<p>PBS aired a documentary 8/12/08 on China’s version of the SAT which
made me realize how relatively easy our highschooler’s lives are vs students
who study almost 24/7. Also, what competition our US students face against better-prepared, more disciplined Asians. Here is PBS’s description:
“China Prep follows five Chinese students through their final high-pressure year at an elite high school in Sichuan Province. Eighteen hundred students vie for spots in Beijings top two universities. Last year only 59 made it.
Studying seven days a week, the students lives are regimented almost every minute of the day as they prepare for the end-of-year exam that can determine their fate. For many students from poor or rural backgrounds, a strong performance on the test is the only way to climb the social ladder and excel without connections.”</p>
<p>I think it’s great the Chinese take academics so seriously–perhaps too seriously–but what do they have to show for it?</p>
<p>Personally, I don’t see the point in having an education system that is this competitive. I think it is more important to give opportunities to those who are both intelligent and creative. It seems this system is just looking for those who are simply intelligent–but even that’s disputable since it seems this system is ideal for those who are somewhat intelligent but can grind their way through work.</p>
<p>I watched the program, and I don’t think that chinese students are “better prepared and more disciplined” than most American students. I don’t know where you live, but in NY and NJ there are more students who are also better prepared and more disciplined than most of the students showed on the program (These are the students vying for the uber-competitive slots for the IVY’s, MIT, Duke,Caltech, Stanford, etc). </p>
<p>We should be worried about the others (and there are also some in China) with no access to good quality education or no parental involvements. </p>
<p>Also, I don’t like the way they tracked the students, as Vanessa Fong said; “Bad luck for late bloomers”. They are leaving a huge percentage of late bloomers behind.</p>
<p>We watched that program with great interests. We saw just how deep the idea of going to the very best universities = a good starting point for success is in the mind of Chinese. How the parents will tell their kids what universities to aim for and what major they should take. It is just different from the culture here. (please don’t start arguing which is right or which is wrong here)</p>
<p>One thing don’t like is how they use one test score to determine everything. One of the kids did fairly good on the national math exam and got a silver medal. With that one score in one object, he got into the very best univerersity. </p>
<p>Overall, it was very refreshing to see that I am still deeply rooted in our culture that has survived 5000 years.</p>
<p>This is one of the reasons that I’m so grateful that my parents moved to the US when I was 5.</p>
<p>Didn’t see the program, but did read this article which made the situation for students in China sound horrific. </p>
<p>[Psychology</a> Today: Plight of the Little Emperors](<a href=“A Case of Catch-22 | Psychology Today”>A Case of Catch-22 | Psychology Today)</p>
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<p>What is the purpose of limiting the number of university-educated citizens? Why don’t they open more universities?</p>
<p>Resources. Think of it this way. Chinese population was listed to be 1.3billion last year, US population was listed to be 300 million. So they have 4 times more people to educate than we do, and we still have trouble funding universities with far more resources and money than China.</p>
<p>Not to mention, most of the population is far too poor. 50% of China is still comparable to third-world countries. They’re working on bettering the economy and opening up but it’s a long process.</p>
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<p>Mehhhhh. </p>
<p>Chinese culture was not some monolithic entity, a single person who started growing up in 3000 BC. The culture of Zhou (and its language, and its ethnicity) was vastly different from Chinese culture as it is now. We may not even be exactly sure what the ethnic makeup of the Shang and Zhou were. The Dukedom of Qin incorporated a vast variety of nomadic peoples into their state even before the Unification, some of whom may have been Indo-European or Turkic. Note that even the Mandarin pronunciations of these old Chinese entities are misleading: look into any philologist’s historical dictionary for Old Chinese, and you find exotic consonant clusters vastly different from Mandarin Chinese: “swra” (the ancestor of the “hua” in “huayu”), many “sl” words, glottal stops and pharyngeals, and all that fun phonetic stuff. The “Han people” didn’t start existing as a cohesive unit until about 2000 years ago. The Southern Chinese languages have received a massive substrata influx from Austronesians and Austroasiatics, andyou can tell how the Southern languages are more phonologically similar to Vietnamese and Thai versus Northern languages like Mandarin. Tones weren’t present in the Chinese languages until they were borrowed from a non-Chinese group living near Vietnam called the Miao, and the innovation spread northwards.</p>
<p>So I kind I have to roll my eyes at the whole “5000-year-old culture thing”. Sure, the history is interesting, but it’s like saying British culture dates all the way back to Boudicca.</p>
<p>The repressiveness of tracking is what I hate the most: by consigning late bloomers, or even misidentified bright kids who don’t excel in the right areas, into a cycle of death, the system ends up destroying more intellectual potential than it creates.</p>
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<p>The reason is because they have 1.3 billions people. The key word is “Opportunity”. In america, we have more opportunity and resources. We have more colleges / universities in America than China (and our population is 1/5).
In a society where there are so many people, there’s got to be a way to filter people because not everyone will have a seat. Just like here at top universities. However, here, if you fail, you can just go to community college and work your way up if you’re willing to study. There, you can’t. Simply because most people go to one school and stay there for 4 years. You can’t transfer. </p>
<p>Also, there are certain majors offered in certain universities only. If university A is the only place that offers psychology in that city and you failed to get there, you have to choose a different major at a different school. That’s why it’s competitive. In a society with limited resources, that’s the way you have to do.</p>
<p>Sorry for asking the basics, but are all Chinese universities funded by the government? Are they free to attend? Otherwise, with the intense competition for seats, I can’t imagine why private universities wouldn’t be a thriving business there.</p>
<p>Well, “Socialism with Chinese characteristics” is sort of a hindrance.</p>
<p>(And I say this as a left libertarian.)</p>
<p>comparison of China, India and the US.</p>
<p>[2</a> MILLION MINUTES :: A DOCUMENTARY FILM ON GLOBAL EDUCATION](<a href=“http://www.2mminutes.com/]2”>http://www.2mminutes.com/)</p>
<p>click on youtube link</p>
<p>This is really no different than other hypecompetitive places where competition to get into the best universities is fierce since it pretty much dictates your future.</p>
<p>Same thing happens in Nigeria, Russia, etc.</p>
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<p>Granted, it’s a crappy situation for the late bloomers - but then again, the system in France (for example) pretty much shunts less academically inclined students into the trade schools as opposed to the universities.</p>
<p>Now, I’m not saying that these overly rigorous systems shouldn’t be reformed/changed - but it’s a difficult thing to accomplish when you have a scarcity in resources and an overabundant pool of students.</p>
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<p>Actually, I think you underestimate what the Chinese students go through. I was in Beijing for a summer and saw some sample copies of their extrance exam before; they make AP look very easy. I am glad I didn’t have to deal with it. Their chemistry paper includes materials in organic chemistry; most of the premeds here don’t take organic chem until their sophomore year in college.</p>
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<p>It’s a collectivist, totalitarian society governed by a rigid oligarchy that fears independence of thought even more than they hate Russia. That’s my theory anyway.</p>
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<p>I took organic and inorganic chemistry in high school, it was more like the old A-level curriculum if you are familiar with the system (the new A-level in UK is just a joke). A lot of private, magnet and parochial schools in NY and NJ teach a much more advanced curriculum compared to other public schools. </p>
<p>You can check the curricula of Stuyvesant, Bronx high school for science, and Brooklyn Technical, they go far beyond what the State requires.</p>
<p>Well, I came from Hong Kong and I am not sure which A-level you are talking about but the one in Hong Kong is known to be the most difficult. I think Chinese entrance exam (known as gaokao) even tops that. Even if some private schools here teach advanced topics like organic chemistry, I am pretty sure they don’t ditch out difficult problems like gaokao does; otherwise, many students in those schools will be getting ugly grades. Those schools you mentioned have average SAT around 1400 but the Chinese entrance exams are so difficult that probably most students with even perfect SAT would find it very challenging. Consider this: top scores in gaokao are in the low 700s but in Shandong Province, the highest 2007 score was 675. That means nobody out of hundred thousands or whatever in that province got even close to perfect. The exam makers design the test in such a way so very few would get perfect (I am not sure if there’s such person) score.</p>
<p>I am not saying their system is more superior. In fact, there’s been reports that show that some of these top scorers know very little outside what their gakoao covers. Also, students there tend to be less well-rounded as they devote pretty much all of their time outside classes to test drills and studies whereas the US counterparts, even the top students taking the most challenging courses, often get involved in many ECs. In fact, you can’t get into top Ivies/privates without strong ECs these days. But in China, the gaokao score is the sole factor (excluding connection/legacy).</p>
<p>Sam Lee:</p>
<p>I don’t think we can accurately compare the two systems. Can you post some of the questions they ask on the gaokao? I want to judge how difficult the questions are.</p>
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<p>I don’t think this is entirely accurate, we can only reach this conclusion if we put them through the same system. There are very smart kids at these High Schools, and I strongly believe that if they go through the same system they would do just as well as the top students in China (A lot of the top students have parents from China, Korea, Russia, etc, so they are familiar with this type of environment) </p>
<p>These schools have produced a lot of Nobel laureates and Field Medalist.</p>