BBC Show: Are British Kids Tough Enough to Handle Chinese School?

[mungouk]

These episodes are on youtube if anyone's interested:

 

S01E01

S01E02

S01E03

 

See also some reactions in China reported in English via Xinhua and CGTN. 

 

[roddy]

Generally, if something's interesting enough to post about, we'd appreciate it if people write at least a line or two about it, rather than a simple copy and paste. 

[suMMit]

好吧

[Xiao Kui]

Quote

 

being educated by Chinese teachers using traditional Chinese teaching methods

 

 

This is almost never a good idea...

[roddy]

Merged the above few posts with the earlier discussion. 

[Dawei3]

Many of my Chinese friends who came to the US for grad school would likely disagree with this.  A surprising number say they learned "nothing" in college (under the "superior" Chinese teaching methods).  Notably, those that came were typically top or near the top of their class.  Many were in the top % of their high school.

  

On 1/13/2020 at 9:05 AM, suMMit said:

for a period of four weeks

In addition to Jan's excellent point about an appropriate control group, how much can really be measured from 4 weeks of teaching?  Regarding learning 4 wks of Mandarin, what could be tested other than that from rote memorization?  Also, the teachers likely knew they were being evaluated and it's quite reasonable to think they were motivated to show their superiority over this very short time.  A appropriate comparison would be from a year or years of study.

 

I had always read about how K-12 students from China rank as superior academically when compared internationally.  Then someone pointed out, these rankings are based on students from just 4 highly developed areas in China:  Beijing, Shanghai, Zhejiang and (I forget the 4th).  These are more affluent than the rest of the country.  If student performance from Yunan or Xinjiang was compared internationally, the ranking would be far lower.  I'd love to see an accurate comparison.      

[Jan Finster]

Would be interesting to put Chinese students into a Finnish school for a year?. 

This video was shared a lot by my Chinese friends on Facebook. They were all in utter disbelief about how nice school could be? :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHHFGo161Os

[somethingfunny]

Don't be fooled.  Finnish schools were once the envy of the world, but their embrace of progressive education policy is coming to fruition and the result is a continued slip down PISA rankings.

 

The UK, on the other hand, has embraced some aspects of traditional teaching methods that would be common place in schools in China, and they have seen their position move up recently.

 

I'd like to know what exactly is meant by "traditional Chinese teaching methods", and how this differs from just plain "traditional teaching methods".  The forefront of the educational debate in the UK is a return to certain aspects of so-called "traditional" teaching, mainly as a remedy to going too far down the progressive rabbit-hole.  I wouldn't want to go to a Chinese school, but there are plenty of "traditional" schools in the UK that I would be more than happy attending.

 

On the question of whether or not British pupils are tough enough for a Chinese school, the answer is emphatically "yes".  To find out what's happening, simply google "strict schools in britain" and you'll see what our young men and women are capable of.

[Balthazar]

8 hours ago, Dawei3 said:

Many of my Chinese friends who came to the US for grad school would likely disagree with this.  A surprising number say they learned "nothing" in college (under the "superior" Chinese teaching methods)

 

Isn't there a big difference between primary/secondary/high school and college in China? Not that I have any personal experience with it, but I've heard there is very little work involved at college undergraduate level (but that's it hard as hell up until and through gaokao).

[roddy]

Agreed, nobody is trying to emulate Chinese colleges. 

[somethingfunny]

Yes, seconded. It’s not useful to talk collectively about Chinese high schools and universities.  In the same way, it’s probably also not helpful to talk about Beijing high schools and Guizhou high schools as being the same thing.

[roddy]

11 hours ago, somethingfunny said:

To find out what's happening, simply google "strict schools in britain" and you'll see what our young men and women are capable of.

Why not cut out the middlegoogle and just tell us what you want us to look at...

[somethingfunny]

How about this...

[Flickserve]

There must be some balance in-between very strict Asian type education (China, Japan, S Korea, S'pore) and progressive type where they fall into a trap of bringing up a generation of 'thinkers' without substance. 

 

Discipline at school is good. However, teachers are there to teach. Discipline comes from the home.

 

11 hours ago, Balthazar said:

I've heard there is very little work involved at college undergraduate level (but that's it hard as hell up until and through gaokao).

 

Suspect it is very lecture based for a lot of courses.

[Flickserve]

20 hours ago, Dawei3 said:

In addition to Jan's excellent point about an appropriate control group, how much can really be measured from 4 weeks of teaching?  Regarding learning 4 wks of Mandarin, what could be tested other than that from rote memorization?  Also, the teachers likely knew they were being evaluated and it's quite reasonable to think they were motivated to show their superiority over this very short time.  A appropriate comparison would be from a year or years of study.

 

I agree. However you really want to evaluate 'effctiveness' which is a measure of an intervention under real world conditions. That's a strength of the experiment. 12h a day versus 7h a day is part of the experiment. What you have to consider in the real world is in those 5h of free time, what would the kids be usually doing? If they are doing ECA's, then that useful time. But frequently, they are watching YouTube or gaming. I think boarding schools are quite disciplined in that prep time is organised and expected. Private schools have a culture of being more disciplined than many government schools in UK so I think that's where better results come out.

 

Sidenote: If government schools had a stricter policy on discipline, then probably we would see a rise in achievement. I don't think continual attacks by labour on private schools is the answer. Labour party should concentrate on bringing standards up and not bringing standards down. 

[geraldc]

I haven't been here in a while, but the updates kept pinging in my inbox about a thread I'd posted in years ago, so I thought I'd come back! Good to see so many old names still here.

 

I don't think Labour have attacked private schools. They haven't been in power for 10 years after all. They have raised the fact that private schools have undeserved charitable status (ask your local private school how much they give back, and it's all about preserving the endowment, not about bringing in more assisted places and scholarships). Labour also proposed putting VAT on school fees which I don't think is too bad an idea if the tax revenues went to those at the bottom of the state sector. The great thing about that, is the private schools would all take the hit and absorb the cost, rather than raise fees 20% and see their enrolment fall.

 

My local state primary school keeps topping the league tables, so everyone tries to get their kid in. However it's a Church of England School and if I wanted to get my daughter in there for entry at 5, I'd have to go to church every Sunday for 3 years, pretend to believe in God, and hope the vicar writes me a good reference.  The closest private school to me is the UK's first dual language Mandarin and English prep school. My wife has vetoed that for cultural and political reasons (simplified characters etc), although our Taiwanese friends are happy to send their daughter there. The school follows a Chinese language curriculum from America rather than one from China. However the Chinese govt keeps sending people to visit the school for some reason...

 

WIth regards to the original topic of this thread, It's also going in reverse, UK schools are going out to the Far East. Are Chinese parents tough enough for UK private school? The private school I went to as a child (essentially a grammar school that went rogue when Labour ended grant maintained status in the 1970s(?) has done well over the years and has become a "brand" and is this year opening branches in Singapore and Suzhou.  The idea of 11 year olds in Shanghai learning Latin and the adventures of Caecillius and Grumio still makes me laugh. It's a hard enough language to persuade people to study in the West. Trying to persuade a Chinese parent that their son/daughter needs to do the Cambridge Latin course rather than spend more time doing maths or science will be tough.

The best prep school near me, famously has a non competitive policy. There are no rankings, children are never told where they are in the class, its all about building confidence in the child. I really can't see anyone in China accepting a report that doesn't tell them what position they are in class.

 

As I now have a 2.5 year old toddler, I seem to spend a lot of time in various Facebook bilingual parenting groups. If you think the Chinese Tiger and helicopter mums are bad wait till you experience the West Coast American mum (non Chinese) putting their kid through immersive Chinese pre school. To update the old phrase, 天不怕地不怕，就怕老外soccermom讲普通话