Is it Time to Change the Competitive Mindset of Education?
Asalient feature of China’s education system is competition, something that has long been the subject of debate . While Li Qi, a professor of economics at Agnes Scott College in Georgia, the United States, asserts that strict quantitative assessment at school helps prepare students for the real world but there is room for reform, Jiang Li, Vice President of the Test Group of Chinese Academy of Inspection and Quarantine, argues that instead of a frantic scramble for the most professionally rewarding disciplines, students should be encouraged to develop their true passions instead of being bulldozed into the subjects chosen for them by their parents.
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潜艇出海常伴随高温、高湿等环境，艇员出汗多、饮水少，这种情况易导致尿液浓缩，使得尿液中溶质过饱和而析出，进而形成结石[1]。海上饮食结构与陆上差异较大，食用肉类罐头较多，肉类嘌呤含量高，易升高血尿酸水平，尿酸不仅能形成尿酸结石，且能增加草酸生成，从而使肾结石形成的风险增加[2]。然而相比陆地环境，潜艇环境是否更易形成肾结石及高尿酸血症尚鲜见报道。本研究通过回顾近3年某部官兵的体检结果，分析常规潜艇环境对肾结石患病率及血尿酸水平的影响，为基层部队提高卫勤保障能力提供依据。
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Li Qi: When I was a child, a popular saying among my classmates was “Test, test, test, a teacher’s magical weapon; grade, grade, grade, a student’s lifeline.” I find it still true in China. In contrast, my 6-year-old American daughter didn’t have any concept of grades until she started school in China. The only tests she had taken were the Measure of Academic Progress (MAP) tests, the computerized tests taken by students but meant for teachers, parents and administrators to improve learning for all students. The MAP test is about tracking progress, not assigning grades based on students’ performance.
Motivation with drawbacks
为解决上课使用手机对教育教学的影响，本文通过调查问卷对大学生上课使用手机的情况进行统计，分析大学生上课使用手机的现状及成因，并有针对性地制定应对策略，希望为高校解决上课使用手机对教育教学的影响提供有效的借鉴和参考[1-4]。
Jiang Li: Does education have an intrinsic value or is it just a means to an end, based on short-term commercial outcomes?
These are not “soft” grades where everyone receives at least an effort credit. There is not a lot of “sugarcoating” in Chinese schools, which I find refreshing most of the times but horrifying on some occasions. If your answer deserves only 59, you should not expect an automatic round-up to 60. Whereas as a college professor in the U.S., I often feel the pressure of arguing a case in front of the Supreme Court for giving a bad grade to a student.
As unhealthy and appalling as this sounds, I noticed that this sort of incident became a source of motivation for my daughter. This open knowledge of grades brews fierce competition. Somehow, the seeds of wishing to score the absolute best (100!) were planted and she did succeed in obtaining that elusive 100 in her last exam before leaving China. I am glad and proud that was how she reacted to this “negative” event, and on some level attribute lighting that desire for self-improvement to the competitive environment, although the public knowledge of grades must also discourage and “damage” many children.
幸亏里屋上着锁，要不然李金枝保不准又会像那天一样，扑过来对我实施人身攻击。我走到门边，尽量轻声细语地说，金枝你也别闹了，消消气，以后咱就是一家人了，既然李书记给咱做主安排好了，咱就要好好过日子，谁也不要想别的了。你说是不是？
2.4 两组患者的临床治疗复发率对比 治疗后，实验组共2耳复发，复发率为4.88%；对照组共9耳复发，复发率为24.32%，实验组患者的复发率显著低于对照组，差异有统计学意义(χ2=6.071，P=0.014)。
Also, students’ grades are essentially public knowledge among their classmates. When I was a child, one of my Chinese teachers used to give back the exam papers in descending order of grade, so the entire class recognized the “best” and the “worst” instantly. I felt bad for my child who was subject to the same practice. She came back one day quite upset because one of her classmates (who was put in charge of returning the papers) taunted her for scoring the lowest grade in her class (77 out of 100). Holding back my anger and sadness, I asked her how she handled it. It turned out that my feisty girl said to the boy: “Well, I know you got only 73 a couple of weeks ago on a different exam!” Then she reported his “bullying” to the teacher.
加强与正规金融机构的合作。农村资金互助社将从社员吸收的存款作为保证金缴纳给金融机构，从金融机构贷款获得资金。在金融机构和资金互助社合作中，不但能大幅提高资金使用效率，还能解决资金较少的问题，降低信贷成本，避免信贷风险。
Competition is always high among Chinese students due to the scarcity of real good schools compared to the large number of students. Getting into a good middle school, then a good high school, a good college and ultimately getting a good job becomes progressively more difficult as one climbs the social pyramid. The competitive environment in Chinese schools mirrors that in society, where most of the competition boils down to a quantifiable evaluation.
On most campuses in the U.S., the “tough love” approach is not a popular or well-regarded way of teaching and interacting with students, regardless of their age. Sometimes I see what we do for our college students in the U.S. and wonder if we are sheltering them for too long from facing the real world, where efforts are important and should be praised, but jobs ultimately need one to deliver performance.
A trend caught my eye after this year’s national college entrance examination, or gaokao, in June: the emerging consultancy business that advises prospective university students on how to complete the application form that lists their preferred majors and universities.
Not just a tool
However, my clueless child quickly grasped the meaning of grades and all their implications. In the Chinese education system, students are graded all the time. There is hardly any ungraded work (and there are daily homework and frequent exams). In fact, there is an obsession with quantifiable performance assessment in every position and worker all over the Chinese society. My kid knows that a “showdown” time will come when she finds out how well she did on her homework or exam.
Compared to U.S. students, their Chinese peers are confronted at a much younger age with real competition that translates into real consequences. For small kids, they recognize that the grades are correlated with respect, social standing, teacher’s favor and parents’ approval. For older kids, this converts to chances of advancing to the next level of school and college, which ultimately links to income and social status as adults.
Submitting the form is a high-stake strategy game for students and their parents as they endeavor to stand out in the competition. Some parents tend to urge their children to choose majors with the best job prospects, regardless of their true interest. It is partly this that has resulted in the emergence of the application consultancy industry, which advises students to choose majors based on their potential for a lucrative job. For them, gaokao no longer represents its original vision and purpose, which is to prize the intrinsic value of education in itself and to the individual and society.
Although the overall college enrollment rate has improved greatly in China, the number of students wanting to attend a top university still far outnumbers the spots available. The analogy often used is of a giant army of soldiers and horses trying to cross a river using a single-log bridge. Only a few of these students will be successful in receiving an elite education.
Today, for many, attending a prestigious university can open doors to a well-paid job. Parents spend considerable time and money on extracurricular activities such as math Olympiads, essay writing, drawing and painting, and playing musical instruments because these activities improve students’ chances of admission. Seldom do you see parents encouraging their children to stick to their passions and interests. As part of this trend, humanities education is often viewed as less important than the sciences. With their focus on majors that lead to well-paying jobs, higher education institutions are reducing investment in subjects that may not have as good immediate job prospects.
Education should not be viewed as just a tool but as something far more fundamental to the development of each person by starting them on a lifelong journey of gaining wisdom. It is time to change the mindset and return to the original vision behind the gaokao that education is more than just going to a good university when you are young, more than choosing the most profitable majors with the highest return on investment.
Education is about pursuing what you are truly passionate about and becomes a guiding path throughout life. Public policy has a vital role to play in changing behaviors and funding those majors and those universities that have a higher purpose to support broader social and economic development. Then we will have a depth of talent, knowledge and skills in reserve for the future development and benefit of society.
Copyedited by Sudeshna Sarkar