True Story 7.13
American mother dismayed by Shanghai kindergarten scene
The setting for this story
As research for her book on Chinese schools, Little Soldiers, journalist Lenora Chu observed the first few days of a new school year at a kindergarten in Shanghai. What she saw was shocking.
A story of misaligned minds19
It was the first day of school at Harmony Kindergarten. I found 28 tiny, wandering children in various stages of distress. Mama! I want to go home! Teachers Wang and Li were the masters of this classroom, and their goal this first morning was 28 little behinds planted in 28 tiny chairs arranged in a U-shaped formation.
“Sit down!” Wang and Li marched around the room. With nearly every step they would encounter a small child, and with a swift motion they’d grasp an upper arm and maneuver a tiny body into the nearest chair. “Sit DOWN! Sit DOWN or your mother won’t come get you today. Sit DOWN or I won’t let you go home after nap time.” Mama! Mama! I want to go home! The clamor was phenomenal.
One girl was enticed by a play kitchen. Teacher Li spotted her and bounded over, lifted her by the armpits to standing, and silently placed her back in her seat. Another girl went to the water cooler. “It’s not time for drinking yet. Sit down!”
Once most bodies were in position, the refinement of sitting began. “Little hands on your legs! Backs straight! Little feet side by side on the floor!” Wang backed up verbal orders with physical action, a potent combination. She would kick a misplaced foot into place, grab flailing hands and crush them flat against thighs, nudge backs straight with a knock against the shoulder blades.
Lenora’s question
Do the parents know about this harsh treatment? How can these teachers get away with this?
Critique of story 7.13
Lenora’s experience in Shanghai, where she lived for several years with her husband and small children, draws our attention to the sharp East–West differences in cultures of learning.
Some Americans would regard the scene described by Lenora as grounds for legal action. No civilized society should allow its teachers to mistreat – abuse? – small children like that!
Let’s contrast that scene with another typical school scene in East Asia (China, Japan, and Taiwan). Visiting American educators are observing upper elementary classrooms at schools in East Asia. They are astonished by the effortless efficiency with which the teachers are conducting instruction. One anthropologist estimated that, in comparison with American teachers, upper elementary teachers in Japan are able to devote almost 50 percent more time per period to delivering subject content.20 The explanation is that their students are willing and able to cooperate with their teachers to bring about efficient classroom processes, having been trained to do so beginning on their first day at school – as witnessed by Lenora at Shanghai’s Harmony Kindergarten – and then repeatedly throughout their kindergarten and first grade years.
Some will reply, OK, but everyone knows East Asian students are simply being lectured at. Everyone? Not two of the most widely respected Western researchers of East Asian classrooms:
Chinese and Japanese elementary school classrooms, contrary to common stereotypes, are characterized by frequent interchange between teacher and students, enthusiastic participation by the students, and frequent use of problems that require novel and innovative solutions.21
In China and throughout East Asia, parents and the general public have expectations for teachers and their relationships with students that contrast sharply with the expectations of most Americans. (For example, people in East Asia expect teachers to be unmistakably directive in guiding what students learn and how they learn it.) What Lenora Chu observed on the first day at Harmony Kindergarten was, in the Chinese experience, nothing unusual.
For thought
Lenora’s own son received all of his primary school education in Shanghai schools wholly operated by the Chinese authorities with Chinese as the sole language of instruction. In her book’s final chapter, she reports that she and other Western expatriate parents, who also had sent their children to Chinese primary schools, agreed that the ideal academic career for any child is to be schooled in China through the fifth or sixth grade, and then to transfer into Western schools. Their opinion is similar to the opinion that’s been shared by many international educators for more than half a century – although some of them argue that students should remain away from U.S. schools until they are ready to enter an American college or university.
I recommend Lenora Chu’s absorbing book, Little Soldiers: An American Boy, a Chinese School, and the Global Race to Achieve. Don’t skip her final chapter, “The Middle Ground.”
Related stories
Stories 4.05 and 4.18 also concern Americans shocked by scenes in East Asian schools. See also Story 7.06, about an Asian student who, after secondary school, attended an American college.
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Endnotes:
19 Chu, L., 59–61.
20 Peak, 100.
21 Stevenson & Lee, 101.
Full citations are available at misalignedminds.info/References.