My commenter F has raised some interesting points about 'western' vs 'Chinese' education. They were questions that I pondered when I was making the decision to send N to ISF. Within the ISF context at least, I think some of the doubts have either been confirmed or denied, and sometimes in unexpected ways.
Of course we all cannot but help being a product of our cultural heritage, upbringing and education and I sometimes despair in myself how much of what I do and say is merely 'instinctual' or bred into me for better or worse rather than conscious. Particularly on the parenting side.
The comments that follow are my personal experience of ISF based on an extremely short time at the school. Other ISF parents feel free to add or comment or criticise what I am saying.
I think that ISF does make a very conscious choice in trying to be a 'middle' way between the very conservative 'drilling' and authoritarian education with a sit down, shut up and do your work mentality vs. an overly liberal anything goes, we learn whatever we want to and if you don't want to that's also OK (I exaggerate slightly there).
The bottom line is that I haven't seen any children patently unhappy without cause (i.e. sick children waiting for pickup in the primary office) at the school and generally they're skipping around with a smile on their face.
Are the teaching styles between the Chinese and English teachers different. Yes. But they are teaching different things. Not just different languages. The English teachers spend a couple of months doing phonics and punctuation and voila your child can read and then moves onto the 'creative' stuff of writing and advancing rapidly in reading and has fun with the language.
The Chinese teachers on the other hand, painstakingly teach your child about 10-15 words a week. Your child then cannot even read a simple story book. And they're required to write those words a couple of times for homework and to memorise the poems which have those words in it. I'm actually constantly amazed at how 'creatively' if one can use that word, Chinese is being taught. It is immersion and it is moving from oral to written. It's subtle, but you can see it working.
I cannot speak for all Chinese teachers in the school, but certainly my daughter's obviously really loves the kids in her class. She's affectionate towards them, and she shouts at them. She teaches them well and grades them carefully in everything they do (that, I think is something that is parental need driven, parents are obsessive about grades and how well the child is doing).
Now I'm not sure many English teachers shout at the kids (at least that's not reported back home). But then again, I've not ever heard a parent complain about the standard of Chinese at ISF, but there are plenty of grumbles about the English. I don't care too much about the English, I'll sort that out at home, it's the Chinese I'm after.
Fallacy in logic - shouting doesn't make a better teacher. Nor does shouting make a better parent, but that doesn't stop me from resorting to it from time to time. But you have to look at the students. If I may make a sweeping generalisation, based on limited experience and observing a couple of birthday parties - the Chinese kids are A LOT naughtier than the western kids. And they get away with it. Crowd control is a real issue. A musician friend of mine said the same. He'd given a concert in Shanghai and was astounded at how badly behaved the children in the audience were and the lack of action by the parents.
Even N come home and tells me how surprisingly naughty some of the kids are.
What is going on? I can theorise based on some observations. Many kids have 2 working parents and are brought up by maids who don't dare to impose discipline. Perhaps the parents don't have the heart or energy to impose it in the limited time they see their children. Perhaps they grew up in a very harsh disciplinary environment and don't want to repeat the same with their children. Perhaps they just don't know how to walk the tightrope between authoritarian and permissive (god knows how hard that one is). Now don't for one moment think that I think the kids get off easily. They don't. On the one hand many are extremely spoilt materially, and on the other, they have to perform from the moment they're - well, about 2 years old. Extra music, languages, sport, ballet, swimming etc. etc. Long days, long evenings and late nights in bed. The expectations are huge. You can't blame the kids and you can't blame the parents. And the teachers cope with it one way or another.
The school also tried to create a 'balanced' child. So between the necessary rote and memorisation there is the creative. Do I think they succeed? Well, they're still fairly young and experimental. I can't lie, I am disappointed in their in-school art and music program which is taught by class teachers rather than specialists. Will that change? Hopefully. Maybe even probably. They have a pretty proactive parent body who stands up for what they believe in, so I am hopeful.
What else do a grumble about? The lack of playing space. The school is big and it's growing and there is inadequate space for running around and playing. The school is going to be adding buildings but I don't see plans for adding play space. That bothers me. Kids need to let off steam. Yes, they will be building more buildings. That's going to create the necessary dust and noise.
How do you use Mandarin on the street when everyone speaks Cantonese? Well you'd be surprised. There are a lot of taxi drivers who are Mandarin speaking. Most shop assistants have some mandarin. And when your kids is speaking about 26-30 hours of Mandarin a week (at least at school) who cares how much they speak it out of school?
What else about the school - I love the way that parents are very very involved with the school, support the school, work with the school, try to make it the best school possible. I am sure that my grumbles WILL be sorted out eventually - if that's common consensus. I'm also sure that my priorities are not necessarily the priorities of all the parents there. And that's life.
What did we do and what would I recommend you do with your 2 and 4 year old?
What we did was more out of fear and ignorance than any kind of 'grand plan' or insight. We had / will have the kids in international schools / nurseries until aged 6. At that point they've worked out that school is fun and they're reading and writing English at a reasonable level. They've had their interest in Mandarin piqued (quite a few of the nurseries like Sunshine house and Pips have a bilingual classroom). They've had enough playtime, fun time, un-structured time, homework free time. And then we whack them with ISF. And in N's case she's coping fine and she's happy.
In R's case. Who knows?
In my opinion young kids need to learn to play, play, play and then 6/7 is the right age to start with the structure.
I don't know yet what we'll do in high school. Maybe that's the time they need to move to a western style education. Maybe by then ISF will have worked it out and be right for them and really give them both worlds. We've got 7 years to find out.
Good Service
2 hours ago
7 comments:
Just a quick comment until I digest all of your post.
A lot of teachers, not only in ISF, get unsettled with the amount of input parents have in a school. And that's a lot in ISF as you said.
It seems that you've given this all so much thought. I follow you until the part about moving to a western style high school when the time is right.
I wonder if young kids educated in a more rote, authoritarian, task-mastery oriented lower schools have difficulty transitioning to the expectations of western high schools, which emphasize independent thinking and problem solving, and creative writing? If you want a more western experience for your kids in their teenage years (and it seems that many western and Chinese parents DO want this), why wait? Do you think that learning to speak, read and write Chinese fluently (one of your stated objectives) is simply incompatible with western teaching methods? Are they perhaps even cross-purposed?
Well, I'd rather that they go through those expecatations as teenagers when a lot can be caught up on, than that they flounder at university when the stakes are much higher.
No don't think learning to speak, read and write Chinese fluently is incompatible with Western teaching methods. Or that they're cross purposed. I just think that they require a different type of training. I think that any child who has seriously pursued music or a technique based sport is doing the same with their body & mind as a child learning chinese is doing with their mind & body (writing). Some things in life are just about practise and repitition and there is nothing western or eastern about it, its just about doing it.
Yes, I do think that sometimes parents can have too much input. I see the role of the parents as a support mechanism to a school and that they should not be setting strategy or curriculum or inputting implementation.
Teachers are very overworked in my opinion and if parents can take over the mundane and repetitive things (like I know a lot of parents help with shelving of books in the library for example), and also extra-ordinary things like dinners and dances and also things where you need extra hands and eyes and minds like individual reading, that's great.
But I'm not a teacher. If I were, I guess I'd not like parents 2nd guessing me and micromanaging the process. Since schooling is a process and you can't take a moment and extrapolate.
Is learning Chinese incompatible with Western style teaching? I think not, as I learnt no Chinese until I went to university ( in the UK) and then did a degree in it. Yes there is a lot of sit down and practice, but the same could be said of the thousands of words in the English language, which you will only learn by alot of reading and reaching for the dictionary. the more Chinese characters you learn, the more you see how connected they are by radicals, phonemes etc. But the easiest way by far learning any langugage is to have to use it every day in the native culture. This is how I learnt my Chinese in reality. So a school like ISF with immersion, is a way of doing this. But it can be taught creatively. It is just a matter of teaching style.
This interests me also in how we parent. Do we want to coerce our children into learning by force ( ie rewards and punishments- a big Chinese way but also a major part of western parenting style) or do we want them to be intrinsically motivated and love to learn because they are interested? some great books on this are Alfie Kohn 'Unconditional parenting' and Naomi Aldort ' Raising our children, raising ourselves'. These books opened my eyes a bit to alternate methods of parenting.
Anyone read them?
F
All very valid and interesting points. I just have a couple to add
- I agree that most people speak Cantonese in Hong Kong. But if you look at HK now compared with 10 years ago, Mandarin is becoming much more important. I do a lot of recruiting for my firm and being able to speak Mandarin and read and write Chinese is a necessity (as well as being able to speak/read/write English)- whereas being able to speak Cantonese is a bonus.
- I grew up in a western learning environment and loved it. I am convinced that is a better learning environment. However, growing up as expats (or semi-expats) in HK with a great lifestyle, I feel it is our duty as parents to at least try to equip our kids with the ability to be able to emulate our lifestyle. I am not saying that my kids must be lawyers or bankers (heaven forbid) but if they wanted to live (and therefore work) in Hong Kong, they will need mandarin. Therefore they don't have the luxury of being in a pure western learning environment in the way that I did - because I am just not convinced the international schools in Hong Kong will equip them with enough Chinese (although I hear great things about CIS)
- having experienced a little bit of ISF (as a parent) and with loads of friends whose kids are at local school, my sense is ISF encourages the kids to be way more creative. For example, kids can write whatever they like in their Chinese and English journals (spelling, grammatical errors and all). This would not be acceptable at local school. One of my friends (local school parent) actually told her son to write less on the basis the less he wrote the less mistakes he would make (and the less marks taken off)
I think for an expat parent the question is - do you expect your kids to grow up in HK and would want to live (and work) in HK? If not, then you probably don't need to go through an intense mandarin learning environment such as ISF.
My daughter will be entering ISF’s Foundation Year this fall and your blog has been one of the major sources that I’ve been relying on to sort out reviews of the school. Thank you for sharing all your experience and thinking!
Just accidently found some recent discussions on ISF from the Education Forum on Geokids site. Please see this address: http://www.geokids.hk/forum/t555-3.html
The last comment is quite disturbing to read but since I’m not a parent of a current student, I don’t have strong enough knowledge to rebuff the almost sinister remarks. Would you care to shed some light on this topic?
I'm looking forward to reading your response.
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