Comparing a city (even if it is more populace than some countries) to entire nations is ridiculous and proves nothing. If you took the aggregate IQ of all Chinese, they’d likely be near the bottom of the heap. Given; 200 million Chinese are said to be ‘rich’, 200 million live at a Mexican level of subsistence and 750+ million are abjectly poor.
The best taught students come from Scandinavian countries (Norway tops the list). This is because teaching is lauded there, has minimum university prerequisites and is in turn remunerated commensurately. Compare: the U.S., where they cannot even introduce performance-based wage schemes to incentivise better results lest the entire teachers union packs up their clubs and goes home! :smack:
Sure, 50 years of automaton-like communist indoctrination will yield quite a few pedants – 12-hour school days, 6 days per week, with failure meaning a life spent ploughing dirt, tends to have that effect. But, the trade-off is the creativity of the mind is curtailed and thus innovation needs to be ‘borrowed’ coughLockheedMartinecough as distinct from innovated by one’s self. The Chinese understand this and have been addressing this - e.g., cottoning on to the fact that science fiction (something once outlawed in China) was a key ingredient in Western childrens’ upbringing and accounted, at least in some way, for creative Occidental thinking - but, this takes generations to instil.
The OECD study was of cities around the world, but because the comparison involves so many children, and so many cities around the world, it is considered one of the key indicators of academic performance worldwide. And indeed there is now much soul-searching among the Nordic countries of how/why they have fallen from the top places in this study.
Anyway I was arguing against the assertion that the chinese education system is terrible. It’s quite a blip for such a terrible education system to include the world’s #1 city.
IQ? :dubious:
I’m working in an R&D department in China. My company, like many others I see here is definitely innovating, creating new products and capturing new markets. As well as encouraging creativity in the team, we also try to improve business practices with concepts like scrum, lean startup, kanban and so on. These concepts, and practices are incredibly popular among local companies.
Now, I’ve seen first-hand that this often comes into collision with chinese culture.
A Chinese scrum-master is often a de-facto team leader, as people here are too used to a rigidly hierarchical structure.
But I see this as a relatively small cultural issue, like every country has. Not a one-day-comeuppance problem as some are trying to paint it.
The idea of the Chinese being some kind of automatons that will take generations to get used to the idea of free thinking is nonsense.
China is well aware of the strengths and weaknesses of their education system. There is a lot of interest in rethinking how rigidly exam based the current system is, and emphasizing more creative thinking and authentic assessment. At the same time, the current system has a lot of history behind it, is seen as relatively meritocritous, and works reasonably well at educating a whole lot of people with relatively limited resources.
Though we’re largely in agreement overall, I’ve got to take issue with some of this.
IQ is a measure of raw intelligence and, though it does reflect an ability with problem-solving in many respects, it isn’t reflective of creativity per se. The depressing truth is that the Chinese have no less potential than anyone else to excel, but their ability to do so is being intentionally stifled. Actually, depressing truth doesn’t cover it. To intentionally hobble over a billion individuals in their personal development in this fashion for personal gain may not be something that is markedly visible, but it is a crime against humanity for all that. It’s that absence of creativity and the artificial suppression of potential that keeps the cheap labour force for the Chinese robber-barons in the CCP or with CCP connections.
As for the city in question, indeed. Shanghai has a reputation for doing things independently of even the national leadership given they’re trying to remain at the cutting-edge of the world rather than disappearing back under rice paddies. They’re effective enough at it that Beijing is inclined not to interfere.
In this as in so many other ways, those nations following the Nordic model are an example to us all… and example our leaders studiously ignore, even lie about in order to distract us from their success so they don’t have to worry about so many people wanting it. With apologies to the USA, the kind of ‘factoids’ I see coming out of the propaganda machines of vested interests when it comes to Sweden in particular is just risible, not standing up to a moment’s scrutiny in terms of hard facts. I saw some bizarre ‘index of freedom’ put together to demonstrate how woefully screwed Sweden is. On the list were such things as stronger banking regulations, counting against freedom given that made it less free, but counting for Sweden insofar as those regulations provided it with at least some insulation from some of the worst aspects of the current crash… not that, in a global economy, they could escape the effects of the folly of others altogether for having implemented them.
Beware such innovations. The only initiative I’ve heard on the SF front here was the banning of all TV programmes featuring time travel as ‘unrealistic escapism’ given time travel is impossible. Yes. I know. Stupid.
The point being that any initiative you hear coming out of China - for better or for worse - needs to be taken with a huge pinch of salt, even major initiatives, even major initiatives implemented by the leadership.
Initiatives implemented by the leadership simply die on the vine if not followed through by those lower on the chain of command. There were plenty of such initiatives under Hu Jintao to try and improve the education system. When I saw one of them not being put in motion in a college at which I was then teaching, a student wryly responded ‘Hu Jintao is not the dean of this university.’ That said it all, really.
Individuals have huge sway over large departments that affect things nationally. When a new leader comes in, higher management tends to go out with the previous leader as the new one brings in his own pals who will nod for anything he says. Leaders often come up with new ‘initiatives’ fairly randomly more to mark their territory than anything else in the manner of a dog pissing up against a lamp post. Initiatives tend to make a big noise with their introduction, but are frequently rescinded either because they’re bad and unworkable, or good and workable but not to the taste of some competing authority. You may not know which one is in play at any one time, nor will the people supposed to implement them know, nor will the leaders themselves given that the whole thing has disappeared into a grey area. This is a nation of laws, not the rule of law.
Finally, my favourite quote from all my time in China. It is here paraphrased, the words of a mid-ranking official.
“I can’t stand my boss, but I punish him all the time. I do everything he asks me to do without question.”
Comparing anything that happens in Shanghai with the rest of China is about as pointless as doing it with Hong Kong, also a ‘Chinese city’. You are actually the only person I have ever met after coming on for fourteen years in China who praises China’s education system. It’s such a God-awful mess that the top universities here, in trying to gain some standing in the world, have taken to ignoring examination results out of middle schools as anything other than the broadest guideline and implement their own examinations very often to permit students entry into what they hope and pray may yet be their hallowed portals.
The absence of innovation in China generally is so marked that even the top leadership under Hu and Wen were decrying it and trying to improve upon it. Their initiatives were ignored. Again, you’re seeing something from, perhaps, a very limited viewpoint in a very specific city that is not nationally reflected. I have taught in Baotou, Luoyang, (one of the country’s top universities), and Guilin. I have worked in industry in Chongqing. Of course innovation is not absent altogether. Some individuals can avoid or shake off the shackles. However, to say that is a general trend is nonsense. I have had well over 3,000 students in my time here. I’ve come to know every single one of them to some degree. I’ve seen their education system. I’ve seen what it produces, and what it produces all foreign teachers here have to fight against in order to make progress. I have absolutely no idea what you’re looking at here in praising China in areas in which every other observer I have ever met, the reformers in government and outside observers considering investment here have marked up as areas of failure. This is honestly beyond me.
Take a look outside your window. Are you sure it’s China you’re in? Right now, frankly, your remarks are so odd in the context of China as a whole I’m wondering whether you may not turn round in a dozen posts and say “Oh! China! Sorry, I thought you said Canada.”
That’s predicated upon the idea of one teacher for every 100 students. Class sizes here are comparable with class sizes in other nations - 20-40 - but yes indeed, the teaching methods are those utilised when you only have one teacher for a hundred students.
Cheating in exams in China is rife. It can go to great extremes here. I alerted the examination board of IELTS to a very common scam. There are actual businesses running that go around universities looking for good students of English to marry up with an IELTS examinee. Once one is located, the business has connections with officials who can make up false IDs with the fake examinee’s photo, but the real examinee’s personal details. The ID card, at least prior to my alerting the examination board to the scam, a not unreasonable means of ID and the only one used, there are a lot of poor communicators of English out there now with high IELTS scores.
The reality is here that much of the examination system is so unutterably meaningless that you can’t really blame an otherwise good student who can’t pass a nonsense exam for cheating it. The trouble is, presented as they are as mere awkward and meaningless hurdles, exams in China generally have fallen into disrepute and cheating is second nature.
There have been examples of captains of industry here who’ve got into high positions for nicking western patents and the like, faking them, and calling them their own. Degree certificates are not unusually handed out on the back of bribes.
I could write a book on the state of the education system here. These are just a few examples from just one area.
An article on Shanghai’s success you were talking about in trying to prove China has a good education system that goes on to analyse the system as a whole in precisely the terms I have done myself.
I did not read this article before making any of my above comments. This, for any observer of China, is commonplace knowledge leading to similar conclusions for each and, up to now anyway, every person observing it.
Again, it wasn’t me that started talking absolutes. I was arguing against the assertion that the standard of chinese education is terrible, period. Saying “Well, all right; they have one city that’s #1 in the world” (paraphrased) is conceding the point.
But many of the policies that have helped get Shanghai where it is, and indeed many of the cultural differences (such as parents taking an active interest in their children’s learning) apply to much of the rest of china.
If you’re seriously suggesting that standards are significantly lower in Beijing or Guangzhou, I’ll take that bet.
If you’re merely saying that standards are lower in the poorer interior of the country, then sure, they probably are. The quality of, say, medical care isn’t so great either. It’s not especially surprising or unusual for an emerging economy to have stark differences between regions.
And yes, I am living in Shanghai, so I see just how huge a city it is and how much poverty there is even here. It’s quite a success for them to have achieved what they have.
Yes, the Chinese education system is bad, sorry, end of. You’re talking about Shanghai, which is about as pointless as talking about Hong Kong. Educational reforms have been implemented in Shanghai that have not been implemented anywhere else in China. That’s a fact you’re perhaps unaware of. It is used as a test-bed for more modernising techniques. Some take hold, some don’t. The last I heard of was one in which they were planning on putting an end to historical revisionism.
Insofar as they can do maths well, first, read the article again. For a start, any results are suspect. Chinese students are never more sophisticated than when they’re cheating examinations. (And please, before commenting on that observation, read my comments on the topic above). I guess there’s no better education system for turning out people who know the Chinese take on history, Mao and Deng for that matter, but we’re talking here specifically about things that will help move China into the modern world and fine, we’ll give them maths. I already have, way back. Anything that they need to progress, and given the system is deliberately set up to prevent it, you may argue that if that’s not being quashed then the system is failing.
This is not because the government can’t get it right. It’s because the powers-that-be choose not to.
Still you are talking in absolutes about China and then in the same breath trying to exclude two of the biggest cities / regions.
What comment, the riot story? Cheating on these international, externally moderated exams for many years in a row with no accusations of significant cheating by the OECD is another matter.
I agree; because no data will ever change your opinion. But nonetheless, here’s another data point, comments by the OECD’s Andreas Schleicher that standards may also be high in many other provinces in China.
Have it your way. China has a good education system. I just suggest you don’t go shouting your discovery from the rooftops in the hearing of anyone who knows anything about it.
Have it your way. China has a good education system. I just suggest you don’t go shouting your discovery from the rooftops in the hearing of anyone who’s had experience of it, mind. To the best of my knowledge, your discovery is unique and everyone except you is as daft as I am.
How is my position (or “discovery” as you’re trying to put it now) unique? I just cited the special advisor on education to the OECD.
And note, my position is less emphatic than his.
I am simply arguing against the position that chinese education sucks, period. What you’ve done is repeatedly concede the point that standards are high in hong kong and shanghai, and now just ducked the point that there is data showing there may be high standards elsewhere in china also.
Nothing is left of your original point.
I agree with you on one thing; this is markedly silly.
Again, I can only express confusion. We’re talking China. You’re talking Shanghai and - heaven help us - Hong Kong, as if these are somehow the standards by which to judge the nation.
How long have you been in China… sorry, Shanghai… again?
As for why they excel at maths, that’s already been explained to you a few times now. The assertion was that creativity is stifled. The fact they do better at maths than anything else tends to underline the fact.
Indeed, for much of my teaching career here, I was repeating to students the mantra ‘English isn’t maths’.
… and before you say that the education system isn’t a mess because they do well at maths, when everything is taught as if it is maths, then that is a failed education system. They don’t even do well on that score given they have to point to a single - and very exceptional - city to even score in that department. An education system isn’t about doing well at maths. It’s about preparing people for life and the needs of the nation generally. If it fails to do that, it fails. I don’t think a nation of mathematicians is going to help China out much here.
… and again, the whole nonsense of taking one city out of an entire country and only letting the OECD judge attainments on that, not permitting them to consider everyone else in a nation of 1.2 billion.