Cultural Differences in Learning : “The Chinese Experiment in the UK”.

In the last two blogs, I have been outlining the series of 4 weekly BBC Documentaries on an experiment where 5 Chinese teachers used their approach to teaching, on a class of 50 British 13 – 14 year old students in a Hampshire secondary school in the UK.

The Chinese claimed that the main problem with the British children, was Attitude. They didn’t see education as a right or a privilege and many didn’t tend to take it seriously. In fact, few children in the UK go onto University. Their ‘right’ was more an individual human right, to behave how they want.

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There was an incident, where one student brought a kettle into the classroom, and made a cup of tea. As the Chinese teacher was mostly in the front, she didn’t notice this, until the student accidently spilt some tea.  The teacher of course was mad and tried to discipline the student, but to little avail, as many other kids giggled and tended to feel for him.

The ultimate in Chinese discipline, is to report to the parents any ‘serious’ misbehaviour. So the mother came to the school and met the teacher. However, she sided with her son, and said that as a human, he has rights! She said her son was thirsty and had a ‘right’ to consume  tea if he wanted. She had even given him the kettle to take to school! There was an innuendo that the Chinese don’t enjoy freedom and human rights.

Eventually as behaviour continued to be uncontrollable by the Chinese teachers, the school principal had to be consulted. He said there was a need for a ‘Behaviour Management’ intervention. He spoke sternly to the class, and said there would be consequences for any misbehaviour. He said the students should face the front and not talk to each other while the teachers were talking.

He suggested the teacher use the ‘silence’ technique, where they stop teaching when students chat among themselves or play around, saying they would only continue, once they stopped and paid attention. But would that work on students who mostly don’t seem to care, and are bored and tired, and find it difficult to learn in response to the Chinese ‘Teacher Centred’  method.

It is worth noting that student and teachers are from one ethnicity in China. In the UK they are often more ethnically diverse in Urban settings, with both teachers and students coming from India, Pakistan, Jamaica, some African and Middle Eastern cultures, and even a few Chinese (but mainly from Hongkong). Most become acculturated and integrated into the British culture and many students might have been born in the UK, although their parents may be immigrants.

The question, at this point in the experiment is, will the UK students adapt to the Chinese way of learning, and how will the Chinese teachers cope? I will examine this in my next blog, as the experiment continues.