Kristofs Article: China's winning schools - Essay Example

Kristof’s Article: China's winning schools? Introduction For quite a long time, there have been arguments on the reason behind excellent academic performance in Asian based schools. Some people stereotype that it is because Asians are smarter than other groups. Others argue that the great performance is attributable to the Asian culture, which is based on Confucian ideas. Confucian is a type of philosophical conviction that stresses on family morals and quality education. In his article titled China's Winning schools? Nicholas Kristof argued that Asians excel at exams particularly in math, science, and reading because of their Confucian background. By this he meant that Asians are better academically, not because they are smarter that other groups but because their Cultural background makes them revere education. His argument comes after an international study that showed the academic performance of students from 65 countries. The study focused on math, science, and reading and showed that countries where the society followed Confucianism performed better in the three categories. The Confucian countries with outstanding performance were Hong Kong, Singapore, and South Korea. This paper is a critique of Kristof’s article. The paper will focus on the influence of Confucian on education in China and other Confucian countries. Summary of the Article Nicholas Kristof article China's winning schools? which appeared in the New York times on January 16, 2011 claimed that Confucian influences good academic performance. The claim was based on the findings that countries that follow Confucian are performing better is math, science and reading as compare to western countries and other regions of the world. Kristof claims that his visits to schools in China, a country that follows Confucians ideas, made him envious. He claims that uninterrupted school attendance even for nursery school pupils is obligatory. He attributes the thriving education in Asia to Confucianism and suggests that the West should learn from Asia (Kristof Web). Nevertheless, Kristof claims that the thriving academic performance in China has not always been there but has become rampant in the last two decades. He argues that frequent training of less competent teachers make them more effective hence the good performance. Additionally, the article argues that Confucian based education encourages students to be passionate about education. Kristof states that United States ought to borrow some ideas from Confucian based education systems (Kristof Web). How Confucianism Affects Education Confucian is a traditional outlook and practices followed in East Asian countries, which are based on teachings of Confucius, a Chinese philosopher who lived between 551 and 479 BCE. Confucianism emphasizes on ethics as well as statecraft. Confucius believed that education was the only way that one could earn appropriate social status in addition to material success. Additionally, he claimed that education helped foster harmony and morality in the society. Due to this believe, Confucian countries lay a lot of emphasis on education in terms of the fund set aside to facilitate education. Additionally, the parents tend to pressure their children to work hard and prosper academically. This has led to higher performance in Confucian countries (Gove and Huang 10-13; Phuong-Mai, Cees and Albert 1-3; Kristof Web). Learning is a process influenced by interaction of many factors many factors. The world or the environment that one learns in plays a role in determining ones perceptions toward education hence the possibility of succeeding or not succeeding. Culture is one of the factors that determine the modes of learning as well as the development of education policies. Most Asian schools follow Confucian ideas in teaching. Confucianism is one of the greatest stimuli of education in most Asian countries such as Singapore, China, Japan, South Korea, and Hong Kong. Confucianism entails a lot of strictness, demand for students to respect parents and teachers, deferred gratification in addition to pronounced discipline with little focus on sports and other co-curricular activities. One feature that differentiates schools in United States with those from Asian countries or Confucian countries is the high status accorded to the teachers in the later. Kristof gives a number of reasons, which makes Confucian countries succeed. One of the reasons is the dedication to learn. As opposed to American students who do not focus much on academic but choose to undertake other activities in addition to their academics, Pupils in Confucian school study hard. Although other factors may contributive to this extreme dedication, Confucius ideas play crucial role. Confucius insisted on extolled academic study, which he claimed was the only way to acquiring wisdom as well as success (Cees and Albert 1-5; Kristof Web). According to Chiu (42-44), Confucian Heritage plays a very crucial role in education since it guides the behaviors of students, which is important for academic performance. As Kristoff suggests in his article, culture plays a major role in both determining effectiveness of communication as well as the level of interaction amongst students and those between students and their teachers. Additionally the formality or informality of communication regulates the seriousness with which students view education (Kristof Web; Cees and Albert 2-6). Kristof argues that the school in Confucian countries such as China insists on uninterrupted school attendance. This is in line with Confucius idea that education requires to be given a top priority. This is opposed to school in United States where there is minimal strictness on school attendance. Kristof is thus justified to argue that Confucian culture is responsible for better academic performance in Asian countries as opposed to the west (Chiu 52-55; Kristof Web; Cees and Albert 1-3). Since Confucian ideologies encourage individual contribution to the society, it thus encourages students to work hard academically, since education is considered an important tool for success in life. Confucius insisted on good education as a way of enabling improvement of the quality of life in the society as a whole. Confucian countries tend to have education systems that are inclined towards cognitive conservatism, which insists on preservation on existing knowledge systems. As Kristof claims, Confucian education system tends to focus less on innovativeness and creativity. Such restrictions tend to limit the achievement of some students who may be talented in other fields. This is different from the western education systems that tend to encourage development of capabilities to link ideas and actions (Chiu 44-49; Kristof Web; Briggs 723-728). Another reason why the good performance in reading, math, and science can be attributed to Confucianism is that it encourages students to respect their teachers and prohibits them from wrongful use of authority against teachers. However, Confucianism fails to encourage good performance in some way since it opposes actions such as teachers appreciating good efforts made by students. This is because Confucianism claims that such actions are equivalent to open expression of emotions, which is a hindrance to academic achievement. It is unclear how appreciating a student’s effort would discourage him or her from working harder. On the contrary, such an action is likely to encourage the student to put more effort. Therefore, some Confucian ideologies do not promote academic success (Gove and Huang 11-15; Phuong-Mai, Cees and Albert 3-6; Kristof Web). Biggs (723-725), agrees with Kristofs claims and adds that students from countries following Confucian heritage culture outperform Western student not just in math, science, and reading but also in other study areas. Biggs argues that Confucianism encourages large class teaching which makes it easy for students to focus on meaningful teaching since they can use whole class teaching methods. Although the western education systems are opposed to Confucian based teaching methodologies, which they claim provide surface learning that can result in failure, the Confucian countries continues to outdo the western countries. Kristof is thus right in attributing this enhanced performance to Confucianism. Confucian is the main difference that segregates education in the Asian countries from that in Western countries (Briggs 723-728). Additionally, the notion that Confucianism encourages surface learning, which is inadequate for future performance in jobs, is not correct. This is because Students from Confucians countries have been regarded as good performance even in their jobs. It is true that students in counties such as Hong Kong considerably depend on deep memorizing to pass their exams, but the fact that they end up outdoing their western counterparts means that Confucianism is an appropriate approach worth emulating. Additionally, Confucian understanding of memorizing is that which entails repetitive and reflective learning, which is appropriate since it cultivates a culture of personal studies amongst the students (Kristof Web). Due to the high emphasis on education, Confucian countries devote high resources to education as compared to the west. This enabled learning institution to provide quality education since they can employ adequate teaching staff in addition to being able to provide other requirements to enhance learning. Other aspects of Confucianism that enhance learning include attribution of success to effort as opposed to the western that attributes success to ability. Confucianism thus encourages students to work hard giving them a chance to realize their full potential. Sociability which is an attribute encouraged by Confucianism inspires students to seek each other assistant while learning. This enables sharing of knowledge and encourages students to work harder. This is opposed to western where collaboration has been shown to reduce efforts in students as compared to individual learning. The Confucian believe that education is an important toll in determining ones potential leads to increase persistent and efforts amongst students (Briggs 725-728; Kristof Web). Conclusion Confucianism, a cultural approach that emphasizes on education as the path that enables success in life is responsible for the improved performance in Confucian countries such as Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea, and China. This is according to Kristof, who adds that the strict nature demanded in Confucian educations systems cultivated good attitude towards education. This argument is true and can be supported by the recent international findings that ranked student from Confucian countries as the best performing in math, science and reading. Since culture plays a role in modeling the learning environment, it is appropriate to argue that Confucian culture is responsible for this performance since the west students have been outdone by Confucians students irrespective of the believe that Confucianism is inefficient since it entails memorizing. Works Cited Biggs, John. "Learning from the Confucian heritage: so size doen't matter." International Journal of Educational Research Vol 29 (1998): 723-738. Chiu, Yi-Ching. "Facilitating Asian students’ critical thinking in Online Discussions." British Journal of Educational Technology Vol 40 No 1 (2009): 42-57. Gove, Mary and Grace Huang. "Confucianism and Chinese Families: Values and Practices in Education." International Journal of Humanities and Social Science,Vol. 2 No. 3 (2012): 10-14. Kristof, Nicholas. "China’s Winning Schools?" New York Times 15 Jan 2011. Web. Oct 1, 2012. Phuong-Mai, Nguyen, Terlouw Cees and Pilot Albert. "Culturally Appropriate Pedalogy: The Case of Group Learning In a Confucian Heritage Culture Context." Intercultural Education, Vol.17, N1 (March 2006): 1-9. Read More