A Comparison of the Education System in China and the USA - Research Paper Example

Differences between schools in the United s and China Introduction In comparing Chinese school systems to systems in the United States, it becomes clear that the differences that can be appreciated are based upon the cultures that have been cultivated in each society. Pressure for academic performance is the central concern in Chinese schools where social pressures are primary concerns in American Schools. Both school systems are concerned with education, but the responses of the students is in direct relationship to the way in which acculturation has occurred within the society. Chinese culture has contributed success with academic achievement where American culture contributes success to luck and opportunity over education. In addition, because of a rebellious foundation within the American culture, defying authority is a peer related pressure that assumes that to achieve academically is to conform to institutionalization, thus run in conflict with the principles of American success which are based on a firm belief in rebelling against the system. Where Chinese culture is based on conforming, American culture is based on rebellion, affecting the nature of education in both societies. The differences in Chinese and American school systems and the resulting educations is based upon the student response to social pressures that are assigned according to cultural foundations and how they affect perceptions of success and achievement. School Cultures United States The school year in the United States is based upon old customs of accommodating families. When the harvest was an important part of survival for families, the school year was designed around the needs of planting and the harvest. Therefore, the school year lasts from sometime in late August to sometime in early June. There are initiatives to change this, but the tradition is so entrenched in the American culture that, even though most families would benefit from the change and the education of children would have a better consistency, most school districts have not adapted any differences in their schedule. One viable alternative has been suggested where children go to school for three months, are on break for two weeks and then go back for three months, this schedule rotating through the year. It would be easier for working parents and provide children with a better education. The summer break often creates a situation that what has been learned the year before is not successfully retained, thus much of the next year is spent reviewing what had already been taught. This wastes time and children suffer for nostalgia for a system that no longer has a specific purpose. Another reason that this system prevails is that communities have complete control of their school systems, only complying with federal standards where financial incentives put pressure on the districts. Education is not universally standardized from one community to the next, thus there is no nationally recognized conformity. Certain standards are expected and assessed through tests which allow federal funds to become available, but the systems are still autonomous (Ravitch 105). The American systems are burdened by this autonomy with each community having a different set of expectations and standards that must then be set into a position to conform to state and then federal systems in order to qualify for funding that supplements the community’s own funding for the schools. While this helps community schools to have structure, it does not standardize education across that nation. This creates wide disparities from one educational system to the next. Pressures on students in American schools is most often assessed through per pressures as students compete in the social setting, immaterial to academic achievement. Students do not take their academic achievement near as seriously as the social pressures within their classes and their social structure creates classifications that stereotype each individual student’s experience. Classes in high school, such as the jocks, the nerds, the geeks, the Goths, all add up to how high school is experienced for students. Excelling academically can also, ironically, place a student in a lesser social category, other students making fun of them for being intelligent and doing well. It is a competitive posturing, but it diminishes the education of those who fall to this form of peer pressure. Standardized testing in the United States comes under a great deal of scrutiny and is believed to actually diminish the potential for education in the classrooms. Children are taught with the intention of getting them through the examinations, rather than with an intent to impart education. The motivation for federal funding incites school systems to make structured demands on teachers that disallow any creativity or diversion of focus from the tests, which do not always follow a course of instruction that best benefit’s the overall education of the students. This has inspired what is known as ‘cram curriculem’ which means that passing the tests through pushing the information into the short term memory becomes more important than long term, high quality retention (Elford 32). China China has a similar system as their school year runs from early September to Mid-July. The months in between are used to take summer classes and prepare for exams that are intended to assess progress (School Years Around the World). However, unlike students in the United States, students in China are under a system that is similar throughout the nation, the state controlling how education is assessed. Funding has no place in encouraging systems to conform, thus the funding of schools is based upon an entirely different set of incentives. Surprisingly, educations are subject to the money that parents can afford for tuition as the state does not provide the education in the financial sense. Tuition is paid by parents as they provide for the financial element of their children’s education. Tuition can be from 125 equivalent American dollars to 600 per year (Stanat 36). During the educational process, careers are chosen for students, the level of the education the parents can afford providing for the type of career that might be possible. Jobs are not developed through the interests of the students, but through the quality of their education and the influences of their parents in making the choice. Globalization has become an influencing factor in career choices and the consumerist society has influenced the economics of the nation to the extent that money is a driving force behind the choices made by students and their parents. Being able to participate in a meaningful way as a consumer and conversely, to use capitalist aesthetics to their advantage for profit creates a context for the desires of many of the students in Chinese learning institutions (Stanat 129). Even though this is similar to the American aesthetics, the drive towards success is predicated on an understanding of hard work and achievement, where the United States glamorizes success under the concepts of the American Dream, which suggests that luck and opportunity, over education and hard work, provides for success. Peer pressure is not as much of an issue in Chinese schools as students are earnestly focused on their studies. The differences in social structures are the cause of this focus. Teachers will actively humiliate students who do not perform academically, placing a higher level of educational achievement as a central motivation in comparison to American schools where students set the competitive concepts and academic achievement can be seen as ‘selling out’ to authority (Stanat 35). It is a difference in the assertion of power where the students in American schools are not, typically, afraid of humiliation by teachers, but are more afraid of the humiliation of their peers. In Chinese schools, conformity is with the purpose of achieving more within the educational system and in focusing on the importance of an education for the future. Students are more likely to ridicule each other for not achieving than for not defying authority. Where there is a culture of rebellion in the United States, the Chinese culture is one of more conformity. This is encouraged through concepts that discourage stepping outside of the desires of the authoritative institutions, emphasized by uniforms and high levels of standards that put pressure on students to succeed (Stanat 35). Pressure in Chinese schools is very high. As the level of achievement is high, the level of pressure is excruciatingly high, especially for those who struggle academically. Teachers are motivated to teach through wage incentives that are based on the performance of their students. Thus, it is imperative that students be prepared for their examinations and prove their learning outcomes. This is not dissimilar to the United States and their standardized testing, however, because of the cultural differences, passing the tests is not enough, but excelling through true achievement is primary and at the top of the concerns of school administration. An example by Stanat is made through the experience of a student named Zheng Qingming who could not afford to pay the exam fees for entrance into the university. His parents had fallen on hard times and money was scarce. However, his teacher, motivated by their own purposes from the benefit they would receive from all of his or her students taking and passing the exam, humiliated him in front of his class. As a result and feeling that there was no recourse, a feeling of despair for his future, Zheng stepped in front of a train (Stanat 41). This type of humiliation to put pressure on students places them in the middle of hard choices sometimes that have disastrous results. Analysis of Chinese and American Systems In examining both systems, there are failures on both sides to truly meet the needs of the students in the classrooms. Motivations that are placed on the teachers are based upon financial motivators which gloss over the true needs of the students. In the American system, federal funding for the schools is determined by the ability of the school to perform as proven through standardized testing, where similar testing is expected for the personal achievement of the teacher in China who benefits if his or her students do well. Because it is difficult to motivate teachers to teach with the moral intention of enhancing society and culture through well-educated students, formalized incentives have become necessary. The time periods of both school systems are similar with China having a shorter ’summer break’. However, in the Chinese system, this break is intended for furthering individual studies in preparation for exams. Students in the United States are more often immersed in athletic organizations in the summer, their time devoted to game competition and social development. The emphasis on social development preempts much of the drives and motivations in the American culture, a detriment to achievement that is meaningful in the long term. The hope of the ‘American dream’ overrides common sense, providing a dream state that prevents real levels of achievement in many Americans. The system in China takes this concept to the other side of that paradigm, the concepts of achievement pushing the Chinese students to the point of dire feelings about any lack or vulnerability that they may display. Where the ethic of hard work has provided high levels of accomplishment, the elements of fate induced obstacles has placed some students in predicaments that they cannot navigate. This can be as much as a problem as the overriding belief that success is a determination of luck rather than hard work as seen in the United States. Where Americans believe that their destiny is a matter of being ’chosen’ through fate for success, the Chinese believe that a failure to achieve resides solely on the individual which is a failure to the state. Both systems provide for too many lost in the social class struggles that exist within in each system. In the United States, social class is determined through social achievement in combination with financial achievement. This is similar in China, but because education is funded by parents rather than through the state, the social class system is difficult to rise above. Where poor Chinese parents are limited to the schools where they can send their children, thus limiting their future, the United States public school system gives a more evenly distributed set of opportunities. However, because of the condition of schools in impoverished areas of the United States, this equity is socially not distributed as it is intended. Because of the importance of community autonomy, it is the condition of the community that denotes the level of school quality rather than the economic state of the parents. Both systems of education have positive aspects. Students are given schedules that are similar to work schedules, students in the Chinese schools going to school six days per week with students in American schools going to school five days a week. The Chinese school day is longer than the American school day, with an expectation of homework after school, where homework is given in American schools, but with a shorter school day. Chinese students have an eight hour school day with an expectation of six hours of homework after school has ended (Stanat 44). The shorter school day allows for a bit more time to pursue experiences that are individuated, giving the student time to engage many different activities. The high levels of achievement in the Chinese schools, on the other hand, means that a better education is being given. Both systems have positives, that are balanced by their negative aspects. Recommendations Both systems would benefit from a reconstruction of the way in which education is approached. Both systems tend to focus on the needs that the state puts forth for student achievement, rather than the purposes of education. The systems require cultural adjustments to how education is perceived. Both systems are subject to social beliefs that hamper the true purpose of education which is to increase the intellectual responses that students have to the world. Because of being stuck in cultural morays that dictate belief systems that are focused solely on financial success, a great loss of potential is experienced as the end is seen as the only goal, rather than the journey towards that end. Culture is getting in the way of meaningful learning. The primary practical system within the United States that should be changed is the concept of the summer vacation. The summer creates a problem for students as without continuing educational stimulation, much of what is learned from the year before is not retained. Thus, every year of school is concerned with repeating information from the previous year to reinforce those learning outcomes from the year before. While the Chinese system has a shorter, but still relevant ’summer break’, their summer break is devoted to pursuing individual educational deficits, creating even higher levels of achievements in their academic career. The year round school system would interfere with athletic participation in summer sports, a big part of the reason why schools resist going to year round education. This is a cultural concept that creates a great deal of inequity within the social systems of the United States. Not all students are athletic, and athleticism, as it is conducted in the United States, does not become a lifelong pursuit as it is not done for the health of students, but for the competition and prestige of the community. As individuals are weeded out and only the best continue forward towards high school sports, then college, the summer becomes devoted only to those who have high levels of achievement, thus discounting a great many students and disregarding their needs. As few benefit from this concept, year round schooling should be implemented in the American system. Conclusion While greatly diverse in cultural systems, the Chinese and the American school systems suffer from similar results that come from very different sources. The problems with the education in both systems are defined by the failures of the cultures to assess the true needs of students as they head towards the future. While the Chinese culture supports a more realistic foundation of the needs of success, the American system allows for the pursuit of more individuated goals and experimentation with outside activities. The nature of education, however, the ability to become resources for innovation towards a better future is stunted in both systems as students face pressures that are not about academics, but about beliefs that are defined by social pressure. From the United States, social class and beliefs creates social pressures on students as they seek to find a way to belong. In China, the beliefs of the state impose social classes through economic factors that prevent students from reaching their full potential if not within the proper economic state. Both nations suffer from aspects of the other, creating systems that do not directly address the best academic outcomes. Works Cited Elford, George W. Beyond Standardized Testing: Better Information for School Accountability and Management. Lanham, Md: Scarecrow Press, 2002. Print. Ravitch, Diane. The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education. New York: Basic Books, 2010. Print. School Years Around the World. Infoplease. 2011. Web 1 June 2011. Stanat, Michael. China's Generation Y: Understanding the Future Leaders of the World's Next Superpower. Paramus, N.J: Homa & Sekey Books, 2006. Print. Read More