Student Symposium Contrasts System of Education Asian Middlebury Students Discuss Growing up Differently

Author: Abigail Mitchell

The majority of students at Middlebury College, and on campuses throughout the United States, have a limited understanding of the relative diversity of educational experiences throughout the world. Most American students, starting from the age of four or five, have spent all their years of schooling in American institutions. It is natural to assume that one's own experience is universal. It is hard to have a global perspective when students' only reality is what they experience in their relatively small pocket of the world.

On Oct. 10, however, a group of Asian students currently studying at Middlebury College held a panel discussion about the inherent cultural differences between East Asia and the United States. Entitled, "Growing up in a Different Way," the panelists spoke of their own educational experiences in Asia in an effort to raise awareness of the diversity of educational systems worldwide. Currently enrolled full-time at Middlebury College, Alvin Lam '06 and Jeff Lam '07 discussed what it was like being educated in both Hong Kong and the United States. Mio Letomi and Sonoko Manzen, both exchange students, added another perspective with their stories of growing up in Tokyo.

They spent time painting a picture of their schooling experiences: Due to limitations of land, the schools in East Asia are compact. Many students are squeezed into a relatively small space that does not allow for land-demanding amenities such as sports fields or spacious playgrounds. In a classroom, there are usually around 45 students under the control of one teacher. Due to this disproportionate student-teacher ratio, students are assigned a permanent number to which they are referred in place of their names. A teacher might pose a question and then chose a victim by arbitrarily selecting a number. "What is the answer, number... 26?"

Students sit in fixed seats and stay in this seat all day while teachers come to them. The teachers generally teach more than one discipline. This fact, when combined with the large class-size, places a great deal of stress and responsibility on the shoulders of these educators.

Strict discipline is a way of life in Asian schools. Talk of any nature is strongly discouraged. If students want to take a chance and make a comment, they must raise their hand and, when or if called upon, stand up in front of the whole class to speak. This added humiliation acts to further limit student voices in the classroom.

Asian education is heavily centered on memorization of material. Alvin Lam recalls a Chinese literature class he took in which the teacher handed out a list of interpretive questions along with the answers written out in essay form. The test was comprised of the exact same questions and the students were expected to have memorized the answers and copy them down to the best of their memories. This educational method contrasts with the American emphasis on students' ability to think for themselves and formulate their own ideas.

It is a common stereotype that Asians tend to excel more often in the areas of math and science. The members of the panel proposed that this phenomenon might be an effect of the memorization-based learning technique that stresses cut and dry answers with little individual interpretation. The areas of math and science lend themselves more easily to this type of learning than do the more interpretive disciplines such as literature and history. As Alvin Lam said, "Analyze is a very frightening word for East Asian students."

For the most part, the grade an Asian student receives for the course is determined by his or her performance on the final exam. Grades are posted for all to see and each student is fully aware of how he or she ranks academically in comparison to the rest of the class. These final grades are one factor in applying to university. The other factor is the much-dreaded, all-important public exam called the HKCEE. Alvin Lam referred to the HKCEE as "the exam of your life. You're screwed if you do badly. It affects your future." The stress level accompanying this exam is unparalleled, he said. There have been incidents of students buckling under the intense pressure and even stories of suicides. A student's performance on this exam largely determines at which universities he or she will be accepted. In America there are many factors that go into this decision. An American student will never know for sure why he or she got accepted or denied to a particular school. In Asia, the decision is quantitative and therefore fairly cut-and-dry.

Alvin Lam hopes that, through this discussion and others, students will have the opportunity to learn about cultures and experiences that may seem very foreign to them. "International students are a resource," Lam said. "I want [discussions like this] to become part of the Middlebury experience."

Everyone had something to gain from listening to these four students. As Alvin so truthfully put it, "Most people are unaware." Most of our lives are but the narrowest slices of the world's pie.

Contributing: Tom Drescher