Enter the middle school student series of exams -- A Thousand Sad Reasons

Author: Wang Jun, Li Renfu (editors)
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-03-01
Features: Voices and calls from the frontline of exams, heartfelt interpretations from experts and scholars, and the first comprehensive book in China to analyze the current state of primary and secondary school exams. Exam: A Thousand Heartbreaking Reasons, after a year of work, is about to be completed. As a full-time teacher, I was often overwhelmed by the content of the manuscript during its editing and writing, struggling to sort out my thoughts. To be honest, even now, as I near the completion of this book, I still cannot make a specific, clear, and decisive judgment about "exams," which we talk about daily, engage with constantly, and fear deeply. With the expansion of my circle of contacts and the diversity of opinions, my fundamental stance on this ancient yet ever-renewing concept of "exams" has become somewhat ambiguous: Should we still have exams today? The title of this book is Exam: A Thousand Heartbreaking Reasons, and attentive readers may have already noticed the negative and rejecting intent of the editors from the title. Exams are a profound pain that every student in modern China deeply feels and cannot avoid. As one of the many contradictions and hardships brought by modern education to real life, every student in pain, every parent in anticipation, and every teacher under the system has too much to say about it. They may not be able to fully articulate the suffering and torment they are enduring from philosophical, political, economic, or sociological perspectives, or how complex and comprehensive an impact it will have on China's arduous journey toward educational modernization. But their personal experiences are objective, specific, and therefore valuable. To objectively and paradoxically express this simple sorrow, pain, or even self-satisfaction is a form of release for students; for experts and scholars, it is a rare resource. Of course, readers who patiently finish the entire book will quickly realize that the true value orientation of this book remains gentle, rational, and even moderate. When reflecting on the pain we have experienced in life, many people across different times and spaces share the same experience: what we recall about exams often isn't just pain, but also new insights and the pleasant shock of pain being struck. We reject all absurdity and errors that should not exist, but we must acknowledge the necessary sacrifices and hardships. Given the specific conditions of China's primary stage of socialism, the disasters brought by exams can only be considered one small corner of the "intolerable burdens" in education. China's education faces too many problems—numerous young and middle-aged illiterates still existing, the increasingly prominent issue of child dropout, the dire funding shortage in rural education, and the rigid management system that challenges educational modernization. The misfortunes and weight of exams we discuss still remain on an idealistic level of "making life better." If exams were abolished, the blow and destruction modern education would inflict on children living at the bottom of society might be even crueler and more relentless. We dare not ignore the harsher survival competition simply by emphasizing the negative aspects of exams, but we also will not turn a blind eye to the "cruelty" of education due to the brutality of survival competition—this is our fundamental stance. If readers notice a tone of indignation and irony in the writing and selection of this book, please believe that it is not to cater to vulgar tastes. A historian once said: Exploring in a negative direction can reveal positive meaning. We truly think this way.