GHS208-01 Spring 2020 China and the Islamic Middle East

Recently for my class over the history of ancient philosophy I have started writing my final paper, which focuses on stoicism and stoic ethics. As I have been studying materials and writings from people like Seneca and Epictetus on stoicism I have noticed some similarities between stoicism and parts of Confucianism that we have gone over this semester. For example one of the main areas of stoicism is focusing oneself and bettering yourself through means like education. In many of the Confucian dialects we have read this semester I feel like there has been a big focus on education. One quote that stood out to me was, “I was not born with wisdom. I love the ancient teachings and have worked hard to attain to their level.” I think this is very similar the views of a stoic, and is similar to some of Seneca’s letters in which he speaks on education not just being means to an end, but something that should be done for its own sake. Another quote that connected more with this writings of Epictetus was this, “There were four things the master had eliminated from himself: imposing his will, arbitrariness, stubbornness and egotism.” Epictetus speaks a lot on stubbornness and egotism, as he says that we shouldn’t be stubborn and waste out time on things we can’t control, and we shouldn’t take pride in anything besides our own virtue. Although Stoicism and Confucianism have some obvious differences between them, I just thought that these little similarities would be interesting to blog about and this would give me a break from my big final paper.

China’s continuous progression in economics and business development requires an educational system that provides opportunities for children to thrive in the future. But there is a wide range of school quality among urban and rural areas. Often major metropolises offer great quality education, while schools in rural areas are far less developed. Rural schools typically struggle with being understaffed, and the student’s educational opportunities and environment are much different than in the city.

The Chinese education system requires kids to complete five years of primary school and the first three years of middle school. There are three optional years of kindergarten before primary school. The required first three years of middle school is considered junior middle school and the final three years are called senior middle school. Following middle school students often take several years of higher education. Primary school and junior middle school are mostly funded by the government since they are mandatory, but schools may still charge for each semester or add charges for food or extra curricular activities.

Children in China attend school five days a week. The school day typically begins at 7:30 or 8:00 in the morning and ends at 17:00 or is 5:00pm in the evening, but hours may differ depending on the grade and location of the school. The beginning of the school year is in September and ends in late June or July. Chinese school systems not only have longer school days but also go for more months than most schools in the United States. One key difference between public and private schools in China is that private schools tend to use bilingual teachings.

Kindergarten or daycare is considered pre-primary education in China, so they provide various educational classes that are designed for young children to get a head start in preparing for their academic careers. Childcare is considered an essential part of a child’s overall education even though it is not mandatory. All nurseries, kindergartens, and pre-schools require tuition. This cost can vary greatly depending on the school, but many parents in China plan to invest lots of money in their child’s education. Even in kindergarten, the Chinese approach to education is strict and values discipline highly.

Education in primary school allocates 60% of it’s time on “The Big Two”, math and Chinese. The other 40% of the time is filled with classes on music, art, morals and society, and nature. Some schools begin teaching foreign languages towards the end of primary school. Students also have extracurriculars on top of school. The competitiveness of China’s educational system starts early causing parents to often sign kids up for a large variety of extracurricular activities with hopes they will have better prospects in the future. After primary school the students must take exams that test their knowledge of Chinese and math.

Following primary school students go to middle school. Junior middle school is required, so after completing these three years students can choose to attend a regular senior middle school, a vocational school, or a professional school. Many students struggle to afford higher education. Although the cost of junior middle school is typically minimal the cost for later education increases significantly. Financing their next level of education is not all the students have to worry about. Students must take Zhongkao, the senior high school entrance examination. The score they receive determines their options for what institutions to apply to.

Senior middle schools or high schools aim to prepare their students for higher education. These students are under lots of pressure to not only excel in their regular workload but to prepare for the Gaokao, the National Higher Education Entrance Examination. The Gaokao exam is the basis for recruiting students for college and the quality of the high school is often measured by the number of students they send to college, putting even more pressure on the students. The Gaokao exam is 9 hours long and taken over 3 days. The exam tests the students’ knowledge in Chinese, math, a foreign language, and a few other optional subjects. Only 40% of students pass the challenging exam on the first try.


Resource: https://www.internations.org/go/moving-to-china/education

While many, such as myself, have been fretting over the lost of celebrations during the time of March and April I questioned how others have been impacted across the world. Personally, my study abroad, formal, family holiday Easter celebration, and concerts were canceled for the rest of the semester and summer.

I read an article that interviewed a women about her life changes and cancelations due to COVID-19. The virus directly conflicted with Chunyun, the beginning travel period for the Chinese New Year. Typically this is a huge migration of people that could not practice their celebration due to the virus.

As most American’s have been concerned with canceled events, schooling, and work, China and other Eastern countries have taken more extreme measures. The interviewee in China claimed that her and her family. had to apply for residential ID cards. These cards limited the number of people able to live in households. Some households were only allowed to hold three people maximum, causing distress in the country.

As things have settled down in China, the interviewee said life has started to return to normal, but will take time to become the same once again.

I have been blogging a lot recently about the difficulties that Muslim people have been facing in the era of Covid-19 and the holy month of Ramadan. Many Muslims have been conflicted about what to do during these uncertain times and most mosques have closed due to the virus and that makes it increasingly difficult for Muslims to practice their faith during this holy month. Well, a community in our own country is putting together what they feel may be a solution to help keep Muslims safe and allow them to practice their religion as well. This article from WCCO CBS Minnesota tells about the plans that community and city leaders in Minneapolis have to keep those who observe Ramadan safe. “Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey says the city worked with leaders in the Muslim community to have the “call to prayer” broadcast by speaker five times a day in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood”. The Minneapolis community is doing their best to make sure that their Muslim residents can properly observe their holy month as well as obey the social distancing guidelines. I think this is some great initiative on behalf of the Minneapolis community leaders and I feel it should be something that gets done all throughout the country.

Here is my last, and most recent, Journal entry for today April 21st. Take a read,

4/21/20
Today was the last day I got to meet with Fabrice. I told him after we finish and I don’t think I said it right. He started trying to schedule next week with me and that made me feel bad. I told him that next week is finals week and he still didn’t understand. I finally told him I won’t be able to do these phone tutoring sessions anymore and then he caught on. It really felt bad to cut him off. Not to patronize but the whole experience felt like leaving your new dog home for the day when they just don’t understand that you can’t be there all the time. This is how it felt but replace the dog with someone you’ve joked around with on the phone in slow or broken English. I can honestly say that this was an interesting experience and I’m glad to have had it. After we were done with the session, he said thank you and that he hopes we can meet again. This was a wholesome end to something both of us needed.
Meanwhile I’ve been relying on work for all social interaction. As it seems when everyone rushes to fill three months of prescriptions all at the same time after everyone has their meds they don’t need them for another three months, who would have thought. Yesterday, that’s 4/20 for those keeping track, next to no one came to pick-up in the hour and a half before we closed. With that out the window im going to have to consider other socializing activities.

Here’s the journal entry for April 16th wherein I find my self contemplating human interaction. Take a read,

4/16/2020

Today Fabrice and I got the rest of unit 2 done and started on unit 3. Unit 2 was present perfect and unit 3 was the use of because and because of in grammatical sentences. Fabrice really struggled with this so we spent a lot of time on it. I found it hard to explain the meaning of the word because. This made me wonder if there are any other words I just instinctually know the meaning of that aren’t easily describable to someone who doesn’t speak our language well. What I noticed helped, as seems to be a trend now, is describing these words using simile. My English teachers would be so proud. To do this I just replaced the words with something he was familiar with. This seemed to help but I’m not entirely sure he is understanding what I am saying.

So as promised another news update from the covid front line. They started making us wear mask during work. I’m not opposed to this new rule, it will keep me from spreading the disease should I unknowingly contract it but I’ve noticed when I work with patients on simple things like putting in for refills it is incredibly hard to breath. You forget when you make short breaths during conversation that this is because you’ve run out of air. Let me tell you one becomes acutely aware of this when it is suddenly taken from them by a mask. I think the biggest hurdle I’ve come across during this social distancing is the lack of genuine human contact. The absence of this is very noticeable.

Here’s the entry from April 14th, this was only one week ago but feels like a thousand years. Take a read,

4/14/2020
I hadn’t talked to Fabrice in a week. He works overtime during the week so we weren’t able to make our usual Thursday appointment. I asked him what his job was but I don’t think he understood me, or he did understand and doesn’t want to tell me. Either was I think the time we do get to spend studying together has been enjoyable to say the least. Today we worked on the second unit of the workbook. Due to time constraints we only got through about halfway through the unit. I told him this was fine because we had scheduled Thursday to finish the rest of the unit. This was a particularly easy unit for him to get through though, so I have a feeling that we’ll be able to finish the rest of this unit and a little of the next unit Thursday.
As for how This week has treated me the days are starting to blur together. I am an “essential worker” being a Pharmacy technician at Meijer. That has kept the days from blurring into the three constants, today, yesterday, and tomorrow. I have picked up a few new hobbies, I’m practicing guitar and baking. After the stores ran out of bread, I got fed up with going out to find bread to be fruitless in my search. So, I looked up a recipe, bought the ingredients, which as it turns out were still largely in stock, and made my own bread. Anyway, more stories from the front for next time.

So here is my first solo attempt at tutoring over the phone. I also use the journal as a means to reflect on the situation we’ve found ourselves in. Take a read,

4/7/2020
Today was the first day I worked one on one with Fabrice. We went through unit one of the workbook. This unit went over verbs and gerunds which I don’t think I had every heard of or if I had its been since I was in second grade in 2006. Fabrice had a hard time using the table provided in on of the section to answer the questions provided. The operations that I would normally be able to do are extremely hard over the phone. For example, when I worked one on one with a student before I was able to draw it out for them. Pointing to specific example on the sheet I was working with. Over the phone I had to tell him to use his finger to point to a specific part of the page and then using that information instruct him to move his finger to the part of the page I was talking about. This was exacerbated by the fact that he was having trouble understanding what I was talking about.
This is a unique time to try and teach especially over the phone. Working with Fabrice is an experience though because he is a character. He likes to crack jokes about people in the photos of example problems. He’s making the isolation feel a little less isolating and I appreciate him for it.

Here is the first instance of phone volunteering with Robin and Fabrice.

4/2/2020

Today I met with Robin, the coordinator, and one her English students, Fabrice. The plan is to meet every Tuesday and Thursday whenever Fabrice is available, to work on English. Largely what I will be doing is going through the workbook Robin provided helping Fabrice work through the book. The way Robin explain it to me I will be correcting his pronunciation.

Fabrice seems like an interesting character. I look forward to working with him. Robin called me personally after our conference call. Apparently all the students who work with her have about a 3^rd grade vocabulary. This is an interesting I’ve never taught someone who doesn’t have a working knowledge of English. I’m curious to see how this will turn out.

So here we are at the beginning of the new normal. This is the last journal entry I have from the time before the stay at home order.

3/12/2020
Today, I was informed, was the final day that the school would be open. In response to the COVID-19 outbreak As it sounds, they like many other schools will be transferring online. I do not know what this means for me an volunteering but I do know that this was the last day I could help people in person. They worked on review packets of several different topics ranging from social studies to math to science. I help one of the students with the carbon cycle.
I hope I can continue to help these students they are all interesting characters and I enjoy interacting with them and the teacher David. There is a potential plan for me to continue volunteer online but I have little to now information about this.