The difference between Chinese culture and western
culture
A Comparative study on school education
As we all know, there are lots of differences in school education between China and America. Now I want to talk about the differences from primary education to higher education.
The reasons why I want to compare these two kinds of education style are very simple. Firstly, if we want to learn about a country, we should learn its educational style to so that we can learn how they cultivate the next generation. Secondly, we can study others’advantages and improve ours’, especially for we developing countries. Third, development of society always relies on science, and science come from education, if we want to be strong, education is the very key.
You may ask why the differences exist, yeah, why? In my opinion, differences come so obviously because we have quite different thinking methods, we Chinese prefer to summarize experience after every practice, and we are good at applying our summary into practice. While Americans are used to doing some practice first, they can achieve a lot in these practice. In other words our thinking method is limited in the elder generation's experience seriously, what we do is to apply these summary into application, it will do great harm to our innovation. Now let us compare our different kind of education style from primary education to higher education between the two countries.
1, Primary School Education
It's so common that our children suffer lots of homework after class, what is more, the young have to attend to every kind of extra class to improve their scores, we have to admire that our children grasp better basic knowledge, however, what we lose is far more than what we gain. As is the time should we have a reflection, we put so heavy pressure on the young, but it does not work well, children ought to have a happy childhood.
While, children in American have less classes and less homework, teachers prefer to let the young do more activities not exercise they want them to consider more and achieve the interest during their practice. Teachers often let children have free talks to train speaking skills, so today we can see American do better in arguing. During primary education, their students mainly study math and language, teachers usually arrange some activities which need to be finished in group, it not only improves the young's friendship but also does good to their sense of a teamwork. We can see the US children have quite relaxed growing environment. They have a more comfortable childhood I think.
2. High School Education
In Chinese high school, we study for three years, during this period, students have a lot of things to do, most of which is about study, every day we are preparing for college entrance examination, we all want to make good scores and choose an ideal college, so you can imagine this three-year career is a great challenge for us. Every day, we begin our class from 7:00 to 12:00 in the morning and from 2:00 till 5:30 in the afternoon, during a day's study, we mainly have math, physic, chemistry, biology,
English and Chinese classes, these are the very subjects we should prepare for college entrance examination. We also have some interesting classes. Each week we have two PE classes, during this time we can do what sports we love and we can also relax ourselves, in my opinion only two PE classes are really not enough for us. We have two psychology classes, in this class teacher will show us some exciting topics that have something to do with us, it really help us a lot when we feel lost and frustrated. In Art class teacher will show us famous pictures and tell us the story of each work, we feel quite relaxed at this moment as we can have a sleep or do some other things. Though study is essential during these three years, yet what is the most important I think is that we develop great friendship during high school life, and our friendship is so pure that we can trust each other without any hesitation. Though these three years is the busiest period, it really gives us an valuable memory.
When we come to American high school, we can see they have a relaxed study life, as is seen, their high school life is similar to our college life, they commonly study for four years during high school, they need not to pay too much attention to college entrance examination, in American, people prefer your ability than your scores, so students work hard to improve their all kinds of abilities. They go to class from 7:30 to 2:15 from Monday to Friday and only six classes every day, maybe you do not believe, but it is really true. They also have more interesting classes such as pottery class, theatre class and legal class, what the school wants is to strengthen students' practical skills. American students go to class in different classroom while we Chinese have permanent classroom, what is more, they are free to develop themselves and
major in the subjects they like. As long as they get enough credits they can get graduated, so we can conclude that their style is like our college style.
And our class atmosphere is also different, Chinese students should sit rightly and answer the teacher's question carefully, we consider that shows our respect to our teacher, however, American students prefer to sit as comfortable as they feel, they think it is good for study efficiency.
3. College Education
In this part we will continue to introduce the difference between two kinds of education styles.
In China, having entranced college, students finally have the chance to lead a relaxed life after so many years study life. Many of them pursuit not to fail in every term's final examination, considering that is enough. And after these four years, students both can get a job and go for further study, it mainly depend on your personal desire. In the four year's life we have to get enough credits to get graduated, we need to attend to required courses and elective subjects. In college you may not go to every class, it is so common that every student have ever escaped from classes. And during these four years we can join all kinds of organizations and that is a good way to improve our communication skills and we can meet more people, maybe one or more among them will do us a favor in the future. We also take part in many kinds of national examinations, among which are CET4, CET6, and NCRE2. If you get the certification. It will help you a lot when you attend a job interview after graduation.
Now let us have a look at American college life. In the front of this article we
know their students have a very relaxed life as they do not need to worry about entering college, they can go to college though their score is low, of course, if you want to choose famous college you should have good score. After American students entering college, many of them begin to work harder than they ever did, they may stay in the library all day long, they think it is time for their effort, or they will not get satisfied job after graduation.
And on the way I want to say something not so important. In China a student can go to famous university as long as he have good social relationship, and he will get a gradual certificate. While if you study in America, you should pay attention, getting in by the back door is impossible, if you do not work hard you will never graduate successfully, and no satisfied job is waiting for you.
In general, Chinese educational style pays more attention to basic knowledge, especially to math physic and chemistry. Our students really have steady basic knowledge that the US students admire very much. When we turn to see US students, we can easily find they prefer to improve social skills, including arguing, social work and teamwork, this difference lead to a phenomenon that if Chinese and American both work in a company most of the Americans will work as manager, and most of we Chinese will work as technical staff who work for the manager.When asked what bring this difference, American say "Chinese have very good knowledge standard but they are not willing to talk about their opinions in meetings, they are used to work along with former experience and lack innovation spirit."
4. Different education system
In China the majority of young people will get the opportunity to enjoy the 9 years' mandatory education, and very few people can go to high school or college, so the proportion of people get educated to the whole people is quite low. The reason why our government puts so many efforts to encourage the young to get further study is mainly to improve our nation's quality.
In American, education attract great attention from the government, compulsory education is 12 years, 3 years longer than ours, the students not only enjoy free books but even have free lunch, from this you can see how American care about education. What is more, most of the people will not get satisfied with 12 years education, if so, they can hardly get a job. Many of them will go for further study. They study more forwardly and more self-conscious, and these two kinds of good behavior also bring a good social atmosphere.
Chinese teachers are used to divide students in different level based on they marks in the exam, and students will be divided into different classes.While American teachers prefer to use "ABCD" instead of Arabic numerals to evaluate the students, in their eyes every student is good, so teachers will not grudge praise for the students, maybe appreciative education is enlightened from this.
That is the whole content I want to share with you to learn the difference between American and Chinese school education, we can see that we really have a lot of things to solve in our education, why our people can not get Nobel prize, maybe there is something wrong with our education system. What we should do is to learn other's advantages and decrease the gap. Maybe years later our students will get the
world's attention.。
