rote memorization in China whereas in the United States more creative ideas are encouraged. While I don’t disagree with the conclusion, it has some serious flaws.
The teacher’s questions in the first case are far more juvenile than the second, it’s almost like comparing grade school class first reading of Cinderella compared to a high school level literary analysis. The students’ obnoxious behavior in the second story has nothing to do with the teaching style, isn’t exclusive to China and needlessly form a negative bias against the Chinese teacher.
There are real issues such as the rural urban gap in funding, environments, quality of teachers; ’special’ key schools vs. ordinary ones; lack of choices in education materials etc, not just a watered-down example of free flow of ideas vs. memorization.
China can learn a lot from the United States education system, particularly at college levels and beyond, but let’s not go overboard here. United States have consistently placed in the lower third of OECD nations in terms of reading and math/science achievement levels for middle and high school kids, and this is with a larger budget for less people.
Having a masters degree in education from an american school and having taught there for a few years, i can tell you there are serious issues with american schools.
but chinese schools on the mainland are a complete joke. most chinese students dont retain what they memorize, not even a little. they all cheat and there are literally millions of graduates around the country with degrees in subjects like engineering, biology, english and medicine who dont know a thing.
ive had personal trainers tell me how to do exercises incorrectly, doctors who thought my friend’s heart arrhythmia was cause by the wind or that people are fat because they drink cold beverages.
you could not pay me to hire a chinese student with a degree from a chinese university, unless they were a masseuse or something.
This is true and is why so many chinese study overseas. Most chinese university are suck.
China’s economic ‘miracle’ is in no small part down to the endless supply of cheap/slave labour. western companies cannot compete on price with labor cost so low.
As chinese become better educated, maybe this will change. But by then Chinese society will eat itself.
*burps*
It is very ignorant and unfair of you to stereotype a generation of Chinese students based on a few past personal experiences. No one disagrees with you that Chinese school system is flawed, as well most systems. However to generalize the entire Chinese student population as inept and unqualified for all jobs, with the exception of masseuse of course, is unfair to the students, their teachers, your education, and your past teachers.
I have been in the American education system all my life and am currently in graduate school. From personal experience, I’ve met many smart, well-educated, and well-rounded students that were raised in the Chinese education system. I, for one, am proud to be their colleague, and would have love to work with them one day, and not just in a massage parlor.
Your masters degree from an American school sort of contradicts the whole message of Tingting’s post.
BTW, great post TingTing.
Actually it appears you are still in the US. Sadly this means you have met the creme de la creme of scholarship getters. Here in Western Europe, the grade of Chinese master’s student ranges from “oddly smelling of thick unpredictable ignorance, perceivably far below the level of any ivy league scholarship winner”, oozing all the way down to the more mundane “please renew my ID based on my continued enrolment in a mafia run language school, I intend to settle here in the free world”.
It’s not necessarily a stereotype – you have obviously just me, as xmcx says, the creme de la creme of Chinese graduates. Not only that, but you have only met those from wealthy families who value education, because most Chinese graduates could not afford and would not be qualified to study in the west. Seriously, there’s a reason why Doctors with medical degrees from China have to re-attend medical school and go through residency before they can practice in the west.
I work with a lot of Chinese students, and generally they study constantly but the educational system does not teach critical thinking at all – it focuses on rote memorization, and combined with the cultural reluctance to question authority, it creates a unique sort of student who might have a large amount of innate intelligence but little or no problem-solving skills.
This is mostly evident in the teaching of humanities, or regarding things like politics and social sciences.
Also a lot of them are afraid to express opinions, or to answer questions, because there is a serious stigma to being wrong in this country, and people would rather let a problem go unsolved than speak out and face criticism or criticize someone else.
But I work with a lot of people who have four-year degrees in English from Chinese teacher’s colleges and do not speak English. Actually they speak less English than I do Chinese, and I’ve only been here for a year and not actually studied at all. The only way I can effectively communicate with them is in my limited Chinese. It’s insane.
If these weren’t people who supposedly went to school and studied English for FOUR YEARS then I wouldn’t complain, but seriously they can graduate from a decent university with such a degree and not speak any English AT ALL. It boggles the mind.
I also work with a lot of Chinese students – all Chinese students, in fact. I’m also a teacher in the humanties, I teach Grade 12 Language Arts, which is the equivalent of a Reading, Writing, Lit class.
While I agree that the Chinese system doesn’t teach them critical thinking skills in the same way that we teach them, they must be doing something right. Very few of our students have significant trouble making the leap into a full-on Western-style classroom where they’re taught to synthesize information, evaluate and opine on other information and all sorts of critical thinking stuff. The ones who are weak at it are usually that way because of language skills. A lot of these higher level types of thinking require a high level of language, so it’s usually too easy to fall into the trap of “oh, these kids can’t think” when it could just be, in fact, that they’re trying to do something way outside of their language ability. I’m not saying there aren’t exceptions, I can think of a handful that never quite get there, but that’s no different than kids back home either – there are always a few that never quite get it.
One more thing, we do a lot of creative stuff here such as poster-making, short story writing, etc. Most of the kids also adapt to that as well.
Did I lose my point here? Chinese students = very adaptable, imho.
Unfortunately, the US system of education is moving closer to the Chinese version depicted in the post.
This is an absurd posting and a great insult to American teachers. Most American teachers would never foster such superficial and small-minded beliefs. First, they would never say that there was a common dislike of step-mothers, that they would always love their own, biological children more, and that the actions of the stepmother in this story are not evil but understandable. Second, I have never heard a teacher express the sexist notion that girls appearance is more important because of how men will perceive them! They also wouldn’t encourage their students to look down on the poor. I cannot believe how Chinese people view American education, but let me assure you as an educator in America, I have never myself heard such bias and bigotry in the classroom.
It’s very difficult for a child of a migrant worker to do well in an urban school. Even if they manage to enrol, they have a steep slope to climb, and part of their disadvantage lies in the attitude of their classmates and teachers toward their social standing. The teachers are strongly pressured by local parents to push these kids out.
wah wah wah,
another crying lib on the netZ.
You misunderstand the poster’s intentions and understanding. I’m going to assume for now that you’re not a troll and are just not fully acquainted with Chinese culture and had a gut reaction.
In China both of those conclusions would fit in with local mores and beliefs. The notion that the stepmother should put her own children above her stepdaugher fits with Confucian filial piety, which puts parent-child relationships above all others. The focus on girls’ appearance is fairly common in China as well, I’ve often been told that if I get fat it doesn’t matter because I’m a boy.
I’m in no way saying that these are necessarily good beliefs, nor will all Chinese think this way (in fact, I’m sure a large portion would strongly disagree — 1.3 billion people will never all be in agreement), but they are fairly common views, and apparently the views of the author, who himself chose to overlook those differences to focus specifically on differences in teaching style, albeit with some exaggeration.
Also, in case you haven’t read through all the way or understood thus far, the post is obviously intended to reflect favorably on the American system.
Yeah, I got that. I lived in China for a long time. But if you are going to say it is the American perspective, I have gripes. I think people should know that even this attempt at a favorable impression has failed. In highlighting this oversight I mean not only to nitpick but really to undermine the comparison as completely irrelevant. There are deeper reflections to be made, and this attempts at comparison cheapens and obscures them.
Agreed. Show me a classroom that behaves like the one in the “American” example; few and far between are the classes that are so attentive and on-task.
The point to the post is totally lost (to me, not necessarily to the Chinese readers) because of that goofy, unrealistic portrait of the “perfect western style classroom”.
How big a segment of the Chinese readership believe that is true, I wonder?
Lara, I appreciate your concern, but as to your belief that they “wouldn’t encourage their students to look down on the poor,” perhaps you don’t know about the plight of migrant workers’ children who try to enrol and succeed in urban schools.
I 100% believe that in Chinese schools people look down on the poor and some teachers would encourage it, that children with step parents or single parents are discriminated against almost abusively in Chinese schools, and I certainly know that some Chinese teachers would pressure women to put more attention on their appearance to ease men’s consumption efforts and give them a niche where they can be successful. My point is that such behavior is exceedingly rare in American schools, and needs to stop wherever it is found.
The Chinese system sounds like the American system I experienced.
I have heard that European education stresses critical thinking . . .
pinches chinos pendejos
Speak English. Or at the very least, Chinese.
Shouldn’t you be on [insert Spanish-speaking country here]SMACK?
Hay muchas discusiones muy ilustradas que se puede tomar de este post, y tú solamente notas alguien que escribió algunas palabras brutas en español?
So many enlightening discussions to be taken from this post and you only notice someone who wrote a few crude words in Spanish?
This just says that chinese kids are rebellious and ignorant. Sleep in class and the teacher do nothing about it, heh
Long post sorry :)
The Chinese system is indeed flawed but they of course also churn out some really excellent students. The thing is that we see both really crappy ones and superb ones coming to Europe or the US to study further. Sometimes because of money and sometimes because of fake degrees and grades but most of the people who get to study abroad at “real” universities are good students.
I’d like to add a personal experience from when I lived back in my own country some 7 years ago. An institution near my home took in a batch of Chinese students for the first time and they were an incredibly mixed lot. I got to know them through one of the girls who became my gf for 5 years. She was an excellent students, aced all her exams and eventually got admitted to London School of Economics. Her level of math although not her primary or favourite subject was staggering to me. She was hardworking and ambitious and the kind of person any company with respect for itself would love to employ. She ended up with a wellpaid job at PWC London.
At the other end of the spectre were a handful of Chinese students who obviously didn’t study especially well (I assume since it was the school’s first year of admitting them they didn’t know how to weed out the bad seeds). They came, studied as little as possible but worked illegally all of their spare time and sent the money back home. I think only 1 or 2 of them managed to finish the studies and then -as far as I know- dissapeared into Europe somewhere working their asses off while trying to avoid immigrations.
The middle segment of the Chinese tried to work hard but in the beginning had big difficulties adapting to the “Western” way of studying, I guess not surprisingly. Some of them did really well in the end but others kinda gave up. Sent out applications to any university they could find on the net but eventually many of them returned to China at least partially because living costs, accomodation and tuition fees are massive for Chinese students abroad unless they’ve got the backing of a rich familymember.
As for the people who wrote that they would never hire a Chinese graduate,, well I can understand where you are coming from and I probably wouldn’t too if only based on a cv and a degree. But I think through a couple of interviews and maybe some probational months a firm could easily learn to distinguish between the pearls and the fool’s gold. Coz there are plenty of both outthere.
I should clarify. i dont mean to dump on the schools or students, but I would pick a student with a degree from a sucky or average american school over someone with a degree from qing dao or bei da any day of the week. i have been to these schools. i have spoken with their students and professors. there is no comparison. these schools arent even ranked in the top 200 in the world and they are light years ahead of 99% of the rest of china.
who goes to china to study anything other than chinese traditional medicine or chinese? seriously, who? please let me know who the hell is coming from outside china so get a good education in anything that is taught in china other than the language? now, the list of people who are coming to america, canada, europe…..
please.
the point of your comment is for other online people to congratulate you?
Almost every sentence in your post is misleading for people who don’t read from Chinese sources. I doubt if you have really talked to students from the two universities (you even wrote one’s name wrong). I bet you are not working in academic area. Many students from the two Chinese schools you mentioned are very talented by whatever standard you select. You are quite proud of American schools right? Sorry to hurt your feeling but the top two colleges that got most US Ph.D. degrees are not American ones, but the two “light years”-behind Chinese universities. Let’s face the fact, it’s students from China, India and other countries who are filling in America’s research institutes and hatching out the technologies that America’s supremacy relies on.
http://chronicle.com/article/Graduates-of-Chinese/41297
I don’t really care much about university ranking since it’s not comparing apple by apple. How do you quantify universities’ contributions to different societies? Does the fact that half of 1.3 billion people’s top decision-making body graduated from Tsinghua value 0.3 or 0.7? BTW, according to Quacquarelli Symonds China has 4 universities in the global top 50 if you include Hong Kong:
http://www.topuniversities.com/world-university-rankings
Surely not as many as students went to America but there are quite a few international students coming to China studying in areas other than CTM and Chinese, such as business management and journalism. A lot students from undeveloped countries enrolled in Chinese universities and went back with the skills that can be used in building their own countries, such as agriculture and civil engineering. I even know one guy from Iran studying nuclear engineering in my college few years ago :)
Thanks for putting together a structured reply. I can’t help but make a couple trifling remarks:
-”Quacq – uarelli”?
-”nationally owned” business management ?
-”authoritarian single party” journalism ?
As for “students from China, India and other countries [..] filling in America’s research institutes [..]” I claim this is a temporay state of affairs partly due to the large difference between a PhD grant and the large wads of cash you pick up being a porter on Wall St.. Of course even if a PhD grant was worth only enough to buy two donuts a day, to the Chinese national that is still several times the average wage back home. Now that the only places on Earth still indulging in speculative bubbles are the Shanghai stock exchange and real estate market, the US immigration will be able to raise the standard to where it was 10 years ago, meaning, as before, only the brightest in the world will get a chance to emigrate. In turn this will restore the business of those I’ll-hold-on-to-my-employee’s-ID-and-wages-for-safekeeping restaurant/beauty parlor owners. By the way, what’s with the nail painting?? It seems over the last 3 years nail painting type beautician shops have become all the fad for these types. But I digress.. Thank you for your investigation, “Wang”.
1. Times and Quacquarelli Symonds ranking is one of the most cited by media
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/THE_-_QS_World_University_Rankings
The US News’ global ranking was largely based on it.
2. China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) in Shanghai
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Europe_International_Business_School
3. Please search in google with keywords “China journalism exchange program” and you will find quite a few. Journalism/communication colleges in America having summer exchange/intern programs in China is nothing new.
The mindset in your last long paragraph has some serious problems and I suggest you start doing some research on the recent trend in US emigration policy otherwise the discussion would be fruitless.
“Give me your
tiredbrightest, yourpoorrichest,Your
huddled masses yearning to breathe freewell endowed elites (???)”Hong-Kong education system is totally different from mainland China, it doesn’t really make sense to include them in the problem raised by the post.
Besides, I have no doubt that they are very talented chinese students, but as a matter of facts, chinese elites usually get their education abroad and come back to China. For having studied in a chinese university (a common one, not QingHua neither JiaoTong), I can say this post is really relevant. It’s all about preventing students to think by themselves and feeding them with useless things to memorize. I felt really sorry for my local classmates…
“chinese elites usually get their education abroad and come back to China”
Thank you for raising a good question here. My next article will be on oversea Chinese returnees. Hopefully it will come out in one or two days so keep smacking :P
Interesting thing is that one of earliest recorded “Cinderella” type story is China. In this case, the fair god mother is a fish.
http://www.myseveralworlds.com/2007/08/02/yeh-shen-the-chinese-cinderella/
Lit analysis about evolution of the Cinderella story
http://www.endicott-studio.com/rdrm/forashs.html
sure, chinese students might do better on exams but, in my experience, that doesnt seem to help them in the real world. i work in the manufacturing industry with many engineers. i am not an engineer but i was trained to think outside the box (solving problems by using uncommon methods) in my terrible american school and i seem to be able to solve easy problems that my chinese co-workers cannot solve. until the chinese school system starts teaching students more than just exam preparation, they will continue to lag behind americans in terms of innovation. need examples? apple, microsoft, google, oracle… all american companies. in fact, bill gates and steve jobs didnt even finish university.
It’s not so much that they can’t solve the problems. It’s more like the culture places so much importance on face, and on blame. Pointing out a better way to do things means pointing out the mistakes of others, and suggesting a solution means putting yourself out there to be proven wrong and losing face. It’s a serious problem and part of what is holding the country back – people would rather blamelessly perpetuate a mistake than correct it and call attention to the original error. In many cases people know the error exists and what to do about it, but for whatever reason they won’t stick their neck out and do anything about it. This behavior perpetuates itself on many levels.
For instance, I posted earlier about working with people who studied English for many years but do not speak it. I think that, in fact, they probably do speak English, but they’re afraid of saying something wrong, using incorrect grammar, incorrect pronunciation. They’re afraid of exposing the fact that their English is not good, so they would rather not speak to me at all.
Which is just stupid, really. The point of language is communication, and I don’t really give a shit if your grammar is bad, I’m just trying to communicate with you. But I come from a different culture that places more of an emphasis on pragmatism than correctness. So of course I think this way.
Dude, I couldn’t agree with you more. One of my most high achieving classes on tests and homework are also the quietest in class. When I ask a question I can literally hear crickets chirping. They’re so used to being perfect that they can’t bear the idea of saying something wrong in front of their classmates.
On the other side of the coin, a low achieving class on homework and tests clearly was used to making mistakes and we had much better in class conversations than in the high achieving class.
It’s a battle that I still haven’t figured out how to win yet.
HAHAHAHAHAHA! That’s awesome.
Yes, I know the OP was to illustrate a point, but…
We would never discuss a story like Cinderella in class; I imagine the students would roll their eyes and moan. I think that most Chinese would be amazed at the effort to put more multicultural (i.e. few white folks) stories into American classrooms these days. The white folks will show up later, in American History, sneezing and giving STD’s to the noble natives, haha. In the elementary school where I formerly worked, one prominent book is by a Korean-American woman who uses traditional Korean names, and then there is a video that featured a good amount of Spanish, which the kids in my class (mostly Mexican) loved.
When I lived in China, I was amazed that so many Chinese people love movies like “Roman Holiday” and “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”, and songs by Karen Carpenter or John Denver. WTF? Have they harmonized the last 50 years of American history?
My post added little to an already threadbare discussion, yes I know.
“Do you want to become as stupid as laowais? Always asking pointless questions”
Allow me to share my experience in this respect. I am taking a French class in am American university. American students love asking questions in class! But some of the questions they ask are so inane that it reveals either their fundamental deficiency in understanding how language works or their anglo-centricity. Being told that one has to say “se laver les mains (to wash one’s hands)”, they would ask why there must be a reflexive pronoun (se). Well, hand is part of your body, so you have to use “se” in French. The Americans are not satisfied because English does not work this way. They think that French is (or has to be) French words with English grammar. There are more outrageous examples that I cannot recall right now.
Thing is: You cannot use an analytical approach when learning a foreign language. They just don’t see it!
Instead of consulting a grammar/reference book, they love to show (off) their ignorance in class by shooting annoying and silly questions!
And, I am sure lots of you have noticed, or are guilty of this, American students love to open their mouths to ask a question even before their brain knew what the question was going to be!
This has more to do specifically with language education and exposure. Many, if not most, Americans don’t get significant exposure to foreign languages until high school, and unless they have an independent interest in linguistics they probably won’t understand how these things work.
I’ve taken a lot of language courses (dual major in Spanish and Chinese) and heard a lot of questions that sounded stupid or just thick-headed. But then, if you really want to know something, it’s good to ask those questions (at least that’s the philosophy many good American teachers give to students). As far as using an analytical approach to a foreign language, for some students that just plain doesn’t work.
When we studied English literature in High School in England it was somewhere between the two extremes. I also thought the supposedly American comments were in many cases very Chinese and some were quite American.
I know the point of the post is the contrast in education systems etc etc but I can’t help but feel that the real point we should be taking away from this is the danger of trying to mimic western culture when you clearly have so little understanding of it.
God forbid Chinese teachers should start telling girls they need to be pretty and non-biological parents can never love anyone but their own children because they believe that that is what we do in the great land of “Guowai”.
I like Chinese students! They actually know both how to deal with teachers/exams and the reality. The Chinese teacher was practical too, she taught students the truth. However, the American teacher only told the children to love themselves. In my point of view, she should also tell them to love others. And the illogical part, i understand that the teacher was encouraging the children, but if there were not such mistakes in the stroy, it wouldn’t be a fairytale! Thus, can i imagine that those children won’t know how to write a fairytale??
@Ybin
It is common for students of ALL foreign languages to become frustrated when they encounter verb forms (and also prepositions) that they aren’t familiar with.
To say this:
“Do you want to become as stupid as laowais? Always asking pointless questions”
Allow me to share my experience in this respect. I am taking a French class in am American university. American students love asking questions in class! But some of the questions they ask are so inane that it reveals either their fundamental deficiency in understanding how language works or their anglo-centricity. Being told that one has to say “se laver les mains (to wash one’s hands)”, they would ask why there must be a reflexive pronoun (se). Well, hand is part of your body, so you have to use “se” in French. The Americans are not satisfied because English does not work this way. They think that French is (or has to be) French words with English grammar. There are more outrageous examples that I cannot recall right now.
Thing is: You cannot use an analytical approach when learning a foreign language. They just don’t see it!
Instead of consulting a grammar/reference book, they love to show (off) their ignorance in class by shooting annoying and silly questions!
And, I am sure lots of you have noticed, or are guilty of this, American students love to open their mouths to ask a question even before their brain knew what the question was going to be!”
Just makes you look stupid. I have taught ESL for 9 years. Russians get angry about English prepositions. Spanish speakers get flustered with the use of the present perfect.
I would like you to clarify exactly why reflexive verbs should be so intuitive for those whose native language doesn’t include them. I gather you have read the secret scrolls that detail the elusive rules that all languages must follow, so please share your wisdom with us.
Also, if you, unlike your American classmates, have a “fundamental understanding” of how language works, then why do you find yourself in what sounds like an extremely basic class? Is it for the easy “A”, or for the amusement of being among those who ask what you term “inane” questions?
How I admire you! Capable of answering your own questions, without saying them outloud, and all your questions are profound and penetrating!
I anxiously await your next illuminating post. By the way, I am not sure why you mentioned “anglo-centricty”, or why you chose to hypenate it, but perhaps you could impart that wisdom as well? Perhaps these ridiculous Americans should be “sino-centric” or maybe “concentric”?
lol
and i thought this was about “Ye Xian”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ye_Xian
From an American: Wow, why can’t China be as great as the US. No wonder are math and science scores are off the chart. Give yourself a pat on the back. Oh yea, that’s right because knowing how to think analytically leads to our world dominance and in electing really smart leaders before Obama. Geez, I hope China really improves so that they definately are better than the US. God, I really don’t want my country to improve, so I guess I hope that another one will. Suggestion: instead of spending countless hours putting up stupid posts, why don’t you actually do something with your life and accomplish something instead of pretending you are smarter than other people.
LMAO, so classic. Don’t think people would understand if they didn’t go to school in china. Good job lol.
As regards the last comment, China did win the Nobel Prize…for literature…
Cindrellia is a good start but Cindrellia a fairy tale. If they want to teach children to do some thinking instead of spoonfeeding and use their nogins for good use, they should start with Animal Farm and the Lord of the Flies.
i live in the phil and the teachers do exactly those kinds of questions that the students dumbly look on to. there is no lively conversation in every “discussion”… whats wrong with us?