The Chinese School BBC2

[ToadMum]

Breaking news, as they say - you cannot shield your children from every person whose opinions are different from your own . You can only do your best to impress upon them what your beliefs and values are, why you hold them and believe them to be important - how access to education is one of the most effective ways of helping women in third world countries out of a short, hard life of drudgery and constant childbearing, coincidentally raising quality of life and economic wellbeing for the population as a whole, perhaps? As for teaching grammar, don't we all do that by example in all our conversations with our offspring?(Well, possibly not all our conversations...).

I actually empathised a great deal with the boy who was distressed about the running and was heartened by the way that other pupils supported him and cheered him on. As for some of the behaviour, though, I would happily have locked the little darlings into the classroom and tiptoed quietly away

[salsa]

I felt sorry for both the teachers and the students! How do Chinese pupils cope with this way of teaching? Surely it doesn't work for everyone? The poor teachers put it all down to the children's behaviour, but as the headmaster said, he was bored too.
The behaviour was appalling, but being so bored is painful.

My son watched the first episode and could not believe the behaviour and lack of motivation. Although, to be honest, I don't know how he'd cope with that teaching style. He also reported that PE was the same as at his GS with the difference that your academic future did not depend on passing PE.

I would really love to see the same children being taught by their regular teachers to see how they learn and behave. I'm sure it would be different. Would their attitude, motivation and drive to learn improve?

[KS10]

I see that type of behaviour on a regular basis, usually with teachers whose classroom control hasn't been established (and not necessarily because they've only been there for a short while). It can be easy to forget that the majority are well behaved and want to learn. Some of the bad behaviour is down to not understanding the work. This can happen when the teacher feels under pressure to cover a certain amount of work in a set period of time. It's not easy. That's why I left teaching.

[doodles]

Interesting result to the experiment

[ConfusedFather]

Interesting result to the experiment

Yes and no. They did better (which in itself was a surprise given how the "documentary" was pitched and presented), but some point out that a 50% increase in school time resulted in a mere 10% delta. On the other hand, if we were to believe the first couple of episodes, the pupils didn't really study the first couple of weeks and might have been able to achieve even more.

What would have been more interesting is to understand whether the over-performance was at all ability levels, or did one system work better for low/high performers?

Interesting to see the Chinese teachers' reaction when they won. They couldn't believe how such a poor performance bested an outstanding school

The one takeaway for me was how alien competition was to these kids. They struggled with it, loathed it, but some seem to cope with it and embrace it.
It was really bizarre watching pupils upset by having a PE ranking.
It was even more odd when one said "I did my best, and you're telling me my best is not enough". Well, yes. Life is tough, and others will be better engineers, cooks, electricians, doctors or analysts. Not everyone can be a nuclear scientist. Either you work harder to improve (because doing's one's best over 2-4 weeks doesn't compensate a few years of leisurely pace) or you make the choice not to follow that path as the rewards are not worth the effort.

It was really nice to see that girl's smile after her 100% in math, or that other kid when he was told he had potential


And how can anyone be allowed to leave class because of a dumb boys band??? You keep your outburst till you are home....

[doodles]

I would like to know more about the whole "set up" of the trial. I wonder if they did any creative or humanity subject - literature, history etc.

I assume the main school were following a normal timetable which would include these subjects but if the Chinese School were only doing the subjects shown over a longer day then I'm not surprised they improved but the results are not then based on a level playing field.

Interesting viewing anyway.

[southbucks3]

I am not convinced by the 50% more school time they kept banging on about.
The early morning partly included an exercise class and the evening was dinner followed by the normal uk state school expectation of two hours self study, but with friends and teachers on hand to help.
I am also not at all surprised that the maths teacher got a much much better result and I was glad as the bohunt teacher with his air of arrogance and different ability tables within the streamed classes (I hate that) seemed to spend too much time letting the kids self teach with him flitting around helping and not enough time at the board ensuring they had clear instruction and good notes in their books.
However I do wonder if the Chinese school had children that were selected for their innocence, even Sophie and Luca, who were the class scamps were very tame really, I'm sure there were probably some rather more colourful characters hidden away from the tv cameras in the main school.
Now off to buy myself a medicine ball......fairly sure that practising that particular exercise will go a long way to tackling my bingo wings!

[salsa]

I read an article that the weekly average amount of time secondary students spent doing homework in China was 13.8 hours and 4.9 in the UK. So, these Chinese students go home after 12 hours to do more work!

Is two hours the expected at grammar schools? I know that my GS son does that in spite of the school saying homework should take from 30 to 45 minutes. Now, I'm sure some in his class do, but he's encouraged to do a good job. Moreover, we've counted an average of 10 pieces of homework per week. He has been given some homework for the holidays.

(The Times, 14/12/2014. Sorry, Kids, here's proof homework is good for you)