Chinese School? You want to study in?

The reason I’m writing this article is that I just finished watching the documentary “Are Our Kids Tough Enough? Chinese School”, and I really wanted to share it with you — because this documentary is both funny and touching.

So, this documentary was launched by the BBC in 2015 and has three episodes in total. For those who haven’t watched it yet, here’s a quick introduction: five Chinese teachers were sent to a top middle school in the UK to teach British students subjects like Mandarin, mathematics, chemistry, science, and PE — using Chinese-style teaching methods — for four weeks. After those four weeks, the students took an exam to test their results. At the same time, their final scores were compared to the students who were still being taught the British way, to see which teaching approach was better.

In the end, the students who received the Chinese-style teaching won the competition.

If you’re interested in this documentary, I’d definitely recommend watching it yourself. But here, I just want to share my thoughts as an ordinary Chinese person after watching it.

I think this documentary is very authentic. I saw students raising the flag on the playground — and that is exactly what I experienced every Monday when I was a student. I saw them taking exams very often — and that’s true too. Back when I was in middle school, I had exams every single week, and the teacher would rank us all based on our scores. At that time, I was always at the bottom, along with a few other students who didn’t like studying.

I also noticed that the British students weren’t used to being compared with each other. There was one scene where a heavier boy was in PE class, doing a running test around the track. He came in last and just started crying. In the UK, students can choose which sports they want to do, but in China, PE is mandatory — you have to pass it to get into high school.

In the documentary, the Chinese teachers invited some students who had misbehaved in class to have a private conversation. But to their surprise, the parents didn’t really care about their kids’ education. In their view, their children could do whatever they wanted. They just saw their kids as “average” and were fine with that. So talking to the parents didn’t really work.

In China, on the other hand, parents care about their children’s education a lot — so much that they even send their kids to cram school after regular school hours to learn even more.

Another thing I noticed is that British students are more likely to challenge their teachers — to question authority. But in China, students are more likely to obey their teachers and do whatever they’re told. They see teachers as sacred and noble figures.

What left the deepest impression on me, though, was how differently the teachers encouraged their students. The UK teachers in the documentary always encouraged their students — they would say things like, “If you’re not good at this subject, maybe you’re good at something else.” But the Chinese teachers seemed to always say, “You can still improve.” It felt like Chinese teachers were never quite satisfied with their students’ performance. But to be fair, that’s not always a bad thing — they just don’t want their students to become too prideful.

Chinese students study much longer hours than British students. After school, they still have self-study time in the evening. But in the UK, students can just go home and socialize or do other things. A lot of people say that the reason Chinese students perform better is simply because they study more.

When Chinese teachers teach, they prefer to have students take notes while they’re lecturing. They like students to memorize formulas and study on their own. But UK teachers prefer to let students work on projects and be more creative.

Also, in China, a typical class usually has more than 50 students. In the UK, it’s usually around 30, and they often divide students into different ability groups.

so how about chinese style teaching?do u want try it, u can watch the whole documentary and leave your comment below