中美文化差异

中美文化差异 A Comparison Between Chinese and American Education Material: Li Tingting, Li Linlin, Gao Xiaomeng, Writing: Liu Ruofei, Liu Min Education is one of the most important things during our life. It is known to all that the talents depend on education, and the good education can influence children’s quality and behavior, and education is related to the future of our country. Nowadays, more and more attention has been paid on the education. The education system in China has many similarities to that of the United States; however, there are also some obvious differences, which seem to mainly base on the education system, the administration, the school education and the family education. 1. Educational system Most Americans start their pre-school education at the age of five. Children attend elementary school for the next 6 or 8 years. Then they go to secondary schools for another 6 or 4 years. In China, children begin their pre-school education variably from 3 years old to 6 years old. And in rural areas, some parents even cannot afford the pre-school education. Then it takes 6 years to complete the primary school education and 3 years more to complete junior middle school. After that some students attend secondary technical school and some continue to take the 3-year senior middle school which prepares them for higher education. However, both American and Chinese elementary and secondary (senior and junior middle school) takes 12 years to complete in total. 2. Administration In the United States, public schools are under the control of the individual states. Each state decides their own policies on education and schools have the right to choose what books to be used. Public schools are free to all boys and girls while private schools charge their parents for several hundred dollars a year. In contrast, the Chinese government controls all the public schools and decides the text books for them. Public schools in China are also free, but parents still have to pay for the books or other facilities. How much they need to pay depends on the cities they lived. Private schools charge even more and are usually attended those children who were unable to pass the entrance exams to public schools successfully. 3. School education 1) Methods of education Chinese education aims to teach students how to imitate, while American education targets to teach students how to think independently. So we say Chinese are quick learners, and Westerners are logic system builders. The Chinese education is to teach students to learn by rote, just to recite, to write down all you have learned. In Chinese education system, it evaluates a student's ability by countless examinations, which will cut down students’ interests of learning. If Chinese education can combine some of the good samples of ways of American education, for instance, to give more space to students to motivate their minds, to learn what they like instead of forcing them to learn, which can make them achieve themselves in some special areas. 2) Courses The two countries offer their youngsters different courses. They have some similar courses, such as mathematics, language arts, science, foreign language, physics, chemistry, biology, history, politics, geography, gym lessons and arts. But the differences also exist. Take the foreign language courses as an example. In China, most students can only study English at school during the basal education. This is the choice that the ministry of education has made for students. However, in the US, students can make their own choice from Spanish, French, and Latin and so on. In addition, in American there are some courses that do not need teaching material, they called these “Family Courses”, such as cooking course, sewing course and some courses to build up confidence. These teach students knowledge out of books. 3) Homework and tests The United States often take the form of open-book examination; the student can carry out an assignment within a week. In the United States, examinations aimed to find their own shortcomings and to fill the vacancy, in order to facilitate the development in the future. China's test is showing that one people, one single table, have the main supervisor, and the deputy supervisor. In China, the main purpose is to eliminate through competition; In china, students have to do lots of homework, but American students are very light. They have very few homework and they can go to bed early. 4. Family education In American, when children were young, their parents are always strict to them. Parents make many rules for children. When they become older, parents will no longer as strict as before, so children get the freedom of what they want. What’s more, American family aim to strain the sense of responsibility of children, so that American children hey are independent. In contrast, Chinese parents dote children when they are young. However, the more older the child is, the more strict the parents are. Parents restrict the child almost in every aspect, even the love affair and the choice of majors. As a result, children get the habit of obedience. According the comparison, we can not tell which is better. Because different education systems have to follow the society background. That may helps humans create different countries in the world, a good education model for China is very important to the learning process, and also is very hard. The American education system may not suit us, but we can learn from it. In china, besides pay much attention to the sores, if we can attach importance to the integrated development of students, lay stress on students’ capability of communication and social interaction, develop their team spirit. That is going to improve our education skills.