Is this true? - Tsinghua requires students to be able to swim in order to graduate

[lips]

http://sports.sina.com.cn/others/swim/2017-03-27/doc-ifycstww1368771.shtml

 

[roddy]

C'mon, explain what you're linking to, give your own opinion, then ask what others think. Bit of effort. Be the change I want to see in the world.

[lips]

3 minutes ago, lips said:

 

http://sports.sina.com.cn/others/swim/2017-03-27/doc-ifycstww1368771.shtml

 

 

OK.

 

1.  Saw this on a well-known Chinese sports website.

2.  Want to know from those who attend (or attended) Tsinghua if it is true.

3.  My opinion is that this is not a good idea.

4.  What do others think?

 

Did I pass?

 

This is a new forum rule, right?

[roddy]

Yeah, just this last decade or so. Compare this guy. Could have posted an image with the title 'help please' and nothing else, but took the time to contribute a little backstory and human interest.

 

There's no way from your post for anyone to have even the vaguest of ideas what it's about, and for anyone who can't read Chinese the link's going to be no use. 

[somethingfunny]

I remember seeing students take the high school physical fitness (running) test for physical education that gets recorded on their transcript - total joke.  It'll just be another box to tick, like the 'computing classes' that students take in high school.

 

[lips]

谢谢。

Thank you very much.

 

 

[Lu]

Thanks for also clarifying a bit in the title what the article is about. I just took a look, it seems reliable. Generally I think swimming classes are a great idea for everyone who is against drowning (but then I'm from a watery country), but I think they're more useful in kindergarten or primary school. You can save heaven knows how many children from drowning that way. By the time people go to university, they're old enough to decide for themselves how much time they want to spend on what sports. If Tsinghua wants to uphold a tradition of university sports, it seems to me there must be better ways to foster that. Put some money into various sports programs, make sure you have good facilities, support student clubs in that area, etc. They could even select for active students. Although that would just result in even more pressure on secondary school children.

[roddy]

Arguably swimming is much more likely to be a useful life skill for some students than a foreign language, but they still have to learn English. It won't be to any meaningful level though - more likely there'll be good intentions until they realise they need to build 75 new swimming pools, at which point everyone will have to sign a form to request an exemption due to hydrophobia. 

[Shelley]

This is strange to me, I expect everyone should be able to swim, same as I expect everyone should be able to ride a bike. Can't imagine not being able to do these things.

As a compulsory activity at least swimming is possibly more useful than any other sport could be i.e.: it could save your life.

 

[imron]

I used to live in a seaside town in China.

 

Many people there couldn't swim and weren't interested in learning as they viewed water as "dangerous".  Which it is if you can't swim.

 

It's very common in China for people not to be able to swim.

[Geiko]

59 minutes ago, imron said:

It's very common in China for people not to be able to swim.

 

So common that they even have a word for it, 旱鴨子。

 

Edit to add: last year I met a friend in Taiwan. She brought me to the seaside, and had planned to rent some bikes to cruise around. She hadn't even asked me if I could ride a bike because she took it for granted, but I can't. She was really surprised, but then I asked her if she could swim, and she couldn't. I told her that for me being a 旱鴨子 was as shocking as not being able to ride a bike for her. In the end, we rented a tandem

[889]

This was once a very common graduation requirement in the U.S., now rarely.

 

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-10-01/news/ct-met-university-swim-tests-20121001_1_requirements-student-newspaper-students-options

[Lu]

1 hour ago, imron said:

Many people there couldn't swim and weren't interested in learning as they viewed water as "dangerous".

Same in Taiwan.

 

Now I wonder how the Netherlands became a country where pretty much everyone over the age of six can keep themselves afloat. During the time of the United East Indian Company, many sailors couldn't even swim, and nowadays virtually every child gets at least two swimming diplomas. There must be an interesting bit of history there.

[johnk]

About 30 years ago I was staying in a fishing village on the west coast of Ireland. The 'new' local priest was trying to organize swimming lessons for the local kids. Many of the parents didn't want their kids to learn to swim. The reasoning being that if you fell off a fishing boat in the North Atlantic, then it was better to die quickly rather than prolong the agony.

Different times, different attitudes.

[Lumbering Ox]

Same thing in Newfoundland back in the day. Why swim, better off drowning.

 

 

[歐博思]

A couple of my former Chinese university colleagues mentioned that vis-à-vis Western university students, Chinese university students' mental development age was more akin to U.S. high school students; in my high school in the U.S., we were required to pass a swimming class, so it makes total sense to me at least to require passing a swimming class to graduate from a Chinese university.

[Shelley]

11 hours ago, Lumbering Ox said:

Same thing in Newfoundland back in the day. Why swim, better off drowning.

 

More like why swim when you can get rescued by a huge black friendly Newfoundland dog, the only dog with web feet.

 

I was born in Montreal, and swimming was a standard part of growing up. Not sure if it was actually required by any school or other education body but sort of compulsory to being a kid growing up in the 60's.

[艾墨本]

7 hours ago, 歐博思 said:

Chinese university students' mental development age was more akin to U.S. high school students;

This is often generous. My students flirt by hitting each other and calling each other names. They lack the foresight to see how cause and effect are related. They rarely have their own opinions and few can do or schedule an activity independently. I used to get frustrated that my school treated the students like kids because I thought they only acted like kids because they were being treated like kids. It took me a good year to realize that, no, they very much are at the maturity level of a kid. However, the difference between first years, second years, and third years is huge. By the time they are third years they are acting and carrying themselves like I'd expect an "adult" to do so. Second years tends to be extra rebellious for a semester or two then suddenly, bam!, and they get their act together. Quite fun to watch it all happen so rapidly. I imagine it'd be even more intense at Qinghua since a major reason for developmental delays in China (even physically for many) is a result of the intense studying regiments they are on that only allow 5-6 hours asleep for a few years and little to no time for individuality, experimentation, making life mistakes, etc. Talking with a local teacher here, they seemed to have the opinion that college was the time for those things. All an interesting contrast to the US where, socially speaking, that's what "kids" should do in high school to get it out of their system before the real-world starts in college.

 

This is all far away from swimming, though.

 

That said, swimming is often seen as a "rich" person activity based on my interactions. In that, only those that can afford to visit a pool will know how to swim. But, I also live next to the desert in Gansu.

[thechamp]

I'm skeptical of Chinese standards for swimming lessons. I think it's actually more dangerous to be able to swim 'a bit' than to not be able to swim at all. I have swum in China in rivers and off the coast of Taiwan I've surfed a lot, and sometimes with Chinese or Taiwanese people who actually really should not have been going in the water anywhere that wasn't lifeguarded. Being able to swim short distances like 50 or 100 metres in a sort of breast stroke/doggy paddle hybrid shouldn't give you the confidence to swim in open water.

Where I lived in southern Taiwan actually a lot of people died in the water, and people die in the rivers all the time in China. I really couldn't believe how confident Chinese people were to swim in rivers when they could barely do a 150 metre river crossing. If they have swimming lessons they should be really hot on safety and advise people against swimming in open water unless they do some longer swims in pools

[somethingfunny]

19 minutes ago, thechamp said:

I really couldn't believe how confident Chinese people were to swim in rivers when they could barely do a 150 metre river crossing.

 

People in Taiwan might not be that great in the water, but on the mainland...