Culture is defined as the shared patterns of
everything, such as language, religion, belief, music, arts and so on. Culture
has a huge impact on the particular group of people and shapes their behaviors
and identities. I think my educational journey is very distinctive from many
typical Chinese students, which is like an adventure. Although it is very
tough, I have found a lot to explore during the time.
Firstly, the educational system of China and
Australia are totally different. To put it simply, teachers push students to
study in China. I’ve been to two types of school for my junior middle school
and senior high school. When I was at the major government-owned school the
life was hard. I would get up at 6 and leave home at 6:40 in the morning, and
finished school at 10 in the evening. I think it is because the traditional
Chinese thoughts – diligence can make up for lack of intelligence. Another type
of school I entered was a special school. It is the school that China and
Canada collaborate together, which is called Dalian Maple Leaf High School.
When I first went to the school, everything was so different from my previous
school. That was the first time I had met foreign people in my life. My
teachers at that time are all Canadians. I still remembered the “12
minute-beach run” from my PDHPE teacher. I still remembered the video device
model that we made by hand in our arts class. I still remembered the posters
that we drew in every single subject. One of my Canadian teachers once told me
that why they would like us to demonstrate knowledge through the image, she
said, western people were very “lazy” and would like to receive information in the
easiest way. Hence, pictures played an important role in terms of giving
information. When I was there, I firstly experienced western culture and I was
really attracted by the different culture.
In 2010, I came to Australia. I started to
go to the Intensive English Center to improve the English skills. I met lots of
students from different counties. In my class, students were from Singapore,
Lebanon, Vietnam, Korea, Pakistan and China. We talked together, ate together
and shared our own distinct culture together. It was because we all came to
Australia as international students and we needed to find our sense of
belonging within school and this new society. My first Australian teacher was
very nice and helpful. She said the fastest way to learn English and to feel
belong to this society is to communicate with the typical Australians and she
provided lots of opportunities for us. I started my senior high school at
Blakehurst High School, located in Hurstville. I met lots of typical Australian
students and we have become good friends since then. Due to the large number of
international students and non-English speaking background students, our school
creates a series of activities and events for students to share their culture,
such as the Multicultural Day. I think my senior year was very challenging and
unforgettable. As I mentioned earlier, the way of teachers transferring
knowledge to students was different between China and Australia. Because of my
old cognition of learning and my Chinese identity, at the beginning of the
first term I still believed that teachers would force me to study and chase
after me to hand in homework.
In conclusion, Wadham, Pudsey and Boyd
state, "Culture shapes education, and education shapes culture"
(2007). I am in agreement with their point that culture and education are
interactional. Knowing people from other cultural background and understand
their way of living and learning making my life so substantial.
Reference:
Wadham, B. Pudsey, J. & Boyd, R. (2007).
Culture and education. Sydney: Pearson Education. Chapter 1: What is culture?
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