China, U.S. teach each other some lessons

The classroom at the Gaoyakou Central Primary School, about an hour outside Beijing and not far from the Great Wall, was as austere as it was cold. Little more than a Chinese flag and a blackboard served for ornamentation. Yet the students, bundled in colorful parkas and scarves, were bubbling excitedly as they sat in knots of twos and threes, trying to come up with answers to a series of grammar exercises.

An American teacher walking into this room might be put off by the lack of creature comforts, but surely would recognize the teaching methods being deployed by Cai, an enthusiastic 27-year-old in a puffy, shin-length blue coat.

And with good reason. Although she teaches at a school that outwardly appears little changed from the days of Maoist indoctrination, Cai is on the cutting edge of Chinese educational reform, using methods based on those used in the United States.

"In my time as a student," she said, "we accepted only what we were taught." Now, as a teacher, she tries to encourage "more active thinking," letting students figure out answers for themselves.

"It's better now," she said.

The best of both worlds

In many ways, China and the United States represent the yin and yang of international education. Whereas China's top-down system places supreme emphasis on tightly structured, disciplined learning, the United States has a highly decentralized system that places greater importance on critical thinking and "student-centered" learning.

Still, in recent years, the Chinese and American systems have been taking baby steps toward each other, learning and adapting what the other does best.

American educators have been exploring why Chinese and other Asian students do so well in math and science, and trying to apply some of their findings to U.S. classrooms.

The Chinese, in turn, are trying to distill the American genius for innovation, recognizing that, for all its faults, the U.S. educational system is unrivaled at turning out creative minds -- inventors, filmmakers, rock 'n' roll stars and Nobel laureates among them.

"The two systems cannot totally merge," said Zhou Mansheng, who studies the American educational system in his role as deputy director of China's National Center for Educational Development Research. "What they can do is have a very deep understanding of each other's educational systems and try to learn from them."