How do you define a “good education”?
Every culture seems to have its own perspective on what and how kids should learn. This past summer, I got to spend some time getting to know the education system of one of today’s most influential nations. I went to China with SYA, attending school at the Second High School Attached to Beijing Normal University.
I stayed in China for five weeks, attending classes and living in Beijing with a host family for the first four, and then traveling around to Xi’an, and then Gansu Province for the last week. My host family had two children, a three-year-old boy and a thirteen-year-old girl.
One of the best parts of the trip was my friendship with my host sister. Starting from my very first night, we would talk a few nights a week for hours. She told me that she, like most Chinese students, studied endlessly, keeping her sole focus on academics, not taking much time for sports or other extracurricular activities aside from those which advanced her studies. I would look over her homework from time to time, and it was all memorization-based learning.
She said that a Chinese student’s future is determined by a series of tests, the most prominent of which is the Gao Kao, literally “big test,” the three-day extensive exam all Chinese students take to get into college.
All students must dress in unisex, plain, shapeless cotton t-shirts and baggy shorts or cloth pants. Girls are required to keep their hair short. Interaction between the sexes is closely monitored or prohibited, and studies are the single most prominent aspect of the students’ lives. There is no Prom, and generally few graduation parties.
My host sister was dumbfounded at many of what many Americans consider basic teenage liberties (studying with friends, playing lots of sports even if you don’t plan on going professional, taking a break from constant studying over the summer).
Though to the American teenager, Chinese education might seem a bit harsh, Chinese students benefit from the strict system. They are widely recognized as some of the world’s best test-takers. In 2009, the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) report, which evaluates the knowledge levels and skill sets of 15-year-olds across 70 different countries, ranked Shanghai students ranked at number 1 in all three categories (reading, science and math).
On the other hand, the quality of the average American education is rapidly declining. The United States ranked 14th out of 34 OECD countries for reading skills, 17th for science and 25th for mathematics. American testing scores are dwarfed by most all other developed countries.
But are high tests scores the ultimate end of education? I believe that the output, or graduate, should be fully capable of taking in and retaining information, processing it, putting it into context, and then forming an opinion and putting the absorbed data to use.
Strict memorization does almost nothing for a student. Knowing data without taking the time to understand what it means, where it comes from, or how to utilize it is useless. It might guarantee great grades on test, but in life, it will not equate to the advancement of humankind. Kids aren’t data storage units; we have computers for that.
There is some worth to the method of education that my Chinese host sister was undergoing; students end up with a giant database of government-approved facts in which they can go fishing anytime they need information. But, the problem with just having random facts floating around your head is that you lack a more refined ability to use that information to generate new and innovative ideas that build on the old. Instead, you are limited by the orthodox and outdated mechanisms of yesterday. New ideas are what drive an economy.
As we move into a new year, roughly one-third of our population is comprised of new students. It’s always worth considering your personal views on education in order to ensure that you get the most out of wherever you end up. In my opinion, Andover is a place where you will get as much out of your experience as effort you put in, and it can’t hurt to know where you want to put your efforts and what you want to take away when you finally graduate.
One of the greatest facets of the Andover education is that your teachers will constantly ask you to think. They are always there in conference and in class, but most of the time, the problems they assign are yours to do, and it’s work, but in the end, it just gives us a chance to learn how to stand on our own and think.
Raeva Kumar is a three-year Upper from Poughquag, NY and an Associate Commentary Editor for The Phillipian.
