Singapore and China are terrible models of education for any nation that aspires to remain a pluralistic democracy.

陈凯一语：

中国式“记忆填鸭灌尿盆”的教育是孔儒的为专制制造奴隶工具的基点组成环节。 奥巴马及美左对这种教育模式的青睐是不足为怪的。 “人与个体只是政府与强权的工具”是中共党奴朝与美左共通的邪恶病态的哲学基点。 削弱中式教育与中文的病态影响是所有热爱自由的人们应努力而为的，不是相反。 “孔学院”与“孔学堂”正是中共党奴朝散布其奴役哲学的理想场所。

Kai Chen's Words:

The perverse educational system in China and Singapore is based upon the very premise of Oriental Despotism - individual human beings are nothing but the tools and slaves of those in power and the government. Obama and people like him in America admire such an educational system as China's, for they think like the Chinese despots. The truth is a perverse educational system (including the influence of the Chinese character-based syllabic language) like China's or Singapore's is what we as freedom-loving people should do everything we can to avoid and to diminish, not the opposite. Confucius Institutes and Classrooms by the Chinese communist regime are exactly the ideal evil instruments to enlave human mind.

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陈凯博客： www.kaichenblog.blogspot.com

The New Republic: Lessons From China And Singapore
千万不要走入中国式教育的歧途

by Martha C. Nussbaum

Singapore and China are terrible models of education for any nation that aspires to remain a pluralistic democracy.

July 1, 2010 Martha C. Nussbaum is professor of law and philosophy at the University of Chicago. She is the author, most recently, of From Disgust to Humanity: Sexual Orientation and the Constitution.

American leaders, impressed by the economic success of Singapore and China, frequently sound envious when talking about those countries' educational systems. President Obama, for example, invoked Singapore in a March 2009 speech, saying that educators there "are spending less time teaching things that don't matter, and more time teaching things that do. They are preparing their students not only for high school or college, but for a career. We are not." New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof regularly praises China, writing (on the eve of the Beijing Olympics) that "today, it's the athletic surge that dazzles us, but China will leave a similar outsize footprint in the arts, in business, in science, in education" — implying his strong approval of China's educational practices, even in an article in which he decries the Chinese government's ferocious opposition to political dissent. But Obama and Kristof and all the other U.S. proponents of Singapore and China's educational systems apparently aren't thinking very hard about the relationship of those policies to democratic debate and democratic autonomy. Indeed, they are glorifying that which does not deserve praise.

What do educators in Singapore and China do? By their own internal accounts, they do a great deal of rote learning and "teaching to the test." Even if our sole goal was to produce students who would contribute maximally to national economic growth — the primary, avowed goal of education in Singapore and China — we should reject their strategies, just as they themselves have rejected them. In recent years, both nations have conducted major educational reforms, concluding that a successful economy requires nourishing analytical abilities, active problem-solving, and the imagination required for innovation. In other words, neither country has adopted a broader conception of education's goal, but both have realized that even that narrow goal of economic enrichment is not well served by a system focused on rote learning. In 2001, the Chinese Ministry of Education proposed a "New Curriculum" that is supposed to "[c]hange the overemphasis on … rote memorization and mechanical drill. Promote instead students' active participation, their desire to investigate, and eagerness … to analyze and solve problems."

Singapore, similarly, reformed its education policy in 2003 and 2004, allegedly moving away from rote learning toward a more "child-centered" approach in which children are understood as "proactive agents." Rejecting "repetitious exercises and worksheets," the reformed curriculum conceives of teachers as "co-learners with their students, instead of providers of solutions." It emphasizes both analytical ability and "aesthetics and creative expression, environmental awareness … and self and social awareness." The language used in both of these reforms harks back to the ideas of the great progressive educators John Dewey and Rabindranath Tagore, both of whom visited China, and both of whom once had considerable influence throughout East Asia. Singapore and China are trying to move toward open-ended progressive education that cultivates student creativity — just as we seem to be moving away, with the increasing emphasis on teaching to the test that has been the result of No Child Left Behind.

Observers of current practices in both Singapore and China conclude that the reforms have not really been implemented. Teacher pay is still linked to test scores, and thus the incentive structure to effectuate real change is lacking. In general, it's a lot easier to move toward rote learning than to move away from it, since teaching of the sort Dewey and Tagore recommended requires resourcefulness and perception, and it is always easier to follow a formula.

Moreover, the reforms are cabined by these authoritarian nations' fear of true critical freedom. In Singapore, nobody even attempts to use the new techniques when teaching about politics and contemporary problems. "Citizenship education" typically takes the form of analyzing a problem, proposing several possible solutions, and then demonstrating how the one chosen by government is the right one for Singapore. In universities, some instructors attempt a more genuinely open approach, but the government has a way of suing professors for libel if they criticize the government in class, and even a small number of high-profile cases chills debate. One professor of communications (who has since left Singapore) reported on a recent attempt to lead a discussion of the libel suits in her class: "I can feel the fear in the room. …You can cut it with a knife." Nor are foreign visitors immune: NYU's film school has been encouraged to set up a Singapore branch, but informed that films made in the program may not be shown outside the campus. China, needless to say, does not foster creative thinking or critical analysis when it comes to the political system.

It is time to take off the rose-colored glasses. Singapore and China are terrible models of education for any nation that aspires to remain a pluralistic democracy. They have not succeeded on their own business-oriented terms, and they have energetically suppressed imagination and analysis when it comes to the future of the nation and the tough choices that lie before it. If we want to turn to Asia for models, there are better ones to be found: Korea's humanistic liberal arts tradition, and the vision of Tagore and like-minded Indian educators. I'll take up their more enlightened approaches in my next column.

陈凯博客： www.kaichenblog.blogspot.com

中美学生对照
Contrast American & Chinese Students

“自由人”对抗“中国人”序列
"Free Beings" vs. "Chinese" Series

陈凯一语： Kai Chen's Words:

To understand reality and find truth in the world is what the Chinese should do in order to be free. Not as some assume that first the Chinese need to be understood by the world.

去懂得与了解世界上的真知才是中国人应急迫去做的， 而不是像许多中国人想象的一样，先让世界来了解中国。

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中美学生对照
Contrast American & Chinese Students

By Kai Chen 陈凯 （Written 5/10/2006, Reprint 9/29/2011)

If you compare native born American students and the first or second generation Chinese American students, you will find that most Chinese American students have better grades and attend better schools. After they graduate, you will find most Chinese American students tend to have good, steady jobs with good incomes.

Yet, very few Chinese Americans have become prominent in community lives, in politics, in the military, in social activities, in becoming corporate executives... Somehow they are not in the American leadership echelon. I have heard some complaints from Chinese American communities. Some blame it on racism and glass ceilings, some blame it on the cultural barriers, some blame it on the language difference and their Chinese accent... But very few Chinese American families see that the defective Chinese family culture plays a big role in this phenomenon.

Most Chinese families, especially those who have just moved from overseas to America, have great work ethics and they taught their children to work hard as well. But they fail to understand that a capitalist society not only rewards hard work, mostly it rewards innovation and risk-taking. The free market rewards not only effort, but mostly talent plus creativity. This is where the Chinese families come short.

Having good grades does not make good citizens. It is only one element. Most Chinese families keep to themselves or just function in the Chinese speaking circles, either due to language difficulties, or a reluctance to merge into American mainstream culture. Many Chinese students have very little social contact outside their own cultural circle; many have very little extra-curriculum activities. Very few play sports which is a very big part in American life. Very few assume school student leadership activities and roles. Very few have things and interests that are special to themselves and to others. They are single-dimension competitors. They only work hard to get good grades.

Confidence is crucial in a person's social life and career. Yet many Chinese students are socially illiterate and are basically social retards. They simply don't know how to effectively communicate with others, others that are not in their cultural circle. They assume somehow people are not connected on individual basis but only on group and cultural basis. They simply fail to understand what America is about. They simply fail to take advantage of the enormously open social structure in America. They simply fail to express themselves as unique individuals.

My brother came many years ago. But he and his wife have never paid attention to their only son when he attended high school. They have never gone to a PTA meeting, never communicated with the teachers and school authorities, never even bothered to enter American mainstream culture. They have never travelled together as a family, never gone to see a movie as a family, never had any habbies to immerse themselves in the community... Of course they have every right not to know others, but just don't blame others for not knowing and understanding them. Their son eventually got in trouble with the law and involved in other unpleasant things, but ultimately they fail to understand that in America, in a free society, you are your own master. There is nobody else to blame. If one has shirked his own responsibility as a parent, what does he expect from his child? The only thing I ever heard from my brother and his wife is " making money" in America and life is so hard and so on. His wife eventually returned to China and retired at age 50, full of complaints about their American failure. She simply returned to the misery and stagnation she had known so well and from which she had some certainty.

It is not just my brother and his family. I see many such examples in Chinese American community. Yes indeed they have never had to speak a word of English in China Town or San Gabriel Vallley where are mostly occupied by ethnic Chinese. Yet, they have thoroughly failed to be active, conscientious individuals responsible not only to their own family and themselves, but to God and mankind. They have simply dropped out of American scene. So how can they blame America for their stagnant social status and a joyless life, for they had never bothered to know anybody else? I can't imagine that Condy Rice only worrys about Black community and still makes the Secretary of the State of America. Can you?

My point is maybe there is something (or lack of something) in the Chinese American community that is to be blamed for the failure. Maybe it is the narrow-mindedness in the Chinese culture, or the defects in the Chinese language itself, or something else we still need to find out. But just to blame America, the most open, most free society in human history for not paying attention to the Chinese is a joke. Attention and respect can only be earned, not asked or demanded.

I welcome everyone's opinion on this subject.
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Kai,

Thank you so much for a wonderful article. Your keen observation is to the point and is truly thought-provoking. Mediocrity is indeed the lamentable consequence of all the "good education" provides. Hopeful your writings will give everyone a little nudge out of this comfortable pit of going nowhere.
_________________
--John
The Lord is my shepard. = El Senior es mi pastor. = 耶 和 华 是 我 的 牧 者