Commonwealth Magazine has a hard-hitting article on the educational system here. It's long and well worth a look:Not only does this unending practice destroy a student’s appetite for learning, but exam scores in various subjects also isolate students from one another. Among classmates, a fierce competition exists, but a spirit of mutual aid is lacking. Students fear that if they help someone else, they will then be overtaken.
Class performance and test scores have erected a massive wall of alienation among junior high students.
The good students sit in the front of the class, while those in the back slouch or doze. It is as if they are not even present. "It doesn’t matter – the teacher almost never looks our way," says one kid who seems to be bearing a few scars.
In 2004 the Ministry of Education ended the system of separating students into different classes based on levels of performance, instead placing all students into a single level of class. Yet this did nothing to reduce the practice, in an altered form, of dividing students according to perceived abilities. Indeed, it made the situation even worse.
"In order to get more kids to pass admissions tests, dividing the students by ability is practiced in disguise, and that is a systemic betrayal," former education minister Huang Jong-tsun sighs. The best teachers don’t go to the underachievers but to the academic stars, he observes.
Over the past five years, the number of parents of elementary and junior high school students opting for home schooling has risen from 436 to 940, more than doubling despite virtually no publicity. (Table 1)
The brutality of the junior high and high school system is one reason we're pulling our daughter out after sixth grade....the article notes that suicide is now the number 2 killer of young people in Taiwan.
UPDATE: Also on tap today at Japan Focus is an excellent article on the hidden arms race in the North Pacific.
Yet for all this peace talk, something else, as momentous as it has been little noticed, is underway. The real money in Northeast Asia is going elsewhere. While in the news sunshine prevails, in the shadows an already massive regional arms race is threatening to shift into overdrive. Since the dawn of the twenty-first century, five of the six countries involved in the Six Party Talks have increased their military spending by 50% or more. The sixth, Japan, a regional military power, has maintained steady growth in its military budget while placing heavy bets on the US military umbrella. Every country in the region is now investing staggering sums in new weapons systems and new offensive capabilities.
[Taiwan]
"The good students sit in the front of the class, while those in the back slouch or doze. It is as if they are not even present."
ReplyDeleteNot so, at least in the private high school where I work. There, seating positions in the class are determined by height (short at front, tall at back), eyesight (bad eyes closer to the blackboard), behavior (those needing to be watched go to the front, or get separated off at a corner), and even gender (in mixed classes, boys get put next to girls, as they're less likely to fool around).
As for students not wanting to help each other, that doesn't seem to be the case here either. I see them helping each other very often, but of course they want to help their friends and not just anybody.
And the school I work at is considered highly traditional.
Going for home schooling or is there a private school you have in mind for her?
ReplyDeleteDo you plan to send your daughter abroad for college? Home schooling can't be good for the exam-prep sort of thing the kids have to do here... even if it isn't education in my book.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous,
ReplyDeleteyou seem proud to mention that in your school students needing to be watched must sit in front or get separated, etc.
The classroom situation you describe reminds me of the novel (&movie) 'A Clockwork Orange': Alex, the novel's anti-hero is put into a program to undergo psychological torture by having to watch graphically violent films (he is not allowed to close his eyes).
Rather give a student to right to "doze off" at the back than your school's scenario!
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I must say, I don't agree at all with how the Taiwanese regard education. The fact that young students are regarded (and regard themselves) as competitive robots in a system that forces them to work from early morning to late evening is not only torturous, but unproductive. Creativity is the ultimate sacrifice I've found in this system.
Parents have got to start realizing that "down-time" and "socializing" are highly important aspects in a young person's life -- just as important as learning Calculus.
Moreover, my wife, who was educated in both Taiwan and Canada insists that her academic achievement was stronger in the Canadian system because teachers here don't view students in such a polarized or homogeneous way. Learning is a complex process, the abilities of an individual vary from subject to subject. Good teachers do not ignore students doing poorly in certain subjects. They modify their methods (this element is what shocks me the most about this article -- poor students are "forgotten")
In sum, the Taiwanese education system creates two extremes for students. One group is damned to failure by being ignored. The other is damned to a non-stop dreary competitive life of tests, buxibans and homework.
And people wonder why the suicide rate is so high?
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"Rather give a student to right to "doze off" at the back than your school's scenario!"
ReplyDeleteBut the parents are paying good money (the school's quite a bit more expensive than govt equivalents) to have their children pushed hard, whether the kids like it or not!
Why does the last article say that Japan has maintained a steady growth in its defence budget? It's been fixed at 1% of GDP for many years, even decades.
ReplyDeleteYes, I was just looking on the internet, Raj, and apparently Japan has actually been cutting its military budget to help cope with its massive budget deficits -- every year since 2000, until 2006. Maybe there's some off-budget/hidden expenditure figures....
ReplyDeleteMichael
Hi Guys...
ReplyDeletewe're going to home school both. By next fall I should be done with my PHD classes, so things should loosen up seriously.
Michael
Thanks for finding this article and posting about it. I'm printing it out right now to give to several of our friends who have kids in Jr. High and Sr. High School and I'm so worried for their kids. They are skipping out on almost every single opportunity to give their minds a rest in order to "study". It is such a shame and it only seems to be getting worse.
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