Kevin McGeary

    CHINA is tentatively introducing reforms that will encourage student creativity and create a less rigid classroom environment. As always, Shenzhen has been chosen to pioneer these reforms.

    Homework for primary school children has been minimized and banned for those under Grade 3, in an effort to give them time to develop as individuals. The new South University of Science and Technology of China has introduced a system in which each professor can mentor and tutor five students at a time, thus giving them space to develop their own ideas.

    These changes are no doubt positive. There is a reason why Plato’s philosophy was written in the form of a conversation, because the learning process is usually one that involves asking questions as well as answering them, an interactive exchange of ideas. As Yeats put it, education is the lighting of a fire, not the filling of a bucket.

    But trying to break away from a system of rote learning and standardized tests is no simple task. Both have been prevalent in China for at least a millennium and a half. The Imperial Exam was founded in the Sui Dynasty (581-618 CE) from which time there is a famous poem that says “In books there is always a golden house. In books there is always a beautiful woman.” Up until the mid-19th century, entry into a respected profession depended on success in the Imperial Exam. This culture of standardized testing has never really gone away.

    Last semester, a foreign teacher at Shenzhen Polytechnic had his students keep a diary of their everyday lives in English over a period of six weeks. He said the results made harrowing reading. Students would complain “my life is boring,” “I’m an empty cup,” and “I’m afraid of becoming an ant.” An “ant” is a common nickname in the Chinese blogosphere for highly educated, unemployed or underpaid graduates, who work hard and live in squalor without complaining.

    Miss Ding, 31, from Hunan Province, has been writing poetry since she was a teenager. Knowing how difficult it is to make a living as a writer, she took a job as a Chinese teacher in her early 20s. But, teaching students to marvel at China’s greatest literature comes a very distant second to getting them through exams. She now wants to quit teaching to — in her own words — make as much money as possible.

    In Ding’s story lies the very common, very harsh reality of Chinese education. The Sui Dynasty claim that education is what is required to make oneself rich and successful is evidently not entirely true. Stories of coarse and uneducated nouveau riche and their children, known as fuerdai who have money but lack refinement, are common in all Chinese cities. When I asked hundreds of college students what was their wish in life, more than 70 percent said nothing more than to get rich, or to marry a rich person. Abstractions such as ideas, music, poetry and art are mere diversions in the scramble for wealth.

    The essence of creativity is defiance of convention. Conventions exist because they are comfortable and habitual. And the damaging conventions of the education system: overuse of rote-learning, dependence on standardized testing, and an excess of parental pressure are millenia-old habits that are unlikely to go away any time soon.

    (The author is a Shenzhen Daily senior copy editor and writer.)