Thursday, August 11, 2011 (9:29am)
I am feeling invigorated. As Summer Institute is winding down we are starting to prepare for diving into our mission and vision in Teach for China and how teaching in the classrooms will look in just a short few weeks. Staff is being trained on how to use a revolutionary database system to track our progress and goals throughout the next school year. The leadership team and second year fellows are tirelessly preparing workshops for fellows to invest them in their work as well as give them their last tools and pearls of wisdom before they embark on their journey. Fellows are wrapping up their classes with summative assessments and celebrations. I am doing my best to soak it all in and I can’t help but wonder why the urban trees have stilts.
When my plane arrived in the Lincang airport, I remember seeing beautiful foliage and terraces landscapes as the clouds parted and my plane touched down. As a walked from my bus to my hotel, I couldn’t help but be confronted with all of the wire and wooden posts impeding the sidewalks to support the trees. I use the term confronted and impeding very purposefully because they literally extend into the pedestrian walkway and many of us regularly trip over them. While I am sure there is an explanation for why these tree stilts are a good idea, my mind reverts to its default “education” setting.
The Achievement Gap in China is vast and while there are few facts available to truly understand the impacts of the educations system here, those that are available are powerful. The Chinese education system is based on a merit-based ideology. Elementary school for students is required and free in China. In 9th grade, students are required to take a very high-stakes test. The results of this test determine if they can continue their education into high school – if they pass, they can attend high school, if they do not, their formal education is done. Likewise in their final year of high school, they will take another high-stakes test. If they pass this test, they are qualified to apply for college, if the do not pass, their formal education is done. High school and college are both tuition-based as well and are not subsidized by the government. Because of China’s booming population, capacity, and ethical code, only those who prove they can achieve, are allowed to do so.
Urban children begin studying English in second grade and have access to native English teachers, while rural children begin studying English in 7th grade and typically only have access to undertrained teachers. Rural children are left 5 years behind. Seventy percent of students from urban areas in China move on to high school and college while only five percent do so in rural areas. Sixty percent of China’s population lives in rural area, which translates to roughly 190 million children who are affected by this achievement gap
Core (tested) subjects in China include: Mandarin, math, English, physics, and chemistry, biology, society and politics, history, and geography – upwards of 10 hours and a week’s worth of administering standardized tests. Students are given a cumulative score based on their performance in all of the subjects mentioned and are then promoted (or not) accordingly. One of the richest resources that exists in education, teachers, also perpetuates the issue. Skilled and knowledgeable teachers in any of these given subject areas are much more easily accessed in urban centers. It is a rare commodity to find anyone who speaks English in rural China and even depending upon the parts, someone who speaks Mandarin, let alone has the knowledge needed to successfully teach the other core subjects. Often in English class, teachers do not even speak English, they just teach English in Mandarin (or the local dialect) the way they were taught English and have never needed to speak the language, even upon graduating from college.
These high-stakes tests are based upon the texts books that are required teaching resources by the government. Multiple-choice questions, which technically only have one right answer, many actually have quite a few right answers, but only one is deemed correct because only one aligns with what was presented in the textbook. For example (taken from an actual test):
—What’s this in English?
-- ___________ a book.
a. This is
b. That is
c. It’s
d. Its
Students spend countless hours memorizing specific sample test questions, answers, and the specific writing in their texts so that they can have the opportunity to move on in their education. Teachers tend to invest more in the students who have this valued skill of memorization, as those are the ones who will be more qualified to pass the exam, while those who struggle aren’t as likely to pass and therefore aren’t worth the extra effort.
As you can see, the Achievement Gap is incredibly dynamic, wide, and undocumented. There is plenty still that I do not know and am learning every day. What is fair, right, and even humane does not necessarily reflect our conception of those ideals. Those who “can” do and those who “can’t” don’t get the chance.
So I can’t help but walk down the street and wonder why the urban trees have stilts. Why is there so much more support given to our urban trees when the trees on many hillsides are being demolished for strip-mining and deforestation? How can all of the support be funneled to the urban students while the equally deserving rural students are overlooked? For that matter, if so many students are being disadvantaged by a system that cannot provide for its people, how come the trees get stilts?