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Q: What is generally lacking in Chinese schools?
What are the students not learning in comparison to western schools?
11 years 36 weeks ago in Teaching & Learning - China
Most student's knowledge of geography seems to be pretty poor from what I can tell. I can't count the amount of times i've been shocked at how little my own students know.
As for foreign language schools I think that what is lacking is guidance for foreign teachers on what is and what is not acceptable behaviour. I've known 'teachers' allow young children to sit on their laps and not understand it when i've explained that an important part of their responsibility as a teacher is to enforce boundaries of what level of physical contact is appropriate between the young children in their care and people outside their immediate family circle.
The biggest thing missing is free time! The Chinese system doesn't seem to allow the children time to 'absorb' the information they have had thrown at them.
The example I give when trying to persuade my students to do 'nothing' during break is think of your brain as this classroom, we have just spent 90 minutes throwing information into the 'classroom', now what you need to do is file all that information away so you can get it again when you need to do that, your brain has a 'little man' to do this, however 'he' can't do the filing properly if you keep throwing more information in!
mArtiAn:
So this voice that keeps talking to me.........and telling me to do stuff.........like...really bad stuff......................is that the little man?
Just playing, Hugh, your suggestion actually makes good sense.
Hugh.G.Rection:
mArtiAn,
People with 'real' little men in their brains are either psychotic or religious................ sorry same thing!
(Ohhh I'm gonna get it for that one!)
giadrosich:
See, and I thought the "little man" was a little bit more south than the shoulders.
Hugh.G.Rection:
Are you saying Antipodeans are more psychotic than those from the Northern Hemisphere? 
mArtiAn:
No, he's saying you've got a small willy:) Or that I have.
giadrosich:
No, willies traditionally have one-tract minds. They'll get you in trouble if they wander off into strange places. 
I think one of the big areas that is missing is the ability to impart true understanding of a subject rather than just the memorizing of facts. I see this in students studying English, very often they can read well but as soon as the book is taken away many seem lost without it and cannot string a sentence together. I agree with Martian about geography, there is an appalling amount of ignorance about the rest of the world, and history seems to be treated just as poorly. I hear from some Chinese about how good their education system is now but they fail to see the contradiction staring them in the face. That is for all the hours students put in at school and in homework why their wonderful education is not recognized more widely in the outside world, why parents choose to send their abroad if they can afford it to study. I know there are exceptions, Beijing university is acknowledged abroad and given the right education there are some very bright students. Bat22 is right, the main thing missing is education, what most receive here is indoctrination.
tomcatflyer:
Just a quick update on their worldwide knowledge. I was asked today by a university student at English corner what part of Australia Tahiti was in, and why there wer no cities in the middle of Australia. And these are the people who are going to power China to world status alongside America, I don't think so.
xinyuren:
I absolutely agree with u. Education is not the memorizing of facts. The purpose of school is to teach children how to use the facts, in other words, how to think. Chinese students graduate with their head full of facts but with little practical knowledge of what to do with them. They are like little computers that need programing. Indoctrination seems to be the main objective of school. This is the number 1 reason why my child will never see the inside of a Chinese school.
Teachers?????!!!.......Books?!!!!!..............Students to attend the schools?!!!!.................LOL.................but seriously i think the education system is not perfect here that's why we are here.............God bless this................Like a bounty
How about accountability from the school commission on down to the teacher? Just read a story about how a teacher decided to punish a 6 year old girl for talking in class. What punishment is just for this? Well... The teacher knew that she couldn't directly harm the student, that was against the rules.
But, she then instructed all 32 of the students to punch the 6 year old girl 10 times each for talking in class. The girl was sent home with a bruise the size of a football on her back.
The teacher has wisely gone into hiding. But the principal, school commission and the police are basically doing nothing.
Now imagine what would happen if this occurred in your home country? Oh, how I hate this country some days.
stan118:
i worked for several schools in some small towns in or near guilin, and there always seems to be a dodgy headmaster who says they cant buy english book cos the school doesnt have enough money
but its ok to use the schools money to take all the teachers out for dinner, buy baijiu, and its ok to take bribes,but its not bribes according to them its guangxi,wtf, i spoke to my chinese friend about this and he said its very common now for someone to take the headmaster out for dinner and pay up to land a job
Scandinavian:
this is the Childrens version of getting away with murder by hiring a hitman.
awful. How can such people be teachers.
Speaking strictly from a point of observation and inter-action with students, I find most of them very courteous, albeit somewhat immature for their ages. Besides the obvious lack of creative and cognitive thinking, the thing I notice lacking the most is a sense of wonder, which starts with the question, "what if?"
At their age, (18-22) they should be questioning things around them, in that it leads to the discovery of innovation. Most of my students will do exactly as they are told, but fail to extrapolate any unspoken connections on how to get from point A to point B. They simply don't understand the process or what is expected of them if they are not told directly. Any deviation is met with blank stares of incomprehension.
I'm sure that this is a reflection on the system as much as the society they have grown up in, so that fact in itself, is not that surprising. What is surprising, however, is that many have failed to realize the differentiation between mere copying and true creativity, whether it's in business, humanities, or the sciences.
When pressed, they do know that something is lacking, but chalk it up to "that's just the way it is."
There are several things missing in Chinese schools and in general in their education:
1. No empathy. Most students simply cannot put them selves in other people's shoes.
2. Lack of experience and differentiated knowledge. They often cannot provide examples to support their ideas.
3. They often cannot see the problem from different angles. Usually they expect only one solution.
4. Most of them are scared to make mistakes so they do not even try. They'll rather not answer than being faced with a wrong answer.
5. Lack of cohesion. Most of my students, even those with a quite good English, cannot answer a question following a logical and cohesive speech. They go from A to D then to B and then back to A and so on.
6. Creative thinking is not that common as well.
7. Most of my students are scared to be different so they often end up checking what is people around them doing, writing, thinking.
8. Kids have no free time to dedicate to hobbies, rest, living life, having fun, doing stupid things or simply nothing.
9. The system is incredibly focus on scores instead of the real knowledge.
10. Lack of curiosity.
etc.
one more on-the-ball student was envious of the 'critical thinking' encouraged in better foreign universities, so i keep challenging their thinking as best i can.
also, as was mentioned previously, absolutely NO curiosity: while having a class about the pro's and con's of different methods of transport, I happened to show my university students footage of the Hindenburg disaster.
Response? Nothing. no questions, no reaction at all
For one thing quality. A former student of mine told me he wasn't using some of the English books and that they'd only use the workbooks for English class. I saw a stack of books and asked if I could look. I asked him if he used all those books in school and to my surprise he said No! I then asked him if his teacher was a foreigner and he said No! She was chinese! So I know they weren't getting the proper education! Sad, but true! 
He he, I said: "proper"!!!
Silva is a product of the Chinese education system... 
no elective classes such as shop , graphic arts , wood shop , as examples
