A lot to learn from China
I'm in a swish conference hall, a nervous teacher in front of a sea of strange faces. Everyone looks attentive enough. But though I've faced many a class of fidgety 15-year-olds on dull Fridays, this audience is much more daunting. More than 100 influential Chinese business people and government big-wigs - even a general - are assembled in a five-star Beijing hotel to hear me urge Chinese students to come to British schools and universities.
Going to China to promote British education sounds straightforward. After all, everyone's doing it these days. London's Dulwich College has opened "branches" in Shanghai and Beijing; Nottingham University is building a ￡40m campus in Ningbo. For 30 years, Chinese students have attended British schools and universities: about 50,000 are currently studying here, paying ￡550m into British purses. University courses such as engineering and medicine are especially popular, as are prestigious private schools such as Roedean and Charterhouse.
But facing such a distinguished audience from behind a podium makes you less confident in Europe's power to impress. Most historic British schools, like my own, Sherborne, stretch back 500 years: a mere blip in China's 5,000-year-old history. Does the nation that gave us Confucius and Lao-Tse really need AS levels and GCSEs?
Fairly swiftly, as the first sweat breaks, I discover one of the main cultural differences. Back home, most teachers use humour, a few light jokes, to break down barriers between speaker and audience. Here, such an approach is taboo - it would demean the seriousness of the subject matter. So, apart from a faint ripple of polite applause at the end, my 15-minute carefully prepared pitch ("In Britain we truly believe we have some of the best schools in the world") is met with stony silence. No laughter, no reactions at all. Disconcertingly, there's no taboo about mobile phones going off in the middle of speeches and several times distracting ring-tones sound and new conversations start. Every so often I have to slow down to let the interpreters catch up.
At the end of each session, every speaker in our delegation tries to open up the floor to questions. There aren't any. Each speech, dull or inspired, is met with the same lack of response. In fact it's the toughest audience I've faced.
Yet despite the shaky hands and dry mouth, despite the worries over wrong slides, it's an inspiration simply to be here. There's a long tradition of respecting and honouring teachers in China. Even at university level, the system is based on quiet attention, rather than questioning. As Dr Christopher Greenfield, author of the recent book on overseas students, World Class, puts it: "In China, teachers are like gurus, respected and not challenged - their superior knowledge is assumed." How refreshing, one thinks, remembering Form 5C.
Chatting informally with some of the guests afterwards, it soon becomes clear that, despite some slackening of interest in British universities (as reported recently in the FT), China's growing middle classes value education so much they are certainly prepared to pay for it. In fact, education has long been seen as a way of improving a person's worth and career. As one successful Chinese architect said to me: "Parents will not mind spending, as they can see the benefits. Education is big business. It's an investment." It's humbling too to converse with young Chinese executives, all speaking near-perfect English, many with degrees at our top universities: like Will, who has just finished an MBA at Oxford, funding himself and paying a small fortune in the process.
Given this kind of commitment, you start to wonder whether a British education is worth all the effort. As another businessman, whose daughter has just left Malvern College (annual fees: ￡22,000), observes: "She loved it in Britain but your schools and colleges cost too much." It dawns on you too that Britain's educational relationship with China has been too one way. What happened to the old idea of the "exchange"? An effortlessly bilingual entrepreneur politely reminds me: "It's not just a question of you teaching us - we have plenty to teach you, with our language, our medicine, our culture and our calligraphy."
He's right. China started its first system of state education, based on Confucian teachings, under the Han Dynasty, more than 2,000 years ago. In AD 105, paper was invented: 17 centuries before Dr Johnson, a 9,000 character dictionary compiled. The first exam system was set up back in 638. Beijing has about 100 thriving universities, state and private alike. The two city-centre schools I visited seemed safe, happy places: full of purpose, with friendly teachers and contented kids playing basketball.
With the new policy of promoting Mandarin in British and American schools and with China's economy booming, why assume we have all the answers? I arrived in China, thinking my job was easy: to sell the wonders of a British boarding education, its broad curriculum, the music, the drama, all the sport it offers. I left thinking it might be more beneficial instead to bring some of our teenagers to China for a few months, in language and cultural exchanges. Rather than educating the Chinese, this teacher had learned a few lessons himself.
Dr Andrew Cunningham works and teaches at Sherborne School
在华推销英国教育
我，一名紧张不安的讲师，此刻正站在一个豪华气派的会议厅里，面对着无数张陌生的面孔。这里的每个人看上去都专心致志。尽管我曾无数次在一个个灰暗的星期五面对一群焦躁不安的15岁孩子，但眼前这批听众却更令人生畏。100多名富有影响力的中国商界人士和政界要人（甚至包括一名将军）云集北京某五星级酒店，听我“怂恿”中国学生去英国读书。
到中国来推销英国教育，听起来很平常。毕竟，现在大家都在这么做。伦敦德威学院(Dulwich College)在北京和上海设立了“分校”；诺丁汉大学(Nottingham University)正在宁波斥资4千万英镑建设校园。最近30年来，一直有中国学生前往英国的中学和大学就读：目前约有5万人在英学习，每年约有5.5亿英镑流入英国人的腰包。工程学和医学等大学课程尤为热门，罗丁学校(Roedean)和卡尔特豪斯学校(Charterhouse)等享有盛誉的私立学校也颇受欢迎。
但是，当面对这些坐在讲台对面的重量级听众时，你对欧洲的教育似乎不那么自信了。很多古老的英国院校，比如我所在的谢伯恩学院(Sherborne)，其历史可以追溯到500年前――这不过是中国5千年悠久历史的一小段。在这个诞生了孔子和老子的国家，真的需要我们的准A-level考试(AS-levels)和普通中等教育证书考试(GCSEs)吗？
很快，当我的额头渗出了第一滴汗珠的时候，我发现了（中英两国之间）一处重大的文化差异。在英国本土，大部分讲师会利用幽默和几个轻快的笑话来打破演讲者与听者之间的藩篱。而在这里，这种方式成为一种禁忌――它将损害本次演讲主题的严肃性。因此，除了演讲结束时一阵有气无力的礼节性掌声以外，我花15分钟抖出一个认真准备的“包袱” (“在英国，我们还真相信我们有一些全球最好的学校呢”) ，迎来的却是死一般的沉默。压根没有笑声、没有反应。令人不安的是，这里没有手机关机的要求。演讲中，手机铃声不时响起，演讲也因此中断了几次。我不得不时常放慢速度，以便让翻译们能够跟上节奏。
每一段落结束时，我们代表团的每位演讲者都鼓励观众提问。可是没人提问。每段演讲，枯燥也好，有趣也罢，台下都是回应寥寥。事实上，他们是我所经历过最难搞定的听众。
不过，尽管双手颤抖、口干舌燥，尽管担心幻灯片出错，但能够站在这里讲演，本身就是一种激励和鼓舞。中国有着尊师重教的悠久传统。即使在大学里，教育体制也提倡安静听讲、而非踊跃提问。正如克里斯托弗?格林菲尔德博士(Dr Christopher Greenfield)在其所著关于海外留学生的新书《世界阶层》(World Class)中所言：“在中国， 老师就像受人敬重的权威，不容挑战――他们被认为拥有高深学识。”
在会议之后与一些客人的闲聊中，这一切迅速变得清楚起来：尽管对英国大学的兴趣有所减弱（正如英国《金融时报》最近报道的那样），但中国不断成长的中产阶级非常重视教育，已经准备好为此花钱了。事实上，在很长时间以来，教育被视为提升个人价值和职业生涯的途径。一位成功的中国建筑师曾告诉我：“只要能够看到好处，家长们不在乎花费。教育是件大事，这是一项投资。”与中国年轻的公司高管们交谈也是一件让人感到汗颜的事――他们都说着近乎完美的英语，许多人都拥有英国顶级大学的学位：比如Will，他刚刚在牛津(Oxford)完成了MBA教育。他的学费都是自掏腰包，这次求学让他破费不少。
看到中国人如此看重教育，让你开始怀疑英国的教育是否物有所值。有一位商人，他的女儿刚刚告别马莱文学院(Malvern College)毕业，这所学校每年的学费是2.2万英镑。他说：“尽管我女儿很喜欢，但你们英国的学校花费太高了。”这让你也渐渐明白，英国与中国之间的教育关系过于单向了。古老的“交换”思想出了什么问题？一位毫不费力就能说两种语言的企业家礼貌地提醒我：“这不仅是你们教我们的问题――我们有很多东西可以教你们，比如我们的语言、医学、文化和书法。”
他是对的。早在2000多年以前的汉朝，中国就以儒家学说为基础启动了它的第一个国家教育体系。在公元105年，中国发明了造纸术，比约翰逊博士(Dr Johnson)早17个世纪，一部有9000个汉字的字典也编撰完成。第一个考试系统的建立要追溯到公元638年。目前，北京拥有大约100家蓬勃发展的大学，公立私立都有。我曾到访过两家位于市中心的学校，看起来如同一个乐土：大家目标明确，友善的老师和幸福的孩子们正在一起打篮球。
随着中国经济的蓬勃发展，英国和美国的学校也开始实行推广汉语普通话教育的新政策，既然如此，为什么要假定我们拥有全部的答案呢？我来中国时，以为我的工作会很容易：无非就是宣扬英国寄宿制教育，鼓吹其提供的全方位课程、音乐、戏剧以及各种体育运动的好处。当我离开的时候，我想，如果让我们的孩子来中国呆几个月，进行语言及文化交流，也许会更有益。与其说我这个老师教育了中国人，还不如说我自己受教良多。
安德鲁?坎宁安博士在谢伯恩学院任教。
