[Fleuri]

When talking about education in China, given that I just graduated from a chinese high school last year(I'm chinese), I think I can have a different view-point from others looking outside.

The fact is that, chinese students indeed have really really lots of things to learn in the subject of science, especially math, but something has missed, gravely. For example, the spirit of science. In china, students are told to be well-behaved, from the first step of the primary school till you graduated from high school or university, imagine that a 6 year-old boy obliged to wear a red scarf(Honglingjin in chinese) as a sign of being young pioneer(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Pioneers_of_China), and saying "Be prepared, to struggle for the cause of Communism!", that red scarf will accompanied with that boy, untill junior high school, yes, time to step into Communist Youth League, it will end till the university, where you can really choose to join the party or not.

Back in to the education, students here will learn truelly lots of knowledges in math, but for what? the love of science? No, for the exam. this is what I really want to talk about, the real main spirit that construct the form of education in China. For a normal student, when it comes to the education, it's the exam, like a hash, no other values, education => exam, study => better grades, pursuit of science => nil. The summit of your life being a student is the GaoKao, takes place once a year, depend and only depend on which you can enter your ideal university. For lots of students, it's the whole family's "dream", parents and teachers will say again and again the importance of get good grades in GaoKao, some student even commit suicide when they faild their GaoKao. Maybe you can already feel that something goes wrong, yes, student take "good" elementary education(especially in math), but with the misleading of the meaning of education, math, physics, chemistry, are nothing but a game of grades. Can you imagine that in high school, only 2/3 of time you can really learn somthing, and the 3rd year of the high school is a full-time practice of topics in exam, everything you are told to do and really do is solving wired and meaningless topics. After doing all this, when you finish the GaoKao, it's done, it's the very end of study, lots of students know nothing about what they should do in the future, because the game finished, and their's no grades for struggling.

You know, after GaoKao, a lot of chinese students go study in foreign universites(especially US) for the sake of, for example, Freedom. When it comes to me(I'm going to France this year), I nearly think that I'm a "survivor" of the form of education in China, I know what I really want, the high school was almost a "prison of spirit" for me, so it's really really exiciting when I graduated, I can really choose what I want to learn, start a startup company, study the real science but not those meaningless topics, do lots of things that aren't "well-behaved".

We are tend to see only good points of other education systems, because we know our own weakpoints, and the solution may be find in other systems, but the underlying problems are easy to be ignored. I wish this will helps you guys to see a different aspect of education in China, and cherish good things in your education system.

[damian2000]

Your comments are a great insight, thanks. It reminds me of an article I read about trainee Chinese pilots coming here to my country (Australia) to get required flight training. The Australian instructors are happy with their grades, but are generally not impressed by their spirit and attitude; i.e. they don't have a real love for flying.

[Fleuri]

You know what, part of pilots in China(not all indeed) come from families that aren't rich, or countryside(so they are really not rich), or just didn't get good grades in school. So become a commercial aviation pilot means family finance would really change, and enroll in the military is another backup solution when taking exam and going university is not a good choice.

[light3]

I don't think this is a problem isolated in China, I grew up in the Australian education system, went to a top 3 public high school, and the situation(at least for math/science) is the same. Subjects are taught by teachers who follow textbooks, where textbooks are full of practice questions to make sure you can give the correct answer. The underlying motivation for the material is missing - very very few teachers know the material or truly want to properly educate students.

The only difference is that the material is comparatively much less/easier than in the Chinese system, and motivation for students to do well is much lower - the exam has much less impact on the students future.

[Fleuri]

I think the way to teach math is really the problem to be solved, the math itself is such hard to find motivation to learn for most students if not combining with orther subjects. Teachers may also be confused about that.

[kaybe]

Your text might profit from a few breaks, it's somewhat hard to read without.

[Fleuri]

That's true, actually I wrote it in a text editor for programming, and those breaks disappeared mysteriously.

[chj]

Being a chinese much older than you and in retrospective, the real problem in China education is the lack of first rate teachers who really understand the topic they are teaching.

[Fleuri]

But without the changing of exam-oriented system(应试教育), talents of teachers won't be able to bring in to play in their work.

[chj]

Honestly exams are very weak once you really get the idea of what you are learning. I can absolutely know nothing about what I am learning and get a very high score in the exam. Richard Feynman also pointed this out during visiting years in Brazil. Students in China and Brazil suffer the same problem. There are first rate students, but without first rate guidance, most of them will be turned down to the levels of their teachers.

[pmarca]

Thank you for your very interesting post, and please ignore the pinhead complaining about formatting.