Kha Doan
Essay 2
English 102-95E
Chris Rabe
11/22/2013
The Educational System Produces Pressure
The education system in Vietnam although develop, still has many defects
significant impact on educational effectiveness and training. The education system
here is part led to many people who go to developing countries which more freedom
to find appropriate ways to get education. According to "From Degrading to Degrading," Alfie Kohn discusses the main effects of grading and why students do not
need grades. John Taylor Gatto writes in his article "Against school" about how
teacher can educate students by making students think, make decisions, and
manage themselves rather than confine students in schools with boring lessons. And
in the article "Blue-Collar Brilliance," Mike Rose confirms that people who have a
higher education do not mean they are intelligent and vice versa. These authors
explain the same problem related to the education system in Viet Nam, which
creates pressure to students because it is too much work and students do not have
time to relax or be creative.
Students experience pressure and tiredness in the timetable of learning. In
Vietnam, a six-days school week with thirteen subjects and school day will begin at
7 am and end at 5pm without mention for the extra time students used to learn
more. Because Vietnam is a tropical country in Asia and there is no snow, no
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holidays like Christmas, Easter, or Thanksgiving, etc. and of course, there will be no
winter break as the western countries. We have nine months for a class that
separate into two semesters. Each year, we have about five days off for some
holidays or events. Fortunately, students have about two weeks off for the Lunar
New Year which is the biggest holidays in Vietnam. In elementary and middle
school, students may have three months for summer vacation. But from high school
to university, students only have about one month or less to spend for summer
vacation. Gatto is right when he said that, “They said they wanted to be doing some
thing real, not just sitting around” (p.300). Because students in Vietnam rarely have
the opportunity to visit the monument or museum when they were in school, that is
why history’s lessons will become so boring and hard to remember all of the history
events from the books. Gatto strictly speaking the truth about the school as a
student's jail, "plenty of people throughout the world today find a way to educate
themselves without resorting to a system of compulsory secondary schools that all
too often resemble prisons" (p.302). There are many causes of mental pressure on
students as no technologies inside the school, less time to entertain and contact with
real life outside schooling. Gradually, life skills outside of reality will be reduced and
students will feel scared and timid when communicating with people around. There
are many cases of students in Vietnam committing suicide when faced with too
much pressure in school.
Teachers ask students based on skill more than creativity. Students in
Vietnam must remember all of information they learn in class that will be in the
tests. For example, students even must remember when and where the author was
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born and died in each article that they learn. Teacher can call students name at any
time in class to ask students some question in the outline, if students do not
remember the answer that means they will get a zero and receive criticism on their
report card. Pressure occurs when students are forced to memorize everything. In
Vietnam, plagiarism is not a big deal and people do not need to be serious about
that. Usually, before each exam, the teacher will give the outline and the students
need to memorize it all and just write down all the information they have learned
for the test. Even there are some teachers who will deduct points if students are
missing text or a sentence in the outline. Students do not need to cite the sources of
information they use or teachers do not even mention that problem. Normally,
students will forget all the information they have learned after the test and will
replaced by other information for the next exam. Rose says, "Intelligence is closely
associated with formal education—the type of schooling a person has, how much
and how long—and most people seem to move comfortably from that notion to a
belief that work requiring less schooling requires less intelligence" (p.310). People
often think that only those who are get higher education will being intelligent, but in
the reality like some of students in Vietnam who just try to remember the lessons
and write it out in their testing not really so. The educational system in Vietnam
asked students focus more on memorization than creativity, or thinking themselves.
Therefore, this deficiency leads to students not getting the actual effectiveness of the
program, but also decreases the ability to think and analyze their problems.
Students are often feel pressured and tired to learning, even there are many
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students skip class because they cannot remember all of information in the lesson
that teachers asked them to remember.
Grades are the greatest pressure on students to be the best. In Vietnam, just
depending on grades will tell teachers that student good, bad, wise, or lazy. At the
end of each semester, students will receive a report card that shows grades they
received (the number not the letter because grades in Vietnam counts from 0 to 10.
From grades 8 to 10 means a student did a good job, from 6 to 7 means pretty, 5
means average, and lower is bad. The GPA will count the same) of each test they did
in class with the teacher's comments. Besides that, parents must sign to prove they
had seen the grades of their child get to know how students work at school. Many
schools will announce grades and classification of students on the school notice
board. Therefore, having good grades require students to enlist more ways even
some of students cheat in the test. Although students know that grades do not show
people’s ability and only evaluate a certain direction, they want to get higher grades
than others to prove themselves. Kohn states, “the more students are led to focus on
getting good grades, the more likely they are to cheat” (p.288). Therefore, student’s
interest becomes more focused on the grades than in learning and that may lead
students tend to cheat. Students know that cheating is not good, but to have good
grades they must cheat although they understand the lesson or not. So, to achieve
good grades students face pressure not only with parents but also with all of their
classmates.
Vietnam is a small country with very high rates of population, so students
here have a lot of pressure to be the best. Companies often consider the grades and
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the teacher's assessment that students receive in school in a person’s profile to
decide whether or not choose that person for that job. Besides that, people’s ability
that apply knowledge and solving problem as well as some of the key factors that
companies choose their employees. Rose states, "Generalizations about intelligence,
work, and social class deeply affect our assumptions about ourselves and each other,
guiding the ways we use our minds to learn, build knowledge, solve problems, and
make our way through the world" (p.311). Therefore, if students taking too much
time to memorize all of the lessons in the same pattern for all of the test that use
little mind to think and invent new problems or methods, so when collision with the
real problems in society, students will have many difficult and embarrassing.
School is like a small society where people can prove themselves and
compete with each other to become the best like in the real world. Therefore, we can
say that old methods of education such as sitting for long periods at school as a
prisoner, just memorizing information in books, and grades are not really necessary
for students. In society, people evaluated their work through achievements that they
did, and the efforts of themselves. No one will give grades to evaluate how people
effort. That is why the education system needs solutions to replace or renovate
structures in grading and ranking students in school. For example, we must change
the way our parents think that, “grades are the only window they have into the
school”(p.293) Kohn says. If a person is not really good, society will quickly
eliminate them out, unlike in the school students may be cheating to achieve high
results. Therefore, the educational system in Vietnam need to find out some
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methods of modern education in the new developed countries like the U.S. where
there are many students from around the world flocking to study and work there.
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