Not only China but also the country as developed as America is busy with the education reform. Education is always a hot spot all around the world, since whether it is good or not can change the future.

Obviously, there are great difference between the education in China and western countries.

The purpose of education

For example, the purpose of American basic education is to teach students how to learn, how to live, and how to work. Although there are Chinese proverbs like “Teach a man to fish and he will eat for the rest of his life.” , the Chinese education nowadays is just in the contrary.

Frankly speaking, the purpose of education in China nowadays is just to select the superior ones from the crowd. All that the students learn means nothing but a score in the competitions.

The method of education

As the difference in the purpose of education, the methods of them are certainly different. The teachers in China are more care about the correctness but for American teacher the ability of student is more important. For instance, teachers in China just teach students how to solve a math problem and let the students do huge amounts of exercise without variety, but seldom tell students why to solve the problem in that way. But in America, teachers may spend more than one class letting the student solve one math problem by themselves. As Howard Gardner said, Chinese people just love teaching the children by holding their hand in order to let them have time to learn more.

Apparently, the education in china is far more efficient than in America, and the Chinese students can solve far more difficult math problems than American students. But why are the scientists who won the Nobel Prize all western people? The reason may be complex, but there must be something wrong with the education in China.

Knowledge first or creativity first

In terms of attitudes to creativity there seems to be reversal of proprieties: young westerners making their boldest departures fist and then gradually mastering the tradition; and young Chinese being almost inseparable from tradition, but, over time, possibly evolving to a point equally original.

There is one opinion that the Chinese method of education deprives the children’s creativity, I just can not agree it entirely. As Quantity makes Quality, only after we have enough knowledge can we create something meaningful. It is ridiculous for us to create something new if we can not master the basic skills. So there is nothing wrong to give the students more knowledge, the matter must be in the process of education.

About the reform

In my opinion, the education in China may take too much more care on the competition than the education itself. When the students are at school, they may study as hard as they can in order to get the superiority over others in the competition. But after the competition, will they work as hard as they used to be? Most of them will just feel at loss. They will find that what they have learnt in school is just meaningless in their life. How to arouse the enthusiasm of study which can last for whole life is something for us to consider about.

On the other hand, the American education somewhat lacks efficiency. When we are young, we can accept the new things more easily. So why not let the students to learn more when they are young. How to improve the efficiency of the education is just for the Americans to consider about.