Web Exclusive

'Chinese Math'

By Aminta Arrington (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2011-04-08 10:02

[You are welcome to share your China stories with China Daily website readers. We will publish two or three articles every week from April 8, 2011, and the authors will be paid 200 yuan ($30).Detail]

I always, when discussing the Chinese educational system with my university students at Taishan Medical University (Shandong), pointed out that the Chinese were much better at math than us Americans. Partly this was common knowledge, and partly I wanted to compliment their system in some way, because for the most part, I found a lot to criticize, particularly the over-reliance on memorization and the under-stimulation of creativity.

The Chinese focused all their efforts on the gaokao, The College Entrance Exam, the test they took when they finished high school that would determine university placement, and their entire future. But I always tried to complement the Chinese on their math skills.

My daughter Katherine began doing math already in her four-year-old class at the kindergarten attached to Taishan Medical University, and it became more formal when she moved into the five-year-old class (xueqianban). That spring, for several weeks, she had a certain kind of math homework: story problems. She didn’t have to solve story problems; she had to write story problems.

I was very amazed to see math taught in such a creative way. Then, in first grade at our local primary school, when I watch her do her math homework, I was always surprised by the many varied problems she did that made her think about addition and subtraction in so many different ways. (And sometimes, she had problems that were downright algebra. Algebra!)

In my office hours a student once told me that in high school she always liked to write stories, but her teachers discouraged her, telling her writing stories had no use on the gaokao. So she stopped writing stories. I began to rail against this system, with its singular focus on cramming information into students’ brains so that they could answer multiple-choice questions, which snuffed out their natural creativity.

"But we do have a chance to use our creativity," countered a student named Edie, "we have a chance to use creativity with our math."

I looked at her and nodded, remembering Katherine’s experience with the story problems. But I really couldn't comprehend what she meant by "creativity with our math." Creativity with math? Wasn't that a contradiction?

I had lunch with two students later that week and the topic came up again. They told me that in all of their subjects--language, history, politics, and science--they were subjected to the "Memorize and Regurgitate" method. Except math.

Math was the one subject they didn't have to memorize anything.

"But what about addition facts?" I asked them, thinking about the flash cards I kept next to Katherine's bed.

"No, we never memorized those."

"But what about multiplication tables, didn't you have to at least memorize those?" I asked.

"Never," they replied, "In fact, our teachers said this wasn’t a good method, and that we should not memorize in math. Math is the one subject where we really can practice critical thinking."

I was shocked because my students memorized everything. Every semester before oral exams I had to tell them, "Do Not Memorize!" because I wanted them to speak freely and naturally with me, instead of spit out a memorized speech.

But the one area which I thought called for rote learning, the Chinese thought the opposite. The paradox was that I finally found creativity in China, in a place my closed American mind told me had no potential for it.

I thought back to my own lackluster math career, which careened to a close during Calculus my freshman year in college, a required course. I memorized the formulas with the sole intent of passing the final exam, then once I had received my C+, forgot all I "learned" (memorized) and never looked back.

Then I recalled those weeks Katherine and I sat together while she dictated story problems to me in Chinese:

In mother’s pocket is 10 yuan.

In father’s pocket is 4 yuan.

Mother has how much more money than father? 6 yuan.

10-4=6

Afterwards she would read it over, then smile in satisfaction. Of course she would. It was her own creation.

Aminta Arrington lives in Beijing with her husband and three children (who all still attend local schools) where she teaches at Renmin University of China. The Arringtons lived in Shandong Province for four years, where she taught at Taishan Medical University.

[You are welcome to share your China stories with China Daily website readers. We will publish two or three articles every week from April 8, 2011, and the authors will be paid 200 yuan ($30).Detail]