Chinese Scholarship

6 April 2014Tara B, Mackenzie ‘14

If Chinese society were depicted as a human body, education would merely play the role of one finger. This was the claim of Chinese scholar, Professor Zhang, as he spoke to the Grade 12 Comparative Government students about his government’s project to reform the country’s educational system. As a key contributor to the venture, his trip to Canada involved observing education practices in Brentwood’s classrooms and others across the country. He seemed to us a man with the power to shape the future generations of his country, advocating for a liberalizing change to the schooling process through the promotion of creativity and critical thinking. Nevertheless, it was his modesty that the class found most notable. Despite his years of research and study, he refused to admit that the reforms he devised were his own ideas. Rather, he asserted that they were a product of the education committee and government collectively. He was accompanied in his Canadian travels by Professor Doll who currently works at the University of British Columbia. Doll voiced what we had all been thinking: Professor Zhang is a man with a remarkable intelligence, driven towards a positive change, not because he believed reform could change the future of his nation but because he wanted to do best for the children in the classrooms. Tara B, Mackenzie ‘14

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