Undoubtedly, in any country, a big reason for students’ presence at school is knowledge acquisition, which is also to accomplish the inheritance of human civilization from generation to generation. During the knowledge learning, the students are expected to get the development on their abilities and skills to explore, to know and to manage this world. So, knowledge acquisition is named as the first coding category, since it’s also a big topic for every teacher.
1.1.1 Basic knowledge
Teachers in all schools of two countries stress the importance of students’ learning knowledge, because teachers believe that knowledge is very important for all professions, it’s also the main part of their teaching every day, for which they have to do a lot to help students really learn or grasp some certain knowledge that is the basis for students to do anything later. Teachers in GR, GH, CC and CR think that it’s successful when students learn the basic knowledge, and teachers in GG and CH believe, except the very basic knowledge in the textbooks, the students should learn more knowledge for the next step of study in the university, for after GG and CH the students go directly to the university.
In the opinion of GGF7F, except the knowledge of general things, the students in the Gymnasium really have to study a lot and learn everything, they have to read more texts and literatures, and discuss a lot to find their own arguments on some opinions. They have to “learn different values, and learn common knowledge of the society and culture, and also intercultural knowledge that is very important nowadays” (GGH7M). For GGF7F, success doesn’t belong only to the best students,
she believes that some students are also successful when they have an increase of knowledge, even though they don’t get the highest marks because they don’t have that ability, however, they try hard and get the highest they can, for that they are actually much better than those who get higher marks but are very lazy and don’t do the best they can.
In the Hauptschule, the teacher GHO7M has mentioned that 65% or 70% of their students are immigrants or have immigrant background, they can’t speak or understand German well, so the knowledge learning is really difficult for the students there, and they can’t get good exam marks, which is a big problem in his school. Another problem among the students is that “they can’t concentrate…they just sit and then they start talking, they don't fight for the exercise”, nobody does the homework, nobody learns and “they give themselves up and they don't do as much as they can” (GHK5F).
For teachers there it’s a very frustrating situation, but many teachers don’t give up on students, they try to teach the students very basic things from very easy start slowly with small steps, but ‘slow’ is better than nothing, for they know the students are not fast, and the students need longer time to learn something (GHK5F, GHO7M, GHU32F). As the teacher GHH38M has said, they are “in a type of school that has to wait for those slower ones”. Sometimes people talk about the students in the Hauptschule, saying “they are Hauptschüler (Hauptschule students), no value, nothing in brain, nothing”, which makes the teachers there believe that their students “should have a basic of good knowledge” (GHG30F).
The Realschule is not so academic as the Gymnasium, or so practical as the Hauptschule, “the main aim of Realschule was and still is to combine text knowledge and practical ability. That’s for me and children is perfect, not just brain as Gymnasium, but have the two sides” (GRD21F). Therefore, in the teaching of the Realschule, text knowledge and practical ability are both important, but teachers also believe that at first students have to be able to read and understand texts, and learn the basic knowledge, because “when they do practical things, they need it…it’s also very important when they have some jobs after school”, and it’s also true that the more children learn in the subjects, the better they can experience and understand the world (GRE35M).
Therefore, teachers in the Realschule believe it’s a perfect system of the Realschule, and their students have basic knowledge for both sides, when they are ready to leave school, they can decide either to get the Abitur for the further study in the university or to learn something for more practical jobs in a special kind of profession. Still a problem bothering some teachers like GRE35M is that there are “a lot of students, they can read, but if you ask them ‘what have you read’, they can’t say it. They forget it or they are not interested in the knowledge of the texts… they are not concentrated, they have problems to understand what they read”, or sometimes they have not learned enough text knowledge since their first class, and their better place should be the Hauptschule.
The knowledge that Chinese students learn in junior high school is the basic of the study in senior high school, so teachers in junior high school believe it’s successful when the students reach the basic requirements on the knowledge and abilities mentioned in the curriculum outline (CCD5F), and “when their study performance is good enough to go on with a higher level of study in senior high school, it will be perfect” (CCD14F, translated). This period of school time belong to the compulsory education and the graduation examination, Huikao, is not very hard for most of the students to pass, so normally almost all students can get the graduation certificate, but only a small part of them can be admitted to the senior high school. But the teacher CRB3F thinks, for many students who are not very good at study, it’s also a success when they can graduate from junior high school.
As far as the students are concerned, the study in senior high school has a very clear goal that is to pass the Gaokao to be enrolled into their wished universities or the universities their parents and teachers expect. But because of the heavy pressure caused by the harsh competition from the Gaokao, it is far from enough for students just to learn the basic knowledge or the knowledge in textbooks. In a top senior high school where CHH10M works, the students have lessons from around 6:00 till 21:35 every day, and during the whole day, they have to sit in the classroom studying without other activities except around one-hour physical exercise in the playground, and the students in Grade 12, the last school year, also have to study at school in weekends and holidays like normal days.
The teachers CHL17F and CHL35M believe it necessary and beneficial in a long run for students to learn more knowledge at school when they are young, the way of rote memorization is also good to bear something in mind even when they don’t really understand it at the time, because when they grow up, they can understand better and deeply little by little with more experiences in their life, but at school they are successful when they study well so that they could have more chances to be also successful in the future. CRB21F always tells her students that learning knowledge can help them judge what the others say is right or wrong and not be fooled, and with enough knowledge they can adjust to the future social life easily.
1.1.2 Learning methods
Teachers in all schools also believe that education is successful when students learn some learning methods and know how to learn. And the teachers in German 3 types of schools even use the same words, saying that students should know and learn how to learn. For example, like the teacher GRR1F stresses, the school should not teach the students only knowledge, the students of today need methods about how to learn really, which should be one of the school’s main goals.
As GHU32F believes, it’s not important for the students to know the facts or to be able to do the calculation, “the important thing is to know how to learn, because you can’t know at momentary students what they will need to know when they are grown-up, the world is changing so rapidly, so fast”. So it is successful education when students can use their intelligence to deal with subjects, use the strengths of their personality, use the things teachers teach them and use the methods to do good learning (GRB33F).
As a Physics teacher, CCD5F also thinks that the more important than learning knowledge is to learn the methods of research and problem solving, for the knowledge in physical textbooks is about 100 years ago, it’s necessary and useful to learn it, but no one is really interested in the things 100 years ago, so for nowadays’
students, it’s more useful to get some learning methods and know how to apply what they learn in their life. Teachers also believe that students are different in learning abilities, so it is successful when they develop their own learning methods from the daily study (CCD6M), because with good and effective methods, they can
get twice of the results with half of the effort, and they can make a good foundation for the lifelong learning in the future (CRB21F).
1.1.3 Get/use knowledge
Some teachers in GG and CH pay more attention to the student’s ability in getting knowledge, however, teachers from GH and CR care more about the ability of using knowledge, and teachers in CC believe in both. That is a result directly coming from the interviews of this research, which might not be generalized to all teachers in those schools, but is a good example to show how personalized the beliefs can be.
In the experience of teaching, GGB5F got an impression that students did learn something but they could forget it two days later after a test, so she started to think about what is really important for students to learn at school, and what came to her mind is that the important thing is not the things she teaches them, or the things on the paper or in books, for what students learn at school “is always something some people think or thought is important… maybe another person believes that different things are important, so, the important thing is how to get the things I want to know, and not some special things some person thinks are important”.
As to the teacher GGM10F, she thinks students should not only know how to acquire the knowledge, but also know where to look for it, and it’s very important that they learn how to deal with the internet and they know they cannot use every page on the internet as a reliable source. GGH7M believes that it is successful when students have the capability to learn new things and orient themselves in the subjects very quickly to reach some certain knowledge, and to project and structure the information.
CHL17F also makes her belief clear that successful education is that students are able to gain knowledge and know the methods of gaining knowledge. It makes sense that teachers especially in GG and CH stress the importance of the ability in getting knowledge, because their students not only have to pass the exams like the Abitur or Gaokao, but also must prepare well for the further study in the university, which makes the ability of acquiring knowledge absolutely indispensable and important for the students in GG and CH to learn.
From many years of teaching experience, CRB22F has realized that what children have learned at school could be dead knowledge in the end, and they don’t know how to use the knowledge, so she believes the most ideal education is that students can apply the learned knowledge to their future life. In the belief of GHU32F, it is more important to let students use the knowledge than learn it by heart, since the knowledge can be found everywhere when they want, and for students in the Hauptschule, practical ability is more important, so in her teaching she rarely stands at front of the blackboard to explain things, but prepares materials for students to work a lot by themselves or in small groups to find solutions together.
1.1.4 Study performance
Among German schools, only several teachers in GH stress that good exam marks are very important for students. But some Chinese teachers froom both senior and junior high schools believe that students should have good study performance, and good exam results of students are part of successful education.
For instance, GHO7M thinks that it is really important for his students to have good exam marks, because “all firms or factories they are looking at the notes” especially on mathematics, German and English, but to his sadness, “50 percent of my students work not hard, they can work hard, I know, but they won’t, it is not important for them”, and they just learn 7 days before the exams. In his opinion, a big reason that students have no study motivation is that they “know that after class 9 or class 10 not all but many can’t get a real job, in class 9 all the pupils are down and depressed … then without motivation they go to the next school, hope to get the higher degree, and then after two years they are in the real world” (GHO7M).
In the interview, teachers in the Gymnasium didn’t stress the importance of exam results, it doesn’t mean the exam like the Abitur is not important, actually it’s very important for students, and without the Abitur students cannot go to university, but teachers are not worried about the students’ exam results, because whether passing the Abitur or not only concerns the students individually, and has nothing to do with teachers’ career or teaching performance assessment or school reputation. In the eyes of GGF7F, the Abitur is not difficult for Gymnasium students, and every year perhaps only 4-5 students of all cannot pass the Abitur.
As the teacher GGM10F has said in the interview, in her state the school system is a bit more flexible than some other states, Gymnasium students and also those in the Realschule can find different ways to get the Abitur if they want. Essentially it’s the students’ personal responsibility for their study and their future, so German teachers are quite relaxed no matter what results their students get, like the teacher GGD15M, he said in the interview, “for me, it is enough if they are not on the top, sometimes those on the top are a bit strange persons, …the best students can be very stupid persons with no ideas, no ethic attitude” (GGD15M).
In China, since the rapid development of the economy has been in need of higher-level of qualified personnel, many secondary vocational or technical schools, which provide the further study for the children who leave junior high school and don’t go to senior high school, have been shut down or upgraded from 3-year to at least 5-year vocational higher schools. The rest secondary vocational or technical schools are not popular any longer, however, meanwhile, there have been the massive expansion of colleges and universities across the country. So getting a high score in the entrance examination (which is also called Zhongkao) of senior high school has become more important for students to go on with study in the senior high school for an “entrance ticket” of the university in the end.
Hence, as to Chinese parents and teachers, their best wish for children in junior high school is that they can study well to be admitted to the top senior high school, which is a big guarantee for them to be enrolled into a good university in the future, for it’s believed that top senior high schools have better teaching/learning environment and better teachers who are very experienced in training students to successfully pass the Gaokao with good results. However, it is also true that the top senior high schools have more intense study rhythm, longer time of being-at-school and much more training through tons of exercises on the knowledge and skills for the Gaokao.
GGD15M has an impression that some parents who are very eager to their children’s study and want to push them are not from Germany, but from Russia and China as well, for whom it is very important that their children are successful at school, get the best marks, and always stay on the top, however, German parents, most of them, are more or less relaxed, it is OK for them if their children have to repeat a year, and it is sufficient if the children stay at least in an average level at
school, so they might try to push their children in a way, but not too hard, and they want their children to find their own ways of development.
In China, it is the fact that parents and teachers always push the children to study hard to get high scores in exams, and they assertively make very full study plans for the children every day. In general, Chinese parents eagerly expect their sons and daughters to become ‘dragon’ and ‘phoenix’ - ‘king of the beasts’ and ‘queen of the birds’ in the ancient Chinese legend, which means to be the best of all students or better than others. But the teacher CHL17F thinks that nowadays the parents are changing, and some parents have no high requirements on their children’s study performance as long as the children are healthy and happy at school and do their best, which, however, is actually the case in her type of senior high school where most of the students cannot pass the Gaokao or go to the university, so the parents there don’t expect too much on their children’s study.
From the self-interest of Chinese teachers, they push their students because their teaching performance is largely measured by the study performance of their students, if their students study well and the average exam results are ranked on the top among all students in the same Grade, the teachers can be awarded as ‘excellent teacher’ and have more possibilities to get higher professional title with higher salary (CRB4F). Furthermore, from the social evaluation criteria, education is successful when students have good study performance and can be admitted to top senior high schools or top universities, which some Chinese teachers like CCD19F
From the self-interest of Chinese teachers, they push their students because their teaching performance is largely measured by the study performance of their students, if their students study well and the average exam results are ranked on the top among all students in the same Grade, the teachers can be awarded as ‘excellent teacher’ and have more possibilities to get higher professional title with higher salary (CRB4F). Furthermore, from the social evaluation criteria, education is successful when students have good study performance and can be admitted to top senior high schools or top universities, which some Chinese teachers like CCD19F