The difference between the education system in China and America

Xiaoming zhangRuby PerlmutterEnglish 1010
September 26, 2014
The difference between the education system in China and America
Nowadays, since China becomes stronger than before as a world power, more and more people start to compare China to other capitalist countries such as Britain and America. One of the most popular topic for people to talk about is the difference between the education system in China and America. As a Chinese student who has studied in America for one year in university, I must say that the two education systems are absolutely not the same. Although the education in America is almost the best in the world, it doesn’t mean that there is nothing worthy in the Chinese education system. The education system in China is one of the most typical examples all over the world because of its unique education pattern and special relationship between teacher and students. Also, I think the education system in China is the real exist sample for “the Banking concept of education” from the article “The “Banking” Concept of Education” written by Freire. So let’s figure out the difference between Chinese education system and American’s.
The article written by Freire talked about two main concepts of education in the world: one is the “Banking concept of education” (Freire, 216) and the other is the “problem-posing concept of education” (Freire, 222). The banking concept of education is that “the teacher issues communiqués and makes deposits which the students patiently receive, memorize and repeat” (Freire, 216) and this education pattern is really similar to the education system in
China. In China, we don’t have choice about what we want to learn and what we don’t want to. We just need to remember everything from the class which our teachers want to teach us. Just like the Freire said in his book: “His task is to fill the students with the contents of his narration” (Freire, 216) and “it turns them into containers into receptacles to be filled by the teacher” (Freire, 216). The education pattern in China follows these rules which Freire mentioned in his article for the Banking Concept of Education:
“A. the teacher teaches and the students are taught;
B. the teacher knows everything and the students know nothing;
C. the teacher thinks and the students are thought about;
D. the teacher talks and the students listen-meekly.” (Freire, 217) In my opinion, I would like to call this concept as assembly line concept of education. The education in china is like the assembly line in the factory- every product will be produced in the same way, just like the students in the school will learn the same knowledge. No matter how old you are and what grade you are, the only thing you need to do to get good grades in every class is to remember everything from the class.
One of the interesting things I have heard in my high school is that my history teacher was an old woman who has taught students for over 20 years and she never uses a textbook in her class because she can remember everything for what she would teach us in her class. At first, we thought she was a really amazing woman with great talent on her memory. However, once we asked her about that, she smiled and said: “If you guys teach other people the same thing for like 20 years, you guys can do it too.” Although this is just a little story from my high school, it can tell us about the education system in China. As an old Chinese proverb goes: practice makes perfect. The knowledge which teacher gives to students in class is always the same, neither creative nor thought-provoking. So we know that 1 plus 1 equals 2 but we don’t know why. We know every formula from our textbook but we don’t know how to get the formula. We just receive, memorize and repeat the knowledge learned from the class without thinking about how can we get the knowledge by ourselves. That’s the biggest problem of the education in China. Students are used to passively depend on the knowledge teachers would teach them in class instead of exploring and summarizing knowledge by themselves. Not only did we lose the fun of learning, but also lose the motivation to study.
However, everything real is rational. Since the banking concept of education has already existed over one thousand year in China, there are definitely some advantages for it to exist First of all, students in school will have a specific goal for their study because the knowledge they will learn is decided. So the students will not feel confused about what they should do and they will not waste time to think about the goal they should achieve. Second, not every student has the interest to explore knowledge by themselves and not every student has the ability to find the right way for them. So that’s why we need teachers to guide them to find the right way and supervise them to remember knowledge from the class. If you don’t know what you want to do in the future, why not try to learn every basic knowledge to find the interest of your own.
Compare to the education system in China, the education system in America is more like the problem-posing concept of education. In the problem-posing concept of education, students will be more important than the teacher. “In this way, the problem-posing educator constantly re-forms his reflection of the students. The students- no longer docile listeners- are now critical co-investigators in dialogue with the teacher.” (Freire, 222) So, in the problem-posing concept of education, students need to think more in the class about the knowledge instead of repeating and memorizing. Students will get promoted when they try to figure out why they need the knowledge from the class and how can they learn the knowledge by themselves. Without thinking about the knowledge we learned from the class, we will never find out the pleasure of studying. Also, “in problem-posing education, people develop their power to perceive critically the way they exist in the world with which and in which they find themselves, they come to see the world not as a static reality, but as a reality in process, in transformation.” (Freire, 222) and “Problem-posing education affirms men and women as beings in the process of becoming-as unfinished, uncompleted beings in and with a likewise unfinished reality.” (Freire, 224) We can not only find out the answer of one question, but also the answer for ourselves. In this concept, students will be more creative and reflective, and this is really important to their career in the future. In the era of science and technology developing faster and faster, sense of responsibility, executive ability and innovative ability become the three key points to help you achieve success, but only people who have innovative thinking can stand out in their areas. That’s why Chinese always work for Americans or Germans even if Chinese always study hard in school than other people.
This is the first time for me to study aboard and it means a lot to me. The first year of study in UCONN really change my way to study and thinking. The deepest memory for me is my English teacher in the first semester of my freshman year. Her name is Fischer and she was the teacher for the ENGL 1003 class. I started fall in love with her teaching method in her first class when she gave us some lollipops to write about in ten minutes and switch our little compositions with each other to think about what is the difference between mine and others’. This was a really fun game for us to start our first class. In her class, we were “playing” the English essay instead of writing the English essay. Once upon a time, writing essay was like a nightmare to us, but now we started to treat it as a game, funny and complicated. The process of writing essay was really enjoyable for us. This was the first time for me to experience the amazing part of American education system. It changed me from receiving knowledge passively to exploring knowledge by myself actively. Also, this was my first time to truly realize the pleasure from studying. That’s a really amazing experience for me in my freshman year.
However, everything has two sides. There are still some disadvantages in this concept. First of all, students should have a good self-control to handle their studying, if not, the students will lose themselves easily. It is not easy for a student to set up every goal and achieve these goals one by one. There are many lures on the way of students’ life, especially the college students. So students need good self-control to help them to achieve goals with high quality. Second, some students’ interests are very unusual and even if they graduated from the college, it is hard for them to find job in the future. So, in consideration of the future career, we really need someone to guide us about our future career, not just explore by ourselves.
In conclusion, there are many differences between the education system in China and America just like the difference between banking concept of education and problem-posing concept of education. “Banking education resists dialogue; problem-posing education regards dialogue as indispensable to the act of cognition which unveils reality. Banking education treats students as objects of assistance; problem-posing education makes them critical thinkers.” (Freire, 224) The two concept of education are suitable for different people. I can’t say that the problem-posing education is definitely better than banking concept of education but I think the problem posing concept of education from the Freire is the best way to solve the problem in China. In the problem posing concept of education, teacher’s job is to guide student to find the answer and solve problem by themselves instead of telling them answer at first. Through the problem posing concept of education, students can not only know about the result of every problem but also know about the way to solve these problems. And this is one of the most important abilities for students to master from school. Also, students can find the pleasure of studying and they will be willing to learn more knowledge actively. That’s the goal for every education system.