I watched a documentary called homo academicus recently, and even though many situations in this documentary seems familiar to me, it was still really inspiring. In this documentary, four students from Harvard travel to different regions in the world, and experience the different education in these areas. Since it’s a long series, I only watched the first episode, the one about the Asian education system. So I am going to focus on the comparison between China, other Asian countries, and the western world.
The first place they traveled to Korea. They went to a street full of tutoring class, where numerous students studied hard and wish to get a good grade in the super competitive college entrance exam. Even for young students, a few students at the age of 12 said that they had to keep studying after leaving night school, and normally they go to bed at 12. For China, in my memory, it’s not usual for 12 years old kids to study till 12 at night. I normally stopped studying in 10:30 when I was 12, and for many other students, they spend even less time on studying. But that was the situation when I was young, education in China is always becoming more competitive. Besides, Chinese education also really similar to the education in Korean in many aspects, such as tutoring class. According to my dad, in a relatively large city, the average fee for tutoring per year is about 8000 dollars, which is over a third of the middle-class family’s annual income.
This type of super stressful and competitive education may seem inhumane for the western world, but as someone who has experienced similar education, I don’t think to study hard is torture to Asian kids. From their childhood, these kids are trained to be able to concentrate on studying. It’s a little bit cruel for young kids, especially when they are about 6-8, but they will get used to it finally. I even feel that the student life for Asian kids is even better than kids here since basically everyone is facing the same enemy, the exam, they can build a much stronger friendship, and students really have no time to do some stupid things such as bullying others or learn to smoke the cigarette. It’s kind of like meditation, students actually have extremely pure life. They can always empty their mind, and don’t have to make choices and think about many trivial things.
But certainly, this way of studying has drawbacks. It’s fine that student’s don’t have too much motivation for studying when they are still in the school, because they can still passively accept all the knowledge mentioned in the class. But someday when they have to make choices themselves, many of them are confused. Western education, on the other hand, is all about motivation. The freedom that American children have is unbelievable for Asian kids. They are taught to make their decision ever since they were young. Instead of concentrating on those knowledge mentioned in the class, they are encouraged to choose what they love and give themselves a motivation for further studying.
However, there are also problems with this way of education. I have seen a memorable sentence in an article, “American education is for genius, while Asian education is for normal people.” I think it’s not only accurate description for the difference of two education system but also points out the cons of American education. It tells everyone to follow their heart, but not everyone can understand what they wanna do in the future. Sometimes people get tired of numerous choices during their teenage year, without pressure from outside, can they really stand up again and keep moving forward? For Asian Education, no one gonna excels, but people don’t fall too far behind either. While for the education in the U.S, smart kids can be extraordinary, while some kids have pay for wrong choices they make when they are young.
The last thing I wanna discussed is why Asian people care about education so much. Education is also important here, because it’s also related to of people would be able to do things they love as a job or earn enough money to support a family, but the study doesn’t seem to be such a big deal here. I don’t really have a answer for this right now, my understanding would be that most Chinese people are less satisfied with their lives, and therefore more eager to invest in the future, which is the education of their kids. Also in Chinese culture, children are kind of like a succession of parents lives, so parents always want to impose their wish and their dreams on the younger generation. But in the western world, kids are more like a independent individual. Since they are still young, normally they don’t have such a strong will to change their lives by education, and therefore care less about their education.
This was super interesting! I think I’m going to watch the documentary sometime to learn more about international education system. I like that you included your personal experiences.
I haven’t really considered the US education system as full of choice until now because I was always a really self-motivated student. I felt as if I had to work hard to get As in all my classes. But really, that was my choice. I could’ve chosen just as easily to put in a minimal amount of effort. It’s likely I still would’ve succeeded in getting a diploma and attending a college. This is especially evident in the way my mother deals with homework. She didn’t always remind me and my siblings to do our homework because it’s our responsibility and it was up to us whether we succeeded in school or not. It seems like in Asia, succeeding in school is more of an expectation of most student.