I think the documentary called Are our kids tough enough Chinese schools published by BBC is actually quite interesting and it provides me with an window to have a look into the differences between the Chinese and British education system.
Purpose of the program: In the video, it says that the purpose of the program is to compare which methods work more effectively. Therefore the teachers from China copy everything from the original Chinese way of teaching without changing anytihng or making it adaptive to British students.
1. The students need to spend almost twice as much time as the rest of the students in this program.
2. For example, in maths class, the students will not be separated into different levels based on their performance.
3. The teacher is more like a sage on the stage without much interactions with the students.
These are the three main characteristics that I have observed in the Chinese way of teaching.
Result: The result is that Chinese way of teaching has achieved higher average score in every subject the students learned over the past four weeks.
Questions from me:
1. In terms of measuring the effectiveness of learning, I think it's also very important to take the time spent into consideration. Is it really a obvious achievement when Chinese way of teaching requires the students to spend twice as much time as the other students?
2. What about the average score of the bottom 20% students? In the exam, we don't know the result but I am not quite sure whether this kind of way of teaching would apply to all level of students.
Above is my questions and concerns and feel free to commnet on it.
Feel free to add me on skype and talk to me if you want to learn Chinese and also help me with my English. Thank you!
I think a subtext of swapping teachers across systems may be, "What if our kids score 20% higher in physics and maths but lose the opportunity to learn about justice, the rule of law, ballet, painting, living with disadvantaged kids, constitutional monarchy, cooking and nutrition, Shakespeare, Virginia Woolf, W.H. Auden, divorce, marriage for all, senior citizens and ageing, etc etc? Will they have happier lives? Will we become a better nation?"
I do. How about you?
I think the purpose of education is to enable the individual to have a happy and fulfilling life. So young people should be taught the whole spectrum of skills. Subjects should range from languages to citizenship and civil society, from basic science to the pure and applied arts, from the social sciences to religion and political thought. Pupils should not be separated into arts and science streams. They should have access to a rich offering of electives on top of the core requirements, even from a young age (for example 12) onwards.
Soft skills such as grace, taste, diplomacy, EQ, compassion, open-mindedness, tolerance, curiosity, thoroughness, intellectual rigour, etc, should be developed.
Do you have any idea for the question you raised?
A deeper, and perhaps more important question, is "What is education supposed to be for?"
