EDUCATION CHINA

‘A few months into my post as Western Co-Principal of Shanghai United International School my Chinese Co-Principal offered an observation which has stuck with me since as incorporating a wealth of meaning in a seemingly simple statement.

This colleague was a lady of perspicacity and wisdom with whom I had established a great professional relationship and for whom I had immense regard. In discussion one day she observed that while western education is much vaunted and valued around the globe, for good reason, it should be remembered also that the Chinese education story can be traced back over 5,000 years.

This comment was offered in the most respectful and positive manner but lost none of its impact.

My school championed the ‘East meets West’ idea in educational terms and sought to implement innovative and real strategies to have Chinese mainland students benefit from the strengths of both. Thus both were recognised and both affirmed. I was not the knight in shining armour riding over the hill to deliver the poor Chinese students from the feeble education system they were experiencing; rather I was a learning colleague who, together with my Chinese and Expat staff sought to forge every day a learning experience for students which delivered the best of both worlds.

And this, I believe, is a central tenet of how successful educational enterprises in China will emerge and how enterprises which do not recognise this, will fail. A degree of humility and recognition that there is much to be admired in Chinese education will allow a great deal of fruitful interaction to develop, when mutual respect has been established and where the difference between the Confucian and the Aristotelian view of the world is understood.’ 

A short excerpt from my book to be published in the coming months, with the working title ‘The Tapestry of International Education’