Professor Tao Dongfeng, of Capital Normal University in Beijing has an op-ed piece posted today on UPI Asia. Professor Tao argues:
In my opinion, the fundamental problem of China’s education system now is a warped understanding of the purpose of study, of the concept of education and of ideas about human beings and society. These produce an unreasonable program of study. Due to the historic lag in China’s process of modernization, as well as the emphasis on economics and development that are prevalent in the modern world, these have taken precedence in the education system. China claims to focus on both the spiritual and material aspects of modernization, and emphasizes “overall development” of students as an educational goal.
However, in practice, there is an emphasis on some subjects while others are neglected. There is a pragmatic trend in education that stresses technology and examination scores. This results in a one-sided focus and also the mechanization of educational methods. The problem of middle and primary schools are therefore the over-emphasis on these points, and the imbalance in education.
One can sympathize with his lament. It’s been said before. The Qing official Chen Hongmou (1696-1771) was one of the most vociferous critics of what he saw as the empty learning fostered by an imperial exam system that too often emphasized rote memorization, cramming, and style over substance:
“If one takes scholarship to be merely poetry and belles lettres, then though the craftsmanship be jewellike, it will have no relevance to one’s moral nature and may indeed serve to mislead one in one’s personal conduct. One will invariably end up with empty verbiage and groundless speculation, obstructing the grasp of true principles.”
Later, Chen wrote:
“The examination system promotes scholars on the basis of their literary achievement. But scholarly practices tend to decline over the course of time, to be come less concerned with fundamentals and more with style, to substitute what simply sounds good for what one has made a genuine effort to understand. Scholars merely unthinkingly copy over the words of the past, and their vacuous phrasings have absolutely no connection with real life affairs…They simply repeat empty conventions and the world rewards them with success in the examinations. The glibness of contemporary letters, and the slovenliness of today’s education, are primarily due to this.”
On reflection, Chen could just as easily be carping in the opinion section of the Chronicle of Higher Education, but I digress. Back in China, one imbalance Professor Tao seeks to correct is in history education, and here I couldn’t agree more:
For example, middle school curriculums need to include an understanding of Chinese history and modern citizenship. Our middle school textbooks include little or no information about the disasters in modern Chinese history, such as the Cultural Revolution and the Anti-Rightist Movement. Today’s middle school students hardly know what the Cultural Revolution was. They do not clearly and completely understand China’s history and reality, and their “historical burden” is lacking to an unprecedented degree. They have virtually no sense of historical responsibility.
The cherry-picking of history, especially as concerns history education, is one of my big issues. Unsurprisingly, it’s also a theme taken up time and time again by the great Chinese historians. I’ve written here before about Liu Zhiji (661-721). Arguing in defense of historians who wrote history as they saw it rather than as their ruler would have preferred to read it, Liu said:
“When a clear mirror reflects objects, beauty and ugliness are bound to be revealed. Should [the beauty] Mao Qiang have a blemish on her face, the reflection is not stopped. When empty space transmits sound, the clear and murky are bound to be heard. Should [the singer] Mian Jun hit a false note in his song, the resonance is not halted. Now the history officer holding his tablets also belongs to this category. If he loves someone but understands his ugly aspect, hates someone but understands his good points, then good and bad are bound to be recorded. This is a true record.”
A historian will never know “the Truth.” We just won’t, not without a time machine, and even then, perspectives will differ. But I think Liu would agree that we should strive for objectivity in our writing and especially our teaching. Students don’t need to be coddled and history class isn’t group therapy. One can be proud of a country even though that nation has moments in its past that demonstrated the ugliest side of human nature. Hiding those moments does not make a nation great, learning from the ugliness and moving forward does.
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All translations from Wm. Theodore de Bary and Irene Bloom, Sources of Chinese Tradition,
9 responses so far ↓
1 Leah // Oct 19, 2007 at 7:16 pm
This is interesting stuff. And A lot of Tao’s sentiment could certainly be aimed at the American education system, especially in the age of NCLB.
Perhaps I should pass along Tao’s article to one of my Chinese teachers, who recently assigned us a newspaper article (though I forget from which paper) on how “American students don’t understand their nation’s history.” The irony of the situation, which was of course DEAFENING, went unacknowledged.
2 nanheyangrouchuan // Oct 21, 2007 at 12:21 am
Except in American history, there is a PC focus on the evils committed by westerners against everyone else and especially the evils committed by white males as if none of these evils existed before white men came out of the caves of neolithic Europe.
3 Anonymous // Oct 21, 2007 at 12:27 pm
Yes, but China isn’t an innovation-oriented society yet. While at the top, you do need citizens, as opposed to cannon fodder, the factories are huge and need manpower. Once you tell someone they’re worth more than dirt and labor, it’s going to be hard to keep them docile. Further, to have both a cultural strain of people trained to be citizens, as opposed to people who became full men out of their own nature, and a cultural strain of serfs creates conflict. The ideas will leak from the top to bottom, and now who is going to do your coal-mining?
4 花崗齋之愚公 // Oct 21, 2007 at 3:25 pm
Leah,
I find that irony is in short supply around here. I once had a Chinese colleague tell me, with a straight face, that the problem with the American media was that it was too tightly controlled by the government.
Um, okay…
5 花崗齋之愚公 // Oct 21, 2007 at 3:33 pm
Anonymous,
Well, I suppose it depends on what you wish to acheive with your society. I don’t think it’s anybody’s fate to be ‘kept docile.’ But I’m sure there are those here in the PRC who would disagree with me on that.
Maybe I’m not that much of an elitist, but who is to say you can’t be an informed person AND a steel worker?
But that said, there has been a persistent dichotomy in Chinese thought (going back really to the early Confucians) between those who think and those who labor and its vestiges remain in today’s society as well, think of the class implications in the definition of term “suzhi,” so frequently thrown around Beijing.
Thanks for stopping by.
6 花崗齋之愚公 // Oct 21, 2007 at 3:35 pm
Nhyrc,
I can see how some would say that. Both are flawed in their agenda, but we’ve only had about 35 years of “PC” history versus several hundred years of the White Male story. You are right that objectivity is important, maybe its time to balance things out, what do you say?
7 Froog // Oct 21, 2007 at 8:11 pm
The excerpt from Professor Tao’s article is so damn vague I can’t really tell what he’s supposed to be saying. He has misgivings about the curriculum (a shift to more ‘technical’ subjects - what are these? What is the actual balance of classroom time between ‘technical’ and ‘non-technical’?) and about methodology (again, no specifics. But what the heck is the “mechanization” of education? Is he against the use of computers?).
It sounds to me as if this is yet another one of those pieces decrying the decline of spiritual values in modern China. “It’s such a shame that young people today learn about economics and engineering and IT, while forgetting the teachings of Confucius, etc…..”
The only point of real interest in the quotation for me was the reference to the examination system, but that wasn’t developed at all.
Problems I see with the education system here include: limited access (your average coal-miner has probably only had a few years of formal education, at best); huge class sizes; very limited awareness of teaching methodologies (how many University classes have you seen where the lecturer stands immobile behind a lectern for 2 hours reading woodenly from a textbook??); disproportionate amount of time spent on learning the native language (Chinese is so goddamned hard even for Chinese people that it eats up a huge chunk of the timetable in primary and secondary education); emphasis on rote-memorization rather than analysis and discussion; emphasis on summative rather than formative assessment;… oh, yes, and the fact that cheating is routine, almost ubiquitous, and that is often connived at by corrupt school principals.
As to the teaching of history here, I don’t see any hope for improving that for many years to come. The CCP continues to regard ‘education’ primarily as a means of social control rather than a means of social development.
8 Anonymous // Oct 22, 2007 at 3:42 am
Sir, first, I’m in the same boat as you, and less educated than you are. I’m planning to jump ship since I doubt my prospects for advancements stateside. While you may value a Chinese voice, you mayn’t feel the same about a nationalist/fascist/failure/traitor/cannon fodder. So, if you want to do quality control, I understand.
My interest in China is this. One of the most commonly-held explanations for China’s historical failure to maintain superiority is the unity of the Chinese state. An innovation had only one customer; if the Empire rejected it, that was it. Further, there was a lack of political diversity in the Chinese world; it was impossible to try two political-economic models at the same time. The Western world is approaching the same thing; a strongly-dominant ideology with a few fringe beliefs as court jesters. If China does succeed in becoming a modern and sustainable state without adopting a Western political model, that should be a good thing.
My problem with a democracy in China is this. First, Winston Churchill said, democracy is the worst form of government excluding everything else that has been tried.
9 Anonymous // Oct 22, 2007 at 4:47 am
Actually, forget it. I’m starting to sound like Math, who strangely enough, has become a better writer and thinker the longer he’s spammed pro-CCP propaganda (must be his way of practicing rhetoric). Having you argue with an ignoramus such as myself just demeans you, and I have no intention of inflicting that sort of suffering.
But my position is, if people knew the full history of the modern Chinese Communist Party, what would be the outcome? At the very least, they’d have a very negative attitude towards the government, and for Susan Shirk’s “Fragile Superpower”, that would further limit the Party’s room for manuever, or even crash the Party altogether. So better to keep them in the dark until either the facade is no longer sustainable, or until the society has advanced to the point where control of information is no longer necessary to the survival of the Party.
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