New Minds Shaping China
By Nick Phoutrides
The rise of critical thinking education in China is forcing
tangible change on the country's communist system. By educating
students to think critically, brainstorm creatively, and
engage in freer discourse, the Chinese government is encouraging
new levels of participation and prospects for expanding
openness in society. Based on my observations during a year
of study in China, as well as my time teaching in a school in
Huangtian, a rural village in the Anhui province, I have
gained some insight into education in China. Chinese education
policy can be used as a tool for evaluating current societal
trends in order to suggest where the country may be heading.
With that, the concept of "critical thinking education"
can be examined in three parts: the first section focuses on
the theoretical background of critical thinking education, the
second section analyzes current trends in Chinese education,
and the third section evaluates the implications of new educational
reforms in China.
Critical thinking education can be thought of as problemposing
education, the name given it by philosopher Paolo
Freire. It refers to a method of instruction that is in contrast
to mechanical education, or rote memorization. The overall
goal of critical thinking education is to develop a student's
critical reasoning ability. By using techniques such as backand-
forth dialogue and hands-on learning, teachers of this pedagogical school prepare their students
to reason through issues systematically.
Instead of waiting for the teacher to provide
the answers, students must think of
the answer for themselves. Rather than
take orders, students cooperate with the
teacher. Many people refer to this form
of learning as a "two-way street" by which
both teacher and student exchange
thoughts and learn.
Rote memorization, on the other
hand, emphasizes inundation. It overwhelms
the student with facts. The student
apprehends these facts vaguely,
understanding them with difficulty.
Freire calls this type of education "banking
education," likening the student to a
bank vault and the teacher to a depositor.
The teacher deposits information into
the student without providing any mechanism
for the student to evaluate the
knowledge; a student who learns by rote
does not the have the same skills as a student
who learns to reason critically. The
former prepares the student for passing
tests and completing assignments, while
the latter provides a framework and
capacity for understanding the world.
I had the opportunity to compare
these two educational methods while
teaching a middle-school English class.
During the first few days of teaching, I
received copy after copy of plagiarized
essays that revealed my students copied
each other or their workbooks instead of
creating original work. Once I asked my
middle-school students to hand in a
short story using ten new vocabulary
words. Of the forty papers I received, at
least half were copied from textbooks.
The other half were copies of smarter
students' work that featured such simplistic
sentences as "The dog was very
hungry." As I had already determined
that my students' English abilities were high, I knew that they could do better.
Why were they not trying?
After handing back the essays, I
explained the assignment again, stressing
that I wanted original work. The following
Monday, I received a stack of
thoughtful, patient essays. The striking
creativity of one piece, written by a girl
named Penny who always sat at the front
of the class, stands out in my mind. While
her English was no better than her classmates',
she produced an imaginative
anecdote that involved flying squirrels
and a cake. I realized that my students did
not lack original thought but that their
education rarely encouraged it.