Little Soldiers

by Lenora Chu

  During a Minnesota high school visit, I met a Chinese teacher who’d bumped up against a clash of culture while teaching Mandarin to American students. Short-haired, with an easy smile, Sheen Zhang was nothing like the image of an authoritarian Chinese teacher she had as a child growing up in Xi’an, the Chinese city famous for its terra-cotta warriors. I told her so, and she laughed.

  “I started out very controlling, but I noticed that if I yelled, my American students rebelled,” she said. “They talked back!” Sheen made other observations: Her students couldn’t sit still for an eighty-six-minute class, parents complained when she assigned too much homework, and she had to “make the classroom fun and enjoyable.”

  Ironically, Americans are on the right track when it comes to athletics. “It’s all about getting better, getting better, working harder,” Jim Stigler said. “In sports, we’re okay with competition and struggle.”

  And the American conscience is okay with rankings in sports. “A ninth-place finish simply indicates a runner should retool and continue training—a ninth-place finish doesn’t reflect poorly on a person’s self-esteem or worth,” Stigler said. “But in academics, you don’t want to embarrass someone by ranking them Number Thirty because ‘It’s not their fault.’ In American academics, ‘you either have it or you don’t.’”

  “That’s too bad.” At this, Stigler, sitting in his UCLA office, rapped his knuckles on his desk.

  * * *

  A belief in a hard work over talent isn’t exclusively Chinese, of course, but it seems to be a philosophy more easily embraced by the culture. Another one is the concept of committing knowledge to memory—especially by methods such as rote learning.

  Memorizing gets a profoundly bad rap in the Western world. It makes robots of children, the belief goes, or androids of students who can only recite upon command, devoid of any creative thought. This follows Western philosophy, which promotes the idea that humans are more developed than animals. “The mind is not a vessel that needs filling but wood that needs igniting,” proclaimed a statement attributed to the Greek historian Plutarch.

  Today’s Internet-savvy world helps enable this approach, allowing us to go through life committing very little to memory. Why should we bother, when knowledge is available at the click of a button? If you want to recall Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18, the capital of Ethiopia, or the first ten digits of pi, a search engine will immediately cough up the answer. We have facts at our fingertips, and, as a result, schoolchildren are doing less and less work committing facts to memory.

  Here’s where I go to the research, which declares this a dangerous trend. Real learning doesn’t happen unless information is imprinted in long-term memory, the cognitive scientists say, and that transfer of knowledge into the storehouse of the brain can be accomplished in part through memorization and practice. Here’s the key: Once a child locks away key information, he can free up the active memory for thinking deeply—and even being creative. British educator David Didau puts it this way: “It’s worth memorizing certain things to the point that they’re effortless, so then you don’t have to think.” American psychologist Daniel Willingham wrote that “the bigger storehouse of information a brain has, the better the brain will comprehend information coming in . . . thus allowing more thinking to occur.” Expert problem solvers actually derive their skills on “huge amounts of information” and experience stored in long-term memory, one research team wrote in Educational Psychology.

  In other words, you can’t just look it up, Google it, or ask your neighbor.

  In general, the Chinese way of education fully grasps this concept. Children are in a “golden period of memory expansion,” as editors of a primary school textbook on Chinese classic writing put it. A 1998 Shanghai experiment found that primary school kids who spent twenty minutes a day memorizing classics could read more characters and had increased focus and concentration after a year. Memorization of important facts also teaches students discipline, and this approach goes hand in hand with Chinese language learning for the youngest schoolchildren.

  It’s not that memorization in isolation is the key; even Confucian scholars say the philosopher promoted active inquiry and thinking through inference. And it’s important that bits of knowledge are interconnected and accessible: A recent phenomenon in education psychology calls for introducing “desirable difficulties” into the learning process, which helps a person retain knowledge for longer periods of time. The Chinese memorize the basics, cement a strong foundation of knowledge, and use the remaining time to progress to deep conceptual understanding. They don’t learn multiplication tables through project-based learning, says the OECD’s Andreas Schleicher, chuckling, “That’s a waste of learning time. The opportunity costs are very high. We do many things in a way that’s not very effective.”

  As a child, I spent many an hour memorizing times tables, the periodic table of elements, algebraic formulas, and script lines when rehearsing for plays. Every theater actor knows that once the lines of a play are embedded in the brain, the true emoting can begin. More than a decade after a trip to Slovenia, I still remember how to count to twenty in Slovenian—Ena, dve, tri, štiri, pet, šest, sedem . . .—since Rob and I had spent several hours memorizing and chanting (assisted by beer and chestnut schnapps).

  In his own journey to memorize Chinese characters, Rainey is up to three hundred already.

  “Look, Mommy,” he said, pointing proudly to his stack of flashcards. We store them in an empty oatmeal container, and every weekend we take them out for a drill.

  We sit there for ten minutes a day—okay, well, not every day—and look at them together. I flip a card, he recites. I flip another card, he recites.

  大—big

  小—small

  山—mountain

  甜—sweet

  老师—teacher

  In later school years, the Chinese commit to memory the first twenty elements of the periodic table, mathematical formulas and theorems, and historical facts, among others. Passages from classical poetry and famous writings are also important; my father can still recount the poems he learned as a primary-schooler. I once asked Amanda which ones were her favorite.

  “Jing Ye Si,” she said, without hesitation, or “Thought Upon a Quiet Night,” by the Tang dynasty poet Li Bai.

  “Can you recite it?” I asked her. Amanda immediately looked up, as if inspiration would drop from the sky. Then, very quietly, the words came tumbling out. Amanda spoke of bright moonbeams shining into a bedroom, while a little boy’s head “lifts, gazing at the moon, and sinks back down with thoughts of home.”

  When she finished, I sat there for a moment, and the latte-sipping patrons around us dissolved into irrelevance. She paused for a moment, then spoke, her voice as soft as if she were ambling up a fragile beam of moonlight.

  “I first learned the poem when I was a very, very young kid, probably primary school,” Amanda said. “We memorized it in class. It’s just beautiful, it has a rhyme at the end, and there’s a moon in the sky. When I see myself look at the moon, I think about my hometown.”

  “What is the moral?” I asked.

  “The poem teaches me how to deal with homesickness,” Amanda said. “When I was in the US, I spent a lot of time thinking about this poem.”

  Ten years after first learning the poem, Amanda could still recite it by heart. From there, she could talk about its meaning and conjure up enough emotion that it soothed a pining for home.

  Any Chinese schoolchild would be able to do the same.

  On this, I fall short. I could recall only the titles of the few poems I’d learned in grade school, and I certainly couldn’t recite any of them from the first word to the last. What’s more, a few lines of verse didn’t help resolve emotional struggles in my life.

  In that instant, sitting across from Amanda as she lost herself in the luminescent moon of “Jing Ye Si,” I thought: “What a pity that I can’t.”

  * * *

  I dec
ide also to look into the Chinese approach to teaching. For the importance that the entire nation assigns to education, what are its leaders doing to prepare those who deliver it?

  Plenty, as it turns out. The Chinese believe teaching is an art form that can be studied and improved, like the craft that it is. Educators are steeped in a tradition of videotaping classes, evaluating teaching methods, and asking colleagues to observe their own instruction and offer suggestions. “There’s a sense you can actually analyze teaching, make judgments about its quality, and come up with ideas for how you improve it,” said James Stigler.

  In China, teacher training is built into the daily life of the school, and it is generally rigorous and regimented. The average new teacher in Shanghai might spend about fifty hours a month in professional development, on top of her regular teaching load, for the first three years of her career. From there, requirements gradually ramp down, though even the most senior teachers may still listen in on two classes a month and exchange ideas with peers afterwards. Teachers of the same subjects may be grouped to swap information, and those of different subjects may meet regularly to talk about teaching methods, as well as each student they share.

  There’s more: Individual schools and local and district education bureaus each have distinct training requirements, and the central ministry also has recommendations. Some include sending teachers overseas for training and cross-cultural exchanges, which keep ideas and curricula moving across borders. At East China Normal University—one of China’s top training institutions for teachers—every student is encouraged to spend at least a year in a foreign country. Rainey’s Teacher Song told me she has visited Australia several times.

  And while choice is valued in a democracy like America’s, China enjoys the efficiency of being able to send teachers where they’re most needed. The most experienced teachers may be sent to the most challenging classrooms and seasoned principals to schools needing expertise, with incentives offered where necessary. Other programs pair higher-performing schools with lower-performers in mentoring relationships, sort of like giving a Big Brother or Sister to a school in need.

  Most notably, to the benefit of everyone involved—especially the student—teachers specialize in subjects from the very first year in primary school. A first-grade math teacher teaches only math, while another might be in charge of only science. This means that kids are exposed from a very early age to instructors schooled at a high level of expertise and content knowledge.

  Conversely, American public school teachers in the primary years are generalists; a third-grade teacher might oversee all subjects, including math, English language, and the arts. Teaching is largely private, with little expectation of collaborating with others or performing research to improve teaching practices. And, generally, rigorous teacher training tends to end—or continue only outside of school—once actual teaching jobs begin.

  I liked the idea that Rainey’s first-grade math instructor would teach only math, undergo rigorous professional development that is built into her school day, feel adequately supported, and work with her peers to continually improve her practice.

  * * *

  All this ties into the idea that teachers are worthy of respect.

  China affords teachers more status than any other country, a global education nonprofit found in a 2013 survey (though I had proof enough in the jitter that overtakes my hands when I talk to Rainey’s teachers). In fact, teachers are equated with doctors in regard and earn similar salaries (although both professions in China are generally considered poorly paid and rely on “red envelope” gifts to supplement income). Roughly half of all Chinese would encourage their children to become a teacher (in spite of the poor pay). Less than a third of parents in many Western countries—including the United States, France, the UK, Spain, Germany, and the Netherlands—would do the same.

  Deborah, an American teacher who’d spent two years teaching in rural China, told me that she’d never felt as appreciated, or as hopeful about the impact of her work, as the first moment she walked into a Chinese classroom. I had the same experience when I taught English at a Shanghai kindergarten two subway stops from home, taking on two classes a week for two years. On my first day, I was terrified, and I eavesdropped outside the classroom door as the head teacher prepped her charges.

  “Eyes up toward the front. “Be renzhen—serious,” she’d instructed her children. The kids were packed so tightly into rows that the backs of the chairs rammed into the knees of the children behind. They were quiet, faces forward. “After class I will call the names of the children I thought behaved well,” the teacher said, surveying the class. Finally satisfied, she beckoned to me, and I stepped inside.

  “Good afternoon!” I said in Mandarin, and the silence of the room was immediately dashed as twenty-eight children rose from their chairs.

  “Good afternoon, Teacher!” twenty-eight voices chimed back, their force seemingly pinning me against the wall. In this environment, my lessons unfolded with perfect rhythm, like the inhale-and-exhale of an accordion belching scales, and by the end of the first month my students could count from one to twenty in English, chirp all the days of the week, sing the letters of the alphabet, and recite the entire text of The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

  “Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What do you hear?” I’d ask the class, just before twenty-eight voices came screeching back at me: “I hear a lion roaring in my ear.”

  I’m not saying children need to be packed tightly into rows, facing front, and reciting while the teacher lectures, but it’s certainly helpful when children are expected to listen to the teacher and pay her respect, with consequences for failing to do so. When educators don’t abuse this respect, the setup can be very effective in making progress in the early classroom.

  I’m also appreciating the habits that Rainey is developing. A year and a half down the road, as he started primary school, I would find that he prepares his own backpack for school. He sharpens six pencils himself, checks for an eraser and black marker, zips up his pencil case, and slots his English, Chinese, math, and reading comprehension books into his bag. When the teacher sends him home with a notice, he brings it directly to us for discussion. On those days, I appreciated that his Chinese teachers began instilling these habits and behaviors when he was a kindergartner.

  One is simply showing up on time. I finally understand the purpose of Blaring Bullhorn at the entrance gates. Authoritarian, yes, but effective—once a child misses the gate and experiences being shut out of school, he is rarely late again. Punctuality is an incredibly important quality for a schoolchild; a 2012 OECD study found that truancy or tardiness accounts for the equivalent of losing “almost one full year of formal schooling” in mathematics scores. During elementary school, before our morning walk, Rainey would wait at the front door, urging along his laggard parents. “Let’s go, let’s go,” he’d tell us. Attendance is also critical: American students have nearly double the hooky rate of the average OECD country, which is directly correlated to lower scores.

  An emphasis on discipline in school is also carried home.

  “Where’s my desk, Mom?” Rainey asked me one day. I stared at my then six-year-old, dumbfounded.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You and Daddy have a desk, but I don’t,” he said, spouting an observation he’d learned from speaking with Chinese classmates. Most Chinese homes contain an area specifically designated for their children’s study, and that holds true across Asia. More than 95 percent of fifth-graders in Taipei and Sendai, Japan, had desks in their homes, compared with 60 percent for kids in Minnesota, which happened to be the state chosen by the authors of the study. Chinese children aren’t simply using a cleared-off dinner table or corner of a coffee table. “If there is a desk in an American home,” the authors wrote, “it is more likely to belong to a parent than a child.”

  Chinese parents are also formally roped into their child’s education, whether they like it or not. Generally, they mu
st review a schoolchild’s homework each and every day, and the same goes for tests. It’s not enough to go through the motions, as they must prove their parental diligence; primary school teachers ask Mom and Dad to sign graded exam papers as well as booklets listing the day’s homework, which the child then returns to school the next morning. It’s a signed, traveling messenger of communication between teacher and parent.

  Yet parental assistance has a time limit. Parents should be very focused on the primary school years, Rainey’s teacher clarified for me, with the expectation that children can manage their own workload by middle school. “Habits are very important,” Teacher Song told me, in an end-of-school-year meeting. “You start the children out right with parental guidance, and then their own guanli, management, takes over.”

  In this arena, at least, we’d succeeded. Rainey was on his way to developing habits of disciplined study that would last a lifetime.

  * * *

  Of course, any one of these upsides of Chinese education can be taken too far.

  It’s only common sense that teenagers shouldn’t spend hours a week committing facts to memory without a larger context. Teacher respect and authority are helpful, but not when that power is used to break children’s spirits. A cultural emphasis on effort shouldn’t mean that the work is more important than life.

  On this last one, in truth, I’ve always needed a little therapy. My own parents were workaholics, and in the face of an amazing achievement, my sister and I rarely heard “Good work!” Instead, we were taught to look toward the next milestone: “What’s next?”

  I remember this most distinctly from the day I got my acceptance into Stanford University. Toward this milestone I’d toiled my entire seventeen-year life span, and one day our black iron mailbox spit out a plump, white envelope with a return address printed in cardinal red. It was my ticket out of high school, away from Texas, and straight out of my teenage years. Only, my father was grappling with the one-way fare and the freedom it would bring his firstborn.