One year ago on Round and Square (21 May 2011)—End of the World
Click here to access Round and Square's "Primary Sources" Resource Center
Introduction (a)—Education and Enculturation Introduction (b)—Traditional Education
Introduction (c)—Contemporary Education Introduction (d)—Hong Kong and Taiwan
Over the course of the next year or so, Round and Square will post the entire "language arts" curriculum from the Republic of China textbooks in the mid-1980s—both semesters of all six grades. It is an entire education in the primary sources of primary education. In all, there will be 276 texts that bring little students from understanding the spoken world all around them to being able to read it. It's back to (old) school (1985)...and back to the future on Round and Square.
Why would we do that?
Why would we go back to school—and elementary school, at that?
This is not easy in any language.
I cannot overemphasize that little point. Language learning is difficult, and the educational powers of the socio-political world spend inordinate amounts of time trying to find ways to make the process work for the interests of children, as well as society and the state. This has been particularly successful on the island of Taiwan in the last sixty years or so, with the literacy rate hitting 98.04% in 2010. That ain't shabby, and very few educational systems in the world can even imagine achieving such a rate.
This series will take readers through all six years of primary education in the Republic of China on Taiwan—in 1985 (more on that later). Before we proceed, though, let me be absolutely clear on one point. Pause. Is everyone with political interests in East Asia listening? O.k.?
This series is NOT about politics. It is not about the "Taiwan question."
I happened to live in Taiwan from 1985-1987. I became fascinated by that little slip of island culture at a fascinating time in its history. I took notes. I visited schools. I paid attention. The most important thing that happened to me was that I decided to read all of the way through high school—starting with first grade. I got an entire education from the ground up, and this wasn't Dick and Jane.
This series of posts is about anthropology (history, language, and culture), and not partisan politics. I do not have an axe to grind, other than to take seriously the way people "learn their cultures." My grounded experience just happens to have been in Taiwan, and the texts I studied were printed in 1985. There is more than enough to consider right there.
Politics? Nope.
I have embedded a little hint of difference in the last sentence. I have rendered the Taiwan title in traditional character forms (繁體字; fantizi) and the People's Republic terms in simplified forms (简体字; jiantizi). This is one of the biggest challenges facing the non-native speaker trying to learn Chinese in the rest of the world, not to mention the bane of existence for overseas Chinese families trying to keep a toehold in Chinese language and culture. In the Republic of China on Taiwan, the traditional forms are de rigueur. Period. There is a language point behind this, a further—and deeper—cultural and historical point, and (as if to mess up my plans from the start) a political one, as well. All three are wrapped together in a complex tangle of pedagogical stance and emotion, and it is often difficult to sort them out.
The key point for the student of history and culture who wishes to understand these texts and their formative role in the enculturation (and acculturation) process is that s/he needs to read traditional characters. Period. If you don't, you are barred from the strange and fascinating literary world of these texts. Such a situation provides us with a useful opportunity, though. Let's just say that you are a student of Chinese (assume that you just finished a second- or third-year American college curriculum). Let's assume that you have spent most of your time learning simplified forms, so that you recognize only 国语 when everyone who lived before 1955 (and almost everyone living in Hong Kong and Taiwan today) writes 國語. Well, this is your chance not only to learn about the education and enculturation process in a fascinating time and place in Chinese history, but to master the traditional forms, as well.
What an opportunity awaits.
But what if you are a faithful reader of Round and Square...in English? What if you don't read Chinese and don't particularly want to learn?
Stick with it. Please. The purpose of this series of posts is to investigate, as deeply as possible, the relationship between history, language, and culture. In short, this is all about the anthropology (and history) of education. Although the Chinese text and phrases will likely intimidate a reader or two, this series of posts is designed for people interested in the way that primary education shapes our lives. I think that should be everyone, of course, but it is particularly aimed toward people with children, people who teach children, or people who ever have been children. Got it?
So why is it so messy?...I hear you cry. Why does there have to be so much Chinese? Well, if the purpose is to show how language, history, and culture really come together, the language is necessary. And rest assured—the reader of English who is unacquainted with Chinese can get a great deal out of these posts. My goal is to provide all of us with a series of tools that will lead to ever-more-skillful analysis of primary education everywhere.
Click here to access Round and Square's "Primary Sources" Resource Center
Introduction (c)—Contemporary Education Introduction (d)—Hong Kong and Taiwan
Introduction (e)—Butterflies Introduction (f)—K-12, c.1985
Introduction (g)—Impassioned Communities Introduction (h)—History, Language, and Culture, c.1985
Introduction (g)—Impassioned Communities Introduction (h)—History, Language, and Culture, c.1985
Over the course of the next year or so, Round and Square will post the entire "language arts" curriculum from the Republic of China textbooks in the mid-1980s—both semesters of all six grades. It is an entire education in the primary sources of primary education. In all, there will be 276 texts that bring little students from understanding the spoken world all around them to being able to read it. It's back to (old) school (1985)...and back to the future on Round and Square.
Why would we do that?
Why would we go back to school—and elementary school, at that?
[1]
It's all about education and enculturation, you see. Take a good look at that last word. In this case, it conveys ideas about the manner in which a child "learns her culture." This happens in all sorts of ways throughout a person's life, and we never stop learning "our culture," since it is always changing. We can also probably all agree that the process is supercharged in the first dozen of the wonder years. And, although a lot of big stuff happens in primary school—from math and science to physical education—there is nothing like learning to read our mother tongue when it comes to intensity. |
| [a] Old school RF |
I cannot overemphasize that little point. Language learning is difficult, and the educational powers of the socio-political world spend inordinate amounts of time trying to find ways to make the process work for the interests of children, as well as society and the state. This has been particularly successful on the island of Taiwan in the last sixty years or so, with the literacy rate hitting 98.04% in 2010. That ain't shabby, and very few educational systems in the world can even imagine achieving such a rate.
This series will take readers through all six years of primary education in the Republic of China on Taiwan—in 1985 (more on that later). Before we proceed, though, let me be absolutely clear on one point. Pause. Is everyone with political interests in East Asia listening? O.k.?
This series is NOT about politics. It is not about the "Taiwan question."
I happened to live in Taiwan from 1985-1987. I became fascinated by that little slip of island culture at a fascinating time in its history. I took notes. I visited schools. I paid attention. The most important thing that happened to me was that I decided to read all of the way through high school—starting with first grade. I got an entire education from the ground up, and this wasn't Dick and Jane.
This series of posts is about anthropology (history, language, and culture), and not partisan politics. I do not have an axe to grind, other than to take seriously the way people "learn their cultures." My grounded experience just happens to have been in Taiwan, and the texts I studied were printed in 1985. There is more than enough to consider right there.
 |
| [b] Text RF |
[2]
Now that we're clear on that, let's look at the materials. The language arts books, as we sometimes call them in the United States, bear the title characters: 國語, guoyu ; "national language." It is a phrase that is used in everyday speech in Taiwan, but it is much less common (and sounds exceedingly anachronistic, at best) in the People's Republic, where the term 普通话 putonghua; "everyday speech" is far more common, and the language arts books have the title 语言 yuyan.I have embedded a little hint of difference in the last sentence. I have rendered the Taiwan title in traditional character forms (繁體字; fantizi) and the People's Republic terms in simplified forms (简体字; jiantizi). This is one of the biggest challenges facing the non-native speaker trying to learn Chinese in the rest of the world, not to mention the bane of existence for overseas Chinese families trying to keep a toehold in Chinese language and culture. In the Republic of China on Taiwan, the traditional forms are de rigueur. Period. There is a language point behind this, a further—and deeper—cultural and historical point, and (as if to mess up my plans from the start) a political one, as well. All three are wrapped together in a complex tangle of pedagogical stance and emotion, and it is often difficult to sort them out.
 |
| [c] Bookstore RF |
What an opportunity awaits.
But what if you are a faithful reader of Round and Square...in English? What if you don't read Chinese and don't particularly want to learn?
Stick with it. Please. The purpose of this series of posts is to investigate, as deeply as possible, the relationship between history, language, and culture. In short, this is all about the anthropology (and history) of education. Although the Chinese text and phrases will likely intimidate a reader or two, this series of posts is designed for people interested in the way that primary education shapes our lives. I think that should be everyone, of course, but it is particularly aimed toward people with children, people who teach children, or people who ever have been children. Got it?
 |
| [d] Studious family RF |
[3]
It has long been understood that educational systems play a dual role in building upon family identity and helping to create a wider public identity that will serve the student, family, and society in the future. When a child begins first grade—in China and every other developed country in the world—she does so with a foundation of five or six years of spoken language, knowledge of etiquette and behavioral expectations, and a storehouse of general information about the world around her. In short, she does not begin learning in first grade (or kindergarten, or even preschool, for that matter). This is the point that makes it all make sense. It is also why reading the primary texts in this series is different from studying a college textbook offering instruction in Mandarin.
A child starting first grade is taught to integrate what she already knows with a system of knowledge created to extend far beyond her immediate needs. When studying the first lessons of these "language arts" readers, the young student learns a pronunciation system that forms the foundation for all further study. In Taiwan, it is called 注音符號; zhuyin fuhao, and is an elegant way of placing the pronunciation next to each Chinese character. In the People's Republic, 拼音; pinyin Romanization is used—the same system used to render 北京 as "Beijing." The phrases below each contain the Mandarin pronunciation for the characters.
Zhuyin fuhao—Taiwan Pinyin—People's Republic of China
This is precisely where the foreign student begins her study of Chinese—with the sounds and structures of the language. So far...so much the same, right? Wrong. The first grade textbooks you are about to read—unlike a college textbook used in Russia, Germany, France, or Canada (or the U.S.)—is filled with words that most college students or business speakers do not learn until much later in their educations. These words might sound familiar to anyone who has been to elementary school, anywhere—"butterfly," "planting," "ostrich," "riddle," "carp," "tunnel," "mosquito," and "leopard," not to mention several more prevalent in Chinese culture than in the West ("lotus," "chopstick," and "shrine").
And here is the key point—the elementary school textbooks take a half-decade of lived experience—usually in a family setting—and begin to teach the student to read it, write it, and think about it in new ways. Think about that. No, really think about it. If family life is the first step toward enculturation, beginning school is surely the next significant one. That is what we will be studying in the 276 texts that follow, and as we make our way from the first days of school all of the way to graduation from sixth grade.
A journey of three thousand characters (K-6) begins with a single text.
NEXT
Education in Chinese History
We'll continue this introductory series with a look at some of the most important issues in traditional Chinese education, including access to the teachers, books, and examinations.
A child starting first grade is taught to integrate what she already knows with a system of knowledge created to extend far beyond her immediate needs. When studying the first lessons of these "language arts" readers, the young student learns a pronunciation system that forms the foundation for all further study. In Taiwan, it is called 注音符號; zhuyin fuhao, and is an elegant way of placing the pronunciation next to each Chinese character. In the People's Republic, 拼音; pinyin Romanization is used—the same system used to render 北京 as "Beijing." The phrases below each contain the Mandarin pronunciation for the characters.
百川東到海 百 川 東 到 海
băi chuān dōng dào hăiZhuyin fuhao—Taiwan Pinyin—People's Republic of China
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| [e] Vocab RF |
And here is the key point—the elementary school textbooks take a half-decade of lived experience—usually in a family setting—and begin to teach the student to read it, write it, and think about it in new ways. Think about that. No, really think about it. If family life is the first step toward enculturation, beginning school is surely the next significant one. That is what we will be studying in the 276 texts that follow, and as we make our way from the first days of school all of the way to graduation from sixth grade.
A journey of three thousand characters (K-6) begins with a single text.
 |
| [g] Primary RF |
Education in Chinese History
We'll continue this introductory series with a look at some of the most important issues in traditional Chinese education, including access to the teachers, books, and examinations.
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