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Twelve years of our lives we are mandated by the United States Government to learn and be taught the foundations of life, where you may ask, in school. As individuals have we taken the proper steps to make our education properly productive and successful? Have we fully used the twelve free years in which our government allows us to get an appropriate education? Students in China are unfortunately unable to have the monetary and available success to gain an education in the extreme conditions of China. Yet with strong discipline and huge passion, students and faculty work there way up to give and receive a complete extensive education package. “In traditional China, perhaps more than in any other old civilization, education was considered the primary, if not the sole, means by which the character of its citizens was molded… It formed the very foundation on which rested the entire political, social, economic, and cultural life of the Chinese people.”—(3) Chang-Tu Hu A quote from the book Chinese Education under Communism has extreme direct relevance to the way Chinese students yearn for education. Understandably American students do not feel so cheery about school, every morning dread the very existence that school is an hour and you’re running late. Yet it is a generalization of an individual who is entering his fourteenth year of still preliminary education, that for the individual still needs to be taught in all areas of every spectrum of education. American students do not understand the full inequity of being able to receive an education. Comparatively schools in China are more valued, and successful than the United States public secondary schools in regulation, requirements and discipline. Imagine if less than fifty percent of Americans were illiterate because they were unable to receive an education. This scarce problem in America happens all over the world, especially in China. Just recently since the 1950s school regulations have opened up their doors in China to all classes of people. With China’s new regulation, it has restructured its education system. With new ideas and patterns it is decreasing the number of illiterate individuals in the countryside’s and in the urban cities. A similarity between China and America is that they have similar educational classes; starting with elementary, primary, secondary, and higher education. In many areas to create productivity in all educational classes there needs to be a shared common goal that educators and students can be measured by. In China there are goals in which students are to reach for, taken from Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute; “..The first is to develop the student’s spirit of patriotism and internationalism. The student should possess the Communist moral character by supporting the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and upholding socialism (fostering the viewpoints of the working class). The second goal is to enable students to master basic skills in math, foreign language, Chinese, etc. and gradually acquire the abilities of self-study and problem-solving. Students should also possess knowledge in production. The third goal is to enable students to develop physically and foster good habits in daily life and in labor..” Yet these views I necessarily don’t agree with, the goals listed above allow students to reach for something that is measurable, and not go through school unknowing why they are here and to really set a subjective meaning to studying.
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