Chinese Students Failing to be Creative

A reddit post:





My reply:



Yet, everybody says that the American system of education is brain washing. Considering that students are terrified of being in an individual... who's brainwashing now?

It's not just about there only being one correct answer, it's about being part of a group and giving the groupthink answer instead of being an individual.

They literally do not want to be an individual or be seen as one, they're terrified of it. They become dependent upon their parents and peers for thinking.

This is why people in their 40s still call mom to make life decisions such as leaving an employer, finding a boyfriend, buying a home or a car. Some even have their parents manage all of their finances for them.

So they don't just need training in creativity, but evaluation of situations for decision making, actual decision making, acting as an individual instead of acting as a group, etc.

Creativity is a big part of it, but there's a reason that the Borg in StarTrek don't have art or poetry and would struggle to create that if separated from their collective. They would also struggle to appreciate it.

And now it gets personal, if you show art, poetry, expressionism, creative works to a Chinese person... they can't appreciate it and might think something is wrong with you like you're retarded and overly emotional. China has Chinese art, which... you guessed it, all looks the same. Why do Chinese cultural and traditional art all look the same? It's more than just because "This is our art style." - Why do ALL of the artists, especially the historic ones, ALL have the same style, the same rules, the same product? Why didn't any of the Chinese artists do something unique?

Now compare that to Western art. Our art is all OVER the place. We did all kinds of crazy stuff, and no two artists are alike. But in China, all artists were alike, and many of them strive to BE alike. In fact, they'll spend years of their life trying to master the ability to replicate the works of other masters... and if they do something unique, then that's fucking reject trash to them. They certainly won't be able to sell it, will they?

This is changing, this is changing really fast. But still... look how many people decide to be an artist, and then never strive to do anything unique?

The entire culture is mindfucked in exactly this way. So you as a teacher ask your students for individual answers, thoughts, feelings. You tell them to say or do something DIFFERENT instead of asking everybody to do the same thing. They've never dealt with that before.

It didn't happen at home. It didn't happen at school. It didn't even happen during their free time. That's where you get the situations of a white guy saying, "Do something different, anything is good." and the student looses it, refusing to do anything at all. Because anything would be wrong, and anything is bad. In Chinese culture, you follow and you copy. In Chinese history, bad things happen to people who don't.