Human-Error Processor

I was hired as a contract teacher 3 years ago, with salary only 1/3 of official teachers. There were several other teachers like me before, but I didn’t see any of them this time. I was told they are “suggested” to leave under the new national policy to “clean up” all the contract teachers. Now all the teachers hired are official and certificated. But this “clean up” process was some time cruel because some contract teachers have taught for years and didn’t receive anything for compensation. It really depends on where you teacher, I was told. In some richer regions, more than 80% of contract teachers are recruited as official ones.

Salary for official teachers has been greatly improved. Long-Long, my former roommate told me that he now earn about 700 yuan (about $100) a month, about 150 more than 3 years ago. And Xiao even earns 750 for his administrative position in the school. “But all the prices for oils, foods go up recently.” Long-Long told me.

All the students don’t have too pay tuition now. Central government has made commitment for continuing investing in rural education. And the policy is carried out through different level of administrations fast.Since last year, all the rural students in 5 western economically less developed provinces were exempted from tuition in primary and lower secondary level. Xiao shows the school account book to me. “Now we only collect 150 yuan a semester misc fees, which is a small amount even for rural families.” That money is used for repairing/maintaining school facilities, and buying coal in winter for heating.

“But we still don’t have money for new school buildings.” Xiao also said, “Now it’s a big concern because of those collapses in Sichuan after earthquake you know.” They now get money for daily usage, but now enough to do any major renovation.

“Money is not a big concern.” Xiao said. “The government has pouring a lot of money into rural education and you know, the situation is improving during the years. Though we still can’t compared with urban schools (on money) but is far better” I agree with that. I still remember when I was here 3 years ago, students still have to pay 200 a semester. Now those students who boards at school even get subsidy from government, 1.5 per day for dining. Usually enough for rural kids.

So what do you think are still missing and with urgent needs in school today I asked.

We should teach the students how to be good person. Xiao said.

He told me there are more local violence and thefts caused by students and it’s very hard to manage the classroom these days. “Students just know more and they are not obeying. And their parents have gone out for working. All the responsibilities are thrown to schools. But what can we do?”

“And I think we should change our evaluation system too.” He added up, “The school still like old days, all we care about is graduation rates and how many students could go to key high schools. But only less than 20 percent could go to high school in total.”

Should we care more about the rest of them? What do they need? I am wondering.

They introduced me to Mr. Shi, headmaster of local primary school. We have be exchanging email since last year but haven’t met yet. Mr. Shi told me education administrative in W-city city decide to open 2 large boarding schools in this district, which means all the current middle schools and primary school will be merged into two big ones. “Provincial and central government already give the money to them. It’s just a matter of time.” He said, “Maybe next time you come you won’t see my school.” The rationale behind boarding school might be reasonable: because of the one-child policy, number of incoming new students is declining over the years. Some primary schools even only have less than 100 students. But people live all over the district, some students have to walk 5 km to school everyday. It looks like to build one large school rather than maintain several small ones are more economic and easy to manage. And the earthquake this year gives government a solid backup: rural schools needs better, safer facilities.

But he also mentions that his school is in a better shape than the other 8 schools in this district because he doesn’t owe any money to the bank. Other schools “at least owe 30,000 yuan or more”. The debts grows over the years because they can’t get enough funding from local district to pay teacher salaries.

“We have enough money for daily usage. But we still need more to pay back the banks for all the money (mainly teacher salaries) over the years.” China has changed its tax system over the years. As a part of the reform, the responsibility of finance the education has been decentralized to local level. But as have been studied and reported widely, many rural schools and districts therefore can’t always get enough fund because the tax base is very weak and transfer payment from above is very limited.

学院的邮件列表上又讨论起了Two Million Minutes这个电影。不知道是不是Jack个人的忧患意识很强，还是说这是美国教育界的一个主流思想呢？我上次回应他的邮件，我说我认为这个纪录片反应的焦虑和不安折射了美国知识界对于整个全球化过程中其他国家崛起的一种警讯反应。这个电影的标题“2百万分钟”意思是一个学生在高中生涯里所度过的时间。这个电影的作者认为高中生活是决定个人未来命运的关键时刻，而中国和印度的高中生正在超越美国的同龄人（至少在理科领域）。

电影中所呈现的是印度和中国学生的高度竞争和投入。我想对于我们从这个制度下过来的人是再熟悉不过的了：内容很深的课本，高强度的练习以及同僚压力。从一方面来说，这是事实，塑造了这两个国家学生非常扎实的基础，但是从另一个方面来讲，我们失去的是否也是同样多呢？

我随便在google上搜了一下对于这个电影的评价，看到一个阿拉斯加的家长写的blog，她选择了home school自己的小孩：

Two Million Minutes is really a comparison of cultures. India and China are moving into an advanced technological economy poised for prosperity. Americans have lived in such affluence for many years. Our secondary students are not pushed to achieve. There is little competition and accountability. Even the minimal accountability required by NCLB has brought loud, incessant complaining from the educational establishment. Personally, we’ve chosen to homeschool our own kids because we are not satisfied with the rigor of academics in public schools. But, I freely admit our home academics are not what the Chinese and Indian students maintain. There’s no way that my son would voluntarily go to two hours of tutoring daily in addition to his regular studies. The motivation is just not there. Nor am I motivated to make him do it.

……

Freedom and opportunity allow people to choose vocations and careers and change vocations and careers. Competition produces excellence in those vocations. That’s the downside of highly-competitive, high-stakes secondary programs. They lock a kid into a lifelong course with limited opportunity to change.

我想到的是在这个“中国教育成功还是美国教育成功”的辩论中，我们看到的是一些可以被量化的东西，比方中国每年毕业多少理科学生（工程师），美国多少。每年有多少工程方面的工作转移到了中国和印度。但是也同样忽略了很多没法量化的东西，就像那位家长讲的：Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness （生活、自由和追求幸福的权利）。乍一看起来这些概念很空洞——这到底是什么意思？但是我们的教育到底教给学生们多少自己掌握自己前途和追求自己生活的能力呢？毕竟归根结底，教育是一个国家发展的基石，可也是引向个人幸福的重要通道。当美国学生在高中就开始自己决定将来要干什么，虽然很多的决定幼稚、不全面，但是他们很早就卖出了第一步。而我们在这方面做得很少。

从这个角度来看，我很羡慕美国有Nation At Risk这样全国性的报告来不断提醒教育者他们所走的路可能有问题（虽然我并不认同改革的方向）。我们什么时候能全面地看待教育体制的不足？

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昨天和hailing讨论她的话语分析论文。如果我没有理解错的话她跟我讲了在研究态度之上的一种矛盾。一方面我们被美国的训练要求用批判的眼光看待一切事物，另方面我们国内的训练和经历又在不断为现实辩解，不断justify 既有的政策。举个例子我们讲到了农村的户籍制度。她说站在农村人民的立场上，这是一个歧视性的，不公正的制度。这是一个立场和价值判断问题，它会影响到我们分析这个问题的角度和方法。但是我提出来的看法是，当然从道义的角度可以这样看，但是这个政策有合理性吗？在当时的环境之下是不是有更好的政策选择？从个人主义的立场，每个人的价值都是重要的，怎么能够牺牲一部分人来成就另外一部分人？从集体主义的立场来说，永远有个大目标置于所有人之上，为此一部分人是可以先做出让步的。可是是不是因为我来自城市，没有经受过歧视性地成长经历所以我会选择从正面来解读这个政策呢？也许是的，因为我无法把我的成长因素从我的研究中分离出去。于是每个人都会因为自己的经验而有一个既定的立场，除非有足够的证据来推翻这个立场，那么通常这个立场就会左右一个人的研究。

这种立场造成的冲突有时候在内心发生，有时候在与外界的交流过程中发生。我不觉得我们能够克服它的影响。或许说没有立场的研究还有价值吗？但是我想说的我们应该正视一切的证据、资料随时做好准备因为我们的预设可能是错误的。这样才能不断克服无知和谬误。

虽然说起来这样，但真的做很难很难。