Teaching in China

The teachers attending this professional development summer session at the research Bureau are very much like teachers involved in professional development in B.C. They care about doing the best possible job they can for their students and they love them. They are very familiar with a very competitive style of education. I've been told that in high schools and universities the classrooms are very quiet and the students do not share their ideas. They are to worried that they will offend their teachers and fall out of favour with them. In the primary schools, top students have their work posted in the hallway and are presented with the fruit that grows on the trees in the yard as a reward. Students who struggle do not get into the best schools and by the end of grade 9 (Middle or Jr. Secondary School), their test scores indicate whether they will attend a vocational school or continue on with their studies in high school in the hope of one day attending university.

About 10 years ago, the government stopped taking the responsibility for everyone to find a job. There is huge pressure now to attend university and get a degree. Although about 38% leaving university are not able to find jobs in their preferred field. Of about 500 people wanting to become teachers, about 50 will be able to pass the exam. That explains the huge respect for people that are teaching.

The students attending our three courses are very excited about the ideas that we are presenting that rock their world. The thought about helping each child to figure out how they learn best and marking based on criteria is quite new for them. Actively engaging the learner has been a big focus for all of us. I am impressed by how many ideas have been integrated into their lesson planning. I'm also very please with how hard people are working to communicate the ideas they want to convey. One of my students wrote that she had learned the impotance of letting students practice speaking English, rather than immediately focusing attention on finishing their written tasks in the book. I'm feeling pretty good about that!

Some of my teachers teach is small village schools of 400-500 students and others teach in larger town schools. The Experimental School in Fuyang has 2800 students and 172 teachers. The Experimental School is beginning the teaching of English in Gr. 1 but most students start studying English in Gr. 3. Elementary classes have about 35 students per class. Other primary schools have closer to 40 and secondary schools are up around 60 students. This does pose it's challenges for activity based learning.

Teachers get to school at about 7am and often don't return home until 5:30 pm or later. They supervise morning exercises such as TaiChi, dancing.., nap, and also often teach Chinese, Math, computers, and Moral Education. In the larger schools, the teacher may teach English to several classes in several grades, three times a week. So the teacher could be responsible for marks for 300 or more students in Primary School.