Are Our Kids Tough Enough? Chinese School, BBC2 - TV review: Perhaps the tiger teachers could learn from these spirited teens
I dread to think how these teachers would have fared in the average inner-city comprehensive
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Your support makes all the difference.The Chinese education system produces results that are years ahead of ours in some subjects, but could it work in Britain? BBC2's Are Our Kids Tough Enough? Chinese School put that to the test and only one episode into the three-part series, the answer is already a resounding "no".
A team of five Chinese teachers are taking over classes for 50 13 and 14-year-olds at Bohunt School in Liphook, Hampshire, for a month, after which the pupils will be tested against their peers in maths, science and Mandarin. While British schools have "a culture of child-centred learning", Chinese education was characterised as "authority, discipline and ruthless competition", which in practice meant these year-nines were in for a shock.
In place of interactive lessons, small groups and practical activities, they were now expected to focus their attention exclusively on a teacher in front of a whiteboard and learn by rote in one large, unstreamed class of 50. Each school day began at 7am with group exercises in front of the national flag and only finished 12 long hours later, and competitive PE lessons are an intrinsic part of the curriculum.
This is what works in China but, as must already be obvious to anyone in education, teaching methods are only part of the explanation for differences in pupil performance. "In China, we don't need to have classroom management skills because everyone is disciplined by birth, by nature, by society. But here that is the most challenging part of teaching," observed exhausted science teacher Yang Jun, after a week of dealing with British teenagers. Bohunt also seemed like a well-run school in a comparatively affluent area. I dread to think how these teachers would have fared in the average inner-city comprehensive.
There is one upside to the British classroom, which is that it produces lots of spirited characters such as chatterbox Sophie, who'll likely be played by Catherine Tate in the Are Our Kids Tough Enough? Red Nose Day special. Sophie was more interested in chewing gum than learning about the properties of copper sulphate, but she did seem to warm to Yang Jung: "Aw, she's sooo cute! She reminds me of my nan."
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