Education: Learning from each other

MichaelM (US)

My overall opinion is that the West can learn a lot from China in education. I don't know the final outcome of the Bohunt experiment. We will see in the final episodes. However, I predict that the students will fare much better on exams than those who were not taught in the environment of the experiment. Much of the reason will be that they spent more time studying.

My personal belief is that the biggest benefits of Chinese secondary education are 1. Longer hours at school. 2. Competitiveness. This is more important in China because there are so many job seekers looking for employment in a highly competitive job market. 3. Higher expectations and demands upon students. 4. More lecture-based lessons. This is great preparation for college. Effective notetaking is essential for college. 5. Team building. This too creates an intellectual environment where synergy is created in addition to developing personal attributes such as tolerance, cooperation and harmony.

Elizabeth Truss, a member of the United Kingdom Parliament, talks with a student at a middle school in Shanghai in February. Truss led a British education delegation on visits to three schools to gain insights into the city's successful math education program. Xu Wanglin / For China Daily