While my students work hard, they don't think creatively. Their ideas are unoriginal, their writing full of cliches. In a system like this, it's no wonder. From earliest childhood, they conform to the demands of a rigid society, which despite reforms, is still totalitarian. Chinese children become literate and numerate; they memorize vast amounts of information. Their school day has breaks built in, and when these end, they scurry to their classrooms, anxious not to be tardy. The kids seem used to the regimentation and don't seem unhappy.
By the time they get to university, students have lost the creativity they were born with. But now and then, I find a student who thinks divergentally, i.e. "outside the box." One such student, who was arguing with me about standards of correctness, went through piles of English text to prove our authors sometimes use sentence fragments and violate parallel structure. Impressive! I wonder how anyone retains independence of thought in a society like this one. Such students are a treasure and a source of hope for this nation.
Above: primary students leaving their classroom on break.
2 comments:
I'm sure that was a thrill Roz, half the fun of being a teacher is being able to exchange ideas, so that way both sides learn from the process.
So I am going to make this public: Some of my professors try to promote critical thinking in their students because that's what they are supposed to do and when students create their own opinions and object to their teachers in the classroom on some issues (like me, right)the professors cannot handle it. My experience.
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