Coding the lies - Chinese education news story

[[R-CON]MrD]

BBC NEWS | Education | An education in Chinese schooling

There's a program on tonight on BBC at 2100hrs, called Chinese School. This article is in the regular news section. It concerns reporting from within China as a team filmed inside 3 different kinds of school.

To get the story through and out of the country for publication, read the article and see where the usage of the English language is actually telling us more than the mere words do.

Fellow linguists here should spot the phrases used that imply things, also there are a couple of statements that are contrary to everything anyone in higher education knows about chinese education.

[Begbie]

Ive seen that series on BBC world these last few weeks. Very interesting.

[[R-MOD]Bob_Marley]

Surprisingly a response.

Unsurprisingly said response missed half the bloody point (however said responder's first language may not be English, as such this can probably be forgiven)

Anyway, most interesting article. Missed the programme throug, will have to catch it on iplayer.

[[R-CON]MrD]

hmm, maybe they need pointing out.

for a start, Xiuning is in the east, not the south. it is strangely isolated from shanghai with the roads system, of which only a poor road reaches the towns area. maybe this location mistake is code again to watch carefully for other 'mistakes'

Over 12 months we filmed in three different schools: a "key" school for the most intelligent, a "normal" school for the less academic and a "primary" school for disadvantaged children from poor mountain villages.

a lack of universal education system suggests a class or preference system in place that keeps the farmers, miners, etc in their place

And it was the best education I could have hoped for.

the author is trying to say, "read carefully"

I learnt more about real Chinese people, their beliefs and habits than scores of years in any of the east coast big cities could have taught me.

where the cameras don't normally go, where the money isn't being spent, finally the crew get to see the inbalances, where the modern image of china isn't quite the whole truth

Despite obvious interest, we were largely left alone with our Chinese fixer to film and explore what we wished.

whilst the crew say they had full access, a political officer was with them at all times which reflects on the report made and allowed to leave the country.

On day one I was shocked by the dedication of the students.

the students dedication or the environment of fear?

Chinese children spend countless hours in the classroom, arriving at around 6am and leaving at about 10pm with just a few breaks in between for food and exercise.

considering the quality of educational proweress compared to the West, how come they have to spend so many hours in the schools?

All students are unanimously focused on the Gao Kao, the final year exam taken to get into university.

chinas current university qualifications are worth far less than a West uni degree. This means high school education is far less than ours, which we see as the bare minimum our kids need.

Particularly for students from the countryside, such as these, it is their only way out. Securing a place at a good university is synonymous with securing a comfortable life later and the curriculum seems entirely geared towards it.

considering the massive problems with starving farmers, etc who grow crops and give so much to the state. The issue with strikes, with land grabs. Little wonder the point here is those communities are starving, living below the level of minimum. They must leave their homes, their families, their heritage and go elsewhere. economic relocation.

Learning the correct answer to write on the exam paper is more highly prized than encouraging independent thought.

now this is an interesting point. anything in the UK education system before university I consider the same as here. No independent thought really, just stamping out clones. So we can't attack China for this practise, yet.

Subjects studied are the usual mix of arts and sciences but with some added differences.

We in higher education in the West know the chinese have 4-5 vocational subjects in their repertoire. They are trying to improve their education system however.

Politics is a compulsory subject, as are the daily eye exercises encouraged by Chairman Mao and the early morning "reading aloud" sessions believed to improve memory.

Is this why the kids are in school so many hours in the day? when you take into account the number of vocational subjects, what proportion of the day is spent brainwashing the kids and turning them into good little clone communists?

Teaching rooms are crowded and have little facilities other than a blackboard.

education provision is a practical joke. again, the time spent in class is due to lack of provision to ensure progressive learning.

Heating is state supplied and none of the schools had any, so in the summer months I felt my flesh slowly roasting, while in the winter snow I watched as children's hands became swollen red and scarred with chilblains.

the states promises and obligations are worthless. parents are sending their kids into a 'painful and dangerous environment' and the government appears not to care about them.

No less impressive were the school's canteens, which daily served up a rainbow of fresh, mouth-watering dishes for next to nothing that would put shame to any "glammed-up" school kitchen in the UK.

Childhood obesity simply does not exist.

contradictions? if the food is good and plentiful, how can some not get fat? If the obesity is a coded message that those in the country cannot get fat, how is it that chinese traditions say a fat child is a sign of parental wealth? how come we see quite a lot of overweight chinese people in the cities?

But I think my biggest lesson was that despite their being differences between us, there are many more similarities.

these kids are simply human beings. the government and oppressive system is to fear, to worry about. the kids are fine before they go through the indoctrination process. afterwards, who knows?

What of those Beijing pubs and Shanghai saloons? I'll take the local noodle bars in Xiuning thanks.

more crews need to come out to where the real human beings are, further from governmental control than the big cities. come and see that chinese people are just human beings. see the difference, see through the lies that have created the cties, those giant theatre sets to persuade the West they have progressed!

[Expendable Grunt]

Interesting...insight(?) Mr.D.

I've had roughly every person I've talked to about education from other countries pounding into my head that US Education was shit covered in fail that I guess I never saw any other system in practice.

[Canadian4206]

I would just like to answer a couple of them, if you know many Chinese people like I do and I mean the ones who still practice there heritage. You will find that there parents are over strict with there kids about education, way more then our parents are. They go to school, they always have a tutor, and they go to summer school every year. They always got to come home after school to finish there homework before anything else. Basicly the life of a Chinese kid in the western world is all about school, pretty much all day, all year. Except on weekends, besides for the summer.

Now, I don't know why there in the class for so long but judging by how they always act with school, it wouldn't be to hard to guess that they are there because there parents force them to be there that long, or there society makes them be educated for that long. Though 6AM, - 10PM? That really sounds fake to me, that would hardly leave them with any life. School, sleep, school, sleep. Really fake.

However I do agree with everything else you said, China really knows how to crack the whip on its civilians.

[georgehu2007]

it can't be from 6 AM to 10 PM. it's more like 7 AM to 5 PM. I know that because I went to school in Beijing for 2 years.

[[R-CON]MrD]

Still, not as bad as when I lived in a marxist leaning country where the colonial type landowners gave half a days free education to children, provided they worked half a day in the tobacco fields first!

Zimbabwe is trying to court China since the West won't touch it with a bargepole anymore. I wonder if China will refuse to deal with them on principles of free child education? The Panda bear stunt was tasteless.

[Atandon]

The more wealthy cities such as Shanghai and Hong Kong use a mixture of English and Chinese school systems. I did some charity work with some local Hong Kong kids who went to local schools, and during one of the training courses (I was teaching) I was told that the kids here are under a huge amount of stress from exams (known as HKCEs and A Levels-NOT the British system), and to 'graduate' from primary school to a good middle school certain examinations have to be completed. Teachers are not as strict, but beatings have been given out. Basically, ten year olds here face the same amount of work pressure as those in their senior year in high school.

The system described above, in Hong Kong, is changing for the better- as for mainland China- I don't know. As international schools get more popular, the government might wish to implement some reforms. But seeing as what's been happening in Tibet- I doubt it.

[Dr2B Rudd]

Originally Posted by [R-PUB]MrD

Zimbabwe is trying to court China since the West won't touch it with a bargepole anymore. I wonder if China will refuse to deal with them on principles of free child education? The Panda bear stunt was tasteless.

Chine does trade with the people we don't like e.g. Rebels in Darfur. (i'll post a link to a very good economist article circa last year)

There are alot of Chinese students at my university, but they appear to be westernized- hairdos etc and they don't seem to spend all day working like their younger counterparts.