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BBC show perpetuates divisive narrative
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THE educational divide between China and the West is being illustrated yet again in a BBC reality series.
In the show entitled “Are Our Kids Tough Enough?” the broadcaster invited five English-speaking Chinese educators to teach for one month in Britain. They were told to teach such courses as math, English grammar and science in a strictly “Chinese” manner to a class of 50 British students. The first episode, aired on August 4, was an overnight sensation. A firestorm of discussion quickly followed.
Curious, I watched part of the episode, which is replete with typical “Chinese” elements. For instance, a girl is ordered to stand outside the classroom as a form of punishment for talking in class.
A more stunning highlight was the circus going on in the British classrooms. Students talk, sing, frolic, party in complete disrespect to order. The teachers are seen trying in vain to drill some discipline into their students.
Such scenes of young Britons engaging in traditional Chinese activities — doing eye care exercises during recesses, and attending a morning aerobic session and flag-raising ritual — do provoke a good laugh, but above all, the Chinese teachers’ experiment was but a ludicrous example of the axiom “one man’s meat is another man’s poison.”
I had expected this conclusion, for in my opinion the production is based on a dubious assumption, and has done justice to neither Chinese nor British education.
Old stereotypes
In an interview with the Oriental Morning Post, two teachers involved in the BBC project said that although their rigor and sternness was part of the script, they actually got along quite well with the students and the Britons are not as “slouchy” or “rude” as portrayed in the series.
Unfortunately, scenes that didn’t fit the “bigger picture” were edited out. What the producers were keen to do, it seems, was to accentuate the fundamental educational contrast between both countries.
Allow me to sum up the contrast: It is Chinese-style spoon-feeding, cram sessions, and an exam-oriented, creativity-stifling system vs the Western endorsement of enlightenment values, liberalism and a critical mind.
Honestly, I don’t know what purposes the producers can achieve by dwelling on these cliches other than perpetuating some old stereotypes.
Shooting a documentary following a cliched script does more than make a mockery of the BBC’s high standards. It also ignores the slow yet significant progress Chinese education has made.
True, cram sessions and obsessions with exams do exist, and some subjects are indeed taught and learned by rote. But such things are not unique to China. South Korea has an even more relentless exam-oriented education system. Maybe Korean teachers are a better candidate for the BBC to film?
For decades, Chinese teachers have increasingly deviated from the rigorous and sometimes oppressive ways of their forebears. This is a result of the inflated egos of students today, who have become unassailable, so much so that the mildest of reprimands can spark a backlash, or even drive them to suicide.
Learn from each other
In a word, Chinese teachers are starting to resemble their bleeding-heart, liberal-minded British counterparts.
A liberal atmosphere is a salient feature of Western education, but BBC is certainly wrong to confuse freedoms with permissiveness, and a rowdy classroom with a challenge to authority.
Making comparisons on the account of extreme conditions and regardless of developments on the ground is likely to only satisfy stereotypical fantasies.
If BBC’s intention is to depict the wide chasm between both countries, and the inherent clash of values, then its series has succeeded resoundingly.
It will also surely strengthen the narrow rhetoric of those who say “we are so different it is impossible to learn from each other.”
By extension, what Westerners got mostly wrong about Chinese education is that they assume it to be monolithic, following a uniform formula stressing conformity, devoid of room for individuality, which cannot be further from the truth. The BBC series is likely to rekindle the “tiger mom” debate started several years ago by Amy Chua. With her book on heavy-handed parenting, Chua was cast as an enemy to individuality, self-esteem and free will. But many of her critics didn’t have the patience to read to the end of her book, where she described her tyranny being brought to heel by her intransigent second daughter.
Education is a complex matter, with no universal standards to speak of.
What Chinese and Western educators should do is to grasp the core advantages of each other’s methods while following the latest developments in education.
Only through a confluence of ideas can we develop real knowledge — rather than the myths perpetuated by the BBC — on how to best bring up and educate our kids.
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