

How Chinese Education System Helps and Hurts China - rblion
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/158/china-education

======
wisty
There's plenty of empirical research that suggests "low level" mastery is all
you really need for creative "high level" stuff. And I think sumative exams
can be fairer (and possibly even kinder) than ongoing assessment. Imagine the
corruption that would set in if schools were running tests every week, or
worse, giving students assignments (which their parents would no doubt do for
them or farm out to professionals, if their parents were well-educated or
rich). In many ways, the Chinese system is pretty good.

What's not good is that 10 years ago, a degree in China meant the difference
between slave labor, and a good secure job. Degrees have been devalued, and
are now much easier to get. And "low skilled" work no longer means 12 hour
days in dangerous environments on starvation wages - a semi-skilled worker in
China can make more than a middle-class white-collar worker (though the
conditions they work in are not enviable); while hordes of degree-holders
compete for a small number of desirable office jobs.

But, the attitudes of parents is still: "If you want to make _anything_ of
your life, you _must_ get a degree. It's even more important than in my day -
because now everyone is getting a degree".

~~~
aik
>> There's plenty of empirical research that suggests "low level" mastery is
all you really need for creative "high level" stuff.

Is there any chance you could you please provide a citation for this? I'm very
curious how that research was done and in what contexts.

I'm of the belief that "low level" mastery can result in good creative
outputs, but in a lot of cases it's a matter of luck as much as skill. The
mastery in one area is supplemented by knowledge in other areas -- it's a sort
of interdisciplinary approach to innovation that can have good outputs but I
would think also come with a low level of guarantee of innovation and poorer
repeatability (see young startup founders).

~~~
wisty
Looking for empirical research on education is difficult. Educationalists have
decided that discovery learning is better, and they don't need to actually
test it. Direct Instruction (the evil old-fashioned neo-colonial alternative)
does tend to "win" in empirical studies, so they try to avoid doing anything
remotely rigorous. Then they say that the studies weren't very good, because
they didn't really test the higher level stuff - after all, you can't really
test creativity.

Both approaches might have their place, but the education establishment would
rather win the argument than be right. Typical arts wankers.

Here's one article. <http://www.binder-riha.com/PT_DI.pdf>

It took me ages to find much interesting - a google scholar search on
"education" gets about 1.5 times the results as "education longitudinal", but
if "direct instruction" gets about 10 times as many articles as "direct
instruction longitudinal". Really, educationalists only pay lip service to
empiricism. When they actually start comparing methodologies, they just use
Sophistry as a methodology.

~~~
Turing_Machine
If you're really interested in this stuff, looking for some research that
isn't 20 years old might be a good idea.

Try this as a starting point:
<http://www.cogtech.usc.edu/publications/hmelo_ep07.pdf>

~~~
wisty
I'm pretty sure "scaffolding" is just a euphemism for "guided instruction".
But they don't want to say it.

Teachers doing a 1 year graduate diploma _don't_ have time to learn 20 years
of euphemisms crusted onto euphemisms, just so the professor doesn't have to
admit that the best methodology is "a little of everything", not the radical
fads they were advocating in the 70s.

~~~
Turing_Machine
"Guided instruction" and "direct instruction" aren't the same thing at all.

Guided instruction: "Have you thought about this? What would change if you did
that?"

Direct instruction: 2+2 = 4. 2+2 = 4. 2+2=4. 2+2=4. (repeat until the student
exhibits the desired response to the stimulus).

Direct instruction is indeed effective if what you're after is a set response
to a given stimulus. Some would question, though, whether this is sufficient
to produce an individual capable of autonomous thinking. Behaviorism is
awesome if you want an animal to press a bar on cuee, less effective if what
you're after is (e.g.) a person capable of evaluating the claims of
politicians and making the most desirable choice (for that person) in the
voting booth.

Your paper hit pretty hard on the applicability of direct instructions for
simple, algorithmic tasks (e.g., the number of arithmetic problems solved per
minute), precisely the type of task where memorization and regurgitation is a
valid strategy.

~~~
wisty
And I don't believe that the methods which are intended to produce people
"capable of evaluating the claims of politicians and making the most desirable
choice (for that person) in the voting booth" are really effective at that.

You can't teach creativity. OK, _maybe_ you can, but the approach of "throw
the students in a group, and tell them to do something creative" is probably
not exactly optimal.

Do teachers give any kind of useful guided instruction on high-level skills?
Or do they just grade the assignments based on presentation?

------
rblion
"The gaokao rewards a special type of student: very strong memory; very strong
logical and analytical ability; little imagination; little desire to question
authority," says Jiang Xueqin, a Yale-educated school administrator in
Beijing. "That person does well on the gaokao--as well as on the SAT, by the
way."

~~~
cafard
Sounds like the old German "Abitur". Americans thought the system deadly, but
some remarkable minds came out of it OK, along with of course hordes who were
merely competent.

------
erikb
I saw that while staying in a Chinese university for one year. But my
university was not a major, glorious, famous school, just a "good" one. I
think these days it is not that extreme anymore. Chinese students actually
have relationships, hobbies and friends. Just the ones who have to be the
elite live in such an extreme environment. But that I think is the same for
most countries. Especially the U.S. probably can't exclude themself from that
(although it just what I think from watching US tv shows and movies, never
went there).

China changes very fast these days. If I go there in 2 years again, I think I
will again already meet another country. And now (meaning starting the last
months!) the change starts to be public driven and not government driven.

------
tomjen3
A part of me can't help but think that people like this would make excellent
employees -- and lousy founders.

Maybe we shouldn't fear China.

~~~
shard
But the thing is, the brilliant founders that do emerge from China can readily
tap into a much larger pool of capable employees than in the US, and they have
over 4 times the population of the US.

~~~
tomjen3
Which brilliant founders (of tech companies) have emerged from China? They
have a large number of businesses but you can study metallurgy and learn how
to make steel but that doesn't make you the kind of person who can create
something truely new.

~~~
wisty
What brilliant founders has the US produced in the last 10 years? Bugger all,
except for Mark Zuckerberg, and a bunch who are not yet household names. China
has only had a few years in which the average 20-something-year-old hacker had
the resources to start a tech business. Even in China, many of the new tech
businesses will not be famous yet.

Also, China's capital tends to be directed to "made-in-China" manufacturing,
where they have a _huge_ advantage. That leaves high-tech startups choked for
funds. How many New York startups can you name really fast?

~~~
tomjen3
Ten years is a little too short to see if somebody can build a company. Drew
Huston springs to mind, though it might be too early to tell yet.

------
Hisoka
I know many of these students are just slackers outside of the classroom. They
remind me of employees who put in a lot of face time, but don't produce
extraordinary results. I wonder how it must feel to go through all that hard
work, then get placed at a job for the rest of your life, where your freedom
is limited even more. Some reward, huh?

