General Chat

I did read that the staff were shocked at the behaviour of their normally mostly well behaved pupils.

I wonder if the Chinese teachers exxpected too much, their style of teaching seemed very rigid and the pupils couldn't relate to it. After all these are older children who have gone through our system which is a bit more relaxed. I did see one part where the children had to greet the teacher first thing and 'bow' to him. Now Chinese children learn this at 5/6 years old. Our children have never been taught to bow to anyone so must have found that weird to have to do. I am not defending bad behaviour, I am questioning whether even adults would have liked the rigid form of tuition. The maths appeared to beyond their comprehension. And the male teacher did say that the attitudes changed when they introduced some old Chinese puzzles for the children to work on.

Maybe we were "Communist Parents" (tongue in cheek) as I overheard one of my boys talking to a friend when he was much younger saying he dare'nt be naughty at school as he was scared of what his mum & dad would say, I thought, you carry on thinking that & you will be ok. Never have told him I overheard & no, they were'nt perfect kids.

That's an interesting perspective Hilary.

Perhaps it's cultural differences? The ancient Respect for/Worship of Elders and the fear of (Communist) authority?

My son is a sports teacher in China, started as an English teacher first. Has been out there for 12 years now. I sometimes ask him about teaching here & he always says he would never teach here as over there the children have respect for all teachers. Respect starts at home long before our children start school.

I think Educating Cardiff is coming soon, another fly on the wall programme in a school. I know when I worked in a middle school some years ago there were well behaved chiIdren but several disruptive ones too.

I am sure many of the children in the 'chinese' programme played up to the cameras but even so, the attitudes like the girl saying she found singing the national anthem boring and unnecessary etc would have embarrassed me had she been mine.

Lizx

I think the programme would have been far more interesting had they put the Chinese teachers in a school where the majority of the children are English as a second language. Perhaps one of the outer London boroughs or one of our other big cities.

I think the programme would have been far more interesting had they put the Chinese teachers in a school where the majority of the children are English as a second language. Perhaps one of the outer London boroughs or one of our other big cities.

Thank you Karen. :-D

Wise words Kitty :-)

The school in question is named in this link......the headmaster isn't happy. Their Ofsted report was excellent.

http://www.independent.co.uk/student/istudents/are-our-kids-tough-enough-chinese-school-why-britains-education-system-should-embrace-chinas-teaching-methods-10450398.html

None of this would be tolerated in any of the schools in my area either.

I only saw the trailers for the programme but have read plenty about it and I wonder if any of it was "staged". If not, the producers must have hunted for the worst school in the country.

A number of my family, including my daughter, teach in the state school system and none of them encounter, or would tolerate, such ill discipline.

The majority of school age children are wonderful, as are their parents. A small minority aren't.....exactly as my time at school was between 1959 to 1970.

There was a certain quality that most teachers had then and have now......they can walk into a room and the children automatically respond well to them.

The occasional teacher will walk in and be ignored by a few who then go on to cause a ripple effect disruption.

Boredom or frustration within the disruptive ones is usually the root cause of any issues.

The minute a teacher who the children respond well to walks in, calm ensues and the disruptive ones are suddenly back on track.

Please don't assume the worst in children and staff at schools today.......as with the adult population, there is a mix of good and bad. ....as there always has been and probably always will be :-)

Call me old-fashioned, call me a grumpy old woman, but I was truly gobsmacked at the appalling behaviour of those monster-like children....have to admit I couldn't bear to watch the whole programme, I was cringing with embarrassment.
What on earth has happened that this behaviour is acceptable in schools? :-S :-S

I hope my niece doesn't see that program, she's in her final year of a teaching degree :-(

Those kids sound like monsters........... and so do their parents!

Sadly, it seems so, I would hate to be a teacher in this day and age. Teachers don't even have the backing of many parents, who seem to encouragd their kids to be rebellious and disrespectful.

Lizxx

It sounds appalling behaviour and much what I"m imagining goes on in comprehensives nowadays?

Would be great if the students actually did better than the non Chinese taught, despite their dreadful attitudes.

Lizx

I watched that too....
I feel sorry for teachers these days.respect and discipline have gone out of the window.
Parents as well were accepting the bad behaviour and I didn't think when they were listening to the poor Chinese teachers that they were really concentrating and treating it as a joke.
Will see what happens next.

I have been watching the programme on bbc2 about Chinese teachers at an English School. The attitudes and behaviour of the teenagers taking part is appalling. If I was a parent of any of those rude, disrespectful, ignorant kids I would feel so embarrassed yet the parents seem to make excuses for them, even one who took a kettle in to class and made tea while the Chinese teachers were trying to teach them. Just shows why so many kids underachieve. Those who do want do learn are distracted by the others,with girls doing their makeup in full view of teachers, talking during lessons, and generally ignoring the teachers.

Very sad to see and embarrassing for our country. It will be interesting to see the result of the experiment.

Lizx