How Culture Influences Learning:

Are you better at rote learning or critical thinking?

The other day I watched a BBC documentary, where some Chinese school teachers spent a month, teaching a class of 13 to 14 year British students, in a English High School.  It was very interesting to see the challenges faced by both teachers and students.

In China, the teachers had larger classes of 50 or more students, contrasted to smaller classes in the UK of 20 to 25 students. The teachers stand up front, and talk and write on a white board with the students reading and repeating over and over again and taking a lot of notes. They are memorizing the concepts or facts, and discipline is very strict. Teachers call out No talking! Pay attention! repeatedly. Something they do not need to do back in China. 

In the British school, the teachers often put students in small groups and encourage them to discuss problems, do projects and understand the underlying concepts or facts. British students question teachers and each other, exploring and interacting with the teacher – who moves from group to group. Critical thinking is encouraged.

Now when it comes to covering the syllabus and getting high test scores – the Chinese are way ahead (almost 3 years in maths!)  But to get the British students to ‘pay attention, not talk or not ask questions’, that was a big challenge for both the students, adapting – and the teachers instilling discipline.

The Chinese school day is 12 hours, from 7am to 7pm, with 3 – 4 hours of homework after school. The day starts with the whole school day doing calisthenics.

In the UK experiment – the class comprised 50 British students. They also did the morning exercise to music  - and actually liked it. Lunch is around 11.30am and another meal at 4.00pm. By the time, they finished at 7pm, they are very tired as they are not used to such a long day of classes.  

The Chinese teachers tended to be quite ‘authoritarian’ and expect children to pay attention, listen carefully and take notes. Chinese students do not chat among themselves or ask question of the teachers. The teacher is highly respected. Values are patience, persistence, perseverance and practice. However they do periodically break into pairs to check and share their learning. But it’s mostly rote learning and memorizing. PE is a mandatory subject in China, so students who fail this, cannot go onto University.

The British culture is more individualistic and democratic. The concept of collective shame hardly exists. The whole approach to education is more holistic with equal emphasis on all topics, sports and extra curricula activities. Science, maths or language excellence is no more important than with other subjects, like art, history, geography, cooking or sport etc. It is the right of teenagers to explore and develop their own talent potential. To choose to study what they want. Pride is more in individual achievement, rather than in the family, country, school or nation. (Self actualization).

As this experiment was over one month, I shall continue the ‘story’ in my next blog, but welcome your insights into cultural differences in teaching and learning. Happy Reading.