I remember watching a movie next to my parents called, “I Not Stupid,” a Singaporean movie based on their educational system. Although the movie included aspects such as poverty, education, and social class, their method of discipline is what stands out and remains in my memory until today. Children were beaten because they could not achieve their parents’ expectations (i.e. high grades). They were separated into classes based on their intelligence. Also, other parents would encourage their children not to speak to those who were in a “more stupid” class. There was almost no way out of this system. All resources were allocated to students who the government believed would be able to excel in the future. Whenever these children were standing up for themselves, others saw it as defying authority, which resulted in more punishment. As I sat through this movie, I could not help but cry every time a mother pulled out her stick and repeatedly lashed her child’s hand because he did not obey her. I winced every time the stick came down, almost as if I was experiencing the same pain. Whip! Whip! The sound of the stick replayed in my head. I felt bad for the children behind the screen because they were punished for not accomplishing what society wanted them to accomplish.
From time to time, my parents would remind me that I am lucky for being able to grow up in America, where there are laws against child abuse. They would say, “If you were in China, you would be beaten by now. Not only would your parents be beating you, your teachers would also be beating you.” They wore frowns as they told me this, a clue that they were probably speaking from personal experience.
Discipline has taken so many forms throughout various cultures. In U.S., children are encouraged when they do poorly in an academic subject and rewarded when they excel in a topic. Generally, there are no consequences when people question the authority. In China and Singapore, children are beaten for not being able to understand a certain topic. They are also beaten for not obeying the authority. (In this movie, the authority would be the teachers and parents.) This makes me wonder, if success is the ultimate goal, does their form of discipline hinder or assist a child from achieving this goal?
A synopsis of the movie can be found here:
I’ve also heard a bit about this education discipline system in China and some other Asian countries too and it is so sad that these poor kids are punished for something they aren’t able to control. In their methods of filtering out the smartest kids, they are so inhumane by discriminating those who are not as fortunate to be as “intelligent.” I agree that we are so fortunate to live in a society where every student is valued despite the different levels of intelligence.
As someone who had attended school in China until second grade, I can firmly say that yes, students who misbehave were beaten and that if they receive low grade they would be beaten by their parents. If I didn’t get 90s and above, my parents would smack me with a long bamboo stick that acts like a whip. If I don’t do as I was told, I would be hit as well.
When I was in Preschool, I remembered a time when I went fishing in a river near my home during the Summer. It was one of those activities that I did out of curiosity and fun. But then some classmates walked by and saw me fishing; that had me worried because it was against school rules to play near rivers, especially not fishing. I hoped that they wouldn’t report it to the teacher because I knew them and they knew me, but they did it anyway like responsible students would do. I was whipped multiple times in front of the class by my teacher as a result. The school system is very strict, nothing like how lenient the U.S. school system is.
It is extremely difficult to answer your question because different people have different goals. But if you asked about if the discipline system assist or hinder how well a child can learn, in my opinion, I think it does help push students to learn. And I think students really does learn a lot from how they were taught and how much was taught. When I immigrated to the United States, I just finished second grade in China. But I had to be put into 4th grade here in the U.S. because of my age. Even then, I knew more math than students here in 4th grade (since I wasn’t taught English before I immigrated, it was the only subject I could compare to – I could, however, say that the Chinese language class taught in high school here was easier than what was taught in Preschool back in China). The progress taught in schools in China is on a different level than here. However, on the positive side, I think the U.S. school system helps students to express themselves more, and that encourages individuality.