Educational Philosophies: The U.S. and China

A Chinese mom doing graduate studies in America is dismayed by the quality of her son's education compared to that he'd receive in her native China. She wrote scathingly of her concerns in a piece for the Wall Street Journal (paywall) in which she noted that the flaccid state of our educational system is putting us at a real disadvantage to the emerging economic and military competitor across the Pacific.

She writes:

As a Chinese doctoral student raising a young son in the U.S., I am mystified by how American elementary schools coddle students. In China, schools are run like boot camps. What do the therapeutic comforts America showers on its youth portend for a growing competition with China?

Good question, but what does she mean when she says that schools coddle students?

I recently registered my son in the third grade at a New Jersey public school. Hattie had recently finished two years of elementary school in Chengdu, China, where he trotted off to school each day with a backpack stuffed with thick textbooks and materials for practices and quizzes. Here he leaves for school with little in his backpack other than a required “healthy snack.”

The first day he came home with a sheet of math homework: 35 addition problems. He finished in about a minute. On the second day, he was asked to write 328 in different configurations. He first wrote down 300+20+8, following the prompt, and then 164x2, 82x4 and 656÷2.

My son is not a genius, but he started studying math at an early age. When he was 5, I taught him fractions. Two years later, I introduced him to algebra. It is a core belief in Chinese society that talent can be trained, so schools should be tough on children. Chinese students score at the top of international math and science tests.

This is not a philosophy shared by American schools. On Friday night my son came home announcing in bewilderment that he didn’t have any homework. In China students tend to receive twice as much homework on the weekend, given the two days to complete it.

How will America compete with a China determined to train the best mathematicians, scientists and engineers?

Well, the answer is, we won't. We've already decided that what children do outside of school is more important than what they do in school. Social activities, recreation, athletics all are greater priorities than learning.

Teachers know that if they assign homework many students simply won't do it, and there'll be no penalty for not doing it. If a teacher tries to impose a penalty of some sort he or she is likely to run afoul of both irate parents and unsupportive administrators.

Ms. Zhang continues her critique:

Chinese education pushes the young in directions that serve the party and the state. Youth are trained to be skilled laborers ready to endure hard work and brutal competition. Such political indoctrination is taught side by side with math and science.

American education is supposed to be about opening minds but appears not to fill them with much. Worse, young Americans are not prepared for the demands of being an adult.

This phenomenon started in higher education. For years attending American universities, I have been disturbed to watch colleges fabricate “anxiety” and “depression” in students who are not mentally ill.

Administrators have used grossly exaggerated terms such as “trauma,” and melodramatic expressions such as “I cannot begin to imagine what you have suffered,” to turn into a catastrophe what is best described as disappointment. This creates a culture of victimization.

The absurdity peaked after the election of Donald Trump in 2016. Students from elite universities claimed existential despair, finding comfort in cocoa, coloring books and therapy dogs. Classes were canceled and exams postponed, all in the name of soothing 20-somethings who need to be learning how to adapt to reality as adults.

Chinese citizens enjoy mocking the Western “snowflakes.” Less amusing is what this trend means for the U.S. as China no longer hides its enmity for America.

Her analysis of American education would be funny were it not so serious.

It's hard to imagine the left, which largely controls education in this country, being overmuch concerned about competing with China. Competition in education, as in most other spheres of life, is anathema to the left, because it entails a hierarchy of ability and a perpetuation of socio-economic classes.

Progressives whose goal is "equity" and a classless society will never commit themselves to higher standards of educational excellence if it means that some will fail to measure up. Besides, an ignorant, uneducated citizenry is, they believe, much easier to manipulate.

As Thomas Jefferson once wrote: "A nation that expects to remain ignorant and free...expects what never was and never will be."