Make up assignments-Book Review "Little Soldiers"

[Jane Shen]

Book Screening on October 4th

The USC U.S.-China Institute present a book screening and invived the author of this book-Lenora Chu talked about her newly published book-Little Soldiers, An American Boy,  Chinese School, and the Global Race to Achieve.

In her book, Chu explores waht takes place behind closed classroom doors in China's education system. Mostly based on her and her family's story.

As an educator who was born and grew up in China, Graduated from one of the top medical school in China, and later on gaining a Master degree in USA, and recently a teaching credential, I am very interesed and curious to know the difference between China and American's education system. I, myself, also planning to do some more research to compare the results under different education system.

When students in Shanghai rose to the top of international rankings in 2009, Americans feared that they were being " out-educated" by the rising super power. As an American journalist of Chinese descent raising a young family in Shanghai, Chu noticed how well-behaved Chinese children were compared to her toddler son. Wondering what was happening behind closed classroom doors, she embarked on a explorarory jouney, interviewing Chinese parents, teachers and education professors and wrote in her book what she discovered.

What she discovered is amilitary-like education system driven by high-stakes testing, with teachers posting rankings in public, using bribes to reward students who comply, and shaming to isolate those who do not.According to her, Chiense children are paying too high a price for their obedience and the promise of future academic prowness. 

Due to the heavy traffic from where I work, I arrived the book events late toward to the end of her speech, so in order to find more information of her experience, I bought a book, and started to read at home. While reading her book, I would like to say that this was While this book was well written and very interesting, Chu was a good writer . I felt it went on too long, and got very, very repetitive in the later part. I got tired of hearing the same truths gone over again and again. I did not finish  reading the book and do not plan to finish it. The reason is this book could be a good reference for me as a parents, but not fit for me to read as an educator , it did not provide me with the anwers that I am looking for.  If I had a chance to meet her again, I would like to ask her, what is the long terrm effect in high schoolthat  trained to respect the their teachers and obey ( which was described in American as " follow the instruction") ?  I have heard so many Chinese teachers who are teaching in America complaining that they have to spend more than half of their instruction time to dicipline ? And with a teacher suffereing to manage a class, there is not way to teach without interruption.

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