To test, or not to test?

Barboza’s article (see link below) is essentially a response to the results of an international standardized testing, in which students from Shanghai fared well.

“Shanghai Schools’ Approach Pushes Students to Top of Tests” by David Barboza (29 December 2010).

Emphasis on testing is not a problem. The Japanese do the same at school, but no one, facing the hi-tech industry, dares to doubt their creativity. In the West, the French education system is obsessed with examinations, even beyond undergrad level. Just google agrégation, you’ll get a taste of their obsession. And yet would anyone say the French, winning Nobel Prizes frequently, have no innovation?

To test, or not to test — that’s NOT the question. The question is: what to test and how to test. The way you ask the questions, your expectation of the answers, the tolerance of eccentric responses (given that they’re well argued) are all important for a good exam.

There’re always ways to prepare for exams, but if an exam is good enough, the preparation only gives students a chance to become familiar with the format, expectation, and the “exam situations”. If the markers look for real ideas and good argumentation, or anything that might show students’ critical thinking or other good qualities, there’s nothing wrong with testing. Not to say language classes, for which strict written and oral exams are the only way to check the outcome of study.

Also, education is political (what isn’t?). So if a government wants its citizens to be ignorant and unable to think critically, then the exam is directed that way. I remember at my schools, our teachers would remind us from time to time that certain things weren’t appropriate for exam answers. This is at good schools, where teachers allowed us to have subversive opinions, as long as we wouldn’t write them down on the exam answer sheets (This practice, I tell you, produces more cynical but critical students). But at worse schools, teachers typically just brainwash their students, because it’s too much effort to keep two parallel worlds (the reality and what you should write on paper) while teaching less intelligent and slower students. This, rather than the extensive and intensive use of testing, should be responsible for Chinese students’ problems with innovation and critical thinking.

Now let’s go back to “standardized” exams. All exams are to some extent standardized and the kind of exams aforementioned is too idealized. Just now, a friend of mine has commented on this article using Google Buzz. I quote her (in my own translation): “Real talents won’t be stifled by standardized exams. What stifles them is not strict training, but laissez-faire. A genius doesn’t become a success without good training.”

Throughout my school years, I constantly heard criticisms that the education system was bad for our critical thinking and other valuable abilities. But this claim hasn’t been empirically approved, at least to me. My classmates with the best spirit of innovation, problem-solving skill, and real world experience were normally among the top, if not the best, performers in our exams, standardized or not. We all knew that we’d have to survive all this to get into a good university and then realize our dream. We weren’t brainwashed, we didn’t become indifferent, we didn’t just learn to repeat “the right answers” (as some so-called education experts put it). The cruel frequency of tests toughened us and made us ever more determined to pursue whatever we’re enthusiastic about.

Back to my point at the beginning of this article. Chinese experts and other public figures who criticized our education system have almost exclusively focused on the existence of tests and exams, rather than what they should look after — the content of the tests and the larger environment of our education.

One of the main causes of this is their pathetic knowledge of countries other than the US and the UK (I say the latter with hesitation). Most of the time, they only look at America, which isn’t a very good role model when it comes to pre-tertiary education. Although speaking English, the UK schools produce well-trained graduates with much better knowledge. After entering university, ideally, they don’t need the American-style “general education” and are supposed to be ready to specialize, which is partly why they do three-year undergrad degrees as opposed to the four-year degrees of American students. Our education reformers have been advocating general education for a while, with Gan Yang being its most prominent advocator. They’ve never asked if we really need it and they’ve never thought about why other western countries don’t have it.

Okay, this is too much off the topic. I should stop. Just go and learn more about how examinations are carried out and education is conducted in countries other than the USA. Maybe start from a French book for exam preparation and the description of a French selective exam.

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I’ve decided to adopt OED spelling for most of my writing, thus “-ize” instead of “-ise”, which I previously used. I have yet to decide between program and programme, for which I prefer the Macquarie Dictionary rules...

Finally, someone talking about Chinese Straussians

As a Chinese student doing Classics and a bit of political philosophy overseas, I’ve always been troubled by the fact that Strauss and Schmitt are such a big deal in my country. Lilla’s article is by far the best analysis I’ve read on this phenomenon (which isn’t hard as most other comments have been from die-hard liberals simply labelling Strauss and Schmitt as Nazi and Conservatist).

“Reading Strauss in Beijing: China’s strange taste in Western philosophers” by Mark Lilla (8 December 2010).

Note that this is the date it’s published online. You’ll need subscription to read the full article, but internet is a magic – pay special attention to the Chinese sites.

The Chinese student Lilla mentions in the second paragraph is said to be Li Meng, a Chinese philosopher at Peking Uni, if it helps… But whoever he is, his attitude reflects what many young Chinese students think even today. I’ve had to tell ppl millions of times that someone reading Plato in Greek is not necessarily superior to someone reading Marx in German, Derrida in French or even Rawls in English. They seem to believe once you learn Greek and Latin, nothing else is worth learning; once you’ve read Plato, all other philosophers are just trivial.

Personally, I’m sympathetic with Strauss’ concerns with the problem of the ‘mob’ and I think their critiques of democracy are important. But the Chinese Straussianism brings up further problems of minority rights and cultural racism. Ironically, the elites or the philosophers and the gentlemen are always in the minority. Without respect of minority groups of any kind, the cultural elites have to resort to brutal violence to maintain their rule.

For sure, the Straussians will have a lot to say about violence (probably to justify it). But remember one golden rule of our time: ppl who advocate violence of any form at any time and any place, no matter what it’s for (stability, harmony, unity, democracy), they’re demagogues.

Qian Zhongshu’s centenary

The China Beat again has an extraordinary entry, this time for Qian Zhongshu’s centennial anniversary.

“‘Life, it’s been said, is one big book…’: One hundred years of Qian Zhongshu” by Christopher Rea (21 November 2010).

While some of Lu Xun’s stories are thought to be his only “apolitical” writing, Qian’s novel marks him as a detached, “apolitical” author. These works, like those of many other great writers, penetrated the seemingly urgent issues of their times and places, bringing the inquiry to a deeper level. Although everyone else was blaming the chaos of his/her society on war, colonialism, foreign occupation, lack of democracy, lack of the rule of law, etc., they looked into the human stains within us, our natural or unnatural tendency to be selfish, coward, lazy, jealous, intolerant, hypocritical, overbearing, and ignorant. So when peace made, independence achieved, decolonisation going on, even democracy established, law and justice rules above all, we find ourselves in similar situations, or at the best, in a situation where the roles of the harming and the harmed are reversed. We still wonder: why things have not improved. Once we have dreamed that social institution would restrain the dark side of human nature and before this we even bet all we had on that wanton lady called Rationalité.

It seems, then, that the so-called apolitical writing, composed by those witty men and women who were or are the best observers of human life, is ironically the most political. Because their writing transcends the problems of one time and one place; it tears down the beautiful clothes made of political movements and shows us the ugly body underneath. After all, in that much abused and misused epigram of Aristotle, politics means living in a human society and dealing with your fellow human beings. In this sense, writers like Qian are, by nature, the most political animals.

Personally, I never believe the hot and hard “political” theories, concepts, views that are claimed to be universal or time-enduring. Why a random Joe with absolutely no academic ambition or literary taste would still find reading the classics rewarding today? Because claims based on the fact of us all being human (though different human individuals) last way longer than those based solely on the tides of their place and time.