A few days ago, a teacher from a Western country visited an elementary school in an Asian country. In one class, she watched sixty young children as they learned to draw a cat. The class teacher drew a big circle on the blackboard, and sixty children copied it on their papers. The teacher drew a smaller circle on top of the first and then put two triangles on top of it. The children drew in the same Way. The lesson went on until there were sixty "copy cats" in the classroom. Each student's cat looked exactly like the one on the board.
The visiting teacher watched the lesson and was surprised. The teaching methods were very different from the way of teaching in her own country. In her country, after one children's art lesson, the room always becomes full of different pictures drawn by different pupils. Why? What causes this difference in educational methods? In classrooms in any country, teachers teach more than art or history or language. They also teach culture, and each educational system is a mirror that shows the culture of the country.
In a country such as the United States or Canada, which has many national, religious, and cultural differences, people highly value the differences among people. Teachers put a lot of importance on the differences that make each student special. The educational systems in these countries show these values. Students do not memorize information. Instead, they work and find answers themselves. There is Often discussion in the classroom. At an early age, students learn to have their own ideas and act on them.
In most Asian countries, on the other hand, the people have the same language, history, and culture. Perhaps for this reason, the educational system in those Asian countries sets a higher value on the goals of a group than on each member's differences. Children in China, Japan, and Korea often work together and help one another to reach the same goal. In the classroom, the teacher speaks and the students listen. There is not much discussion. Instead, the students simply try to memorize rules or information that they have just been taught.
There are advantages and disadvantages to both of these systems of education. For example, one advantage to the system in Japan is that students there learn much more math and science by the end of high school than American students. They also study more hours each day and more days each year than North Americans. The system is hard for students, but it prepares them for a country that values discipline and self-control. There is, however, a disadvantage. Memorization is an important learning method in Japanese schools, but many students say that after an exam, they forget much of the information that they have memorized.
The advantage of the educational system in North America, on the other hand, is that students learn to think for themselves. The system prepares them for a country that values creative ideas. There is, however, a disadvantage. When students leave high school, they haven't memorized as many rules and facts as students in other countries.