Continuing with interview with Jeff Brown, an Oklahoma teacher living and working in Beijing, China. In part 2, Jeff answers questions about his school and the Chinese education system as well the struggles Chinese educators deal with in the day-to-day execution of their jobs.
Information about Jeff’s new book is posted at the end of the article. We will have two of Jeff’s books available for bid at the OSTA Silent Auction on November 2nd during the OSTA Staff Development Conference. Remember, 100% of the Silent Auction proceeds go to awards and recognition of students at the Oklahoma State Science Fair so come to the conference and bid early and bid often.
BM: So, you teach in an international school. How does that school differ from the rest of the Chinese education system?
JB: Daystar Academy is an interesting school, in that it is international, but its license allows us to teach children of Chinese nationality. Legally, foreigners are not allowed to teach Chinese children K-12. But our founder got this exemption, which is fantastic from a cultural standpoint. This is probably due in part to us being totally bilingual, half days in English and half days in Chinese. This year I am teaching the full spectrum of 6th grade English curriculum, including science, which is a blast. Compared to Chinese schools, we work in relative comfort, with around 20 students per class and a full time teaching assistant with me, so the student-teacher ratio is 10:1. In Chinese schools, a number of them which I have visited, there are routinely 50-75 students packed behind long tables and benches for desks. There is maybe a poster or two to brighten up often dingy, poorly lit classrooms and an old fashioned blackboard for the teacher. But learn they do!
BM: How are the schools in China organized? I assume the majority of students are enrolled in public schooling. Would we recognize the framework?
JB: Yes Bob, the vast majority go to public schools. The whole system is managed by the national Ministry of Education. The MOE is then represented by its 34 provincial bureaus. These provincial level bureaus give the licenses for schools to open and they faithfully make one inspection visit per year. China offers taxpayer supported public school education for grades 1-9, the minimum time in school required by law. However, like in America, there are huge disparities between schools and school districts, and like the US, China has developed a burgeoning private school industry to satisfy the demands of the world’s fastest growing middle class. The same Chinese curriculum is taught border to border, but with 55 minorities, there are supplemental curricula in their respective languages or about their history, etc. China takes multiculturalism very seriously and the minorities carry unusually heavy clout, in spite of all the unfortunate conflicts in Tibet, which I address fully in 44 Days. Two competing publishers sell all the nationally approved text books and the prices are set after hard-nosed negotiations with the MOE. They are very inexpensive.
BM: Are they organized around a national curriculum? How are teachers trained in preparation for entry into the teaching profession?
The United States is unusual in the world for not having a unified national curriculum. Because of “provincial rights”, Canada and Australia, two countries with a history of a rural-urban dichotomy, have some regional independence, but not like America’s 50 Departments of Education. So, China is very much in the mold of most countries, in that the curriculum K-12 is planned and put forth by the national Ministry of Education. Elementary school teachers need to graduate from high school and then get two years at a “normal” university, where they either specialize to teach mathematics or language arts. Middle and high school teachers, like in the US, teach specific subjects and need a four year degree in that subject. Across all disciplines, the competition for university placement is legendary, with over nine million taking the national entrance exam each year for a coveted spot in the better universities. Even to get through high school is quite an accomplishment, as each year there is a “one size fits all”, high stakes advancement exam. You can take it again, but you are not moving forward until you pass. Stories of students cracking up under all the pressure, the endless hours of cram schools on weekends and evenings are regular fodder in the popular press. Parents are all over their kids to succeed and will even go to their classes and take notes if their children are absent. It’s pitiless. The Chinese education system is not for the faint of heart and there is a real love-hate relationship with it among the public. This is a system after all, that goes back for thousands of years, with passing the Mandarin exams to work in the upper echelons of government. With that kind of deep rooted legacy, change is hard in a socially conservative culture like China’s.
BM: Tell us about the academic year and a typical day at a Chinese and international school in China.
JB: Chinese education is not only psychologically grueling, but it is lengthy as well. Whereas America and most international schools have about 180 schools days per year, China has 220 – a full eight weeks more! The school year starts the first of September for the Chinese and goes until mid-July, totally about 44 weeks. The days are long too. Primary school goes 08:30-15:30. But the middle school day balloons to 07:30-17:00 and high school, 07:00-17:00, with typically 1-2 hours after this to work on passing the high stakes exam at the end of the year. International schools have to respect Chinese and Western holidays. So, we break a week in October for Chinese National Day, two weeks for the Western winter/New Year’s, 2-3 weeks in January-February for Chinese New Year, 2-3 days for May Day and the odd holiday like the Mid-Autumn Festival, Tomb Cleaning Day and the Dragon Boat Festival. Chinese holidays fluctuate like Easter, using an ancient lunar calendar. My school year starts the first week of September and we go until the end of June. My daily class goes 08:20-15:35 and I’m on duty 07:55-17:00, with a 16:00 departure on Fridays.
BM: What is their approach to science education? What is a particular strength of their science education? A weakness?
First, just as the system as a whole is brutal, so it is in the class. Humiliation is pervasive. Students who don’t understand something are often forced to stand at the board in front of the class to figure it out, while being taunted by their peers. The teacher rules with an iron fist and lessons are commanding and didactic. Student group discussion, scaffolding, inquiry based learning and TLC for the ADHD kids? Forget it. In between classes and on the playground, there is little to no supervision, so it can take on Lord of Flies aspects, with a lot of what we would call bullying and intimidation. It’s more like nonstop hazing at a military school than what we would consider a “safe and supporting” environment. Again, there is a lot of popular recrimination about this, but getting it to change in a country with 3,000 years of continuous history is like turning an oil tanker around: it takes a lot of energy, planning and focus, as well as a long time.
So this atmosphere is no different in science class. At the same time, hands-on experiments are a rare treat, as most science learning is done from a book. They would of course like to do more cool, exciting experiments (we all have this wish, right?), but that takes money and in a country with 20% of the world’s people, we’re talking big bucks. Thus mass produced textbooks fit the bill, with several field trips each year to museums or nature parks to round out the lessons. Legions of Chinese school groups on field trips are ubiquitous at cultural and nature sites around the country.
China’s greatest strength in science is that teaching it is unfettered by political agendas and religious ideologies. You don’t have corporate lobby groups spending millions to influence the curriculum’s content, nor do you have Buddhist or Muslim factions complaining about insults to their beliefs. Science is science. Education here is too sacred for that to happen anytime soon. China’s science community pursues all its different disciplines in the pursuit of knowledge and reason, and the quality of their peer reviewed research is growing dramatically. In an increasingly competitive 21st century, Americans had better sit up and take notice.
BM: Are there particular aspects of the Chinese education system from which we could benefit if we were to adopt/adapt?
Chinese teachers here are paid about as well as they are in the States, which means pretty poorly, but they are revered here at all levels of society. This admiration for educators in China goes back 500 years before Christ, with Confucius. I tell a stranger I’m a school teacher and I can immediately see and sense their respect and near reverence for my profession. This filters into the classroom. My students have boundless respect for me, simply because I’m a teacher. This is true of the parents too, which is such a joy. For that reason alone, I love being here as an educator, instead of being whipsawed like a pawn in umpteen American political, cultural and ideological turf wars. Chinese teachers do have one important perk to show society’s appreciation for them: they are exempt from personal income tax on their salaries. September 29th is also National Teacher Appreciation Day and Chinese teachers are showered with gifts and praise from the community.
BM: What do Chinese science teachers struggle with the most? Here in Oklahoma, we struggle politically with teaching evolution and climate change. Are these topic a struggle for teachers in China?
For Chinese science teachers, the biggest struggle is the limited hands-on lab or in-field materials and equipment and having to resort to book learning. Evolution and climate change here are fact. You go into a science or provincial museum and there are whole sections devoted to evolution and natural selection, starting with a common ancestor 3.5 billion years ago. The famous visual of humans evolving from left to right, with ever more erect stature, from Australopithecus to Homo sapiens, is common in museums. Ditto climate change. All of this is also factually presented in the press. No arguments here. I have visited natural science museums in “liberal” American cities like Boston and was stunned at how much energy and display space were dedicated to the “arguments” of evolution and climate change. That is looked upon as total lunacy here and they really cannot grasp why there is all this denial in the face of rational science. The Chinese are if anything, usually pragmatic and logical.
When OSTA and OESE have asked members to write their representatives, I have done so on several occasions. I tell them Mao Zedong must be smiling from his Tiananmen Square mausoleum at our folly, as we expend priceless time and energy on vacuous inanities, while China is building an empire for the future. I’m still waiting for their reply letters. The problem with ideology, no matter what stripe or color, is that the truth (science) goes out the window, if it does not fit the overarching paradigm. The fact that these ideological extremists in America also happen to be very well funded and control many branches and levels of government makes for a toxic cocktail indeed. Zealots also have another common trait: they are relentless in the pursuit of their goals, not matter the consequences. Thus, OSTA and OESE have a never ending, Sisyphean battle on their hands.
BM: Is there a Chinese equivalent to NSTA?
Not that I know of, but all Chinese teachers are members of their labor union, which has representatives at all levels of the national education system. They have the opportunity to meet locally or up to the provincial level, to make their needs heard and run it up the flagpole.
BM: Jeff, thank you for your time and participating in this informative interview
JB: Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share with my fellow Oklahoma science teachers a day in the life of being an educator in China. I hope they enjoy reading this interview as much as I’ve enjoyed doing it!
Jeff’s new book, 44 Days Backpacking in China: The Middle Kingdom in the 21st Century, with the United States, Europe and the Fate of the World in Its Looking Glass, is available at 44 Days Amazon Barnes & Noble iTunes Kindle Nook. Jeff looks forward to your comments and dialog via his blog at 44 Days, where this interview will also be posted. He welcomes all comments, audiovisual and written interviews. jeff@44days.net.