Culture and Education

Culture and Education Culture itself is neither education nor law making; it is an atmosphere and a heritage. —Henry Louis Mencken Lucinda Zmarzly, my Mathematics professor and also my interviewee, was born in 1973, Lincoln, Nebraska. Then she went to public schools here. She started her college education in North-west University, studying chemical engineering. In her second year, she transferred to UNL and majored in Mathematics. I had an interview with her and let me use it to interpret how culture affects an individual’s core values of education and his/her teaching style. Professor Zmarzly is humorous, kind, patient, being enthusiastic about the material, and thinking creatively of how to present the material. I think she has almost all the qualities of a perfect professor in both America and China. Nowadays with the development of globalization and the communication of different countries, almost all cultures have something in common. What’s more, diversity plays an important role in American culture, so Zmarzly tries to make her class and teaching methods suitable for all her students. As a result, she is popular not only in American students, but also in international students. However, I still can see the difference between Professor Zmarzly and my teachers in China, including their teaching methods and the values of education, which results from the significant difference of culture between these two countries. In the interview, Zmarzly pointed out that she tried to take students on their individual basis. She claimed that she had a fantastic professor when she was in her third year of university, who always asked some challenging questions and encouraged students to use creativity to solve the problems with what they had learned. She also said, “Sometimes students today in America tend to be quizzed on the basic facts over and over again until everybody in the grade get them, then they move on.” This may make some students lose interest in math or trouble others who are talented in other subjects instead of Mathematics. Here is the key difference of culture and its effect. United States has a culture that emphasizes individual and independence whereas Chinese culture consider collectivity as a unit, so Professor Zmarzly gives freedom to her students on reading the book and solving the problem while teachers in China ask all the students to repeat doing similar homework for many times to guarantee everyone can understand the problems. Goethe said, “All that is noble is in itself of a quiet nature, and appears to sleep until it is aroused summoned forth by contrast.” China is now trying to encourage initiative and the diversity of individuals while America is focus more on the standardization and accountability, which Yong Zhao also points out in Catching up or leading the way. Nevertheless, I think even though the reformers in United States and China seek to emulate each other, the education system can not be easily changed because it depends on culture, which is ingrained in the thought of people, including Professor Zmarzly. What they are doing perhaps is just making a balance.