Nicholas Kristof last wrote about Chinese schools shortly after the release of some stunning news: on a comprehensive exam testing students in 65 countries, China had come in first – thirty spots ahead of the U.S. in math. Kristof praised the Chinese model and ended with a warning: “These latest test results should be our 21st-century Sputnik.”

This wasn’t the first time Kristof had celebrated Chinese schools, but I remember it clearly, because at the time I was enrolled in one. I had come to China to bolster my Mandarin, but I was also excited to experience a Chinese education for myself. My imagination had been stoked by Kristof’s descriptions, and I was eager to see how real Chinese schools stacked up. I would live ten months with a Chinese host family and attend classes at a high-ranked local school. I wondered: Would the real thing impress me as much as the reports?



As I took my first glance around my host brother’s room, I was convinced it would. On the ride to his apartment, Edward had mentioned that studying consumed his summers, but it didn’t register until I saw just how much homework he’d done. Piled on his desk were dozens of worksheets, all of which Edward had dutifully completed. When he told me he’d spent hours each day on the problems, I asked if all his classmates were so diligent. Yes, in fact he said he was something of a slacker.

The school impressed me even more. Although I couldn’t fully understand the lectures, I watched as teachers filled blackboards with complicated diagrams and equations. The kids seemed so engaged, the teachers so knowledgeable. It was true what Kristof had written, I thought – if anything, he hadn’t done the Chinese system justice.

Then one day Edward approached me with a question. His homework was to analyze a family tree for information about a genetic disease, but he wasn’t sure where to start. My parents taught biology, could I help? As I explained the logic behind the problem, he nodded along, but when I finished, he asked: “So, in this type of problem, the first step is to consider second-generation women?”

“No,” I said. Had he been paying attention? “You can’t make that generalization. This time, that seemed promising — another problem might be different.”

He frowned. This wasn’t concrete enough, he told me.

He pulled out his biology workbook and flipped to the chapter on genetic disease. I expected to see pages of explanation. Instead, there was a brief conceptual overview – and a list.

The authors had broken the subject down into different “problem types” students might encounter on an exam, and provided step-by-step procedures for solving each one. The book had done the hard work, converting problem-solving into mindless instruction-following: identify the problem type, apply the algorithm. It was the Rachael Ray of biology exams: these beginner’s recipes left no room for improvisation.

The advantage was, you could learn to solve problems even if you weren’t that smart. But it was so much work! Instead of studying a concept and applying it widely, you had to memorize hundreds of algorithms. I couldn’t believe the curriculum was so inefficient – was this textbook just an anomaly?

The next day, I requested our other textbooks. The biology manual was not unique.

The purpose of Chinese high school is to prepare for the gaokao, an all-important test offered only once per year. Your score determines where – or if – you go to college — nothing else is considered. Test scores also determine teacher salaries. Calling it a high-stakes test would be an understatement; it is the high-stakes test, the only thing that matters, to students, parents, and educators.

At first, I was okay with this. Like school reform advocates in the U.S., I believed that it was fine to “teach to” a well-written test – and because the gaokao was so important, it was very well-written. Any teacher who “taught to” the gaokao, I imagined, could only teach concepts, not rote memorization. The questions were too difficult and unpredictable for that to answer them, you needed to understand ideas. There was no way around it.

Except, there was. Analyzing thousands of questions from past exams, teachers in all disciplines have inventoried every type of question that might be asked, and provided precise formulas for each one.

This was the only way, I realized, that teachers could ensure success for their students. In America, students are taught only broader concepts, applicable to many problems. This allows for a lighter workload, but applying the concepts to new situations is difficult. Really understanding complicated mathematical functions requires a certain intuition that not every student will necessarily develop. China’s recipe books provide an appealing solution: parents know their children can always improve if they study longer, students know college is within reach if they memorize the algorithms, and teachers know their jobs are safe if every student passes the exam. The classes were only incidentally about the subjects they purported to teach. They were really about taking tests.

In a 2007 column Kristof offered explanations for China’s success in the hope that America might “take a page from the Chinese book.”

“First,” he wrote, “Chinese students are hungry for education and advancement and work harder.” But wasn’t this because of the gaokao? On weekends, Edward and I watched American movies on his laptop and afterward we’d often have longer conversations. We discussed his gaokao-related anxieties, and how art was the only class he liked. “I’d like to take private drawing lessons, but I have to study for the exam,” he’d tell me wearily. Otherwise, he’d go to a lower-ranked college, and inevitably get a lower-paying job. An only child, he had to support his family and a lower-paying job was not an option. Was this a hunger for education and advancement? It seemed more like resignation to me.

“The second reason,” Kristof wrote, “is that China has an enormous cultural respect for education, part of its Confucian legacy, so governments and families alike pour resources into education.” Part of its Confucian legacy – but which part? For fourteen hundred years, Chinese education has hinged on an exam. The imperial civil service exam, instated in 605 A.D., persisted in some form until the twentieth century. On it, candidates for government jobs had to recite passages from the Confucian classics, and answer questions about the emperor’s commentaries. Candidates spent years memorizing the texts, hoping they’d be rewarded with a lifelong sinecure and financial security. This Confucian “passion for learning” was always rooted in a desire for the lucrative jobs that high scores guaranteed.

“A third reason,” Kristof suggested, “is that Chinese believe that those who get the best grades are the hardest workers. In contrast, Americans say in polls that the best students are the ones who are innately the smartest. The upshot is that Chinese kids never have an excuse for mediocrity.” I noticed this too, but I think it was more than a difference of opinion: it was a difference of fact. At my American school, students with excellent grades often earned them easily, spending little time on their homework. Engaged and interested, they mastered new material quickly. Rote memorization, however, is a grand equalizer: no matter how smart you are, memorizing takes time. When the focus shifts from concepts to procedures, bright students no longer get a pass: just because you understand doesn’t mean you can skimp on homework. Students with good grades in China really did study the longest; that just wasn’t true back home.

There is no doubt that the American education system has problems, problems that China appears to have solved. Students respect their teachers, attend their classes, and work hard. Teachers put in long hours and are masters of their material. Parents push their students to succeed. And test scores are high.

But we cannot take those successes and implement them here. A cafeteria approach to Chinese culture – “I’ll take the work ethic, but not the stress-producing, creativity-killing exam, please” – doesn’t work; the baby is inseparable from the bathwater. Kristof often measures his praise with criticism of the Chinese model, acknowledging that it causes stress or stifles creativity. But these criticisms are more than disclaimers, they are inextricably linked to the model’s successes. The same gaokao that puts heavy stress on students also makes them willing to do homework over the summer and the emphasis on mindless rote memorization is precisely why students score highly.

The question we need to ask is not “How have the Chinese produced such hardworking students?” but rather “Is it possible to instill such a work ethic without a high-stakes exam to scare students into submission?” Instead of “How have the Chinese achieved such measurable success?” we must ask, “Is it possible to succeed without revolving around tests?”

China’s solutions won’t work – what we need are answers of our own.

Alex Lew is a sophomore at Yale University from Durham, N.C. In 2010, he took a gap year between high school and college to participate in a study abroad program run by the State Department called the National Security Language Initiative for Youth.

