Chinese Teachers Report to Parents About Their Own Child in Front of ALL the Other Parents

Chinese teachers apparently have parent conferences en masse– the teacher meets with all the parents of a class together, and reports to the entire group of parents on how well each child in the class is doing.  This is according to a recent issue of The New Yorker magazine. I haven’t yet read the article myself, so I can’t cite the exact issue, but another teacher at my school was telling me about it this morning.

If this is really so, no wonder Chinese parents put a lot of pressure on their kids! They don’t want to be embarrassed. (In reality, I’m sure there is a lot more than this reason that the Chinese do so well in school.) I was thinking about how parents in the Middle East would react to this system, since here they put a lot of store in looking good in front of other parents (or their children looking good in front of others).

Has anyone reading here experienced this, or heard about it?

Eileen

Explore posts in the same categories: Asia, Asian Education Issues, China, Chinese Education, Chinese Schools, Parent Conferences, Parenting Issues, Parents, Parents' Concerns, Third World, education