China and the United States differ greatly in terms of geography, history, culture, etc., making people’s personality and education very different. So what is the difference between your education and China’s?
”In China, his bag had been full of heavy books from first grade. From Grade 1 to Grade 4, we changed school bags three times. The next one was always bigger than the previous. We assumed that the amount of knowledge given to him was also growing,” confessed the mother, who at the beginning was rather confused about the free-spirited American teaching style. Unlike in Western countries, students in China do not have the freedom to choose what they want to learn. Chinese schools uniformly use standardized textbooks composed and published by the regime. From Grade 1, students receive one textbook for each subject, and have to carry the ones they need to school for class everyday.
In the American school system after each year or grade, students will usually move on to a different teacher as they continue their education journey. In the Chinese education system, one group of students may have the same teacher throughout their education journey–or only two or three teachers, especially in the primary school years.Chinese teachers, like American teachers, need to meet specific teaching qualifications. Exams in the Chinese education system hold most substantial weight, and this pressure comes from both the home as well as the country. China created its education system based on the old Soviet Union model. Different from the U.S. liberal education, the Chinese system is based on mass production of knowledgeable elites who could contribute to the construction of the nation, therefore largely neglecting the development an individual’s uniqueness. This system has not changed much since it was adopted. In America, the arts and sports are highly encouraged from a young age. In China, however, there is usually no time for the creative arts or sports, leaving a system that continues to focus on memorization and test scores. However, we are beginning to see more examples of creativity and innovation in China. Although this change is slow and new, it is beginning to bubble to the surface in small ways.
Americans are independent, individual, dare to take risks and innovate. This may be one of the reasons for the pursuit of efficient quality education in the United States. Or such education has fostered such Americans and complemented each other. American teachers admit that each child has his own talent and encourages them to work hard to showcase their strengths. In China, many children respect the old and love the young, and they are quite good, but the independence is not very good. Parents will help the children make choices and make decisions, so that the children lose the ability to make decisive decisions. Being too comfortable with the status quo and relatively conservative, these characters may have caused Chinese education to be exam-oriented education.
In a word, the most important is to choose a way that most suitable for our childre