Me, as An Schooled Person

I grew up in a small city in southern China. Static, provincial, and impoverished, my hometown lags behind most of major cities in economic developments and has little to offer in terms of cultural enrichment and educational resources. I spent the first eighteen years of my life without ever making a trip to a public library or going to a concert, simply because those resources were not available. The schooling I had was neither the best one could imagine. The teacher/student ratio in my class (K-12) fluctuated around 1:50 with a very small standard deviation. Lessons followed rigid national standards, and high-stake standardized tests dominated both teachers' teaching practices and students' learning processes. As you can imagine, curiosity was stifled and creativity was never encouraged. I learned early on in my schooling that be the one who stands out could only get me into trouble and going off-script would be punished with low test scores. 

I remembered taking my first history test at the mid-point of my first semester in 7th grade. I got a 87 out of 100 on the test, which did not look so nice compared to all the As I got on other subjects. What dragged my score down was a zero I got for a short answer question that worth eight points. I recorded that the questions asked me weather the wars fought during the period of Warring States (475 - 211 b.c.) were just ones and why. I argued for both sides in my answer: I thought they were just because of reason 1, 2, and 3; meanwhile, one could argue that they were unjust because of reason A, B, and C. The reasons I provided made sense, but I did not get any credit for it. The teacher later explained to me: "No! That is not how you answer this type of questions. You should first pick a side and argue only for that side." She threw me a sheet with the "correct answers" on it provided by the test maker and asked me to memorize it. I complied. When a similar question came up on the next test, I followed her direction and got a perfect score for the it. That experience did not sit well with me. While I was too young to know that there was an honorable term for the kind of intellectual activity I was engaging--critical thinking, I did not appreciate my teacher's tyranny that took away my freedom to think for myself. 

Since then, I functioned on a dual identity. I conformed by memorizing all the correct answers for the tests and maintained my status as an A-student. Meanwhile, I rebelled, trying to read outside of classroom and think for myself, even though those thoughts were never taken serious by schools. My experience has shaped me as a fervent follower of progressive pedagogy and hater for high-stake standardized testing. Before I had come to the United States, I dreamed of this land of the free as an education paradise where educational practices (unattainable for me) that foster critical thinking, creativity and democratic citizenship were not only endorsed by the teachers and schools but also by the society as a whole. Now a senior at a liberal art college in the United States and having studied education in the academic setting for over two years, I found the reality on this side of the earth much more complicated than I thought. The American education system, according to my observation, is undergoing a overhauling reform period. Policy makers, teacher unionists, and public intellectuals are at each other's throat, for the ownership of the panacea for a presumably broken education system. This mess with current American education reform has greatly confounded me. At the same time, the intricacy and complication with regard to the topic excites me as someone who enjoys intellectual debates and learning about social innovations. 

Through the two education classes I am taking this semester, I hope to take a systematic look at issues relating to school systems (primarily in the U.S.), education reform efforts, and  their social and political backdrops and implications. I also intend to take the opportunity to enhance my analytic writing skills and find ways to integrate what I learned in classes into my pursuit for a career in the field of education. 

Why Am I Doing This?

I'm an introvert and a perfectionist.

I have to make this clear in the first place, so you may be able to understand what does maintaining a public blog mean to me. It means sweat, anxiety and endless revisions behind each post. Although I have been keeping a diary since 5^th grade and relied heavily on writing to organize my thoughts and my life; for a person as introverted as me, writing for oneself is vastly different from writing for an unknown audience. Therefore, this blog foreseeably would be a challenging and time-consuming project. But why am I doing this? The short answer is that this is a required assignment for one of the education classes I am taking this semester. In fact, I have wanted to set up a personal blog/site for a long time. I enjoy reading, writing, and engaging in intellectually challenging conversations and debates. I have things to say about the world around me that might be worthwhile sharing. Although I am a very humble person (in other words, not very confident) when it comes to my writing and intellectual abilities, I want to take advantage of this opportunity to start something that might evolve into a challenging but rewarding project. So here I am.