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From: Regi P George <george_regi@yahoo.com> Date: Thu Sep 16, 2004 More on creativity in China Hi to Win and others, In this message I want to briefly explore some upside and downside aspects of Chinese education with respect to creativity. To begin with, I live and work in China, and, in addition to my duties as CEO of Advanced Data Management, I recently completed an 8-month English instruction contract in a model high school in Beijing (where we also successfully tested our software 'ADM: The Knowledge Management Desktop' in computer-based projection of vocabulary and other ESL material). So I am well aware of this issue. Going to university, and the quality of university you are able to attend, is determined currently in China by national examinations. So primary and secondary school education focuses on preparing students for the exams, not on knowledge per se, nor on creativity or personal development. I will in future be workomg with the pro-human rights and humanistic tendencies in the communist party of China - the party has 45 million members and there are diverse currents within it - for more assistance for workers and peasents (most Chinese are still farmers, and a large proportion of these are very poor) and for other reforms including quashing the Confucian style national exam system in favor of enabling individual universities to set their own admission criteria. Now to the four favorable points in current Chinese educational practice: 1. China has a well-established "Self-Study" program which enables even the poorest to study, either on their own or with the help of institutions, and to then take government examinations to qualify for first-class degrees in a wide range of subjects. Many students I know are self-study students, who take courses part-time at unviersities or academies and also study on their own in the library, etc. 2. Marvin Gardner, father of the multi-componential theory of intelligence, has, however, noted that Chinese children, despite the exam system, are often better prepared, in terms of knowledge and dilegence, than their U.S. coutnerparts, and he maintains that on the whole they are equal to U.S. kids in terms of potential creativity (U.S. group is more flexible and Chinese group has more - knowledge - to work with.) 3. Three inherited principals Mao point to creative-enhancement: A> "Oppose book worship" (It means to find out through active investigation and experience, as books and established notions can be wrong) B) "Combine theory and practice" (It means that we should not study subjects only abstractly but should actually practice what we learn about, and correct theories when they prove wrong). C) 'Actively investigage'- "To know the apple you must eat it" (It means that passive contemplation is not enough, we must experience the world.' 4. 95% or so of Chinese are descended from the Han people, but there are 56 natonal minority groups here as well, and as they are often poorer than other Chinese, they receive substantial special assistance to attend university. Best from Beijing, Eric Sommer |
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September20, 2004 - [India Thinkers Net]What India, Pakistan Won't Talk About >> |
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