NETVIBES.COM READING SESSION #1

I always seem to do everything backwards, but in reading the blogs to fulfill this assignment, I ended up reading a blog on Learners First – Team Pike.  I hope this is legal.  The Blog titled Varieties in Approaches to Learning touches on an interesting dilemma: How do you integrate and successfully teach students from other cultures (i.e. students that come from China)?  It also leads to a podcast that discusses the difficulty of mainstream teaching philosophies in China. 

Children in China, since the communists took power 60 years ago, are forbidden to engage in creative thinking.  They learn to recite the right answers, but not to raise their own ideas.  The students are taught via rogue memorization and tested via their ability to regurgitate facts.  Students are given the answers, and not allowed to ask how, why, when or where.  Students that come to the United States from China are puzzled when asked their opinions.  They have no idea how to answer the question “What do you think?”  They slowly learn that the freedom to think is the seed that encourages creative thinking and innovation.  But, at first this is a hard lesson.

China has become a country that specializes in manufacturing other countries’ products.  They lack the ability to innovate.   Chinese officials now realize this dilemma and are beginning to allow creative thinking in public schools.  One such school called Kinstar combines Chinese teaching philosophy with western teaching.  Children learn to question and to engage in creative thinking.  Parents, however; are slow to accept these changes because of the highly competitive nature of the educational system.  To qualify for higher education in universities, students must perform exceptionally on placement tests.  Parents worry that their students will not do as well on placement tests if they are exposed to a more innovative curriculum.

The Chinese government recognizes the need for independent learning, but they fear that critical thinking will undermine their communist ideals.  They want innovation without true critical thinking, an impossible task. 

I wonder what the next 60 years will be like in Chinese education.  When students begin to question, will communist rule finally end?  Or will the Chinese government squelch innovation once they realize that innovation cannot occur without creative, free thought?

Sources:

Blog:

http://uwo2.blogspot.com/2010/10/varieties-in-approaches-to-learning.html

Podcast:

Creativity in Chinese Education,Resource for Grades 9-12,Teachers' Domain, Creativity in Chinese Education, published February 12, 2010, retrieved on October 24, 2010,

http://www.teachersdomain.org/resource/wds10.sci.engin.design.chedu/