英美教育的比较(英文版)Differences Between Chinese Education and Americ

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Differences Between Chinese Education and American Education

Passage1

12 Differences Between Chinese Education and American Education

Posted on June 1, 2007 by slkchina

This analysis is being prepared for a presentation I am going to make at the

International Conference on Intercultural Education in Harbin, China on June

22-24.

I would be interested in receiving your observations, comments, questions

about the differences between Chinese and American educational practices.

Class Size is the first noticeable difference at the middle school and high school

level.

Teachers typically teach two classes (in an 8 period day) with from 55 to 65

students.

American secondary teachers typically teach five or six classes with class

sizes ranging from 25 to 30.

The Chinese teachers use their non-teaching time to

grade papers and to prepare for their classes, except for the head teachers (

banzhuren

)

which will be explained later.

While Americans think the

for decades. Throughout China, students beginning in a school are put into classes

and they stay in those classes with one another for the entire time they are in that

school unless higher test scores permit them to move to a more advanced

grouping.

Understood in the Chinese system is that this group of students will learn

each of their subjects together.

In America, students are not grouped into such

classes.

Instead, the 30 students who are together for English class will be randomly

split up into any of the other subjects for the next period and the period after that, and

so on.

The next year, the students are totally mixed up again into different

classes.

Occasionally, the same class of students will take two courses together, such

as English and history, but that is rare.

The Chinese carry the cohort concept into the

university level as well.

My four classes of students stay together for all of their

required courses the whole time they are at university.

Chinese students stay in the same classroom for their main classes and their

teachers come to them while American students change rooms every period and the

room belongs to the teacher.

Thus, Chinese students don’t have hallway

lockers.

Students sit in the same seats for each subject and keep their materials in a

shelf under their desk top.

Many students have cloth covers for their desk and other

means of making it

Chinese education is built on what Americans call

The teachers of the

students in the entering class will also follow their same students to the next grade

level and the next.

In America, it is very unusual for teachers to move with their

students from one grade level to the next at the middle school or high school level let

alone to loop for the entire period of time the student is in that school.

At the primary

school level, students begin in grade one with a teacher and stay with that teacher

every year they are in primary school.

My university students reflect on that teacher

as being so very important to them that they really didn’t want to leave them when it

was time to go to middle school.

American teachers, on the other hand, tend to

specialize in the curriculum and content for a particular grade level and then stay at

that level.

Sometimes, teachers who want to teach older students will ask to move to

a higher grade, but then that teacher would typically stay at that level until

retirement.

That practice means that in America, subject matter and teacher

preference might be valued more highly than student needs or student learning.

Another significant structural difference between American and Chinese schools

is the concept of head teacher or

banzhuren

banzh uren

takes additional

responsibility in delivering instruction, supervising their specific class of students, and

in knowing their students and the families of the students and in communicating with

those families.

For less than 200 yuan per month more, the

banzhuren

will arrive at

school prior to 7:00 a.m. to prepare for the day and to work with early arriving

students.

The student day at the middle school ends at 4:55 and the teachers leave

shortly after that.

The

banzhuren

will not only teach her specific class that she is in

charge of but will also sit in on many other subjects throughout the day so she can

monitor the progress of her students with other teachers, counsel her students, and

contact the parents of those students if necessary.

The

banzhuren

will monitor her

class during lunch and nap with them after lunch.

One

banzhuren

told me that she is

like a mother to those students who don’t have the parental support they need.

In

addition, at Liaoning Normal University Junior Middle School (LNUJMS) the

banzhurens

are expected to visit the homes and families of half their students

sometime during the first term and the other half during the second term.

These

visitations would take place on Saturdays or Sundays or on holidays.

The

banzhuren

will, after three years, receive a bonus based on the academic improvement of her

class.

In America, the individual teacher is expected to make parent contact when a

student misbehaves or is not performing at a satisfactory level.

In American

secondary schools there is also a person called a guidance counsellor who will assist

with parent contact.

However, the guidance counsellor will have a case load of 350

to 500 students and she often must resort to group counselling sessions.

The Chinese believe in merit pay and in using student test scores for teacher

evaluation.

For example, when the 9th graders leave middle school they are tested to

see which high school they are qualified to attend.

Since the same teachers have had

those students for three years, they compare their entry score to their exit score.

The

classes that showed the most academic gain resulted in that

banzhuren

receiving a

bonus that might range from 3000 yuan to 6000 yuan (one month or two months

pay).

The same is true at the high school level.

On the other hand, a teacher whose

students did not show growth will be evaluated accordingly.

At LNUJMS, the math

team won first place in the District math contest.

As a reward, the four math teachers

split a 2000 yuan bonus.

The teachers I have talked with like the bonus system.

So

for years the Chinese

have been doing what the American conservatives have been

advocating and our teacher unions have been fighting.

Discipline in Chinese schools easier than in American schools.

For example, at

LNUJMS,

I was surprised to find minimal student supervision during lunch and

between classes.

One administrator and one teacher were in the hallway and no

teachers were in their classrooms.

The other teachers had gone to their offices

to meet with students for academic or disciplinary reasons or for a rest between

classes.

In America, the time between classes is as short as possible, three, four, or

perhaps five, minutes.

Students are expected to move from their classroom, go to

their lockers to get materials for their next class, and then move to that class.

The

American teachers are expected to be in the hallways during passing periods because

that is when fighting and other misbehaviors occur. It is nearly impossible to even

imagine a 10 minute passing period in an American school.

Chinese students are very respectful.

When Chinese students recite, they stand;

when students hand in a paper, they use both hands as if they were making a

presentation of the paper to the teacher; when students refer to their teacher in writing,

they often use terminology such as , “Our dear teacher.”

In interviewing the

banzhurens

, they commented that is their duty to teach students how to do well in life

and how to be a man.

University students, when asked to recall their middle school

and high school years often speak of their teachers in very exalted ways telling how

much their teachers meant to them.

Chinese students play active and important roles (

zhirisheng

) in sweeping the

classrooms, scrubbing the steps, serving meals, being class monitors, and helping

teachers. Student monitors can be seen wearing special armbands in the hallway,

watching to make certain students are doing their twice-daily eye exercises properly,

providing leadership on the marching field, watering plants, empty bins, cleaning

windows, helping to distribute the daily lunch, and so on. Students always seemed to

be carrying out their tasks very seriously and in good humor. The student monitor

system is utilized at the university level as well with these appointed students helping

the teacher in making copies, distributing and collecting papers, contacting classmates

and so on.

Like the concept of

banzhuren

, the concept of

zhirisheng

cannot find its

English equivalent due to the different Sino-American educational systems. Most

Chinese schools are operated on the

zhirisheng

system for the purpose of maintaining

clean classrooms and schools.

Chinese students buy their textbooks each year and the textbooks are soft cover

and relatively thin.

The textbooks I looked at had a 2006 copyright and I understand

that they all have recently undergone revision.

The cost is about $$1 for a textbook