Education: Learning from each other

TedM (UK)

Students in China are raised to study for long hours, with great expectations and demands. Yet they have little social life and there is no encouragement for an enjoyment of lifelong learning. In the West students are taught to enjoy learning, questioning and using initiative with active learning and problem solving. They have a broad and balanced education to include social learning, but the downside is difficulties with behavior, most evident in the teenage years. The best of both systems is perhaps what is needed.

Li Aiyun, the mathematics teacher in the program, gives a lesson to his British students. [A screenshot from the BBC documentary series]