From the Readers

Reform education

(China Daily)
Updated: 2010-04-01 07:48

Comment on "Open up education system for reform" (March 25, China Daily).

I disagree with Zhang Ming that teachers should change the single-track focus of education. After all, teachers are stuck within the bureaucracy because they are rated according to how well their students perform in their tests. It is the parents who feel the pressure of making their children work to excel in the National College Entrance Examination. It is the parents who see the effects of a single-minded education system that emphasizes rote learning instead of critical thinking, reading outside the classroom curriculum, and learning to debate the issues of the day.

Students become a number to themselves and their family. Their character, creativity, enthusiasm for ideas, interests outside of school, and views on the future are not even mentioned when they present themselves to an American college. Chinese children are worth so much more than their test scores. It's time parents took the responsibility to open up the education system for reform - for freeing their children to think on their own.

Joyce Slayton Mitchell, via e-mail

(China Daily 04/01/2010 page9)