Hi, guys,
My second translation is done. It's about high school education, one of the hot topics being discussed so much nowadays. Speaking of education, I believe nearlyevery one of us has his own particular feeling and has something to say, and itis specially the case in China.
I didn't say much about my feelings this time. I'll just present the translated article and leave the thinking and judgment to the reader. I expect yourresponse and would appreciate every reply from you.
Warmly,
Santy
========================================= American schoolwork sticks Chinese father =========================================
I am a father who dislikes the current Chinese education scheme because my daughter had been suffering from it for years.
What I heard most from her were such as "I've had it!", and "I'm sick and tired of it! Totally sick!" When asked why, she would complain: "When will it come to an end for all these recitations?"
Sometimes I was asked to help her memorize some "standard answer" for her Chinese or History course. More often than not, however, I would get sick and rather annoyed in such cases earlier than she did — sick not only psychologically, but even physiologically! Think about the alleged "standard answers" — those rigid and purely examination-oriented things that are enforced to be crammed into the brains of hundreds of thousands of students, and which will later be thrown away like a worn broom and quickly forgotten once the exam is over. The thinking of this always thrilled me and a question haunted in my mind: "Could our education bring up a promising new generation that will live up to our expectations in the future simply by learning by rote?"
Soon after my daughter had entered her final year of high school, she got a chance to study in the States. I knew it was a big risk to send her abroad in her final year, because according to her school track record, if she stayed she would for sure be admitted into some fairly good university, but once she was set into a completely different environment of education in which everything was taught in English, what a fate she would have was hard to predict. Having reflected the advantages and disadvantages and explained them to my daughter, I left her to make a decision. Her answer was a firm "Go".
My intention, however, differed from hers. She was hoping to get rid of the heavy study load, as she had heard the studies of her American counterparts had been so easy and pleasant, while I was thinking that this might be a good chance for her to receive the so-called "creativity education". Though I had read books and articles about American education, and was attracted, I didn't have a clear mind what it was really like. One cannot tell the taste of a pear until he bites into it. Now that my daughter was going there, it would not be long before I could "see" with my own eyes.
Much to my surprise, the American "creativity education" had soon made me — a Chinese father thousands of miles away — feel on edge and forget food and sleep for a time!
My daughter was arranged into the best public high school in Boston on the fourth day of her arrival. There the first amazement to me came: she wasn't able to tell which grade she belonged to. It later became clear that in this school, apart from the teachers in class, each student also had an advisor whose duty was to recommend a suitable grade for each course for the student according to its ability. In my daughter's case, the arrangements were: English and Chemistry, Grade 12; Mathematics and American History, Grade 11; French, Grade 9 — which meant she would be "jumping" between classes and sitting with different classmates in different courses. No wonder she had had a hard time explaining which grade she was in.
I had thought the major problem she might face there would be the language barrier, and once it was conquered, no substantial trouble would then exist. For science, it should be easy to catch up by virtue of the foundation she establishedin China. Of the courses she had not learned, American History could be the easiest, as I could imagine. How much could be taught for a history of merely 200 years? In an E-mail to my daughter, I composed an outline of American history with no more than a few thousand words. "Don't worry. It's a piece of cake!" I encouraged her.
Ironically, what knocked me over soon after was no other than this "easiest" American History. Emergency E-mails for help from my daughter kept rushing in one after the other in just a few days, each with more than a dozen exclamation marks in the subject line. Considering she hadn't had any American history classes before and was put into grade 11 straight off, the feeling of frustration at the beginning should not have been out of expectation. Even to read through an original book on American history would take at least one month. Being her father, it was my duty to give her a hand during the tough period. But as soon as I put my eye on her homework, I was stunned on the spot — was this homework for high school students?
----------------------------------Assignment:A Study on "the Right of Citizens"----------------------------------
1. Write 3 to 5 pages and print in double space;2. List at least three references from three different sources (e.g. from the web, from books, etc.);3. Use at least five quotations.
Compare the views held by these four people regarding Black America : Booker T. Washington, W.E.B.Dubois, Martin Luther King, Jr, and Malcolm X.
Control your writing in telling their life stories — I don't want to read biography. However, some necessary introduction to each of them is expected and pertinent material should be added to your argument. Discuss their views on Black America and provide your own. List the source your quotations and references clearly.
"The four were all black people, but I haven't heard even of their names except King." My daughter said in her E-mail.
I felt ashamed. Honestly, I'd been quite confident in my knowledge of American history, for I had read a few dozens of books on it written by well-known authors, a good many biographies of the most eminent American presidents in history, plus numerous articles. But I was easily defeated by a common high school homework. What on earth is "Black America"? It was not until then did I realize that although reading is indispensable to study, it's not equal to study; study calls for writing. I'd never thought of such questions before — that's why I had not even a little impression of two among the four people!
To help my daughter get accustomed to the new study, her old daddy must brave the challenge. During the following couple of days, I had for the first time in my life begun to "study" American history . Fortunately I own a rich collection of books on America. I buried myself in them and swept through what I thought might be useful. My study was soon piled with books filled with bookmarks and slips of notes, including Encyclopaedia Britannica, and original works such as "The American Reader". The Internet of course, was in service. Having gathered sufficient information of the four black leaders, I settled down to review and carefully compare their views and practices, taking much time in the breaking and remaking, in the timing and interweaving of the material. I wrote and wrote, from morning till late night. Meanwhile, on the other opposite side of the globe, my daughter had borrowed 10 books from the library at one time and was reading strenuously.
Later my daughter told me that she "partly" adopted my arguments and thta the structure of my writing had given her a good enlightenment — "Oh, a paper is to be written like this!" Then we began to wait restlessly the "verdict" from the teacher — the very first time for both of us, father and daughter!
The teacher's remarks came: "Wow! An excellent paper from an excellent work. You did very well in the expansion of the connection between these persons. It is accurate and interesting. Great!" The grade: A.
This made me exclaiming with excitement like a child!
I hoped such difficult homework would not be often; however, E-mails for help only kept rushing in and each would knock me dead for a half hour. In the process of writing for study, many flaws in my own knowledge system had been patched, which in turn, contributed to my writing and became unforgettable.
Here I list two more assignments and you can sense the weight.
----------------------------About the American Civil War----------------------------
1.Do you agree with President Lincoln's statement that the Unite States would not survive unless it could be either thoroughly emancipated or enslaved?
2.Explain how it is that both the white men in the North and in the South took the position that they were fighting for freedom when the former opposed slavery while the latter tried to protect it?
3.What did freedom mean to the Black people?
4.President Lincoln and General Grant had suggested that the South should not be treated with an iron hand after the Civil War. Why has it been regarded as a judicious policy? Give your analysis.
5.During the period of the Civil War, women had begun to undertake various jobs which in the past had been exclusively for men. What conclusion will you draw from the problems caused by the war in aspects of society, economics and political disparities?
6.Construct a controversy and use historical evidence to prove or disprove the following argument: the American Civil War was a consequent result of regional disparities.
=================Philippine Issues=================1.Who in the United States were likely to support Josiah Strong's "Our Country"? Who not? Why?
2.How did Bryan associate "Imperialism" with the grabbing of the land in Spain? Do you think the association reasonable? Why?
3.How the traditional American policy was reflected in Lodge's apology for the possession of the Philippines?
4.Do you think there could be any better choice than that of President McKinley's disposal of the fate of the Philippines by putting it under control?
The completing of these two assignments had forced me reread "Abraham Lincoln" and "History of American Civil War", together with history of the Philippines, incidentally. By a comparable standard of our own country, I believe such assignments would be considered a ticklish task even to a university student majoring in history. Could my daughter get over the hump? Would she get the cold feet?
My daughter said in her E-mail: "The Philippine issue here to discuss is a question from the chapter 'Imperialism and Progressivism' that we have studied. We do have a textbook for our history course, but the teacher never uses it in class; actually it is used for home reading only. Sometimes he plays a video in class and never does its content repeat that of the textbook. He makes us do a lot of readings and then answer questions or mark some important parts. He teaches us to learn in fun: crossword, time underlining, or completing a map or a poster with other classmates. There are always things to do, but it is really interesting."
Opposed to her initial hope, her study in the States did not become "easier", but she could now only sleep three to four hours per night, and there was a time she slept only one hour for the sake of a really odd homework.
Just as the "SOS" letters from my daughter were becoming rare (which means she had learned to walk without her "daddy stick"), suddenly there came another urgent E-mail. I was rather astonished when I set my eye on the mail: make a genealogy chart of your family which lists the names of all your relatives from your great-grandparents down to yourself and the years in which they were born and died (if applicable).
This homework not only deeply shocked me but my friends as well. It was aimed at cultivating a consciousness of "seeking one's root"; in other words, don't forget your forefathers! Don't forget "where you are from"!
Once more I was feeling ashamed, for I couldn't even name my own grandfather since I left him at the age of two and had not since seen him again till he died. I was not able to complete this homework...
I had no other choice but to mobilize the whole family. With an old, incomplete genealogy we set to the homework. It was not until then did I realize that in China in the old days, life histories of women were not recorded and those lived in earlier times didn't even bear full names — they were referred by their family names which would disappear from the genealogy once they got married.
Fortunately my daughter's grandpa, an old man of 80, helped so much in figuring out one by one according to his own memory the year in which the person was born and died in terms of the offset to the year a certain emperor, namely, Emperor Xianfeng, Emperor Daoguang, or Emperor Guangxu, ascended the throne. The grandma, then, by consulting a thick book of perpetual calendar which contained a solar-lunar year conversion table of 2000 years, found out the corresponding solar years. Finally, the second uncle of my daughter grouped all the relevant material thus obtained and made the whole work done. Taking the genealogy crowded with so many names in hand, a sense of history of family possessed me.
My daughter was very excited when she received this "homework", so excited that she even suggested to restore it to the old emperor years. She said, "I'll give my teacher and classmates a shock by our Chinese culture!" In that way she would need to explain to them the traditional Chinese method of numbering the years and why only males' history was recorded in the past. All these had to be drawn on a large paper board and this work took her nearly a whole night to finish.
The next day all the works of the students were exhibited in the classroom and exclamations of surprise and admiration rose from moment to moment. The teacher went up to my daughter, picked up her special homework and said to the class: "This is the one that best interests me!" Then the teacher began to stammer out those "awkward" Chinese names... How happy my daughter was!
OK. Let's stop here for "History". It should be mentioned that none of these assignments requires mechanical memorization and never is there any "standard answer". The mark you get depends upon the quality of the material you collected and the way you demonstrate your argument. You don't have to worry about "right" and "wrong".
But is there such creativity in the English class? I asked my daughter to send me a few of their English writing topics together with the teacher's remarks.
My daughter replied that starting from that term their English class was about literature, and that the teacher had just begun a new area: Black American Literature. There was a lot to read and to write. In the previous term they were exercising freewriting and topics were such as:
1.A Monologue of Your Nature (1)
Teacher's Comment: Hope the happy experience in your life will guide you through your hard time.
2.An Unsolved Puzzle. Write something hard to believe or inexplicable that ever happened to youself or people around you. It must be real, not an imagination or a dream.
Teacher's Comment: Your "inexplicable" experience was really sensational and attractive! (My goodness! My daughter has sensational experience?!)
3.Correspondence. Narrate something in epistolary style. You are supposed to submit a group of content-consecutive letters, let us say four or five, either in the form of correspondence between two persons or letters written all by one.
Teacher's Comment: Love in the young is beautiful. (Was that about my daughter's first love? I wish I could read it.)
4.A letter to the Principal. Write in your letter what you like and/or dislike about the school, or whatever you have been meaning to ask. The principal will read each and every of your letters and will present himself in the class to discuss with you.
5.A Monologue of Your Nature (2)Write something you have done that best reflects your individuality. Put emphasis upon psychological depiction and apply it all through your essay.
Teacher's Comment: Having tension before a race is a common experience of every athlete. (My daughter must have depicted her psychological activities in a race, for she had been the winner of three gold medals in a school sports meet in China.)
6.Poems. Write poems in ten different forms: Pentastich, American Pentastich, Haiku, Acrostic, Alphabetic Poem, Political Poem, etc. (China is well-known for its poems, but have the students here ever been asked to write pomes?)
Teacher's Comment: You did an excellent job, Stephanie (my daughter's English name). Your poems reflected your thoughts and the endeavor you have made. Your English is progressing day by day. I wish you good luck in the second term! And, keep in mind that any time you feel like having a talk with me, please let me know and I will be very glad to listen.
How interesting and challenging these topics these are! And how the teacher's comments would excite my daughter's enthusiasm for writing!
Unlike what she needed me to help in American History which she then knew little about, in poem writing my daughter only asked me to write a poem which began with "No one knows", when she had beaten her brains out composing the other ones. However, when she saw the final work which combined efforts of my friend and I, she thought it not so good, but only a little enlightening. "With yours, I know how to write mine!" was her remark.
My daughter said: "Our English teacher is very very nice and I'm so willing to talk to him. We've had two long talks which moved me almost to tears — not almost, had I not been trying to stifle them." While reading this my eyes turned wet. Here at home, up to her senior 3, she hadn't had any wish and any chance to have a long talk with her teachers.
"What's good of this? Doing homework for your daughter — isn't it a meddling in her own study?" one may argue. Perhaps the situation is not that simple. I think parents ought to become "companions of study" of their children to some extent. They will exchange ideas with the children, instruct them to read, tell them where necessary material can be found, and by doing so, arouse their interest in learning. Unfortunately, all these wishes are but wishes under our current circumstance of education. The children seldom have need to discuss with their parents; they only need to cope with the exams by memorizing those "standard answers". I had reviewed several assignments from my daughter's writing class when she was in China, but I have to say those topics were so boring, so lacking in imagination that I never had any interest to have a try.
My daughter has been in the US for only three months till now, but she her change is big. Through our E-mail correspondence, I have begun to learn what creativity education really is and this comes to me more vividly than any book I have read ever did. There has been no new mail for help from my daughter for a good while; however, her old daddy is now somehow missing it — such homework, such study, is a really fascinating game!
