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CIAO DATE: 04/05/07
New Minds Shaping China
by Nick Phoutrides
The rise of critical thinking education in China is forcing tangible change on the country's communist system. By educating students to think critically, brainstorm creatively, and engage in freer discourse, the Chinese government is encouraging new levels of participation and prospects for expanding openness in society. Based on my observations during a year of study in China, as well as my time teaching in a school in Huangtian, a rural village in the Anhui province, I have gained some insight into education in China. Chinese education policy can be used as a tool for evaluating current societal trends in order to suggest where the country may be heading. With that, the concept of "critical thinking education" can be examined in three parts: the first section focuses on the theoretical background of critical thinking education, the second section analyzes current trends in Chinese education, and the third section evaluates the implications of new educational reforms in China.
Critical thinking education can be thought of as problemposing education, the name given it by philosopher Paolo Freire. It refers to a method of instruction that is in contrast to mechanical education, or rote memorization. The overall goal of critical thinking education is to develop a student's critical reasoning ability. By using techniques such as backand- forth dialogue and hands-on learning, teachers of this pedagogical school prepare their students to reason through issues systematically. Instead of waiting for the teacher to provide the answers, students must think of the answer for themselves. Rather than take orders, students cooperate with the teacher. Many people refer to this form of learning as a "two-way street" by which both teacher and student exchange thoughts and learn.
Rote memorization, on the other hand, emphasizes inundation. It overwhelms the student with facts. The student apprehends these facts vaguely, understanding them with difficulty. Freire calls this type of education "banking education," likening the student to a bank vault and the teacher to a depositor. The teacher deposits information into the student without providing any mechanism for the student to evaluate the knowledge; a student who learns by rote does not the have the same skills as a student who learns to reason critically. The former prepares the student for passing tests and completing assignments, while the latter provides a framework and capacity for understanding the world.
I had the opportunity to compare these two educational methods while teaching a middle-school English class. During the first few days of teaching, I received copy after copy of plagiarized essays that revealed my students copied each other or their workbooks instead of creating original work. Once I asked my middle-school students to hand in a short story using ten new vocabulary words. Of the forty papers I received, at least half were copied from textbooks. The other half were copies of smarter students' work that featured such simplistic sentences as "The dog was very hungry." As I had already determined that my students' English abilities were high, I knew that they could do better. Why were they not trying?
After handing back the essays, I explained the assignment again, stressing that I wanted original work. The following Monday, I received a stack of thoughtful, patient essays. The striking creativity of one piece, written by a girl named Penny who always sat at the front of the class, stands out in my mind. While her English was no better than her classmates', she produced an imaginative anecdote that involved flying squirrels and a cake. I realized that my students did not lack original thought but that their education rarely encouraged it.
Nick Phoutrides is a student in the International Politics and Security program at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.