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> Primary/secondary education in China is very, very cruel Could you elaborate? Based upon what I see here in Canada, chinese immigrants maniacally push their

> Primary/secondary education in China is very, very cruel Could you elaborate? Based upon what I see here in Canada, chinese immigrants maniacally push their children to all functions that can be found around. And it's considered good when there're many chinese children in your kid's class.

TACIXAT 10y ago
By all accounts I've read, it is an incredibly intense amount of work. Far more than I would subject a child to. From a quick search [1]. 1. http://hechingered.org/content/a-day-in-the-life-of-chinese-students_3826/ http://hechingered.org/content/a-day-in-the-life-of-chinese-...
yzard 10y ago
As a Chinese, Chinese culture think taking the education is the best way to be success. Honestly, most think that's the only way to do it, no matter they are poor/rich, or even under educated. if they(including me) want their kids to live better in the future, the fundamental thing is education. I attended a very competitive high school in China, and under pretty high peer pressure, books were stacking up on my desk. The final goal is getting high score in "SAT" like test(also much harder) and attending good university. Some of my classmates get medal from International Olympiad and have higher chance to get in to good universities. I think the historical reason for putting education in such high level is this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_examination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_examination.
- justicezyx 10y ago
  > books were stacking up on my desk That's a common situation in Chinese high school. I'd say most Chinese high school are equally competitive. I am in a not so high-ranked school in Shanxi. And I literally have less than 1 day of rest each week. Each day it's from 6am to 9pm. Early self-study, day lecture, and night self-study, all in classroom...
  - fil_a_del_fee_a 10y ago
    Serious question from a concerned American.. How much are you learning and more importantly, are you retaining this information? What subjects / topics are you studying? The reason that I ask, is that I work in IT. If you spent this amount of time devoted to learning a programming language, web design, etc... you would be in an excellent position to work remotely for a company like mine. If you spend 6-9 learning everything under the sun, I think it is kind of a waste.
    - s4vi0r 10y ago
      Whatever it is they learn/how they learn/etc it seems to be grossly inefficient. I noticed literally no difference between my Canadian students and Chinese/Korean students as a TA at a top university here, other than the international students being more likely to plagiarize/copy work. Also, the international students were way more likely to be smokers - not sure if that's a cultural thing, or if it's caused by being stressed the fuck out because of the ridiculous education system there.
      - argonaut 10y ago
        While I agree with your observations, there is also some element of selection bias. Most Chinese students that are able to make it to the US come from rich families since most internationals don't get financial aid (so maybe they're more likely to be spoiled/entitled). Also, depending on how "top" your university, it may have been easier for these students to get into your university than the top universities in China (e.g. they have lower test scores than their peers at the top unis in China).
    - blacktulip 10y ago
      The one and only goal of any and all pre-university education in China is NCEE[1]. NCEE is an exam, which means you get one shot, offline, off books. Now imagine you need to write a website, with pen and paper, without internet or reference books. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Higher_Education_Entrance_Examination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Higher_Education_Entr...
blacktulip 10y ago
It would be a book. There are of course extreme workloads from both the schools and the parents. But to me there is something worse - the public shaming culture. I live in the UK now. Something very odd to me at the beginning is that I can never know how good my kids are doing compare to their classmates. The teachers would politely refuse to answer such questions. And the 'parents meeting' is private to one pupil's parent(s) and the teacher. In China things do not work this way. Every test - and there are a lot of them - is publicly ranked. There will be a very large poster at the back of the classroom with the ranking on it. The parents' meeting is a meeting for all parents of that class together. A teacher will read the ranking aloud on the stage to all parents. The top pupils will be invited onto the stage and receive praise, which is alright. But the bottom pupils will also be invited onto the stage and receive criticism - in front of all peers and their parents. The idea here is to motivate them work harder to avoid the shaming - or to motivate their parents to push them harder to avoid the shaming. It may work for some. But I see more harm done than good here.
- cesarbs 10y ago
  Are test scores calculated relative to the top performer - so that there will always be bottom performers - or is there a bar that everyone could clear so no student would be shamed?
  - blacktulip 10y ago
    That's the teacher's call. If consistently underperform pupil once underperformed less he/she may even get praised. On the other hand. If a top 3 pupil ranked 10 once, he/she may receive some shaming. Different teachers have different styles And of course. Some teachers won't shame pupils at all. But the rankings are always public. No one can change that.
  - xiaoma 10y ago
    There are always bottom performers.
  - Cerium 10y ago
    Doesn't matter which way they are calculated. Names are listed in order of performance. Additionally, at least some schools place students into classes based on previous years rank.
runeblaze 10y ago
Just to add an alternative viewpoint here. It was "cruel" retrospectively and perhaps from the point of American society. Yet it was not really "cruel" when I was "in it". It was not a burden entirely carried by individual students. The entire class was working hard. Everyone was more-or-less tired after class. Teachers and parents accommodated my needs and gave encouragement as long as I was striving to do well in school. Thus it might be ignoring the context to simply push one child in the US to Chinese level of school-work without considering the society around.
- hackuser 10y ago
  > Thus it might be ignoring the context ... I agree to an extent, but ... > it was not really "cruel" when I was "in it" I can't speak about your particular experience, of course, but generally children tend to accept their experiences as the norm. They don't have other experiences, are naturally in a very subordinate position, and are powerless. They can't really deny or hate their parents: the child's actual survival, as well as their welfare and happiness, depends on their relationship with their parents. Consider how many adults won't challenge their bosses (the great majority); now imagine a child's powerlessness, lack of confidence, and even lack of understanding of their own situation matched up against the authority, capability, and power their parents. Even adults in such situations tend to accept their fate and deny the possibility of anything better. I also disagree that cruelty is just a relative term. It is to some degree, but pain and suffering have absolute values. When you break your arm or your loved one dies, the suffering is essentially the same whether you are in New York or Shanghai. I doubt you mean it this way, but claims that other cultures don't value life or suffering have been used as a justification of brutal treatment.

TACIXAT 10y ago

By all accounts I've read, it is an incredibly intense amount of work. Far more than I would subject a child to. From a quick search [1]. 1. http://hechingered.org/content/a-day-in-the-life-of-chinese-students_3826/ http://hechingered.org/content/a-day-in-the-life-of-chinese-...

yzard 10y ago

As a Chinese, Chinese culture think taking the education is the best way to be success. Honestly, most think that's the only way to do it, no matter they are poor/rich, or even under educated. if they(including me) want their kids to live better in the future, the fundamental thing is education. I attended a very competitive high school in China, and under pretty high peer pressure, books were stacking up on my desk. The final goal is getting high score in "SAT" like test(also much harder) and attending good university. Some of my classmates get medal from International Olympiad and have higher chance to get in to good universities. I think the historical reason for putting education in such high level is this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_examination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_examination.

justicezyx 10y ago
> books were stacking up on my desk That's a common situation in Chinese high school. I'd say most Chinese high school are equally competitive. I am in a not so high-ranked school in Shanxi. And I literally have less than 1 day of rest each week. Each day it's from 6am to 9pm. Early self-study, day lecture, and night self-study, all in classroom...
- fil_a_del_fee_a 10y ago
  Serious question from a concerned American.. How much are you learning and more importantly, are you retaining this information? What subjects / topics are you studying? The reason that I ask, is that I work in IT. If you spent this amount of time devoted to learning a programming language, web design, etc... you would be in an excellent position to work remotely for a company like mine. If you spend 6-9 learning everything under the sun, I think it is kind of a waste.
  - s4vi0r 10y ago
    Whatever it is they learn/how they learn/etc it seems to be grossly inefficient. I noticed literally no difference between my Canadian students and Chinese/Korean students as a TA at a top university here, other than the international students being more likely to plagiarize/copy work. Also, the international students were way more likely to be smokers - not sure if that's a cultural thing, or if it's caused by being stressed the fuck out because of the ridiculous education system there.
    - argonaut 10y ago
      While I agree with your observations, there is also some element of selection bias. Most Chinese students that are able to make it to the US come from rich families since most internationals don't get financial aid (so maybe they're more likely to be spoiled/entitled). Also, depending on how "top" your university, it may have been easier for these students to get into your university than the top universities in China (e.g. they have lower test scores than their peers at the top unis in China).
  - blacktulip 10y ago
    The one and only goal of any and all pre-university education in China is NCEE[1]. NCEE is an exam, which means you get one shot, offline, off books. Now imagine you need to write a website, with pen and paper, without internet or reference books. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Higher_Education_Entrance_Examination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Higher_Education_Entr...

blacktulip 10y ago

It would be a book. There are of course extreme workloads from both the schools and the parents. But to me there is something worse - the public shaming culture. I live in the UK now. Something very odd to me at the beginning is that I can never know how good my kids are doing compare to their classmates. The teachers would politely refuse to answer such questions. And the 'parents meeting' is private to one pupil's parent(s) and the teacher. In China things do not work this way. Every test - and there are a lot of them - is publicly ranked. There will be a very large poster at the back of the classroom with the ranking on it. The parents' meeting is a meeting for all parents of that class together. A teacher will read the ranking aloud on the stage to all parents. The top pupils will be invited onto the stage and receive praise, which is alright. But the bottom pupils will also be invited onto the stage and receive criticism - in front of all peers and their parents. The idea here is to motivate them work harder to avoid the shaming - or to motivate their parents to push them harder to avoid the shaming. It may work for some. But I see more harm done than good here.

cesarbs 10y ago
Are test scores calculated relative to the top performer - so that there will always be bottom performers - or is there a bar that everyone could clear so no student would be shamed?
- blacktulip 10y ago
  That's the teacher's call. If consistently underperform pupil once underperformed less he/she may even get praised. On the other hand. If a top 3 pupil ranked 10 once, he/she may receive some shaming. Different teachers have different styles And of course. Some teachers won't shame pupils at all. But the rankings are always public. No one can change that.
- xiaoma 10y ago
  There are always bottom performers.
- Cerium 10y ago
  Doesn't matter which way they are calculated. Names are listed in order of performance. Additionally, at least some schools place students into classes based on previous years rank.

runeblaze 10y ago

Just to add an alternative viewpoint here. It was "cruel" retrospectively and perhaps from the point of American society. Yet it was not really "cruel" when I was "in it". It was not a burden entirely carried by individual students. The entire class was working hard. Everyone was more-or-less tired after class. Teachers and parents accommodated my needs and gave encouragement as long as I was striving to do well in school. Thus it might be ignoring the context to simply push one child in the US to Chinese level of school-work without considering the society around.

hackuser 10y ago
> Thus it might be ignoring the context ... I agree to an extent, but ... > it was not really "cruel" when I was "in it" I can't speak about your particular experience, of course, but generally children tend to accept their experiences as the norm. They don't have other experiences, are naturally in a very subordinate position, and are powerless. They can't really deny or hate their parents: the child's actual survival, as well as their welfare and happiness, depends on their relationship with their parents. Consider how many adults won't challenge their bosses (the great majority); now imagine a child's powerlessness, lack of confidence, and even lack of understanding of their own situation matched up against the authority, capability, and power their parents. Even adults in such situations tend to accept their fate and deny the possibility of anything better. I also disagree that cruelty is just a relative term. It is to some degree, but pain and suffering have absolute values. When you break your arm or your loved one dies, the suffering is essentially the same whether you are in New York or Shanghai. I doubt you mean it this way, but claims that other cultures don't value life or suffering have been used as a justification of brutal treatment.