Learning from China

There is good reason to focus money and energy on workforce development and training in Washington’s community colleges. After all, as the recession worsens, many Washingtonians need access to local institutions and the opportunity to retrain themselves. In the short run, this is all good and necessary.

But in the long run, we need to learn from China what China has learned from us. The secret to economic growth lies in the intellectual and creative capacities of a nation’s citizens. The key, they discovered, is to ensure that college education does not just train but that it educates students to think up new ideas. In short, many in China are urging Chinese colleges to follow America’s example of providing a broad, general liberal arts education.          

China has recently opened a new liberal arts institution and its leaders are encouraging a broader, general education than China’s universities have traditionally offered, according to a January 3, 2010 article in the Chronicle of Higher Education.  To encourage student creativity, China is pushing for smaller student-centered classrooms rather than large, impersonal lectures. To encourage innovation, Chinese leaders are urging students to explore learning in interdisciplinary environments rather than pursue pure vocational training. Increasingly, Chinese are embracing residential colleges that encourage student sociability and intellectual exchange.

What’s going on? What is authoritarian one-party China doing?

The Chinese seem to know that if they want to be on the leading edge of technological innovation they will have to reimagine their education system. They will need to offer students and professors the opportunity to think deeply and freely about complicated ideas. They cannot expect students to be creative if the curriculum is not. Nor can they expect to remain economic leaders if their education is narrowly practical, preparing students for what exists today without thinking about how they might be the ones who lead tomorrow. In short, the Chinese are realizing that they must do what America’s colleges four-year colleges do best: liberal arts education.

It’s ironic that as the Chinese become more American, Washington is becoming more like China. Vocational training is not enough to be a world leader. Our economy, and our society, depends on generating new ideas. This means teaching students to be broad thinkers. Oddly, the practical thing may be to offer less practical education!  

China knows that the creators of tomorrow’s economy will be educated in liberal arts institutions. Educators in other countries are coming to similar conclusions as they seek to move beyond serving Western economies to becoming leaders in their own right. If Washington wants to compete, it needs to invest in four-year liberal arts education so that our graduates are capable of doing more than finding work today. We want them to create jobs for tomorrow.