With my interest and background in education, my teaching in China placed me in a unique position to do firsthand observation of Chinese education at all levels, that was one of the primary purposes of my original sabbatical request and my subsequent trips there. We visited many elementary, middle, and high schools, together with several community colleges; in addition, I had the chance of teaching at all university grade levels. I found learn that education has completely different, a lot more deterministic consequences for Chinese students than it can for American students.Look at it in this manner. With a population of over 1.3 billion people, China has one-fifth of the world's population: one in every five people on Earth is Chinese. Further complicating the issues of that massive populace is the distribution of the people. China has roughly exactly the same land mass because the United States. However, an excellent part of that area is uninhabitable or sparsely populated: the Gobi Desert is non-arable and the Himalayas and the Himalayan plateau regions have proven to be largely useless; the eastern half of the nation is where in fact the majority of individuals are clustered, with a great deal of the population concentrated in and around the large cities situated in that area of the country's land mass. In addition, seventy-five to eighty percent of the people are still agrarian. Such disparate distribution and density of the populace certainly makes feeding, housing, caring for, and educating the citizens a continuing challenge, with education being truly a key focus.Every school day in China, over 300 million students study in Chinese classrooms... more than the entire population of America. Indeed, among my Chinese colleagues once related to me an enlightening analogy. Education in China, he illustrated, can be compared to a broad, packed highway leading to a narrow bridge. The farther across the road one goes, the narrower it gets. Many students get forced out into endless side streets all on the way. And by the end of that crowded road lies an extremely narrow bridge called "post secondary study." If one does not cross that bridge, full participation and success in the Chinese economy is incredibly limited. And because very few people can ever cross that bridge successfully, entry into post-secondary study is incredibly competitive.All Chinese citizens are guaranteed a basic ninth-grade education and increased literacy in the country is among the primary goals of the federal government. However, given the enormous amount of students to be educated, those aims are difficult to achieve. Average class sizes range from forty to eighty, according to the specialization of the school, and can number a lot more if the circumstances demand. The better schools have smaller classes (no more than forty students) so the teacher can do a better job. However, fifty to sixty students is the norm. From kindergarten on, regimentation may be the rule of the day. Students must listen and take down notes. The teacher traditionally has supreme authority and asking questions or commenting on course content in the classroom is considered to be an affront to the teacher and is thus forbidden. Teacher aides, tutors, or parental assist in the classroom are unusual. Rote memorization remains the dominant methodology and students learn early on that silence and copious note taking are the only keys to success. The students themselves spend most of their day in the classroom-usually from eight to ten hours-and the remainder of their time is specialized in homework and any additional tutoring or other supplemental courses that the parents are able. At all levels of schooling, test outcomes determine the caliber and quality of school the students will be able to attend, so continual study for capstone examinations (national exams at the completion of fourth, sixth, eight, tenth, and twelfth grades) do much in determining the direction and quality of the students' lives. Some of the college students I talked to admitted that the rigorous demands placed on them by their teachers and parents left them with little or no childhood, a condition they vowed they would never impart on their own children.The Chinese post-secondary education system is vastly not the same as the America system. The semesters are twenty-one weeks long. Chinese college students often attend classes Monday through Friday along with extra classes, tutoring, and/or study sessions on Saturday and Sunday. Entrance into Chinese colleges and universities is quite difficult and depends upon the infamous national Gaokao placement exam. No more than 10 to 20 percent of senior high school graduates continue to technical colleges or universities and the exam results determine not only which universities they are able to attend, but also what majors they are able to study. Once accepted by a university, the students move through their span of studies in cadres of thirty-five to forty. Each cohort takes a similar classes and the members share the same, gender separate dormitories, with eight people to a small, confined room. Often their shower and toilet facilities are in a separate building. One of the students from each cohort is appointed to function as class monitor, and she or he becomes tasked with assuring that all classroom and dormitory activities happen with as few problems as you possibly can. To be selected class monitor is definitely an honor. The students within each cohort and dorm room form close bonds and work together for the good of the complete. Interesting enough, almost all of the students I have talked with say there's little collaborative or interactive learning that goes on in the classroom. The totality of the Chinese education system serves to severely restrict creativity and individuality in students. Just like the general public education system, the faculty classroom experience involves listening, memorization, and continuous preparation for entrance exams and placements tests. However, the tests college students take are cumulative and can determine the employment they'll acquire after graduation, and thus their future quality of life. The competitive nature of the Chinese education system has produced students who, for the most part, are very earnest, obedient, and intensely hardworking, yet who severely lack initiative.I taught Chinese university students from all grade levels and their abilities and eagerness to learn continually impressed me. Unlike in the us, problems with attendance and preparedness never interfered with classroom instruction, which made my teaching experience most enjoyable. And nearly to an individual, the students continually exuded a childlike air about them... a certain navet... a sense of innocence to the ways of the world... indeed, they lacked the hardness within so many of the students I deal with in my own American classroom. The students who I caused were highly motivated to do their best since they almost universally felt compelled to have success at any cost; doing so is their duty to not only society, but more importantly with their family. Parents often sacrifice a great deal in the education of these child, who involves feel deeply obligated to repay them for the education he or she has received. Many of my students said a similar thing: "I have to get yourself a good job and make much money so I can care for my parents. They will have worked so difficult and spent so much money on my education." The Chinese still place great focus on family... the ancient Confucian notion of Parental Piety... and on subservience to the society all together... the collectivism so sharply contrary to the individualist worldview of Westerners.Every once and a while, one is given an epiphany, a moment of insight, in the event that you will, that provides more information than volumes of books ever can. The first of my educational moments of enlightenment came whenever we visited several classrooms at a middle school. Following the last class of the institution day, I noticed a lot of the students were busy cleaning the windows in the classrooms, washing the blackboards, mopping the floors, and even cleaning the bathrooms. I asked the teacher giving us the tour of the institution relating to this and her reply was, "These activities are area of the students' education." Schools have no janitorial force; all the cleanup work is delegated to the students. "If the students are responsible for the condition of the classrooms and the school," she continued, "they'll put much more effort into and value upon their education. This is much a part of our Socialist tradition... of Chairman Mao's ideas of loving labor."The next insight came through the second month I was at Northeastern University. On a cold Sunday evening in February a sudden snow storm dropped several inches of snow on Shenyang. Very early the next morning, when i left our apartment building and started to make my solution to my high grade, I noticed students all over the campus-by the thousands-industriously shoveling snow from the sidewalks and streets and chipping away at the patches of ice that had formed near door stoops and on steps. That they had apparently been at their tasks since daybreak. I could only look on, perplexed, not sure of what I was experiencing. When I met my first class, which coincidentally was a cross-cultural communications course, I took several minutes to describe my fascination with their activities. These were more than pleased to explain the mechanics and the purpose of the activity."It really is our duty!" explained Albert proudly (Chinese students learning English usually assume an English name)."Shoveling snow is part of our education.""Yes, no one should wear the ice and become injured," chimed in Tiffany, whose muffler remained just underneath her lips in the cold classroom."How may be the work determined?" I asked, still attempting to keep the conversation going."Each class is given an assigned area. If the area is not done satisfactorily, the responsible class will undoubtedly be punished," answered Gerald."What happens if someone is lazy and doesn't want to go out in to the cold and sleeps in?" I continued."That person will be scorned and also ridiculed by his fellow classmates... will be considered as someone who is unreliable... who can't be trusted," said Gail.Intrigued by the ingenuousness of these answers, I tried to obtain as much information when i could. "And I saw the girls shoveling and chipping just as hard because the boys. Why is this?"Connie, who was always timid in class, finally found her voice. "Chairman Mao did much for establishing the equality of women to men. He maintained that women need to stand with men in society, not behind them."Perhaps with a little chagrin, I concluded the conversation with a tale in what my students would probably tell me related to the shovel easily commanded them to go out and remove snow from our college's sidewalks... a joke no one really understood. But I had found a "teachable moment"... or rather a "learnable moment"... an example in which the students and I were able to look beyond ourselves and jointly comment on the world all around us. And not only had I then found out more information about my environment, I was beginning to find those rare moments of teaching when I learned much more than I possibly could ever impart.I had two such other sudden leaps of understanding just recently when I went to Shenyang. In my several trips there I had never really had the occasion to go in the fall, so because we went during September and October on that visit I was able to observe two very remarkable occurrences. The initial was on September 10th, that i did not realize was National Day of the Teacher, a nationwide holiday in which students round the country show their appreciation because of their teachers by presenting them with gifts of cards and flowers. We knew your day was any occasion for teachers, but we were incredibly surprised when two of our students appeared at our door with two large arrangements of flowers... a token they said of the gratitude all of our students had for all of us being their teachers. Traditionally, the relationship of the teacher to the student has almost mirrored that of the main one between parent and child, an idea that comes from the time of Confucius (Kongfuzi).This insight was followed up shortly thereafter with another, when I was visiting the Foreign Studies College at Northeastern University, soon after the beginning of the semester in September. From several blocks away I heard a chorus of hundreds of voices singing a martial anthem. As I walked onto the large concrete square while watching twelve-story Administration Building, I saw arrayed there at least two thousand students dressed in the drab green of military uniforms. Some were marching, some were standing in large cadres on the building steps, along with other were engaged in military hand-to-hand combat tactics, all under the direction of regular Chinese Army instructors. Later I found find out that all college freshmen, at every college and university round the country, must get a full three weeks of military training before they even begin their classes. Some of the teachers I talked to explained how that requirement was purposeful in assisting the students prepare for the rigors of college life and studies; others said it had come out of the Tiananmen Square incident and had been implemented to prevent university students from participating in anti-government organizing and activities. Again, the differences between the students of China and those of America are often stark.However the restlessness and impatience of youth is universal. In China the imposition of Western influences, as a result of the rise of capitalism and the driving force of commercialism and advertising, movies and videos, the Internet along with other glimpses of outside cultures, have generated a rising sense of not dissent, but perhaps discontent... maybe uneasiness with the status quo. The Chinese youth of today won't be the same as that of twenty as well as ten years ago, and this groundswell is probably most noticeable in education. Though still hard-working and conscientious, contemporary students are progressively coming to expect more than only a passive exchange of information and knowledge during their learning; they are, I think, gradually requesting a more participatory role within their education, which might, ultimately, spill over into the broader social and political realms.This need for change in educational methodology is exerting growing strain on the teaching profession in China to change. The Chinese teachers and professors I caused were equally industrious and eager to help and learn. And though the teacher remains the biggest market of authority in the classroom, they are continually asked for much and given little in return; they generally are underpaid, making a fraction of their American counterparts, while doing more with less. Plus they sense the limitations of these traditional ways of teaching... those that have been ingrained in to the culture since the time of Kongfuzi. With the brand new generation of students getting into their classrooms, the old methods persuade not be working so well. The twenty-first century is requiring individuals who can perform more tha just memorize; instead, abstract thinkers are going to be needed and the teachers and professors want to the West, strangely enough, to provide them with the teaching tools to do this goal. And just as with their students, when subjected to new and different ways of teaching, such as collaborative learning and independent thought, Chinese teachers are slowly learning that melding innovation with tradition brings success.At the risk of over generalization, I can say that the students, and certainly the faculty members, are really different from those I've grown accustomed to in America. Because education isn't a right, but rather a privilege in China, both groups generally take their studies, educational mission, and teaching responsibilities quite seriously. Subsequently, I submit that both American and Chinese cultures and educational systems can learn a good deal from each other.Note: The aforementioned article has been excerpted from the photo narrative entitled An American Academic in Li Bai's Court: China Photos and Reflection, created and written by John H. Paddison. Copyright 2010, Paddison-Orvik Publishing.Copyright 2011 Paddison-Orvik Publishing.John H. Paddison is Professor Emeritus at Central Arizona College. He taught there and at other universites and colleges after receiving his PhD from the University of Arizona. Paddison's writing career started with numerous non-fiction publications in the training field and contains since branched out to the fiction genre with the publication of his literary novel The Brothers' Keepers. Upcoming publications include a photo narrative of his travel experiences in China, entitled An American Academic in Li Bai's Court: China Photos and Reflections, and a novella entitled A NEARBY. For more information, or even to post comments on these works, please head to: [1].