My top 10 Chinese Quotes on Education
So-called experts say that facts are not really important, because we can look them up online. We should concentrate on competences. Now, these are surely important. Alas, making connections is only possible, if one has more than just some random islands of knowledge. The idea that we only need the expertise to search for information as we could not know all the world´s knowledge anyway, seems rather fatalistic.
Skeptics see the beginning of the end for a knowledge-based society if such an attitude takes hold.
Licking their wounds, Western media tells you that those so-called PISA tests are measuring knowledge in a way that puts too much emphasis on facts rather than competence. Isn´t it nice. You cannot compete and instead of reflecting on your own shortcomings you start to blame the system. That´s the easy way out.
False Western assumption
But I contend: Asian kids in general are playing not only on a higher level in many fields of expertise. They play a different game altogether.
One might argue that this is due to the high respect for education and knowledge in East Asian countries since ancient times. It might have to do with their meritocratic societal system. Knowledge and those who pass it on as well as those who acquire it, are highly respected and encouraged.
So? Western societies prided themselves for centuries to be on the forefront of scientific and cultural development. Reading the classics and studying Latin and Greek was the epitome of higher education, and rightly so. All the great achievements over the centuries have been made by people with a firm basis in classical education because that was the proven standard. Yet, what do we do today? We listen to the pseudo-modern arguments that these old dusty topics are useless and of no value.
On the contrary, Asian societies value their history and revere their cultural heritage, China these days again fervently. The past has much to teach to every generation anew. A firm root in tradition and using it as a valuable resource have always been and will always be the stable ground that a society needs to develop into the future. Western societies claim the same. But are acting differently.