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Q: What do Chinese students at "prestigious" schools learn that regular schools don't teach?
I taught in a level two university for a year and I'm sure it's not a question of the schools not offering certain subjects because the school isn't elite enough, rather the students are so lazy, simple minded and glued to shitty Chinese and Korean soaps that it isn't possible to teach them anything.
Compare this with Harvard, where there are probably loads of George Bushes, Bo Xilai jrs and little Xis who're only in there because of their lineage, but a teacher can still stand before them and talk about complex subjects because the rest of the class are actually capable of absorbing the information while peer pressure and the obligatory grade inflation to protect the honour of the chinless wonders covers the arses of the slack simpletons who would otherwise pull it down.
I tried to teach finance and western philosophy, but was inundated with requests to talk about celebrities - in other words people I couldn't give a rat's arse about because the mob were led braying into a room when they should have been led braying towards a farm or a salt mine.
This leads me to posit the following question:
Is the shitty education caused by the mob mentality or the unscrupulousness of educational institutions and their bums on seats philosophy of education?
Chicken or the egg?
8 years 50 weeks ago in Teaching & Learning - China
I would say they get ABOUT the same education one would receive back home in a normal public school.
It depends on the school really. I have seen some big time international schools that were a lot worse than normal schools back home and some perhaps a little better (but it will cost you SO MUCH MORE...)
Universities?... I think they all pretty much suck to be honest in China. Even the big name schools in Mainland China are probably worse than most Western Universities. That is what I hear anyway.
I would never refer China as a place to aid any child or adult in their education...
Ive been working at a private boarding school gong on 2 years. I can honesty say the 12-14 year olds I teach are pretty curious about science. Granted, they are into the Chinese and Hollywood celeb stuff too, but its not an ongoing problem.
As for the education system, its only as good as its administration and teachers, so I would say it would depend on where one is. Im certain my private school limits their "worldy" connection to the BS media hype of what you mentioned (soap operas, teen idols, etc.)
I would say they get ABOUT the same education one would receive back home in a normal public school.
It depends on the school really. I have seen some big time international schools that were a lot worse than normal schools back home and some perhaps a little better (but it will cost you SO MUCH MORE...)
Universities?... I think they all pretty much suck to be honest in China. Even the big name schools in Mainland China are probably worse than most Western Universities. That is what I hear anyway.
I would never refer China as a place to aid any child or adult in their education...
What I hope I can convey is that if your intention is to obtain a good education as an undergraduate, you can get just as good level of quality of tuition at a mid level school as you would at a so called elite school because college rankings are based on the research of the faculties in the institutions rather than because of the quality of teaching.
A guy from NZ paid $25,000NZ to go to Yale and learn political science when he could have gotten a student loan and learned the same things for an eighth of the price at an NZ university.
I'm confident most European, American, Canadian, British, Australian and New Zealand schools can supply that just fine.
Just tuhao band seeking behaviour in my eyes, but low level Chinese schools can't offer what dinguses throughout the west can get so easily.
Stiggs:
I don't know much about Yale educations, and what you can learn there as opposed to what you can learn in other places, and I do mostly tend to agree with you...but I reckon what people are paying for when they go to those places - aside from the education which they probably believe is better - are the doors that will be opened to you in the job market with the Yale degree.
If two people apply for a really good job, both studied political science and did well but one studied at Yale, the other at a little known uni in smalltown somewhere... well my money would be on the Yale guy getting the job.
laowaigentleman:
Sorry, just so you're clear. This guy spent $25,000 of his dad's money per SEMESTER at Yale to get a political science degree.
His dad is some klepto-kaumatua from the East Coast.
The guy now walks around the country waving the rasta and tino rangatiratanga flag while bellowing left wing platitudes through a fog horn.
Stupid is as stupid does.
Lets be totally honest here... western philosophy does not earn money. Its an academic subject. Chinese want hard subjects. They want to be employable, so they study Engineering, physics, Chemistry......
The only thing philosophy graduates can do is teach more philosophy to future philosophy teachers. The western world is over run with philosophy teachers.
In my 30 years in industry, I have never ever come across a project manager with a degree in philosophy.
Look dude. Don't blame China because you got a degree in a stupid subject.
Philosophy is simple. The answer is 42.
laowaigentleman:
That stopped me in my tracks.
They do a pretty poor job of becoming employable when they're glued to an electronic device in engineering class.
You can make the same argument about history. Ultimately all history graduates can do is teach history, but the benefits of teaching such a subject are that people analyze the past and draw lessons from it. A practice which is copiously lacking in the PRC and has verifiable consequences which can be traced to the absence of a facet of education which is non-utilitarian.
I don't have a philosophy degree by the way, but I think it is a subject which should be taught as a component part of an engineering or physics programme. Why? Well scientists like Heisenberg, Bohr and Einstein - these three I am most sure about - had a deep interest in philosophy and it had a direct and traceable influence on their work.
Do you know the Indian word for philosophy? It's darsana which can be translated as "the lamp of all the sciences" it is a framework which provides an array of perspectives which allows a percipient to reflect upon their participation in the apparent in order to discern what is actually real. I'm not sure how I can phrase this more clearly. Too much jargon here.
The Chinese have no framework, hence they're poor at science despite all of the hours they put into study and all of the money they pour into it.
All they have is obsolete, obscurantist, sinocized, power for its own sake, dumbed-down fake marxism which only serves to stultify their understanding of virtually all of the practical subjects due to the absence of a coherent system to unify and give perspective to their findings.
Consider also the way they worship GDP growth without being able to reflect on the fact that the concept of GDP could be described as being subject to the limitations of the method of variational concommitance. An understanding of a philosophical concept could have saved people who were so desperate to be employable with an economics or engineering degree from a lot of folly.
As long as this is the case, China will always be a country with its training wheels on because it is an understanding of philosophy which they lack and the consequences of lacking an understanding in this subject is short-sightedness in scientific investigation and narrow minded crude self-interested opportunism in their ethics.
Not that devoting four years of your life to the subject is worth it, but it should be an important component of any tertiary level course.
And the answer isn't 42, it's 42.2 recurring because I'm a solipsist and you can't prove to me that you really exist :-)
ScotsAlan:
sorry laowiagent. I had a dig at you because of an issue I am having. My attack was unwarranted, and I apologise. Humbly. Having isssues with Yangists.
laowaigentleman:
Alan, I didn't take it that way at all. Don't worry. I know what you're like and you know what I'm like. I very occasionally go postal, but you were anything but.
Philosophy is actually useful though. We can genuinely agree to disagree on this point but I can cite numerous examples of how it can be useful and should feature as a part of virtually any field of study to provide perspective.
Maybe I did waste too many years of my life trying to understand Kant though.
Give the yangist shangba laos hell, my friend! 
Some countries have only public (government) inuversities, and others have a large presence of private (for profit) universities. Britain and the USA have a strong private uni presence, and it encourages elitism. The best professors go private for the money, and they give students the most prestige. Just being able to say a famous name as department head of your internship is prestige gold, even if you hardly ever saw him. As for the difference in education quality, there probably is some, but you're mostly paying for better brand names on your CV.
I prefer a system where most universities are public, and the private sector's presence is so minimal that it doesn't really figure. China has the right system, but they screw it up with lousy education.
In my home country, Holland, most universities are public, and subsidies help people from low income families like myself to study there. But the subsidies are being reduced time after time. The university I studied at (Amsterdam) is about the same rank as Beijing Uni in prestige terms. More relevant is, that Dutch unis get the 2nd highest international private sector funding for professors and interns, just after S. Korea. To me, this indicates that people recognize the quality results that are produced, so they invest in affordable public unis, rather than the overpriced private unis.
By the way, I'm not saying S. Korea produces quiality. When I think of South Korean professors, I remember this story: "I cloned a human being wow aren't I great? Whoops I knowingly falsified my data and got found out. I am forced to publicly apologize with maximum face loss." South Korea is a special case, with US funding, and lots of money coming from other Asian countries with *even less* competent scientists.
It all depends on the student!
I've met some kids who went to an elite school, and they were definitely head and shoulders above many others I've taught. Not only in ability, but also curiosity.
However, I've also met the other side of that coin, the ones where mummy and daddy are just paying for them to be there, and the kid sucks.
Is there a difference in what their taught? Yes, I'd say so. Having better teachers (with more experience of the world) usually means a difference in education. However, given the money that is paid, the slac-karse kids probably aren't allowed to fail. Meaning, as an end result, the good students will do much better, and the crap students end up about the same as anywhere else - but with a bigger chip on their shoulder.
laowaigentleman:
But in China there are no bad students, only bad teachers.
If the students are impressed by a line up of fools making lame jokes in front of an audience of Hunanese morons it isn't because they haven't got the intellectual faculties to comprehend certain topics, it's just that the teacher needs to pull a rabbit out of a hat or throw some bells and whistles around intermittently to keep the students interested.
It all depends on the student? What is this heresy you're putting forth? 
coineineagh:
gotta love it: answer of the day for 100+ consecutive days, and one upvote!
well, I'm a Chinese, once studied in a level two university too.My foreign teacher and I are good friends. He had same trouble as you, so I can totally undetstand. I can say that it all depend on students and university level. A student in level two university means they got lower Gaokao scores than level one university students, thus that also means they have weak English foundation. If they don't how to say, they don't participate.(unless they have strong desire to learn English, they don't want to make mistakes) .And finance, phillosophy are too dificult for students who even don't know simple English. Our foreign teacher was so disappointed with our class at the begining. Well, except me, haha, because i'm always the most active student in class. I like English and i want to learn English. Well, some of my classmates don't! So interest is another problem.
I was the class monitor. After each class, i saw he had a deep sigh when students were gone. So after each class, i had to talk to him. I said i'm sorry some students let you down, but pleade don't give up us, some students still want to learn. I was so afraid our foreign teacher gave up us like the former teacher did. But he told me that he would't give up. He would figure out a best way for Chinese student. Then i found out our class became more active and more participate. When students don't pay attention to him, he just smiled and said "I'll give you some color to see see". Then we all louged and concerntrated again. Chinglish is really helps. And he started to learn some interesting Chinese phrase or local dialect. For example, when students say something he really don't agree, he says "ni kai huang qiang!(open yellow gun, it's sichuan dialect means you're talking nonsence)" we all laughed and started to debate with him. The class atmosphere is so good. I was the class monitor, so i told him which part my classmates really interested and which part they don't like. That helps him to perpare his next class. He told me that Chinese student is very diffetent, i understand. For example, chinese students are not active in the class, for one thing it's about education, but for another thing it's more about culture. You will figure out your own way to teach, i believe.
The answer Private educational institutions vrs state schools.
I can answer this by stating that which private professional institutes do not do
They do not teach distorted versions of history, they do not monitor students for potential enlistment into any political party, they do not subtly introduce nationalism, they do not steer students towards passing exams by memorizing the answers, they do not stop students; questioning and exploring that which is taught to them,they do not discourage individualistic analytical or critical thinking skills, they do not employ teachers based mostly on their political affiliation, they do not accept that teachers can be tardy at teaching or bully students. They do not enlist a politically motivated student to write reports about a teacher in the classroom, they certainly do not allow lazy students to try and tell a professional teacher that he or she is too boring to learn from. They do not allow the use of outdated teaching materials or outdated teaching methodologies, they do not block differentiated teaching methodologies. They do not discourage whole child development in younger learners, they do not block the concept of development through play and constructive peer to peer socializing.
They do not allow the mantra " We are the best, better than everybody else" when such a mantra is clearly not true.
