Welcome to the Seneca Podcast, a weekly discussion of current affairs in China, coming to you from the pop -up Chinese studio here in Beijing. I'm your host, Kaiser Guo, joined this week by David Moser, our good friend and the academic director of the CET program here in Beijing. The notorious Gene Yuemi is on a big holiday this week, or he's down in Hong Kong for whatever reason, hopefully gathering good first -hand observations and forming some keen insights for a future show that we have about the recent very large -scale anti -Beijing protests, and of course what's happening now generally in the special administrative region. David, how are you, man? Very good, very good. A pleasure as always. I understand that you spent the morning at the Great Hall of the People with Secretary of State John Kerry and Vice Premier Liu Yandong, celebrating 35 years of educational exchange.
Education in China (Sinica interview with Jiang Xueqin)
Source-synced transcript for the compressed reading. Spans keep the original chronology, timestamps, and audit trail behind the public interpretation.
Of educational exchange between the People's Republic of China and the U .S., yeah. But the most exciting thing was Yao Ming was there. Yao Ming was there? Yes.
Could anyone see him? Could you see anything else except for Yao Ming? Yes, people said, sit down, please. No, he towered, let's put it that way, above everyone. Yeah, yeah. So I understand that you killed there, that you gave a really good speech.
Well, thank you. I hope so. I did a little bit of stand -up for them.
Very positive reports from my friend Alison Friedman. Anyway, by wonderful coincidence, we actually will be talking about educational exchange among other aspects of education in China. Education in China is sometimes the object of breathless or even envious praise. Sometimes it's deriding. Probably more often it's just derided for producing soulless automatons who utterly lack critical thinking skills or imagination or the capacity to innovate. You have on the one hand the Shanghai students kicking serious ass on the PISA, the Program for International Student Assessment. They took first place in mathematics and science and reading a couple of times in this tri -annual assessment. On the other hand, you have a great deal of criticism over the ubiquitous practice of teaching to the test, teaching specifically to the Gaokao, to the college entrance exam. You have a great deal of criticism for the technical and statistical explanations, about the rigidity and the hierarchical nature of thinking that's imposed
in the pedagogical system in China, and about the rampant cheating that may result from some of the above. So today we're delighted to be joined by Jiang Xueqin, who is deputy principal of Tsinghua Fuzhong, the high school affiliated with prestigious Tsinghua University here in Beijing. Xueqin is an outspoken and oft -quoted advocate for education reform, someone with very strong views on what's right and what's wrong. Xueqin, welcome to Sinica, and thanks for taking the time to share your ideas with our listeners. I'm very pleased to be here, guys. This is actually my first podcast, so I'm very nervous. Well, we'll be gentle with you. Thank you very much. I promise. So let's talk first about Shanghai's very impressive PISA results, which was included by the OECD in tests, I think, for the first time in 2009? That's correct, yes. But it's Shanghai that took first place. First, explain why do they allow a city to participate rather than a country?
Whenever you go to Shanghai, they allow a city to participate, but everything else is at a country level.
Well, in 2009, PISA entered China for the first time, and 12 provinces, including Shanghai, participated in the PISA. And in 2010, when the results were publicly released, only results from Shanghai were announced. And Andreas Schleicher, who runs PISA, told me that the reason why is that the OECD is only happy and confident with the methodology in the Shanghai PISA performance. Okay. So for a lot of bureaucratic reasons, they chose not to give a country ranking and rather just focus on Shanghai.
I guess there are a couple of other countries that only do municipality. I think in India, I think it's only Bombay or Mumbai. Is that correct?
I'm not sure. I mean, for my knowledge, there are only three cities, Hong Kong, Macau, and Shanghai, all part of the China PRC officially. That's right. And they're the ones whose results are announced as separate entities. But I'm not sure about India actually.
Yeah. I mean, it was really striking. I think anyone who looks at that list of rankings of PISA will not only notice that Shanghai is way up there at the top, but also that everything in the sort of top echelon is an East Asian country or region.
Absolutely. So it's basically Shanghai, then you have South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Taiwan. Hong Kong, Japan. Hong Kong, Macau, they're in the top 10 for sure. Right. So these Asian countries dominate these PISA rankings. And you can make the argument that that's really an indicator that PISA is skewed towards certain skills that are focused in East Asian education systems and not particularly focused in, say, European or American school systems. It's mathematics heavy. Is that right? Well, there are three subjects. There's mathematics, there's reading, and then there's mathematics. And then there's science. But David, you want to add something?
No, I was just going to say the way you put that, though, is perhaps suspect. You said it indicates that the test is skewed. But I mean, what is the proof of that? I mean, they could say also that we just excel in these subjects. Why is this skewed?
Sure. My issues with the PISA are many. But the first issue is that the PISA test is a snapshot of the education system through the eyes of a 14 -year -old. So only 14 -year -olds are tested. So that's tested from the age from first time when they're 7 or 14 and then 24. So the results only reflect how 14 -year -olds perform in the school system. Now, as we know, 14 -year -olds are probably the most volatile age group of students. I mean, they're undergoing through puberty. There's a tectonic shift in their brains, in their hormones. So that's a very volatile and really unpredictable age for students. Right. So you look at America. Listen, when you go into a classroom in America, how many 14 -year -olds can sit still? And can you get them to sit still for five hours? And that's something that East Asia does very well. These Singaporean kids, these kids in China, they can sit still and do a test for five hours.
I don't think you would find that many kids in America or in Europe who would actually sit still for like five hours and do a test. Is that an indictment of Chinese pedagogy? Or is that good?
Yeah.
Is that good? There's this German sort of virtue that they have. They have a word for it, which means sit flesh, the ability to sit for hours and concentrate. Why is that not an advantage? Stick -to -itivity. Yeah, stick -to -itivity. Anti -ADD.
Wow. I mean, you guys are speaking on behalf of the Chinese education system. I'm not prepared for this. But what I would argue is that education encompasses many different spheres. And the school system, which focuses on literacy and numeracy, it's only one part. Right. It's not just one part of a child's developmental... Yeah, I definitely agree with that. Right. So I think that the ability to interact with friends, the ability to make mistakes, the opportunity to take risks, you know, individual space, especially for teenagers, is very important. And the problem in China is that students are not given as individual space. It's schooling from morning until they go to bed. So it's either, you know, going to school and sitting in lectures from like nine until four, and then going to cram school, and then whatever extracurricular activities the parents have arranged for the kid.
So you're saying almost that the PISA is a culturally biased exam, right? Favors a sort of not just a formal educational system, but actually a style of parenting and everything that is...
Well, I mean, Kaiser, you can make the argument that every test is fundamentally biased. We've spent, you know, decades of research, researching tests like the IQ test, the IQ test, the IQ test, the SAT. And what we've discovered is that every test, any test, will just test your ability to do well on the test, including the IQ test, including the SAT, including the Gaokao, which is the National College Interest Examination in China, including the PISA. So the fact of the matter is that East Asia is a testing culture. High -stakes testing is fundamental and ingrained in the culture. It has roots that goes back, you know, thousands of years in East Asian culture. Mm -hmm. So, of course, East Asian kids will do better on a test than kids in Europe and America. I mean, like, another example of this is, like, you look at the SAT, right? Well, kids from East Asia will dominate over other groups in America.
Chinese love taking tests, right? I mean, in America, you know, you say to a class, okay, we're doing a test today. All the kids groan, right? Except for that one Chinese kid in the back who's like, yes, this is my opportunity to shine, you know? I suck at football. I'm good with girls. Not good with girls. But on a math test, this is my time. So this is basically, you know, the PISA is basically a godsend for Shanghai because, you know, the Shanghai authorities, they're very much concerned with international reputation. They really want to promote their school system. So, I mean, you could make the argument that Shanghai did so on the PISA because they were motivated to do well. From the top down, the educational authorities told the teachers, listen, make sure your kids do well on the PISA. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. never happen in America or in Europe. Right. There may have been some lift generated by the top -down kind of, you know, the central authorities wanting Shanghai to do well on this.
But I think it's pretty widely understood that Shanghai's educational system itself among Chinese cities and provinces is exceptionally good. Is that correct? Yeah, I mean, absolutely. I mean, in
terms of teaching kids fundamental skills, especially numerous in literacy, the Chinese education system is very good. And the Shanghai school system is at the K -12 level, the very best China has to offer. What does it do right? What are they getting right? Right. The Chinese education system that we have today, it's a blended model of the confusion system, you know, where people looking to get into the manual system, they had to go for a series of examinations. Civil service examination. Yeah, sure, sure. To demonstrate the understanding of orthodoxy, political orthodoxy, and the ability to conform to the system. This is what we call the code system. This goes back thousands of years. So and as you say, it's a civil service examination. But, but starting in the 1950s, when China was beginning to build its economy, it also needed to create a proletariat. And that meant taking people from the countryside and teaching them basic numeracy and literacy in order for them to become factory workers.
So what we have in China is basically a blended model of a confusion system with a Stalinist system. The system has three major objectives. The first major objective is to make sure that the Chinese education system is a good system. The second major objective is to make sure that the vast majority of your population has basic literacy and numeracy skills to be able to contribute to the socialist economy. And they did that very well. Second is to maintain political orthodoxy throughout the country. So you know, China is a strange place because it's a size of Europe. It's probably as diverse in terms of ethnicity as Europe. But if you go to Yunnan, you go to Tibet, or if you go to, you know, Harbin, everyone thinks the same. Everyone has the same ideas about how the system works, about the history, about the culture, about the history.
So the system is very good at indoctrinating a sort of political orthodoxy throughout the country. And the third major goal was basically to distribute scarce education resources in the fairest and most merit -oriented way possible. And that's why we created something called the Gaokao, the National College of Interest Examination. So every child, the moment he is born, he is being trained to do well on the Gaokao. So high -stakes testing, what we find is that because China has a high -stakes testing system, it's good to have a high -stakes testing system. It's good to have a high -stakes testing system, good at equipping as many people as possible with basic numeracy and literacy skills, because you're motivated to do so, and the system is in place to make sure that they learn these skills in order to pass tests. What we find, though, is that the same high -stakes testing system limits students in higher -order thinking skills like creativity, empathy, judgment, collaboration.
And that's where China is most lacking right now.
Right. I mean, that's what we always hear. I mean, that's anyone who does the first thing about Chinese pedagogy will point right away to the prevalence of this rote learning and the relative lack of critical thinking, like you were talking social interactive skills. We've already alluded to that. But, you know, we've been talking about this problem for decades, right? Sure. This has been something that we've been keenly aware of. I'm the parent of two primary school students, and my distinct sense is that resistance to any fundamental change to this isn't necessarily coming from the schools or the teachers or the Ministry of Education, but it may be something maybe more profound and maybe more interesting. Yeah, I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point, and it's something that's more inertial, which is from the parents themselves. Exactly, yeah. That's my impression, too.
You know, we always have this problem with, as soon as you try to reform the gaokao or if you suggest, for example, lowering the percentage of English or reforming it in such a way as to encourage creativity, that one of the first people who squawk is the parents because they're so concerned that their children do well on the test to get into college. That's paramount. And in fact, some schools will hesitate to make even basic curriculum changes changes that would encourage these kinds of things because they're going to get skepticism from the parents who are saying, you know, well, you know, I only have two more years and the kid has got to learn his STEM skills as much as he can.
Right. Do you feel like that's starting to change at all? You're absolutely right in that the major racism is coming from parents. So what's happening in China right now is that the ones who are most advocating education reform are basically the elite in education. So the universities, right, Peking University and TNOR University who believe that the alcohol is not producing the students necessary to do well in an academic setting and to do research because they lack critical thinking skills and scientific research skills. Top educators in China have been advocating for education reform ever since the days of Tsai Ing -Pei, right?
Tsai Ing -Pei was the principal or he was the first principal of Peking University, right? Right.
And during the May 4th era. That's right. And the communist elite, people who run the economy, are concerned that the education system is not producing the workers necessary to maintain China's economic development. So right now there's a real mismatch between what the economy needs, which are basically managers, designers, entrepreneurs, and what the education system is producing, which is basically a lot of accountants and computer programmers. So the political hierarchy is very concerned that if we don't change the education system, then China's economic development will stall, which is a paramount concern of the Communist Party. At the grassroots level, parents think that, I mean, they have a very simple, very simple explanation for what's going on. They think that the elite is trying to screw them. So there are three major problems in the Chinese education system that I see. The first major problem is that the Chinese education system, it's a monolithic socialist bureaucracy, which is top -down, and it's resistant to change.
As we know, bureaucracies are always resistant to any change. There's bureaucratic inertia. So that's one major problem. But then the other problems are cultural, which is that, you know, China, it's very much a society that is very utilitarian, very resource -oriented. So they trust test scores, don't trust teacher recommendations, don't trust qualitative measures of a student's progress. They only trust test scores. It's a very utilitarian, very resource -oriented society. The other issue is the Chinese don't really trust institutions. There's a lack of civil society in China. There's a lack of institutional trust. So the idea of the Gaokao is that it bypasses institutions. It's a test score, right? So the test score, from a parent's perspective, is an objective and fair indicator of students' academic achievement and its ability to do well in school and in life.
Yeah, you mentioned that several times, the fact that the Gaokao, if they start it all over again, you're going to still come up with the Gaokao, because it's the most effective way to ensure fairness, given the fact that they're trying to achieve equality, which is everyone, no child is left behind.
Exactly. So again, the issue is that China is a very large country, huge population with very limited education resources. Peking and Tsinghua are the two best universities. Everyone's trying to test into it. Everyone's trying to test into these, these universities. So we have the Gaokao and it's very hard to change because parents think that, listen, if we take away the Gaokao, it's just going to be the elite monopolizing education for themselves. And that's all, all we're going to have. Yeah. If we don't have a test score, all that we're going to have is guanxi. And so if we are middle class or we're lower class, we're totally screwed.
Can I point out something with, along the subject of parents, there's two contradictory groups of parents. One of the ones that we just were talking about that, that say, you know, they're very test oriented. They want the Gaokao and they're very, they want their kids to test the Gaokao. The other are the parents that are, that are also disenchanted with the education system and they have the wealth and the means to just get the hell out. And they just want to say, I just went out of the system. My kid's not even going to take the Gaokao and we're going to educate him in Canada. So you have these two parents, one that are sort of, sort of trying to reinforce the Gaokao and the others that are saying we're out of here.
So it's kind of a weird situation. Well, I mean, it is a weird situation and David's absolutely right. There are now two major factions of parents. The majority, of course. Of course, are those who are probably happy with the system as it is because they think that the Gaokao is really the only mechanism of social mobility in China right now. Right. And you have a minority, but a very growing and very powerful minority of parents who are disgusted with the test oriented, high stakes testing system that we have nowadays in China. So as David says, they're sending their kid to America for college. You know, the Institute of International Education released its open, open, open doors policy, open doors report a few months ago. And it said that over 20%. You know, 400,000 Chinese are now studying in American institutes of higher learning. This does not include, by the way, high school students. The major trend right now is for parents to send their kids to America for high school.
Yeah. And possibly for junior high school. A lot of parents are choosing to immigrate to America, to Canada, to New Zealand. Just for purposes of educating their children. Exactly. So this is a major issue. But the problem with this is that because they're voting with their feet, their voice, they're not actually in China advocating for education reform. So there's nobody here to fight the virus.
There's nobody here to fight the fight now. Exactly. Exactly. That's the problem. I mean, I was going to point that out. Exactly. That's a really difficult conundrum then. You talked though about one of the problems being the monolithic Ministry of Education and the whole education apparatus. Are they not persuaded by what the elites, the educators at Tsinghua and Beida are saying to them about the need to create a new, I mean, because every time I read a pronouncement from the Ministry of Education, it seems to ring exactly like that. They talk about critical thinking skills. They talk about the need to move beyond. Just rote learning, everything that I've ever seen. It seems like the Ministry of Education is behind the idea of reform.
Chinese administrators, Chinese Democrats are amazing at double think. So they're very good at, you know, saying something in public and then actually doing something completely different. So you visit a lot of high school principals in Shanghai or Beijing. They all talk about education reform and the need to lessen the pressure on kids. But, you know, they do nothing. And they just focus on tests after you leave. So they have this spiel that they perfected for, like, you know, visit delegations from, you know, America or from the West and, you know, for reporters and for, you know, Chinese media. But what they do in practice is still the same old, same old. Okay. So we have you here.
You're a noted educational reform advocate. What's your prescription? I think we're all pretty clear on the diagnosis here, right? But what's your actual, what do you think are actionable steps that China can take? To free itself from these sort of, you know, the fetters of this antiquated pedagogical system?
Sure. I'm not sure if you gentlemen have a chance to read The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus. Yeah. And so the idea of the essay is that Sisyphus was this Greek king who offended the gods. So the gods became so pissed at him that they devised the most cruel punishment they could think of. And so Sisyphus was condemned for all of eternity to roll a boulder up a hill. Yeah.
We're all familiar with that.
And the boulder would just come right down after, you know, you roll up the hill. So it was a very futile, eternal task. And you can make the argument that Chinese education system, reforming the system here is a, is the same thing. It's a Sisyphean struggle. It's, it could possibly be an impossible thing because education, remember, it is linked to so many other areas, politics, culture, society, all linked to education. So.
I take it. I take it you're not ready to throw in the towel. I mean, this is your, your, this is what you do, right? I mean, clearly you must believe that there's something to be done. Sure.
Okay. So I believe the prescription for education reform is to create a creative and innovative culture in education. And that requires three things. One is openness. The openness to new ideas. The openness to criticism. So right now China is very much an insular society. And so I think making the schools more open to criticism and to new ideas. It's the first major initiative that we have to focus on. Second is diversity. So as, as I said, in China right now, it's a very monolithic school system where every school is the same. It's amazing because you go to Yunnan, which, you know, is a very poor rural area of China, very hilly. And Beijing, if you look at the textbooks, it's very similar. The, the pedagogy, the teaching style, all very similar. Sure. And that's not appropriate for, for China. So, so basically how do we create more diversity in education? Well, first of all, the,
the school system in China. And third is basically to create a culture of risk -taking. To basically empower principals to try new things. And most of the time, these new ideas will be stupid and they'll fail. But then some of the ideas will stick. So the only way for China to progress and build an education system that's right for, for itself is not to import, like, the advanced placement or international backward curriculum. And basically to focus on empowering a new generation. And we need a new generation of educators to take risks and discover a formula that works right for their local schools.
I mean, pardon me, but I mean, I, I, well, I agree that these are, are, are, are all things that are necessary to be done. I, they don't feel to me like bite -size pieces that we could take. I mean, it feels like boiling the ocean to me. It feels like, I mean, you're, you're, you're, you're, you know.
Individual Sisyphean tasks in themselves almost.
Exactly. They, they, they don't feel to me like, I mean, I, I would look at that and feel even a greater sense of futility. Like, these are the only things that, I mean, getting from A to B seems like a, a, a, a My God, it's, it's. Well, listen. It's, you're talking about cultural change.
This is the sort of thing that only happens in generations. And you guys have been here in China for a long time. I've been in China for 15 years. And what we've seen in China is that it changes a lot. It changes very quickly. Yeah. And the idea is that, you know, if you don't like China right now, come back in five years' time. It's completely different. Yeah. I've seen China, you know, go through these generational leaps in my 15, 15 years here. I was the guy back in 2000, 2001, working as a journalist saying that, you know, you know, China was going to collapse. Boy, was I wrong. I mean, like, China is not, the world has collapsed. China is still, you know, moving ahead. So, I think that right now, given the state of, state of things in China, things do look impossible. But at the same time, we see this incredible energy and dynamism in China that you really don't see anywhere else.
So, I think that in the coming years, we're going to see new opportunities. But, but again, I think the former remains the same, which is like, you know, we have to create space for experimentation, innovation within this very, very, very, very, very, very powerful education bureaucracy in place today.
Let, let me just point out also that, that in a lot of cases, what's happening is because the, the system is so entrenched, there's actually lots of movement in other areas that's forcing change. And you can comment better than I can on some of them. But, but for, for example, one of them is gaokao reform, where they're talking about adjusting the, the percentages or the ratios. You know, that's one thing. The other thing is there's, there's new types of schools forming up, you know. Yeah, yeah. There's experimental schools. There, there are also, there are also certain universities, and I, and the name is escaping me at the moment, but there's some universities that are actually choosing to get out of the accreditation system. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. So that they are not subject to the, they're not part of the unified.
Right. Shixin, you, you used to work, in fact, at, at Shenzhen at the experimental school there. Tell, tell us what these experimental schools are and what's being done. Yeah.
So, right now is a season for education reform in China. In 2010, the prime minister, Wen Jiabao, announced a major education reform blueprint for the next 10 years. Plans to shift China from, you know, a high -stakes testing system into a more progressive model. And so, as David was saying, you have many trends and you have many examples of progressive education reform. Certainly, the Southern Institute of Science and Technology in Shenzhen. That's the one I'm thinking of. Yes. Right. Is an example of this. Exactly. Where the headmaster, the founding principal, is one of China's most progressive educators. Yes. He was formerly head of the Norvin School of Science and Technology. He, he went down to Shenzhen, invited by the Shenzhen government to open his own university. And what makes the school special is that it bypasses Gaokao. Yeah. It, it emits students based on other criteria, more holistic criteria, as opposed to just one number.
We, we're seeing mixed results from schools so far. We're not really sure how the experiment is, is going to turn out. But, you know, the fact that Shenzhen, which is a city of 7 million people, a very wealthy government, is sponsoring this sort of issue of reform is certainly a cause for hope. We have a lot of private schools opening in China. Keystone Academy, Y.K. Pao School in Shanghai. We have a lot of these new, exciting private schools based on a Western progressive pedagogical model geared towards Chinese students. And then you have Peking and Tsinghua Universities, which have been advocating for reform in the Gaokao missions for the longest time. You know, the 100 other professors wrote an open letter to the president of China saying that, look, if we are going to thrive as a global research institution, we need to have control over emissions. We can't just be emitting all these test
-taking drones, robots. We need more critical thinkers. We need more creative individuals who will do very well in a, in a lab, in a classroom, asking questions and questioning authority. So,
Was it Tsinghua that was also going to open up some, some actual research? Interviews, personal interviews with certain applicants? Was it Tsinghua or what's going on with that? Right.
So, so, so the Gaokao, that's the major area of focus. So the idea of Gaokao is how do we go about changing it in a way that's acceptable to the public? So they're looking at many different models, including diversifying or the requirements for emissions. So looking at interviews, but also looking at your academic achievements in high school, GPA. There's, there's all sorts of ideas being floated, floated about. But again, the major issue is that people don't really trust the government. The people really don't trust institutions to make reforms that reflect the needs of society. The people think that, okay, it's just the elite trying to, trying to monopolize education for themselves. The elite is going to screw us over again if we trust them. So there's all these ideas being, you know, floated around. And a lot of these ideas are very interesting and very good ideas. It's just like, what's the public appetite for change?
And And that question isn't being settled right now. The other major trend that we're seeing, and David alluded to this much earlier, is study abroad. Study abroad is a very exciting trend because you have all these young Chinese going abroad and getting a global education. And then Let's talk about that.
I mean, that's, that's an important thing. You had mentioned a figure of about 200,000 currently enrolled in secondary, I mean, post -secondary educational institutions. I've seen another figure of just last year, 235,000 students. Sure. Including secondary and post -secondary. Sure. That's an enormous number.
Schools have routinely seen their Chinese students double every year. Routinely.
What's really interesting to me, though, I mean, as a Chinese American growing up and being, you know, intimately acquainted with many others, is how the learning styles into which our parents were often inculcated, you know, it's been the same decade after decade after decade, stretching back to the 30s and 40s. I find often, you know, it's been the same. I mean, people like me who were born in the United States still have that same kind of approach and almost resistance to that challenge to authority, the so -called, I hate the phrase, but thinking out of the box or Sure. What's going on here? I mean, is there something sort of more deeply cultural and certainly not genetic, but you actually have an interesting personal experience, right? I mean, you were born in China, but you moved to Canada when you were quite young. Is that correct? Mm -hmm. And you ended up attending Yale and
had, I think, in many ways, a typical experience for a lot of Asian Americans or for a lot of specifically East Asian Americans in the States. Could you talk a little bit about that?
Sure. Absolutely. This is a topic I've been thinking a lot about. You know, study abroad, it's a very personal issue for me because, as you say, I was an immigrant to Canada and I came back to work in the education system, so I think a lot about my personal experience in the Western education system, and I think a lot about how it compares with the Chinese education system. So this has become a very personal issue for me, very emotional, very personal issue. So my story is this. When I first went to Canada, I had a very tough time because I was very shy. I was a very awkward kid. You know, in China, I would have fit in perfectly well. You know, it's like the ugly duckling story, right? I would have fit in perfectly well in China because everyone is shy, everyone's awkward, everyone just reads books in China. But in a place like
Toronto, where being popular is very important and being cool and being good at sports and being good with girls. It's Canada. They can just forget about trying to be cool. Right. Sure. But I had a very tough time growing up in Canada. I was bullied a lot. I was teased a lot. I developed a lot of traumatic psychological scars growing up in Canada. And then when I went to Yale, it was a different type of psychological scar because all my classes were in Canada. My classmates came from, you know, these very upper class, very intellectual families. And my family, my dad was a cook. My mom was a seamstress. And I felt a complete fraud at a place like Yale where, you know, being charming, where social etiquette was the priority. So I ran away from all of that. I was alienated. I was traumatized. I was very withdrawn. And I was very shy. I
basically decided that I wanted to run away from all of this and then come to China. And the irony, of course, is that I'm helping students now go away. I'm helping students go abroad and potentially encounter the same sort of psychological scars that I encountered when I was in high school in Canada. Oh, misery loves comedy. Yeah.
Like fraternity hazing, you know.
But at the same time, because I've had this experience and because I see the dangers, the inherent dangers of Chinese encountering a Western education system. I'm a very vocal critic of this trend. Actually, I write a lot for Chinese newspapers, emphasizing the need for students to be psychologically prepared for the experience in America. Basically, what we find is that China and the West is not a good marriage. And so the Chinese education system, it's very good at producing students to do well in the Chinese society. So not talking, not questioning authority, just going with the flow, emphasizing and leveraging your frequency network, these are very important skills you need to do well in China. But when these kids go off to America, they find that because they've been indoctrinated to do well in this Chinese school system, they become stressed out by the American school system where everyone's raising his hand, everyone is talking out of turn.
The professor expects you to say something interesting or unique in classroom discussion. The professor expects you to write a paper and advocate your opinion, whether it's right or wrong. These are all hallmarks of the Western school system. These are all alien concepts to the Chinese school system. So when Chinese students go abroad, we're seeing a lot of psychological confusion and alienation right now.
I get emails all the time, and I just got one this week, so while I'm thinking about it, from friends of mine who are academics or professors in different universities. And they write to me because they know I'm in China and I know a lot of Chinese people. I know the Chinese educational system. And the emails always go something like this. I have this really bright graduate student from the PRC, and we put him on here. He seemed very high scores, off the charts, really nice guy, really smart guy. And we put him on this project. And he's coming up with these, you know, his analytical skills are nil. He doesn't seem to be able to come up with any ideas, or at least as far as we can see. And the questions that we get are, am I missing something? Is it a language problem? Is it a cultural problem? Am I expecting too much?
I don't know what to say to them exactly. All right.
So what makes us human special is our resilience, our ability to grow, to adapt. But the problem is that when Chinese go to America, the culture is so foreign to these Chinese students, so open, so diverse, so vocal, that these Chinese students become psychologically traumatized and they become withdrawn. And that inhibits their ability to learn, right? I mean, like, the neuroscience behind this is very clear. When we are confident, when we are happy, we are much more open to new ideas. Our brains can absorb new ideas much more easily than if we are stressed. If we're stressed, it's the fight or flight response, and our system shuts down. So I feel that what's happening is that a lot of Chinese go to the United States, they're not ready for sort of like, you know, harsh debating culture that exists in the American workplace. And they become very insecure. They become very withdrawn. They possibly, I
mean, like, all of them are very bright to be able to go to the United States, right? And they could possibly have a lot to contribute. It's just that they are, you know, they're handicapped by their fears and doubts and self -hatred. And so they're not able to contribute to the conversation effectively. And I say this out of my own personal experience. Sure. Sure.
That accords with what I've seen. I have my own sort of pet theory about how best to do it. So for somebody of means. So somebody like you or me, David, who, I don't know, I don't know. Has the opportunity to pick and choose among Chinese and Western pedagogical styles. I am not ready to say that there's nothing good about Chinese education. I think that it actually can confer significant advantages on a young person. I think that there's value in the ability to perform just incredibly difficult mnemonic tasks. Just wire yourself to be able to do things that will, because much will require memorization. If you want to excel at history, you need to be able to remember things. So I have this sort of pet theory that a child at a very, very young age should be given freedom to play. They shouldn't be, you know, forced to, I mean, I think that we are, when we're very, very young, we have these incredibly plastic brains.
You know, part of the reason why we have such a long period of helplessness as infants and as toddlers compared to other mammals, compared to other animals. Is that we do need this, this play time to, to develop the ability to create counterfactuals into it. And then, then for, for, I mean, so in, in, in a sense, giving them that kind of freedom, that kind of Matasori -esque, you know, very, very young freedom. Then throw them into the Chinese system for a while. Let them learn that discipline and then take them out of it when they're in junior high before it gets too late.
Let me ask, there's a book by Howard Gardner. That's probably way out of date. Yeah. Well, no, that one, but there's also one called To Open Minds. It's specifically about China. Yeah. Sure. And the example, and I've given this example a million times. I don't even know if it's valid or not, but it's very vivid and maybe you can comment on it. He says, or he gives the example of the, the difference between the Chinese education system and the American education system is teaching a young child. And this, this has to do with what you were just saying too, teaching a child to open a door with a key. And he says, you know, the, the Chinese style is to like hold the child's hand with the key in it and say, now see, you push it in and you turn it right. Okay. Now let's try it again. See, you got it. And the kid very quickly learns the skill of opening the door.
The, the American approach on the other hand is supposed to be, you just hand the key to the kid and say, you figure out how to open the door. And so the kid tries and struggles and everything that they finally get it. And everyone goes, yeah, you figured it out. Right. So, but the point is that in the process of learning how to open the door, the kid has also learned another skill, which is GPS, general problem solving. Sure. You know, and what do I do in a new situation when I don't know what to do? Yeah. And, and is that a fair contrast or is that a simple oversimplification? Or is there anything to what Howard is saying?
Yeah, sure. I mean, like it's, it's an oversimplification. I mean, the other comparison you can say is that, you know, Americans play sports, whereas Chinese just play the video game sports, right? I mean, like you, you can say that the, the American system is focused on like learning by doing, whereas the Chinese school system is just like learning by memorizing, learning, right? Get back to Kaiser's point. I think that what we can take away from the school, Chinese school system, like what, where the Chinese school system is very strong. And where other school systems should try to emulate is that, you know, there's a real respect for hard work in China. And there's a real respect and understanding that to grow as an individual, you might have to make sacrifices. You might have to endure periods of, of painful. Of hardship, right. Exactly. And I think that's a very valuable and very worthwhile lesson. Sure.
And the negative side of that is, I mean, don't you kind of in, in your heart of hearts believe that America, the American school system coddles? The children, it, it sort of accepts all sorts of excuses for that. I think that, yes. I've always thought that. Yeah. I've always felt that way.
Yeah. I mean, I mean like I could go on and on about the defects in the American school system. I mean, they sort of like the culture of instant instantaneous gratification, right? Sure. You know, Postman wrote this book, Amusing Ourselves to Death in 1980, predicting, you know, like TV and how TV is going to kill any creative individuals. Yeah.
The lionization of the mediocre. Everyone is, I mean, everyone gets a prize. Everyone gets a medal. Everyone gets a star. Yeah. Yeah.
No. We've heard a lot of horror stories and clearly the students in America right now are disengaged from, from learning. The other issue that I'm concerned about is how we're drugging kids right now in the United States with Adderall and Ritalin, right?
Where, where, you know, like if you can't sit still, it's not going to give you this methamphetamine basically. Exactly.
And then we're going to kill your brain and it's because you can't sit still. But no one thinks, well, the kid can't stand still because he's a six year old and he's, you know, energetic and enthusiastic and he wants to explore his world instead of just sitting down and listening to. Yeah. His teacher make him do a test. Yeah. Tiger father does not believe in ADD. The tiger father does not believe in ADD. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that, I mean, there are multiple issues wrong with the American school system, but at the same time, I mean like the fact that there's an emphasis on the individual, there's a sort of openness and diversity of discussion in America. That's something that's also very valuable for the Chinese school system to learn as well. Yeah.
I mean, once again, I always feel like everything in life is a kind of a balance between discipline and freedom. It's always finding the right balance as with so many other things. And in this case, it's kind of, even though I don't kind of subscribe to that kind of essentialist notion that Chinese pedagogy is irreducibly about discipline and American about freedom. I mean, I think there's clearly a happy medium to be found between these.
Don't you think also that, you know, education, we tend to limit it to the schools and to parents, but kids and, and even the post nineties generation, they're learning an awful lot just by general cultural assimilation from media. They're getting messages and ways of solving problems that are not being given in school. They're just getting it online for any other reason. Right. Okay.
One eye on the clock here. I realized that we're, we're, we're running out of time here. And I do, I want to thank John for coming in and a rich topic. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, one that we can, we can talk about endlessly. But let's move on to two recommendations. Maybe David, you would like to start with us?
Okay. This week. Again, keeping, avoiding attention deficit disorder. I'm going to recommend something in keeping with this topic. So one book in particular, but there's two books. There's a book by William C. Hanas called Asia's Orthographic Dilemma. And it, maybe it's good additional reading for this podcast because it touches upon an aspect we didn't touch upon on the podcast, which is a big difference in the Chinese educational system. The American educational system is the Chinese educational system includes learning the Chinese writing system, which is a very time consuming and labor intensive and rote memorization intensive. Right.
I kind of think that it, it actually is, is a, one of the tremendous things that, I mean, it teaches you to make these virtually, I mean, yes, of course we understand that radicals can, can give you some sort of phonemic value, but virtually arbitrary, virtually arbitrary. Yeah. These symbols linked to an idea.
And this particular book makes the case, at least the ergonomic case or the efficiency case, that, that it is such a drag on the educational system and also is a hindrance to certain kinds of critical thinking or, or certain kinds of critical tools that just involve classification abstraction because of the way the system is devised. It's, it's too complex to talk about now, but I think it's a good thing to think about in terms of the, and not just the Chinese education system, Japanese. Sure. Korean has shared some aspects with Chinese.
David, I'm, I'm trying to expand your point and make another recommendation. This book by Marianne Wolf, who is this neuroscientist at Tufts University. She wrote a book called Proust and the Squid is, but the idea in the book is she looks at the history, the neuroscience behind the reading brain, how the reading brain was formulated. But the thing about, about Chinese language is that the script is not phonological, which means you cannot tell how to read it based on the character. There are some clues. There are some clues. It's weakly phonological. Right. But like the argument that she makes is that because of this, because the spoken language and the written language. Are separate. It takes Chinese people so many more years to learn a language, which inhibits the learning. Yeah. But I'm saying, you know, Proust and the Squid is, you know, elaboration of this book. Yeah.
Oh, great. Well, so I'm going to do something I don't usually do, which is to recommend something from the company that I work for, but I think this is a whole lot of fun. You guys ought to check it out. Go to Trends, T -R -E -N -D -S dot Baidu dot com and look at Baidu Predict, what Baidu Predict is able to do right now. We have all sorts of very, very large scale, big data driven predictive features right now. They include the World Cup. We went 12 for 12. Really? We have a tremendous record right now on the World Cup predictions. We beat Goldman, Microsoft, Google, all the others who are offering big data driven prediction engines or predictions for the World Cup. We got Germany correct to beat Brazil. All those things. So we didn't give it quite a seven to one margin. Do you have stock predictions? Not yet. That may be coming.
I mean, two of the things that are coming are real estate prices and a theatrical release box office, which we'll be able to do. And there's explanations about how all this stuff works. But the other ones that we have online right now are intercity travel within China and then from China to outbound destinations by country. And it's predictive. It looks at everything from historical patterns to weather forecasts. To reservations and ticket purchases already made online. To search. Actually, of course, we would use search. We have predictions for diseases as well. Infectious diseases, including flu and cold, hepatitis, tuberculosis, and sexually transmitted diseases as well. This is using extensive data from the Chinese Center for Disease Control. Amazing. It's very cool. Check it out. It's kind of mind -blowing. They're very nicely put together, interactive graphs. And one for Gaokao. We have a Gaokao predictor, too, which will show you whether you're looking at
the arts and letters or you're looking at arts, I guess, but arts, letters, and social sciences. And then on the other hand, of course, sciences and engineering, natural sciences and engineering. And it'll go by region, testing into each university. The projected score dispersion. Very, very interesting. And it's also quite accurate. Kind of creepy. Yeah. Trends.baidu.com. Check it out. I don't agree that it's creepy. I think it's actually very cool. I fear determinism. Okay. Yeah. And of course, I work for that company and just for purposes of full disclosure.
Great. Zhang Xieqin. So books on education, I recommend. So definitely the book called The Natural Assumption by Judith Rich Harris. It's a book that's really interesting. It's a social animal. David Brooks. That's a very good book. Yes. It's a very good book. Yes. Drive by Daniel Pink, which looks at how students become motivated in the classroom. What motivates them and what destroys their creativity, what enhances their creativity. It's a very good book for educators. Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. Oh, really? That one? I'm sorry I had to say that. But if you work in education, it does give you a lot of interesting ideas in education.
Doesn't it put out that silly notion that rice farming is responsible for better math and medical capability?
You know what? It creates discussion. It creates debate. And that's what we strive to accomplish as educators. The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Dodge. It's a book on neuroplasticity. So basically how we learn. And the great thing about neuroplasticity is that adults can learn just as well as kids. So the idea is that learning should be a lifelong process. But yeah, these are the books that come to the top of my mind. That's a great story. Yeah. Please, please do not watch The Fourth Society.
Oh, come on. Oh, Captain. My Captain. Come on. Anyway, thank you very much for joining us. And folks, we've got a bunch of really cool shows coming up in Sophie. So stay tuned. And we'll see you next week on The Cynic Podcast. Take care. 1
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