The Effects of Highstakes Testing Policy on Arts Education

China may superlative international educational comparisons, just at what cost? Matthew T. Hora, PhD, Assistant Professor of Adult & Higher Educational activity, University of Wisconsin-Madison, shares observations from his contempo trip to China.

On a recent visit to the eastern Chinese city of Qingdao to study the skills gap between higher education and the labor market, I had a different translator with me each twenty-four hours. They were mostly female English language instructors in their early 30s, and they accompanied me on tours of cavernous manufacturing facilities, boardroom conversations with HR directors and recently hired workers, besides as interviews with higher professors and administrators.

Paradoxes

One of the biggest surprises of my trip, still, had nothing to practice with the state of Communist china'due south workforce--it was how my translators spoke and then unambiguously most the negative aspects of the Chinese educational system and parenting culture, and yet, at the same time, seemed to cover them.

My translators described raising children with a combination of joy and love for their offspring on 1 paw, merely also as a stress-filled (for child and parent alike), non-stop frenzy of academic and extracurricular activities on the other. Hours of homework every night starting in the early on elementary grades, night schoolhouse kickoff for some later on third class, martial arts, and music lessons, all resulting in a jam-packed schedule with precious little fourth dimension for sports or unfettered play.

Why is this and so? Many parents throughout East asia, specially among the booming center class of the eastern seaboard of Communist china, feel that unless they enroll their children in afterschool lessons and generally enforce academic rigor at an early age, they won't be competitive for the national archway exam (gaokao) that, for many Chinese, dictates a person'due south entire time to come.

I had read about the prominent role that the gaokao plays in Chinese club, how it serves as a filtering mechanism for a huge country where over 8 million students each year compete for a limited number of spots in the nation'south postsecondary system. Just I was unprepared for the degree to which a high-stakes testing culture, which includes assigning students a number indicating their ranking within their classrooms to their gaokao score, governs how children are taught and raised.

In his book, Communicable Up or Leading the Style: American Education in the Historic period of Globalization, Chinese-born education scholar Yong Zhao writes:

The gaokao affects every attribute of China's education organization. Although it takes place but at the end of loftier school, its effects trickle downwardly all the way to elementary schoolhouse and even preschool. It affects the whole experience of students in and out of schoolhouse.... Almost all observed educational practices and outcomes, proficient or bad, are somehow related to the gaokao."

These negative effects can be generally summed up every bit the quandary of what Zhao calls "loftier scores just low ability," or people with strong volume knowledge but few abilities that are actually in demand or useful in the labor market place. Research has shown that students attaining high scores on the test--especially the zhuangyans, or the top scorers, in the nation--do non finish up being distinguished scholars, business people, or public figures.

Other deleterious effects of a system that revolves around high-stakes standardized testing are the negative impacts on childrens' psychological and physical well being. Suicide is the top cause of death of children in China, as opposed to accidents in many Western countries, with schoolhouse-related stress a major factor. Additionally, obesity and other health conditions related to a lack of physical exercise are on the rise. Rampant cheating past students and their parents also underscores how the gaokao has generated not a climate of learning but 1 of desperate contest.

But perhaps the biggest trouble with this testing and parenting culture is how it appears to exist stifling creativity. Innovation and creativity flourish when individuals and societies are allowed time and space to generate new ideas that deviate from tradition and play with them--whether they be for new engineering science applications or breakthroughs in calculator animation. If children are not allowed to play or express their ideas and are supervised past adults who define their success strictly in terms of test scores and access to prestigious universities, then creativity has little room to grow. And this is becoming a trouble throughout East Asia as countries struggle to deal with what they run into as a "creativity gap."

Reforming the Gaokao

Inquiry shows that the Chinese economy is largely based on technology and inventions from other countries, leading information technology to be considered an "innovation sponge." With fewer patents granted for original and domestic inventions, the Chinese government has been striving to remedy the situation by becoming not but the world'south largest economy but also an innovation superpower. And one of the regime's key strategies to cultivate the next Silicon Valley and host more Nobel Prize winners in its universities is to reform the gaokao civilization.

The government recently announced new rules that would "finish the practice that a single round of examinations decides the destiny of a student," de-emphasize the utilise of scores in college admissions, and augment the types of skills and disciplines included on the test. Interestingly, the Chinese government also took aim at classroom education methods, arguing that innovation is simply possible through pedagogy that is "heuristic, exploratory, discussion-based, and participatory"--in other words, what the contemporary Chinese classroom is not and what many feel is a strength and asset of U.s. teaching.

Along with a recently announced policy of enacting maker-spaces throughout the country--and for administrators and faculty I met with in Qingdao, a growing embrace of inquiry-based education and marvel in the liberal arts tradition--information technology appears that People's republic of china is aptitude on emulating much of what makes U.s. education distinctive.

Distinguishing between the positive and negative

Just ironically, and in my view, tragically, some of the US educational establishment and parents take begun to emulate the worst of Chinese educational practices: high-stakes testing, academics starting at earlier and earlier grades, and little fourth dimension for play at schoolhouse and at home. Besides beingness fueled by understandable frustrations with the quality of education in many United states of america schools and desiring bright futures for our students, this envious look at Due east Asia is largely based on the relatively poor performances of U.s.a. students on international tests like the Program for International Pupil Cess (PISA) and Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMMS). Because of fear that these brilliant, hard-working students from China, Singapore, South korea, and Japan will outcompete United states students for jobs and scientific breakthroughs of the hereafter, nosotros are emulating aspects of the "tiger parenting" ethos and Chinese educational system that many Chinese--including the regime--are beginning to question and reject. As Yong Zhao says, "What Mainland china wants is what America is eager to throw away."

Consider that many of my translators said that they regretted raising their children similar this, and a few said they even despised their own childhoods spent studying under intense pressure from their parents and teachers. Ultimately, even so, they feel that they have no choice; otherwise, their child would be outcompeted past a classmate and thus, they must keep up with the endless stream of activities, homework, and pressure.

Of class, there are many positive and enviable aspects of educational systems in E Asia, from the regular teacher lesson study of sessions in Nihon (jugyou kenkyuu) to the high expectations and levels of parental involvement axiomatic throughout the region. And as the son of a Japanese father, whose traditional parenting instilled in me a strong work ethic and filial piety, I have long ascribed much of my professional person success to the influence of my family.

Just it is telling that my translators peppered me with a barrage of questions about how things are done in the US: Do American parents make their children become to nighttime school? How many hours of homework a night did they get, and do I make them do more than? Were American kids actually allowed to take and so much free fourth dimension?

What lay behind these questions was a recognition that the force per unit area-laden and over-subscribed approach to parenting and schooling in their culture was ultimately counterproductive and fifty-fifty harmful for their children's long-term health and happiness, and that despite the many issues with the United states of america system, there was something to how nosotros arroyo childhood, creativity, and schooling that they and their government yearn for.

Lessons for the The states

And within these concerns virtually Chinese education voiced past Chinese parents and educators there lay at least three lessons for United states of america educators, policymakers, and parents:

1. Don't obsess over US students' performances on international tests like PISA and TIMMS. Examination scores don't tell the unabridged moving-picture show of a nation'south intelligence, economic prowess, or their future. Learn from the strengths of other national systems--such every bit offering decent wages to educators and respecting the teaching profession--just cover and strengthen our own. Blanket adoption of policies and routines from East Asian (or any other) countries is a recipe for disaster.
2. Brand certain children have time (at dwelling and school) to play. Play is being increasingly recognized as a vital attribute of cognitive, social, and concrete development in young children, and has even been recognized by the United Nations equally a correct of every child. At abode, resist the temptation to over-schedule and over-subscribe children, especially out of fearfulness for his or her academic and professional futures. Give them time to run around the forest, climb trees, and play capture the flag for hours on end.
3. Understand that a competitive workforce in the 21st century volition showroom strengths in creativity, problem-solving, and lifelong learning. Around the globe employers are asking for a similar prepare of competencies in the workforce of the futurity: technically astute graduates who are also practiced at problem solving, identifying artistic solutions, and continually learning new things. Developing such competencies in students volition serve them well not merely in the labor marketplace, but also in their capacities as citizens of a participatory democracy.

Ultimately, viewing The states and China relations through the lens of fearfulness and competition--which is the subtext to mitt-wringing about PISA and TIMMS scores and some of the rhetoric surrounding educational reform in the Usa--reduces these complicated and multi-faceted systems to caricatures of success and failure. Every bit parents, educators and policymakers nosotros certainly have much to acquire from other countries and cultures and certainly should not plow a bullheaded heart to the problems within our own systems. Merely learning to discriminate among the strengths and weaknesses of any nation's systems and traditions will be invaluable and essential if we truly desire to craft learning experiences that will help our students succeed in school, life and work.

Connect with Matthew and Heather on Twitter. Accomplish Matthew via email.

Photograph of the author observing class at a regional technical college in Mainland china, courtesy of the writer.

The opinions expressed in Global Learning are strictly those of the writer(south) and exercise not reflect the opinions or endorsement of Editorial Projects in Instruction, or any of its publications.

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Source: https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/opinion-creativity-gap-the-effect-of-testing-on-chinese-education-and-parenting/2016/07

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