Web opens world for young Chinese, but erodes respect

Armed with outside ideas and information, teens are challenging their teachers. And some schools welcome it.

from the May 14, 2007 edition

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137 million online in China

Internet use in China has exploded in recent years, and at the forefront of that revolution have been young people, hungry for a taste of life outside their country's borders. In 1999 there were just four million Internet connections in China; by the end of last year there were 137 million.

More than 70 percent of Chinese children between ages 7 and 15 had used the Internet at least once, according to a survey Sun's center carried out last year. That was nearly half as many again as the 2005 figure, and the total rose to 87 percent when only urban youngsters were polled. More than half of town-dwelling children today live in homes with an Internet connection.

That gives them opportunities to broaden their minds that teachers often cannot match. "I learned from books," says Jenny Li, who now trains teachers at a Beijing college. "These kids learn from the whole world."

That makes them more difficult to teach, says Ms. Zhao. "It's harder for me to keep their attention in class," she complains, "because they already know a lot. Teachers have to keep broadening their own horizons."

If Zhao, who has been teaching for six years, finds it hard to keep up with her students, older teachers are often baffled. "A lot of teachers over 40 feel uneasy and uncomfortable with the new knowledge their students have, and their lack of control," says Yan Ming, a young teacher at the elite No. 1 Middle School in the port city of Tianjin.

Teachers are also having to cope with an evolving curriculum. A series of reforms since 1997 have edged the Chinese education system away from rote learning and towards a more Western emphasis on independent thought.

"We are moving from a teacher-centered to a student-centered approach," says Wang Wu Xing, a professor at the Beijing Institute of Education. "If we want to produce top talent we need millions of inquisitive and critical-minded innovative talents. The new generation will develop the ability to explore things."

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