To think the Chinese Teachers that taught in a English Comprehensive in Hampshire need to concentrate on their own countries problems.

[sunshield]

This experiment taken by BBC 2 ' Are our children tough enough' proves how far removed Chinese teaching methods are from , creating independent creative thinkers.

The Chinese teachers actually buy in to their 'state driven' dogmatic culture, that breeds total obedience to the state of china. They are also victims because they are unable to accept , that independent thinking is the key to a happy life.

China has abject poverty for 99% of the population, yet they decry a system that 'no matter that it is being altered ' still attempts to ensure no one starves on the street.

There is also another question to be asked about the PISA results , why do they only show schools from Shanghai ?. We could respond by only quoting results from Private or Grammar schools, because their results have been 'doctored'.

The quote we only have one type of syllabus in China 'survive or die' is typical of a state controlled workforce. This also shows they have no compassion for anyone who does not fit the norm though either academic intelligence or through Autism etc. The comment about not understanding the child who ran out of the class about 'One Direction' proves they have no understanding about teenage problems, whoever trivial.

The English education system needs to take no advice from the Chinese education system, despite what the baying mob think on the Daily Mail website think.

The girl who ran out of class due to the One Direction thing needs to get a grip

Discipline is sorely lacking both in schools and at home these days. Parents who daren't say "no", and the poor teachers who are left to deal with the consequences.

Chinese education may be lacking in some areas, but people in this country are nothing short of pathetic from what I see.

Not sure how much I am allowed to say here, as I don't want to be defamatory but this so called BBC 'experiment', is based on bullshit.

I happen to have worked with one of the Chinese teachers for many years, in a leafy Kent Grammar-they have not 'just been invited over to Britain for the purpose of the experiment'. They have also reverted back to their maiden name as their married one is too British. Funny that. Quite how they have the nerve to criticise our education system when they have been a part of it for so long, is beyond me.

I would never say that the British Education System is perfect at all, nor are their no issues that don't need discussion but this so-called documentary is completely misleading and just being used to criticise young people, parents and teachers. ????

""She was telling me how hard it is nowadays in HK. Kids threaten to kill themselves apparently if you give them too much homework. I replied that in this country they'd probably just threaten to kill you. ""

Youth suicide in China has always steadily increased and is the biggest cause of death in teens, it is connected to teaching and expectation levels.

I'd rather a girl ran out of class than jump out of a window (as has happened a lot).

I've only encountered exchange type Chinese students, mainly on public transport and they will quite happily knock you out of the way and will argue for a seat, even above a disabled person (I've witnessed this a few times), I live in a rough bit of Liverpool and have never seen the behaviour were I live, that I've seen from Chinese and French students.

Perhaps it's a reaction to be "let loose"?

I've had interesting discussions whilst waiting for buses, one Chinese student couldn't understand why English people were given "plots of land" (gardens), attached to their home, but was allowed to do what they wanted with it and not grow food etc.

We're to different to get much from this exercise, they're are other countries that we could learn from. I always these things are a real loss of opportunity.

However, if those high-achieving state school kids HAD gone to a private school, most of them probably would have done even better, due to being exposed to a more "stretching" curriculum and having less lesson time wasted through disruption.

Or maybe due to small class sizes that allowed more individual attention? (and possibly contributed to the teacher being able to offer a more “stretching” curriculum). So what you are saying is that money can buy an education more personalised to an individual’s strengths and weaknesses, and therefore they get higher grades in exams. Not a huge shock…

And the OP seems to be saying ‘this country is better than yours because we are allowed to express an opinion – therefore, if you come here, you can’t express an opinion’. Which shows that the ability to construct an argument doesn’t factor much in the UK system either… (and, as someone else has pointed out, neither does grammar - which is only relevant because some people seem to be saying that the reason for not teaching good grammar is because 'we' are teaching creative thinking instead, whereas it seems 'we' are not consistently teaching either).

The girl who ran out of class due to the One Direction thing needs to get a grip

And the OP seems to be saying ‘this country is better than yours because we are allowed to express an opinion – therefore, if you come here, you can’t express an opinion’. Which shows that the ability to construct an argument doesn’t factor much in the UK system either…

This.

The three part series " Are our kids Tough Enough" starts tonight at 9PM on BBC 2 .

I have had a summary of the episodes given to me from my OU website as the program was produced in association with the Open University.

Episode 1. Five Teachers from China , takeover the education of fifty teenagers in a Hampshire Comprehensive School. This is to decide whether the high ranking Chinese education system can produce superior students and results.

Episode 2. The kids rebel against the 'harsh' discipline and the behaviour starts to worsen for the Chinese teachers. This has the effect of forcing the schools headmaster to intervene .

Episode 3. The students taught by the Chinese Teachers have been left behind those taught by the English Teachers. This leads to them playing catch up for the end of experiment exams.

This clearly shows that the Chinese Teachers methods did not have any, positive effect or create an interest in studying for the pupils they taught.

The most effective and relevant experiment about Teaching and methods came from the "That IL Teach Them" series in the mid 2000s . This placed "bright" children in to a 1950s Grammar school in the hope of passing old style O Levels and was mostly successful in achieving that. However, there was also a series based in a 1960s Modern school (what they should have been like !) which helped less academic kids though more vocational based teaching .

A slight tangent but as with all TV programmes like this involving children, I really wonder about the ethics of it all and the concept of informed consent. I would not have allowed my dd to take part in this - it all helps feed the '15 minutes of fame / celeb culture ' that does so much damage in our society.

derxa sorry just got back onto this thread after work etc. I think that there is a dreadful poverty of ambition in the UK state school system which crosses class and is not just restricted to poor or 'underachieving' groups. Languages are a case in point - I was on a thread recently where people were bemoaning the fact that languages are being re - made compulsory at gcse. It was as if the govt had announced all 16 yr olds would have to take advanced quantum physics. People coming on saying 'my child isn't academic, why should they have to do french' as if languages are only possible for people with a huge iq.

There is also this perception that education is only necessary if it has a direct bearing on what children end up doing for a living. The narrowing of our curriculum at gcse and then a level is dreadful not just because it restricts further education options but because it pigeonholes people far too early. Why shouldn't everyone study maths and English until 18? Why shouldn't they do a language too, plus sciences or humanities, or a mix. Most children have huge capacity for learning. And there is nothing wrong with school being disciplined and requiribg effort and time. We expect schools and teachers to do entirely too much nowadays as far as I can see. Teachers are social workers and educators and friends and substitute parents and dinner ladies and administrators and parent - liaison officers. They should just be allowed to be educators - but really top class ones. In many other countries you need at least a 4 year degree in your subject plus pedagogy in order to teach in a state school, in many cases an MA too. A pgce just doesn't cut it in comparison.

A pgce just doesn't cut it in comparison

You do realise you can only do a PGCE (Post Graduate Certificate of Education) after a minimum of a three year degree, making it at least 4 years to becoming a teacher, if not longer.

I do agree with the rest of your post though Ginnel

kitty yes I do realise that. I see transcripts for teachers who have 4 years of courses in pedagogy, plus their subject specialisation and teaching practice running throughout their degree. In comparison I don't believe a pgce is as in depth or as rigorous.

I should add that I believe most British state school teachers are incredibly hard working and passionate about their work. But I don't believe that our system of training teachers is as good as it should be; and I believe that if you want a job to be regarded as a true profession you have to treat it as such. Lawyers, doctors, architects all have to complete lengthier training cycles, both academic and on the job. Teaching should be the same.

Watching now. Really dislike how teaching in these programmes always talks about 'winning over' students even though in some ways this is true when teaching.

Love rosie and her friend singing.

Kids really rude, not keen on attitude of Sophie.

God, some of those kids need a boot up the bum (even allowing for a certain amount of playing-to-the-camera).

Bear in mind that this is a relatively "good" British school. Looks and sounds pretty middle class--plus, if it were really rough the school would never have allowed the cameras in the door.

I don't think that we should be talking in terms of a binary choice between "robotic" overworked galley-slaves, versus the incredibly RUDE little sods who were smirking and chatting and phone-checking their way through those lessons.

How about the notion of kids turning up to lessons, working hard and behaving politely, but also enjoying enough sleep/fresh air/extra-curricular time?

I love how the UK's culture of excuses is so amply on display in this program--the students are behaving appallingly, and yet apparently it is all the fault of teachers for not entertaining them enough. Why doesn't the school have a centralized discipline policy? Why are the students (apparently) permitted to have phones on them?

A lot of British private schools deploy similar teaching methods to the chinese teachers. I feel that there is an element of truth in what the chinese teachers are saying.

I like the idea of the children having daily exercise.

Indeed. In a sense it is part of what I pay for - little disruption in class, zero tolerance of bad behaviour, expulsion for children who spoil the education of others, teachers quickly sacked if they are useless, whole class teaching and sport either every day or at least several times a week.

Are the children allowed phones in class? That wouldn't happen at my children's private school.

Private schools have a completely different culture. I don't think that there is any easy way to emulate such a culture in a school where the parents do not pay fees.

It would be an interesting experiment to set children on behaviour rather than arbitary CATs tests or SAT results. I can't see such an experiment ever being agreed to though.

The thing is though, I bet all of those teachers would have spelt 'country's' correctly.

Strongly agree with Bourdic did the programme makers seek full consent from both parents and teenagers for them to appear on TV?
I certainly would not agree to my child being exposed in this way. I particularly disliked the way in which the boy who struggled with PE and excelled at puzzles was treated.

Yeahwe've had some comments on this discussion about how "British schools must be great because the Chinese elites are sending their kids here to be educated"but come on, the Chinese elites are sending their kids to expensive British PRIVATE schools (which for the most part tend to have quite strict discipline and more traditional, demanding teaching methods and curricula), not British comprehensives like the one shown here.

Don't know if a private school culture could be completely replicated in a state school, but there are definitely some "free schools" which have made a point of doing this as much as possible, while working with some quite deprived intakes. I'm interested in schools like the Michaela academy which recently started in London, for example.

I know comprehensives have to make do with more difficult intakes and things like Ofsted inspections and the crappy National Curriculum and systems that make it really hard to exclude the worst students, but there is nothing to stop this school from doing some simple, sensible things nowlike cracking down on mobile phones, for a start. Makes me so cross. And this school does not appear to have a particularly challenging intake, quite honestlyit looks like a school in a middle class area, to me.

Op you still haven't answered the question posed yesterday - have you actually been to China?

The more you write, the more you sound like you are regurgitating what you have read in a textbook. There is very little insight into how Chinese society works and why their education system had evolved the way it has.

Been reading this with interest. I went to school in Ireland in the 70s/80s and we were behind the UK in terms of adopting "child-centred learning" so my education was very traditional. A lot of rote-learning, a broad curriculum (we do seven or eight subjects right to the end of school) and copybooks returned full of red marks and corrections throughout. It had many faults (too much religion and Irish language) but I think I got a far better education in my ordinary provincial convent school than my son did in his high-ranking school - he's just finished. I was really appalled at some of his textbooks. The English literature curriculum was stripped of many of the greats in favour of "modern" "relevant" writers like one of my former English Lit lecturers, a very nice woman but her poetry is hardly on a par with John Keats who was bumped to make space for her. The textbooks are full of huge photos and illustrations like primary schoolbooks. I had to teach him to use an apostrophe because no-one, in fourteen years ever did - at secondary school they simply don't bother with correcting spellings and tests/essays were returned full of mistakes. And this is supposed to be one of the best schools in the country! It's not the school really, it's the shit curriculum and broader culture of education. I find the low expectations and spoonfeeding really distressing. His history teacher, who's my age, brought in a piece of writing that the boys had difficulty comprehending and she pointed out that it was from her/our exam paper 25 years ago!

As I said, my education had its flaws but its emphasis on actually learning stuff rather than "climbing my personal Everest" (a whole day was wasted on this in my son's school) set me up reasonably well and it makes me angry that standards have declined so needlessly. It does scare me a bit in a globalised economy how graduates from our universities won't be highly rated. I recommend Melanie Phillips "All Must Have Prizes" on this - I know she's a ranting ideologue but she's spot-on about education.

No I have not been to China...

I have not read a textbook about China or its society.

The obvious reason why China society and education have developed in this way is down to the state.

The state of China want people to obey rules without questioning, the state's authority or reason for its policies.

The state quite cleverly has allowed a small number of people, to become 'RICH' this has two effects , first it creates an illusion that it is available to all ,if you buy in to the system.

The second thing it does and probably the most significant is it makes sure the Elite act as the states policeman in implementing the governments authority. The Elite will do this because they do not want their status questioned or threatened by others.

The comment by one of the Teachers that you either 'survive or die' in understanding or adapting to a 'one size fits all curriculum' is shocking. This is seen in the film by making Joe a very academically able boy, feel inferior because he can't run very fast. This was picked up very well by two girls who commented ' I wonder how well Steven Hawking would do at running'. The opposite to this is that students that struggle in Science or Maths are labelled as lazy or thick.

Discipline in chinese schools is enforced by the fact that headteacher can throw out pupils who are disruptive without appeals etc. the pupil then May or may not then get a place at a lower ranking school. Parents know this and know its in their interest to support the school's stance. Also culturally peer pressure is a lot stronger in China than in UK if your child is disruptive you will be vilified and lose face which is a massive deal. Thirdly and prehaps most importantly in China education is seen as the way to a better life and children are taught from infancy that you have one stab at it. Mess it up and you will end up sweeping the streets, emptying bins or pushing a dim sum trolley. In a country where you are competing against a billion other people you kno you are not a special snowflake.