Will The Chinese Learning Initiative Evoke The Long-Awaited Fifth Modernization?
In Boshler’s article Will The Chinese Learning Initiative Evoke The Long-Awaited Fifth Modernization?, he discusses the changes that different people within the China are seeing as a needed change to their educational system and the way they think of education and learning. They discuss they differences in the Chinese philosophy on education and life-long learning in comparison to the philosophy of other cultures. In their culture, education is not something that is controlled by the individual schools, but it is something that is controlled by the government. In this article, they discuss the changes that have been taking place in the education within China over several decades.
One of the changes that is discussed is the change of the thought process when it comes to learning. Instead of all learning taking place within a school environment, it is suggested that the people learn to become life-long learners and be learning new ideas and techniques throughout their lives. The reasoning for this is the changes not only within their society but the changes within our entire planet. The problem that they have with this idea is that the government within China is not willing to give up total control to the people so that they can experience all of the changes that are going on within our world. The culture within China is one of a very formal educational system whereas it is suggested that in many other countries it is not such a formal system. It is believed that the concept will work within in their system, but it will take time for not only the people to adjust and adapt to it, but for the government to also allow more freedom within the educational system.
Overall, it is suggested that part of the difficulties with changing the educational and learning system within China is due to not only the reluctance in some cases of the people for changes that they are unsure of, but of the government willing to give up some of the control to the people. They all agree that learning throughout life is essential due to the ever changing nature of our world, but it is hard to get a system set up that will work for their entire country when one looks at the demographics of their country.
As I was reading this article, there were many aspects of it that sounded familiar to many other things that I have heard over the past several years about our own educational system. We have many people that are not sure of some of the changes that are occurring within our own system. As a teacher, I hear many people give their opinions on what they believe we should and should not be teaching in our schools. When you hear what people outside of education think, it can be quite amazing. In a way, this article sounded to me as if the Chinese are trying to make their own citizens aware of the fact that if they don’t start being aware of all of the changes that are happening within our world, that they are going to be left behind. These changes are not just technological changes. Some of the changes that they discussed were changes with working being more adaptable to changes within their work environment. Also, changes within the environment. One item that was mentioned was educating the people so that they are more aware of global warming and the affects that is has on not only people, but our agricultural systems.
One of the big pushes that I have seen in the ten years that I have been teaching is the push to make our students life long learners. To me, this is the major item that is discussed in this article. They discuss helping the people within the villages, cities, and everywhere become more aware of what is going on around them. Trying to teach people that they must be aware and be willing to change if we are all going to be successful in life. If you think about it, look at all the changes that all of us have experienced in our lives. I still have other teachers that come up to me on a daily basis and ask me why I know so much about certain software packages. They ask me if I learned it all in college. My response is that I didn’t. Most of the software that I am working with on a daily basis was not even around when I was in college, or if it was, it was a much different version that what it is currently.
I really believe that fundamental idea of this article – life long learning – is something that we all need instill in the people around us. With the modern society that we have today, if we are unwilling or unable to adapt to the changes that are constantly happening, then we will be left behind. As a society, I do not believe that we want this to happen. I am now curious as to what is happening and is going to be happening within the Chinese culture when it comes to education. Are they going to be successful making this idea happen? We will all just have to wait and see.
Boshler, Roger and Huang, Yan (2006).Will the Chinese learning initiative evoke the long-awaited fifth modernization?. Planing and Changing. 37, 56-70.