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Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
Home > Blogs > Get on the Bus > Archives > 2007 > April > 03 > Entry
Seeking a liberal arts education … in China?
Snapshot USA: Our kids are too leisurely. Their instruction is too unfocused. They lack basic skills. They come out of school without the ability to perform basic functions and disappoint employers who have to send them for retraining in order to compete on the world economic stage. To rectify this problem, we create standards and connect them to tests kids are required to pass and judge schools on the results the way effective national education systems do in places like China. Critics say this crowds out important creative thinking instruction that has been a hallmark of our education system.
Snapshot China: Chinese kids are too rigidly focused on monotonous drilling of basic skills. They aren’t trained to consider the application of the skills. Everything is about passing the next test. They come out of school without the ability to think creatively and disappoint employers seeking an innovative edge in the world economy. To rectify this problem they create new schools which give kids more choices and freedoms they way effective national education systems do in places like the United States. Critics fear their children will lose the basic skill proficiency that has been a hallmark of the Chinese education system.
Here in the U.S., critics of our education system often speak admiringly of our international competitors and how they teach their kids. In Sunday’s New York Times, some Chinese reformers talk of the need to emulate the U.S. system.
This was one of three big education-related stories in the Times recently.
The No. 1 most read story today at NYTimes.com is the latest in a series of stories about the pressure on girls be perfect in school. And the Times also took an interesting look Sunday at parenting gay children today.
(I guess the DDN isn’t the only paper that’s a little education happy lately.)
The story on education in China I found interesting. The star of the piece is a Chinese girl now attending Harvard who is urging families back home to break with their tradition of relentlessly drilling for tests by instead including American-style extracurriculars into their studies in an effort to become more well-rounded.
Critics of the American system must have choked on their Corn Flakes at the thought of China emulating the U.S. education system rather than the other way around. But this story seems to point to the desperate need to find a middle ground. Can we somehow discover a way to produce well-rounded graduates with curiosity, outside interests and creative thinking skills who also, on a wide scale, possess top-flight basic skill proficiency?
What do you think? Do both nations need to seek a middle ground?
(Image credit: www.theodora.com)
Permalink | Comments (6) | Categories: Testing
Comments
By Oldprof
April 4, 2007 7:20 PM | Link to this
Mary, you cite Mozart but fail to understand my reference to him. Yes, the schools should identify and accelerate that >5% of the students who can benefit from such instruction—just as it should determine which types of education might benfit the >5% of the students who are learning disabled. But that middle 90%+ are the ones that are currently ill-served by reformers drunk on the elixir of endless quality improvement and ceaseless innovation. As Miles Brand so sagely put it, “Innovation means throwing away what works.” We’ve seen education move away from the days when teachers figured out what worked, instead now we have administrative initiatives with alphabet soup names: ZBB, TQM, CQI, etc.etc.—I’m hoping the next one will be called DWW (Do What Works).By Mary
April 4, 2007 10:26 AM | Link to this
oldprof, I do not think you are historically or pedagocially accurate regarding “age appropriate”. As pointed out in the Templeton Study “How schools hold back their brightest students” at www.nationdeceived.org, age is not the determinant of where a child is. We would suffocate a Mozart with our education policies that hyperfocus on age and seat time as opposed to ability and readiness to learn at higher levels. The Templeton study discussess the myth of “age appropriate” when it comes to an academic education. Students were routinely grade and class accelerated throughout critical parts of our history including World War II. In the late 1930s, one of my aunts went to the University of Georgia when she was 14 or 15 and graduated at the age of 19 or so when we got involved in World War II. Throughout history worldwide, students have been allowed to progress at their own rate and many attended colleges at very young ages. Our current education system is very backwards. The Ohio legislature recently passed a requirement that schools have an acceleration policy in place. Most do not becuase of backward thinking about social issues with children of high ability. A lot depends on the individual child, not their age.By Oldprof
April 4, 2007 8:38 AM | Link to this
Why play an either-or game when it could be both-and? The US education system was outrageously successful in the early 20th century, producing more Nobel laureates per capita than any nation and providing the engineers who turned the tide to our favor in WWII. The main difference was an age-appropriate curriculum, one that didn’t try to get very young children to do critical thinking and creativity before they mastered basic grammar and arithmetic. A broad curriculum at all levels is proper, but trying to get a first-year student to “create” anything of quality— unless that six-year-old is a Mozart—is a losing proposition.By Scott Elliott
April 4, 2007 7:36 AM | Link to this
Oops. Thanks for the catch on “our.”By dirk sniggler
April 4, 2007 5:33 AM | Link to this
Am I the only one to see the irony in the opening sentence: “Our kids our too leisurely” ?By Mary
April 3, 2007 1:02 PM | Link to this
I think posturing on this issue is to deflect all the blame from those in charge here and in China and place it on the workers, the government, and the education system. Companies here like to imply that only the education system is to blame for education woes, lack of creativity and innovation. Most bosses will rip the gizzards out of anyone who tries to use their creativity. The book I mentioned a few weeks ago on this blog “A Perfect Mess - the Hidden benefits of disorder” places a lot of blame on companies for overemphasizing neatnesss as opopsed to function and creativity. What is well rounded anyway? Is that the same thing as worn into a dull object? Embracing differences and eccentricities is one way to embrace creativity. Tell that to your average dull well-rounded executive whose pay exceeds his brains and creativity.