Education and Parenting : Can we learn from the Chinese Way?
"Beat that child so he's not a social outcast!"
I grew up in a Chinese society and was raised by Chinese parents. Like the hundreds of millions of other children in the Chinese School system, a typical school day would see me wake up at 06:00 and be at my desk in school by 07:30. It would be another hour and a half before the teacher would arrive, but me and my classmates would be hard at work preparing for the tests of the day, or studying the mountains of material we are taught each day, making sure we didn't fall behind. Whether it's memorising whole verses of Ancient Chinese prose, or practising algebra solving complicated equations, there was little time to waste.
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Suffice to say, my favourite part of the day would be lunch time. In our short 1 hour intermission, I get some time to eat my packed lunch usually consisting of some Steamed Buns, Vegetables, Rice and some Pork. Occasionally my mum would deliver some nice food to help feed my mental appetite which would manifest into real physical hunger. No, there are no fat Children around me, only children with heavy bags under bloodshot eyes, obscured by ever thickening glasses. The less time we spent eating, the more we could spend resting. With just the finite time of one hour, most of us would put our head downs on our desk and fall into REM sleep at an instance. Still, the top student at the front row would eat and study through the lunch hour, showing no signs of fatigue or lapse in determination.
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Everyday, we'd line up in height order and sing the national anthem. Tens of thousands of students chanting "Stand up! Stand up! Stand up!" as our flag was raised, a chorus that could be heard miles all around. "Millions of people, all of one mind" reminding us of our strength as a nation, and the power of uniting as one. From the perspective of an outsider, it would appear like a military exercise, and they wouldn't be too far from the truth.
This formality would be followed by "recreation", and this consisted of our class running several laps around the now vacated track and field. We'd have health checks every now and then, which was just getting our height and weight measured. I remember being one of the taller girls in my class, this made me feel some what happy.
In the afternoon, we'd have more classes, and almost everyday we'd have tests on the chapter we just learnt. These were brutal. I don't know why, but everybody seemed to treat these tests like a matter of life or death - including myself. I really cared about my test scores and grades, not only because I hated sitting at the back, but also because I didn't want to feel ashamed for being a miscreant of my class, of society. Perhaps it was also because the consequences for scoring low is a beating with the cane. I never experienced this myself, but I saw plenty of my classmates being punished for their poor grades. It scared me so much so that I couldn't remember a day where I wasn't frantically worrying about my school work, and what tests I had to prepare for.
Such was my life in school. As I grew older, I thought things would get easier, that maybe I would become ritualised to the point of pure conformity and there would be no part of me that despised this system. I was wrong.
Pressures to enter a good high school meant even more stress over tests and exams and fear of falling behind. I was enrolled into after school top up classes for the core subjects; English, Chinese, Science and Maths where I would receive extra tutoring and practice for the upcoming high school entrance exams. These evening classes would often end at night, and I would be left with just an hour or two before midnight, the time I usually slept. In the short 2 hours after evening class, i'd sometimes read some comics and watch some TV, my favourites were Sailor Moon and Crayon Shin-Chan. I'd sit at the dining table with the TV on in the background and get on with my homework until bed time.
Parenting - The Chinese Way
Although my story sounds very tough for a little girl, it was the reality for pretty much all Chinese children growing up in China. I often wondered what the education system was like elsewhere and it wouldn't be until I went to UK for university that I would find out.
Even though I had a tough time in school, I never once felt that my parents had abandoned their love for me. Quite the opposite. There was always a strong sense of closeness with my parents who would do everything they could do enrich my life outside of school time. I was encouraged to do well, but was never scorned for performing badly or for not getting perfect grades. This was something of a surprise to many people in the UK who seemed to think that Chinese parents practised authoritarian parenting.
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Perhaps it's partially true, for many Chinese kids who are brought up in the west are still subject to traditional Chinese parenting, they were frequently stereotyped as being overachievers, getting the top grades, going to the top schools, playing musical instruments excellently if a bit robotic. What's the difference?
I stumbled across an article by a Yale Law professor, Amy Chua who is herself a second generation Chinese parent, and she wrote a compelling piece about Chinese parenting for the Wall Street Journal about how Chinese parents are able to raise such stereo-typically successful kids. In her piece, she described how she raised her daughters up, never allowing them to attend sleepovers, have playdates, be in school plays, watch TV or play computer games and even extracurricular activities were chosen for them. And yet, she claimed that these were not indicative of authoritarian parenting.
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Later on, Chua points out that she had to reassess her methods of parenting after her daughters began to rebel.
“The Chinese believe that the best way to protect their children is by preparing them for the future, letting them see what they're capable of, and arming them with skills, work habits and inner confidence that no one can ever take away."
This is a very important ethos which I think is central to the philosophy of Chinese parenting and Chinese education.
The belief that effort and hard-work will pay off.
There is a famous quote:
Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard
I think most if not all Chinese parents will emphasise hard work for their children, it's just that in China, the education system is already taking care of that with less intervention from parents. I don't believe that authoritarian parenting is the best approach to parenting, in fact, I don't believe authoritative parenting is either. There is too much focus on academic achievement and too little emphasis on creativity and independent thinking skills.
Some educators in China have begun expressing concern that traditional Chinese parenting doesn't foster creativity or divergent thinking (Tobin et al 1991; Zhao 2007) and they are most likely correct. How can children develop these skills if they are not given the opportunity to practice them?
When all is said and done, there are still positive things to take away from Chinese Parenting and Chinese Education, hard-work, discipline, high expectations, and a drive for betterment is never a bad thing and I believe these are lessons all people can learn from. Chinese or not.
I don't want to sound insulting (it's not my intention at all), but it sounds like a very sad childhood.
In hindsight yes, I agree. But at the time, I was isolated from the outside world. I didn't know any better.
I agree with you that Chinese education in grades 1-12 is vastly superior to the failed public schools in the West with the exception of Finland. However, the educational system starts breaking down in China at the university level. Furthermore it has been beneficial to be a child in China due to the one child policy enforced for so many years. Without other siblings distracting parents' time a child can be the little emporer or princess. The truth is that Chinese students are vastly superior academically than their Western counterparts upon entering the university. But by the second year the broken Chinese university system turns their bachelor degree into just a piece of paper since it is nearly impossible to fail. In many classes students do not even have to open a book to pass. It is a four year country club and the graduate degrees can be earned through copy and paste generally. It is for this reason that universities in Western countries have attracted so many Chinese students.
Thanks for the great post that raises this subject but I think you are looking very narrowly at this issue without considering the larger influences and dynamics involved. My experience with young Chinese is that they are not as health minded as the previous generation and they did not learn from struggle. If China has a crisis many young Chinese today do not have the endurance nor the developed expertise to compete effectively in a global environment where cheap labor is no longer a comparative advantage.
Actually, i'm not really trying to say the educational system is at an advantage, i'm merely comparing the differences. In my opinion, your long term development is largely determined by what you are exposed to when you are young. And in the case of the Chinese educational system, if you are exposed to nothing but test passing and rigorous academia and nothing else, then it's not going to be beneficial once you come out of the system and enter society.
You are right, that the younger generation of Chinese are not as 'healthy minded' (i guess that's what you meant) in that they grew up in with much better circumstances than their parents did and so did not go through struggles. I think it has a lot to do with the disparity of treatment whilst in education and post education.
Once you are freed from the repressed education system, it is as though you are owed freedom and suddenly you lose all drive to achieve anything else.
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This is also the typical condition of kids in india....well you were allowes to read comics or watch tv during your prep for high school but we were not even allowed for those just eat and go to bed get up at 4am and study....very stressful child.i always think those days and fear them a lot.
Nice post keep it up :)
Probably a lot of the stereotypes regarding people from China are also true about India.
Do kids learn anything useful in Chinese schools?
I'm from Finland which, according to some people, has the best school system in the world. But even that was in my experience mostly waste of time. Nowadays it's even worse because we have internet. If I want to know something, I just google it.
Schools focus pretty much on one thing: they teach kids how to pass an exam. But who needs that kind of skill in the real world?
Schools don't teach anything really useful stuff, like creative problem solving. On the contrary, schools inhibit creativity by forcing everybody to sit quietly at their desks and obey the teacher.
I think it's safe to say that Chinese schools teach their kids to pass exams, and pass them very well. Whether or not they actually learn anything is another question. But an educated guess would be : not very much useful stuff at all. The problem is how the material is framed, it's not that it isn't useful or even important, it's that the purpose of learning is to pass exams.
You're right, Google and self learning is probably the best. It's just that the Chinese believe that they should steer their kids forcibly on what to learn and at what rate.
Creativity was never an agenda, and that's a serious problem too.
It's very interesting post..!!
Exchellent job..upvote...!!
thanks djsonic
@sweetsssj
hahaha, I love recess and lunch time in school and flag ceremony and I wish the principal would announce many things so we don't have to go to the classroom yet.
I have no kids and am happy to be free from parenting - it's a tough job to do. There's no such things as perfect parenting, I guess most parents can only do their best. However, I don't like the idea of spanking I'd definitely spare my kid a rod and give the child a chance of childhood knowing that these days, the game in life has changed even those who graduated from Harvard don't get employed so I'd definitely give my kid more freedom to choose but will surely train him while he's young (from the womb) by reading rational stuff to him haha :D
Did you guys have flag ceremony too?
You sound like you would be a great parent. I too wouldn't spank my children. I grew up with the fear of being caned at school, and I think that's not a way to encourage studious behaviour.
@sweetsssj yes the flag ceremony was the best we could sit on the grass when the principal announces something haha and roll or sleep some more haha
I won't be a parent and I admit being such a strict teacher but then that's what am being paid for - to make sure they study and get whatever they are studying in their head. However, it stops in the class - off the class teachers and parents should actually just let the kids specially the kids play hard, too. IMHO too much pressure makes them a dull kid and sometimes grow up with a Peter Pan syndrome sighs.
Thanks a lot for providing details on the Chinese educational system! I enjoyed this reading!
Although it may sound rude for someone from the outside (like me), locally where we are leaving much more freedom to the children, they turn out to be lazy, disrespectful, etc. We must probably think to try to get to something lying in the middle, where kids learn hard work but also have time to develop their creativity.
Needless to say I always had great experience when working with Chinese collaborators. They are in general people you can really rely on! :)
You're welcome lemouth and thanks for taking the time to read.
It's not rude at all, I think you're right. We need to find the middle ground where Children are inspired to work hard because they want to, not because they are forced to, and they also have enough time to think freely and develop some creative skills.
hope more chinese go for homeschooling :)
Would you subject them to tiger moms though!
Chinese are skilled at their jobs, so they want their children to do the same.
I think it extends pass wanting their children to be good at their jobs.
I don't think any parent would want their children to be unable to make something for themselves. But the point is their approach and what it says about the culture.