2015 - DECHARTRES Camille - Education and creativity in Shanghai Schools

c r e at i v i t y

e d u c at i o n schools

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shanghai

Camille Dechartres

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c r e at i v i t y

e d u c at i o n schools

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shanghai

education and creativity

How education and creativity of Shanghainese children have influences on each others?

Camille Dechartres Master's Dissertation - Transcultural Design China Studio - L'École de design Nantes Atlantique 2013-2015

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Personal Picture - Bao Da Xiang store - Shanghai - May 2014

The results of the study reveal that Shanghainese children are not enough pushed at school to have their own independent thinking and that parents are frustrated by the dominance of the exam system. They do not know how to enhance the creativity of their child as they never learned creative thinking. We also point the fact that creativity is a cultural matter and means something more practical for Shanghainese people than for French people. In this dissertation, you will find different points such as the importance of Creativity and benefits for Social values, Design, Education and Transculturality.

In order to get as much information as possible, I carried out broad research by various means such as readings, observations on site, personal interviews of different users and experts (parents, children, teachers) and Wechat group to collect daily life pictures. Moreover, I observed different creative workshops in Shanghai and then I participated in a workshop with children in a kindergarten on the subject of “cultural discoveries�. Thanks to these experiences, that offered me a great knowledge about my topic, I was close to the people I was working on. Indeed, with all these insights, I have been able to better understand Chinese culture, the challenges and roles in the family, but also at school and the pressure around the only child.

The aim of this dissertation is to understand and analyse what the place of the creativity in the Chinese education is, especially for Shanghainese children.

I focused my research on Shanghai, which is the largest city in China and a business and international city. With this research project, I wanted to go deeper into my knowledge of China, and to understand the whole challenge and pressure around education and children in this country. This led me to wonder where the place of creativity in Chinese education is and how education patterns influence the creativity of Shanghainese children.

Chinese Education, Creativity, Creative Education, Shanghai schools, Children, Transcultural Design.

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46 iii. EDUCATIONal BENEFITS OF CREATIVITY 1. Definitions 2. Chinese Education nowadays 3. Creativity in Education 4. Schooling in Shanghai 5. Evolutions and reforms

CONCLUSION

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FOREWORD

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Introduction Starting point

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acknowledgements

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IV. TRANSCULTURAL BENEFITS OF CREATIVITY 1. Vision of success 2. Transculturality and creativity 3. Being a transcultural child

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1. Design thinking in China 2. How to encourage creativity?

II. Design benefits of encouraging creativity

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OPENING

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i. SOCIAL BENEFITS OF CREATIVITY 1. Definitions 2. Chinese context 3. Family benefits and expectations

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SUM MARY

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FOREWORD

Personal Picture - Pudong Shanghai - November 2014

In this dissertation, I will mostly deal with Shanghai and France as this is what I know the best. But, as you know, France also has a lot of similarities with European and other Western countries, as well as Shanghai with China.

This dissertation is part of my end-of-studies project, for which I collected my personal observations between April 2013 and February 2014 as a foreign student living in Shanghai. During this deep-dive into the Chinese culture, it was important for me to approach my project with a human-centred methodology, by going on the field and meeting with people to have different point of views and better understand their needs.

After three years of Graphic Design at L'École de design Nantes Atlantique, I have chosen to pursue my Master’s Degree in Shanghai for two years. With this program, I have learned about Transcultural Design and I have been working with Chinese students and designers, which has led me to my topic.

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Starting point

"Nowadays in Western point of view, China may be admired for its economy, but not for its creativity."1

I began my research with the stereotype of the Chinese educational system, a very hard and competitive one that does not involve any creative thinking. Indeed, people in Western countries are notably used to say “working as a little Chinese” meaning that someone is working very hard. For instance, in our French minds, China is the country where people copy and imitate by working on an assembly line in manufacturing industries.

But exploring this topic in Shanghai was very different from doing so in the rest of China, as this is one of the most international city of the middle country. A city with cultural and economic effervescence. Thus, I came to think differently by avoiding stereotypes about this topic.

After having spent more than one year in China, I have been meeting and working with Chinese people in different situations: for an internship and for school projects and workshops. I decided to choose the topic of Creativity after different creative workshops that we did in teams mixing French design students and Shanghainese students of the Fine Arts College of Shanghai University.

As usually in our French working process, we began the project by brainstorming in order to have various ideas on the topic related to the brief. But in this situation, the Chinese students did not understand why we did this and what the purpose of it was. They finally explained that they normally have to choose a “leader” who could be the teacher or a chosen student, and then they follow and copy him. It was a really new and totally unknown approach of design for me and it was the first time I heard about this “leader to follow” approach.

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Jiang Xueqin, How China Kills Creativity, thediplomat.com, 2011.

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Personal Picture - Workshop at Shanghai University - 2014

There were here a gap between our two cultures, a misunderstanding on the creative process and a clearly different approach to it. The approach became transcultural as we both had to adapt ourselves to a new way of thinking for this project.

By transcultural, I mean the fact to mix two different cultures, to interact which each other by taking into account the various aspects of them.

I then decided to focus on young children as they are the future actors of Chinese society. The early years is the period during which all these values should have been transferred and where the psychomotor development of a child is the most developed. But I have also continued my research on older children, Secondary and High school to Universities students, to analyse the consequences in their late education. This education goes from home and family to the academic education at schools and during extracurricular activities.

I then wondered where the place of creativity in Chinese education was and how education influences the creativity of Shanghainese children.

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s o c i al b ene fi ts of c r eati v ity

Chuàngzào lì

begin, create

In order to apprehend the creativity in Shanghai families, I begin my analysis with the context of the Chinese society, in order to better understand the current situation and what the social benefits of encouraging creativity in China are.

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1. Definitions

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力

How could we define “creativity”, this very broad and vague term?

There has already been a lot of different definitions of creativity from authors and specialists. For example, Ken Robinson2, who is an expert in creativity and innovation, defines it as “the process of having original ideas that have value”.

Csikszentmihalyi, who wrote Flow and Creativity3, defines creativity as “a unique shift in a domain”, meaning something that has not been done before. Creativity describes the capacity and the power of an individual to create. It means to imagine and achieve something. This is a very broad and complex term.

In Mandarin Chinese, Creativity is 创造力 ("Chuàngzào lì"). "Chuàng" means "to formulate"; "Zào" is "to construct" and "Lì" refers to "the strength".

Moreover, the word 学 ("Xué") means study but also copy or imitate. This definition shows clearly that copying in China is not something negative. In fact, the learning process is mainly made of knowledge transmission, from the master to the student. Copying is an attitude, not a lack of creativity. You are allowed to break the rules when you are a master of the rules. All these traditions of copying to master a movement or an art is very important in China and this is an impressive skill to achieve.

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How School Kills Creativity? , Ken Robinson, TED, 2006. Talk on the development of creati-

造 make, construct

vity and innovation.

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Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention, Harper Collins Publishers, 1996.

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2. Chinese context

A. One-child policy

In 1979, Deng Xiaoping, who was the leader of China from 1978 to 1992 after Mao Zedong’s death, implemented the One-Child Policy all over the country. This law restricted birth to only one child, limiting women to one child under threats of administrative penalties. It has reduced the population growth to reach a current estimate of 1.35 billion inhabitants and has engendered competitiveness, stress and pressure between children to be the best. Indeed, families put all their hopes on their only child, who is the only one in the family who can succeed in the future. But if we try to think in a new way, we can also imagine that if this One-Child Policy was not existing, there would be much more children in the whole country, and so, more competitiveness between them. Thus, this policy does not have only the negative aspects that we always notice.

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B. Confucianism

Confucianism has also an important influence on Chinese society. In fact, the whole society is marked by Confucianism: family solidarity, obedience and respect to elders, teachers and to powerful people are still deeply rooted in the society. Chinese education is also influenced by Confucius teaching. One of his saying is that “If a person excels in studying, then he will be able to become a government official” (学而优则仕 “xué ér you zé shì”).

If a person excels in studying, then he will be

able

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become

government official.

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By checking several sources, I began to understand the influence of the Confucianism in the Chinese family: Confucian education instructs the generations through the rhythm of respect and filial piety. To honour one’s family is an obligation. This helped me to understand the extent to which family in China is essential and central. Chinese people have to be disciplined and educated, willing to sacrifice their well-being for the benefit of the family or of the group. The following citation proves this statement: "The famous saying of Confucius “Let the Prince act the Prince, the Minister the Minister, the father the father, and the son the son” is the golden rule of his social philosophy. For Confucius, the society is first.

Family is before people, group before family, and society before group.

In this society essentially hierarchical, everyone must recognize the differences, accept the inequalities and hold his determined position, without trying to escape.

It is true that the disadvantages of a Confucian education, which sometimes develops hypocrisy and which builds introverted individuals, have been well analysed and reported by Chinese people.

However, we cannot forget the positive aspects of education and Confucian morality: the belief that human nature is perfectible and that man has in him all that is necessary for his development, the importance of self-discipline, the taste of the study." 4

The education pattern established in China is coming back today. The need and obligation to succeed is to protect your family, to give you prestige. This is not about the pleasure of knowledge, as for French people for whom it is meant to develop knowledge, an understanding of the world, or free spirit.

4 Nguyen Tha Anh, Confucius et le confucianisme, www.larevuedesressources.org, 2009.

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We can also consider the relation between Confucianism and Creativity. Indeed, I believe that Confucianism was not necessarily encouraging Creativity with its social values about harmonizing the society, managing all the individuals and following the Masters.

According to Kim Kyung Hee5 in her publication about the Cultural influence on Creativity, “Confucianism is negatively related to creativity. Specifically, some elements of Confucianism, Unconditional Obedience, Gender Inequality, Gender Role Expectations, and Suppression of Expression, may present cultural blocks to creativity. Further, Confucianism was found to be negatively related to Adaptive creative type and Creative Strengths, but not Innovative creative type, which indicates that Adaptive creative type may be more sensitive to, and thus more influenced by, culture.”

Moreover, a senior Chinese designer in Beijing, who was employed by the Chinese Communist Party, was asked if the Chinese people consider themselves creative. He replied, “Yes, Chinese people are creative. But they have thousands of years of Confucian conditioning, which does not promote change outside of its ideals. This was followed by the early years of the tight government control on anything expressive. The creative urge in Chinese people is still there, although it has been dampened. Educational and corporate systems must change if creativity is to thrive.”6 Today’s younger generations in China (those in their twenties, teenagers and children in elementary school) now have many freedoms their parents did not have, but they often lack confidence and look to the opinion of their peers and the information on the Web when they are making decisions. And this is the reason why brand names and trends are so important in China; brands that other people have chosen seem to be safer purchases, and famous names do sell products in China.

5

Kim Kyung Hee, Cultural Influence on Creativity: The Relationship Asian Culture (Confucianism) and Creativity among Korean Educators, Volume 43, Number 2, The Journal of

Creative Behavior, 2009.

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Lorraine Justice, China’s Design Revolution, The MIT Press, 2012, page 8.

Personal Picture - Yu Hong artist - Power station of Art - November 2014 26

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success in education, which will be a benefit for the whole family.

This definition refers a lot to efficiency and how best can be the children at school to obtain good grades in order to have good studies and to achieve the Gāokao, which is very important for parents.

3. Cultural Creativity

In this particular context, we have to be aware that the notion of “being creative” is a cultural matter, as this is not a universal standard acquired by anyone. This explains the gap that I encountered during the creative workshop with the Chinese students. In fact, in the survey “Compatibility of Chinese and Creative Personalities”7 that Elisabeth Rudowicz and Xiao Dong Yue did, the creative personality according to Chinese people is somebody who is innovative, willing to try, but also brave, imaginative, talented, outstanding and talkative who likes to dress up.

According to Gem10, a student that I interviewed, creativity also refers to “open classroom to enhance the communication”. This comment about the open spaces inside the school is related to the educational methods. I never thought about it but often the teacher just stay in front of the classroom. Each student is on an individual table, displayed by their height, so they have often friends who have the same height.

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Interview, Shanghai, May 2014, with Gem, Chinese student from Fine Art College.

If creativity is a cultural matter, how could creativity be evaluated and valued in other cultures than Europe?

Through my searches, observations on field and personal interviews, I realized that for Shanghainese people, creativity is more about specific and practical values. Indeed, being creative means to them to get better at memorizing, obtain better exams grades, bring more fun in students’ lives, and help to think by yourself. It also reduces the stress on the students8. All these definitions are completely different from our French point of view in which we compare creativity to innovation and novelty.

In fact, the French concept of creativity is about imagination, productivity, problem solving and is the ability to produce outcome of value and worth9. Contrary to Shanghai, if it helps students to have better grades, it will also participate in their 7

Elisabeth Rudowicz and Xiao Dong Yue, Study Compatibility Of Chinese And Creative Personalities, Creative Research Journal, 2002, Vol. 14.

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Interview, Shanghai, May 2014, with Gem, Chinese student from Fine Art College.

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Caroline Sharp, Developing Young Children’s Creativity: What Can We Learn From Research?, “NFER”, Issue 32, 2004, page 5.

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Do not let your child lose out at the starting line.

4. Family benefits and expectations

A. Parents and Grandparents education

A famous Chinese proverb is saying: "Do not let your child lose out at the starting line" (“孩子不能输在起跑线上”).

Through this quote, I understood the very early competition between children and families, in order to be the best in every situation. Parents have the pressure not to lose face in front of the family and the child also has a lot of pressure because he does not have a lot of free time as he must be the best and excel.

According to James11, the One-Child Policy has a main role in the behaviour of parents: “The pressure on the children comes more from the parents who say that “they have to work” even when the government tries to improve the working time. This is the “general culture” where everybody follows what the others do. This comes from the one-child policy with the competition between the parents to have the best child in order that the family succeeds.”

Indeed, there is a constant pressure on the child, as he should succeed for himself, but also succeed to support financially his parents. Parents seem to be aware of the different steps to cross 11 Interview, Shanghai, June 2014, with James, English father married with a Chinese woman, parents of a 4-year-old girl.

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throughout the whole schooling, but they have only one obsession: the promise of this thriving success. This is the reason why when children should make their choice for their future job and enter university, the whole family is part of the decision because it will influence the success and the incomes of the family12.

The first motivation is the belief that success will permit to fulfil the needs of the future family: child and spouse. Building a family is the essential framework that will be appreciated and recognized in the society.

The second motivation is to assume the generational commitment to support his parents. Children must provide for their parents’ needs when they lose their independence (cannot work anymore or be alone). Indeed, since the family is always united and must be self-sufficient, young people take care of elderly people, earn money and help the elders as there is no public healthcare in China.

The importance of the education of a child is also proved by the fact that 70% of their whole expenses are for the child’s learnings13.

Indeed, parents devote money, time and energy to their child’s education. In their minds, if money can favour the child’s success, this money is not wasted.

When you ask Shanghainese children what kind of job they would like to do in the future, they often reply things related to super heroes, as being a scientist, or a doctor, a pilot and even a teacher14. All those jobs are considered as good for the society and thus are well seen. While I remember when we were children, in France, we were hoping small things as becoming a baker, or a nurse… This shows again the difference between our cultures and so our different ways of being educated. Their dreams and their expectations are different and have a different proportion in their lives. Moreover, the pressure is so strong that children are often no longer able to differentiate their feelings, desires and needs from the ones of their parents for their own future15.

12 Interview, Shanghai, June 2014, with Hanbing, Chinese product designer.

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Charlene Tan, Learning From Shanghai, Springer, 2013.

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Interview, Shanghai, October 2014, with Chloé, Chinese Educational Manager of Melody

Preschool.

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Les Supers Enfants, CNTV, 2010.

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Personal Picture - Shanghai School - November 2014

Parents did everything possible to get their children into good schools and demanded that they become excellent students16.

As I was interested in this relationship between the child and his parents, I did further searches on it:

“Once at school, Chinese children learn to respect and obey their parents. This authoritative status is established and unchallenged. The rigid nature of the relationship with a parent and the depth of respect for them are pillars of Chinese family life. The accepted nature of the relationship is to respect one’s parents and never challenge or undermine the authority status. This can sometimes result in oppressive relationships, with little understanding of each other.

Unlike in the West, parents do not tell children how clever they are or encourage their individual achievement. Most Chinese parents don’t acknowledge any of their children’s achievements. Instead, they are never good enough. Even when they get full marks on their school assignments, they are told they should not “rest on the past glory”.

The Chinese people believe that if you compliment your children, they become too proud. Modesty is an important part of the Chinese character.” 17 16

Haihua Zhang,Geoffrey Baker, Think Like Chinese , Federation Press, 2008.

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Haihua Zhang, Geoffrey Baker, Think Like Chinese, Federation Press, 2008, p.75 - 76.

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B. Parents and Creativity

"Parents are not confident with the way to improve the creative thinking of their children and don’t know how to make them more creative."18 Parents also say that the independent thinking has to be developed at home as schools focus entirely on exam results. They are frustrated about this exam system.

Compared to parents of the West, Chinese parents spend approximately 10 times more every day for academic activities with their children. For most of Shanghainese parents, they do not pay much attention to creativity as their main goal is that their child gets good grades at school19. Indeed, 70% of Western mothers think that "Stressing Academic success is not good for children. Parents need to foster the idea that learning is fun", but 0% of Chinese mothers think the same way20. This shows the gap between our cultures.

Shanghainese teachers and parents regularly ask how they can introduce more creativity into their children’s academic lives.

They are more than frustrated by the dominance of the exam system.

But when we ask them what they would like to improve, they usually say they want to replace exam-oriented learning rather than describing what they would like to have instead of it.

It shows that they do not know how to solve this problem because they never learned creative thinking.

Shanghainese parents try more and more to broaden their child’s knowledge. For instance Apple21 tells stories to her son, brings him to parks or zoo, in order that he can think broadly, differently from the others and by himself.

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Nancy Pine, Educating Young Giants – What Kids Learn (And Don’t Learn) In China And America, Palgrave Macmilla, 2012.

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Interview, Shanghai, June 2014, with Hanbing, Chinese product designer.

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Amy Chua, Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior, “The Wall Street Journal”, 2011.

21 Interview, Shanghai, August 2014, with Apple, Chinese mother of a 6 year-old boy.

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DESIGN B ENEFITS OF ENCOURAGING CREATIVITY

1. Design thinking in China

French designers try to achieve major creative contributions and innovations in their work. Their education prepared them to design something entirely new or to revise and improve existing products. But for traditional work in China, there must be conformity to certain visual aspects. To the untrained French eye, it may seem as if there were only incremental changes in Chinese art from century to century because France is always on a quest for new and unique things that represent individualism.

Eric Chan, named as one of the world’s best Chinese designers by the Hong Kong Design Centre, has been working in the West and in the East.

By comparing these cultures, he declares that “the index of creativity is different from culture to culture. Americans place high value on individuality, whereas the Chinese are quiet, prefer harmony, are conforming and no confrontational, people from the West take gambles and risks, whereas the Chinese may not have a big idea but smaller inventions. Cultures of the West sometimes lack patience and make quick judgments. The Chinese have a tradition of following a master whom they respect and want to learn from.”22 Through his experience, Chan believes the best would be that Western people take the time to process, analyse, and then make decisions, and that it would help if the Chinese were more result-oriented and made decisions more quickly.

The differences in the cultures make Europe and Asia work differently according to design and innovation. But both of them have qualities from which each other can learn. The well-thoughtout smaller and incremental steps that Chinese teams perform allow richer exploration but fewer opportunities for mistakes.

While the bold, passionate, risk-taking leaps French make as individuals offer a different type of exploration that the East could benefit from. The West appears to move in a more linear 22

Lorraine Justice, China’s Design Revolution, The MIT Press, 2012, page 118.

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way toward a big idea in which details are not important initially.

The East seems to move incrementally toward new ideas after contextual consideration and examination of all possibilities.

It is true that when I was working as a Graphic intern in a design agency, many designers complained that their Chinese clients do not understand design. In fact, clients were thinking a solution too risky, they were not confident about choosing a proposal, or were worried that someone else may have the same idea and act on it before they did. In addition, Chinese clients often do not want to pay for something they cannot see, especially in the early stages of the design process. I encountered the fact that they cannot envisage a design if they do notn’t see it as a wholein its globality. That means that they have difficulties to envisage a visual or product if they do notn’t see it clearly.

On the contrary, many American and Western companies know that design is an investment and use it to build a strong identity for their brand. Moreover, I think that many designers, especially designers from the West who do work in China, become frustrated by the lack of sophistication of clients in relation to design. But some Western designers have been able to work successfully with Chinese companies, so their success further undermines local designers’ confidence23. It means that Chinese companies are more and more asking for foreign designers and workers in the creative field, especially in Shanghai which is an international city, as Chinese people are not used to the design and creative thinking for the moment.

I thus realize that the design thinking in China is totally different from France. Lorraine Justice, author of China’s Design Revolution24, explained that an art dealer in Hong Kong replied to the question “Are Chinese people creative?” by: “What do you mean by creative? Is it the Western version of creativity where something is created from nothing, as in the Christian belief?”. By this answer, it seems there is a difference between creativity and design thinking in China and in the West, and much of it has to do with the individualism expression of the West and the complex contextualization of the East. While the West is interested in making things unique, individualistic, and attention getting, the East has long tradition of working within boundaries and guidelines.

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Lorraine Justice, China’s Design Revolution, The MIT Press, 2012, page 7.

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Lorraine Justice, China’s Design Revolution, The MIT Press, 2012, page 4.

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2. How to encourage creativity?

I have learned during several workshops and other moments spent with kids that the creativity can be encouraged. Indeed, most writers on creativity agree that it is possible to encourage or to inhibit the development of creativity in young children. The author Karen S. Meador25 highlights the fact that children are apparently more creative before they enter kindergarten. It leads to the question of whether this is a natural consequence of children maturing and becoming constrained by social conventions, or whether their experiences in kindergarten somehow caused the decline.

Creativity for young children has nothing to do with innovative ideas. This is more the way to think and to produce in an original way. It becomes more relevant when adults try to be more attentive to the cognitive processes of children than to the results they achieve in various fields of doing and understanding. It means that to suit young children, creativity must be seen by the creative process rather than the quality of the final “products”.

Moreover, the fact to encourage children to talk about their projects, how they came up with the ideas, how they feel about what they have created, what it represents, often encourages further ideas and more creative efforts, all important for healthy mental growth.

For a five-year-old child, we could notice that he is well balanced when he is happy to show the drawings he made at school and that he writes his name. But once back at home, he still needs to scribble without limits and play with his toys to imaginative stories.

25 Karen S. Meador, Emerging rainbows: a review of the literature on creativity, “Journal for the Education of the Gifted”, 1992, Vol. 15, 2, 163–81.

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"The game is the life of a child!". This is the credo of Jean Epstein26, psychosocial specialist. He shows that children need to play and experiment to develop themselves. The game becomes educational.

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The game is the life of a child!

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“Nowadays, toys are designed to encourage the development of children, awakening their senses. But we tend to confuse play and activity. By trying to "play useful" to develop a skill, we risk falling into activism. In fact, the game is not just an activity. Jean Epstein distinguishes four basic needs which find their fulfilment through the game.

Play helps children to learn rules, as for example teach them it doesn’t matter to lose. Play to develop creativity, as Legos or Kaplas which leave time for imagination. Play to give time to inactivity awakening, offering to the child a space of freedom, giving him time to do nothing and to explore by himself. And also play to share a fun time.” 27

According to James D. Moran III28, to encourage the creativity, there are several aspects that parents can provide, as an environment in which the child can explore and play without any constraints. The adult also should adapt to children’s ideas rather than structuring his ideas.

We should also accept all the unusual ideas from children without any judgment. And for all of this, the children need time to explore all possibilities in order to move from basic to more original ideas.

Carl Rogers29 provides the conditions for the development of creativity: team working, circle of freedom, free expression, stimulation of new and original ideas, trust, acceptance and respect of the individual, independence, freedom and projection to select multiple options.

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Jean Epstein, Le jeu enjeu, Dunod, 2011. Psychosocial specialist who proved the importance of playing for a child.

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Asmae Association, L’enfant et le jeu, www.petitestetes.com.

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James D. Moran III, Creativity In Young Children, Educational Resource Information Centre, 2011.

29 Carl Rogers, Liberté pour apprendre, Dunod, Paris, 1971. Founder of the approach "person-centred". For him, the teacher should not be a "master of thinking" but rather a "learning facilitator".

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e d u cat i o n a l B ENEFITS O F CREATIVITY

Jiàoyù

teach

教

I wanted to better understand the challenges around creativity, so I decided to focus my research on education, in order to see in what way creativity could enhance the learning in education. To my mind, education from family to school, have both an important influence on the creativity and independent thinking of children. I will go through the Chinese education pattern to apprehend the system and the concerns around it.

1. Definitions

In Mandarin Chinese, Education is 教育 ("Jiàoyù").

"Jiào" means "to teach" and "Yù" is "to educate, to nurture".

This refers to the transfer of knowledge from one generation to the next one through teaching, training, or research.

育 educate, nurture

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There are no students who cannot be taught well,

only

teachers

who cannot teach well.

» 2. Chinese education nowadays

In China, academic success is the focus of the whole society and education is one of the most important thing. China is investing remarkably in the education of its youth. The ambition of the families is that their child, the only child, succeeds at the highest level. In order to succeed and to fit into the Chinese pattern, the Chinese education develops different values to build a national identity. These social and personal values developed at school are the pride of being Chinese, citizenship, success through personal work, memorization, perseverance, personal ambition, but also solidarity30.

A. The teachers

As it is important to take into account all the different actors, I wanted to understand the place of the teachers in the education of a child. A famous Chinese proverb says that "There are no students who cannot be taught well, only teachers who cannot teach well" (“没有教不好的学生，只有不会教的 老师”). According to me, this citation shows the high cultural expectations towards teachers in China.

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Rémy Jost, Un Regard Sur L’éducation En Chine, IREM de Rennes, 2013.

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More than that, I noticed thanks to my searches that teachers are also very important in the lives of students, as they often play the role of educator for the children. While in France, this is generally more the parents who are responsible for the education of their child. During the Chinese Teachers’ Day every September 10th, there is an exchange of gifts between teachers and their students’ families. This exchange is so complex that the distinction between the two sides is often blurred: many teachers continue to take care of their students outside of school, and some are proud to be addressed sometimes as “mother”31.

At school, teachers try to engage the students, but mostly what they will do is to ask “yes or no” questions or questions with a definite answer. There is very little opportunities to answer open questions. But the problem is also the number of students in one class which is more than twice of our French classrooms: 70 students compared to 30 in France. In this situation, the students do not have the opportunity to express themselves, and teachers cannot know and follow every student.

For problem solving in the classroom, the teachers give time for personal thinking, by going from one student to another. Recently, according to official instructions, they also try to stimulate a discussion among classmates: new methods emerge then. The teacher often concludes by comparing and valuing different methods. In contrary, during exam years this educational practice is rare: the problems of the exam are only accomplishment of quick tasks32.

B. The "Gāokào"

After searching about the different actors, I became interested in the different examinations systems. The 高考 (“Gāokào”) is the final exam of secondary school education, the equivalent of our French Baccalaureate or of the A-Levels.

It is a very important exam in order to get into the more prestigious universities, but it is the only way that opens the doors of all the major schools and universities, compared to France where we have a lot of different professional formations. The word “Gāokao” means Big examination (Gāo: high; Kào: examination) which became a tradition for all good students in China.

31

Gladys Chicharro, The Burden of Little Emperors: A Generation of Single Children in China, Société d’ethnologie, 2010, p.159.

32

Rémy Jost, Un Regard Sur L’éducation En Chine, IREM de Rennes, 2013.

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There are two different specialities: one scientist, the other one literary. To my opinion, it could be too restrictive to have only two options for specialities, which are not relevant for all the students’ capacities and profiles. There are also two exam strategies prevalent among Chinese teachers and students: either being familiar with the exam questions, which requires repeated practice of many variations of the same problem, or answering the questions in the shortest time possible. Indeed, exams are mostly multiple choice questionnaires, and not often dissertations in which you propose your own point of view linked to the knowledge you have on a topic.

We can relate this examination system to the saying of Confucius about becoming a government official if you excel in studies. Confucianism has marked the whole society and nowadays examinations, made of repetition and memorization, come from it. In fact, this is the way Chinese people get educated and that they prove to be useful to the system. If you succeed in Chinese education, it means you are patient, you respect the teachers, you can memorize text and you are strict. In this way, we cannot deny that the Chinese system has amazing conditions of training students, making them focused and disciplined.

C. Amount of homework

I have found that 49% of secondary students in China spend between 2 and 4 hours on homework every day33.

But Shanghainese parents tell that their children are bored of homework and that they would like to play34. A student35 that I interviewed explained me that when he was in primary school, he went every Sunday to youth centre in which he had 20 pages of calligraphy characters to do every time. This is a huge quantity of work and in a very repetitive way for such a young student. But most Shanghainese parents want their child to succeed and excel, so they will continue in that direction of educating their children.

33

Charlene Tan, Survey in: Learning From Shanghai, Springer, 2013.

34

Interview, Shanghai, August 2014, with Apple, Chinese mother of a 6 year-old boy.

35

Interview, Shanghai, May 2014, with Gem, Chinese student from Fine Art College.

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According to Amy Chua36, Chinese mothers believe that their child must be years ahead of his or her classmates and that schoolwork always comes first and an A-minus is a bad grade. The competition and pressure is really present between families since the very young age of the child. Indeed, Jane and her husband37 explained me that most of the children entering Grade 1 (primary school) already learned maths and knowledge of Grade 2. . That means that the children are speeded up by their parents before entering primary school, to learn as much as possible. This competition goes on until the Gāokao, after which students feel as in holidays and tend not do not do anything anymore.

We can also analyse the importance of the language. Since their birth, Chinese children are surrounded by a complexity of strokes while European children are surrounded by much simple forms.

The Chinese language learning and writing requires a lot of time, to be very concentrated on details and to repeat a character as much as needed to remember it. This is a completely different approach to our French alphabet which contains only 26 letters.

D. Extracurricular activities

In China, a lot of children attend to extracurricular activities, after school and during weekends and holidays. A survey shows that 52% of children under the age of 12 in China attend extracurricular classes during weekends, and 62% of children aged 10-12 attend enrichment classes such as English, mathematics, music, art, dance and martial arts. Each lesson lasting 1 hour and a half, costs approximatively 150 RMB. The average per term, which comprises 20 lessons, is 3000 RMB – equivalent to 1 month’s salary of an entry-level teacher in Shanghai38.

All these data allow me to say that it is a general culture phenomenon. Indeed, Jane and her husband39, parents of a sevenyear-old boy, told me that everybody does it as they do not have the choice, otherwise their child would not be as good as the neighbours’ one.

36

Amy Chua, Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior, “The Wall Street Journal”, 2011.

37

Interview, Shanghai, September 2014, with Jane & her husband, Chinese parents of a 7

year-old boy.

38

Charlene Tan, Learning From Shanghai, Springer, 2013.

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Interview, Shanghai, September 2014, with Jane & her husband, Chinese parents of a 7

year-old boy.

Personal Picture - Creative Workshop - Shanghai - July 2014 56

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The goal is to improve and develop various skills in different domains. The most important subjects are Chinese (Calligraphy and Pinyin), mathematics and English lessons and there are also some leisure activities such as Lego classes, Piano or other instruments, but also Sport such as Football, Taekwondo, etc.

Children have a lot of extracurricular activities, but it is often elitist activities as piano, violin, calligraphy, in order to have the best children in every situation.

Gem40, a Fine Art College student, explained me that when he was a child, he did calligraphy lessons because his grandmother wanted him to (nice writing means you are a good person) and English lessons because his mother wanted him to. This shows the influence of parents and family on the child and the importance to appear well in the society.

Ivana41, English teacher, worked also in an after school centre in Shanghai (“Disney English”) where the children came every Saturday to work. And when they subscribed for an activity, parents told them “you have to continue it” because if they stop it would be as if they failed at this activity.

Parents now look for unique and original activities (as drums for example), in order to have a child different from the others and to catch the attention at the Kindergarten42. It refers to the story of the Tiger Woman, with the mother Amy Chua43 who gives a very strong education to her two daughters, with a lot of activities every day, without any free time. Indeed, it began with a list of child-rearing edicts, including the fact that the couple’s daughters, Sophia and Lulu, were never allowed to attend a sleepover, get any grade less than an A, fail to come first in any class except gym and drama, and had to play the piano or violin. No exceptions, no excuses. It continued through the time she called Sophia “garbage”, and threatened to burn her soft toys. This mother’s mission, based on the sort of parenting she claimed was natural for Chinese mothers, was to turn her children into achievers.

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Interview, Shanghai, May 2014, with Gem, Chinese student from Fine Art College.

41

Interview, Shanghai, June 2014, with Ivana, English American teacher of Grade 1.

42

Interview, Shanghai, June 2014, with Hanbing, Chinese product designer.

43

Amy Chua, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, Penguin Books, 2011.

Picture nicely given by Sophie Lefevre - Power Station of Art workshop - Shanghai - 2014 58

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In our contemporary society, teachers are always asked to be more and more creative, to implement new ways of teaching in their lessons, to raise more and more children’s creativeness, but after that, children risk to finish school without any real knowledge.

Indeed, they would have been entertained for 10 years, with all different strategies to do on their own, but without gaining basic knowledge, such as geography, history, etc, that we have in our French education.

3. Creativity in education

A. Characteristics

What is being creative in education? In my way of thinking, this is to be proactive, to think by yourself and to have your own point of view. The most salient qualities in an educational setting are the ability to be intensively absorbed in activities, the ability to combine things or ideas in new ways, and the ability to make independent decisions and follow through on them44.

I believe that creativity is about imagination and originality, with the ability to come up with ideas and products that are new and unusual. This is also about productivity, the ability to generate a variety of different ideas, and problem solving with the application of knowledge and imagination in a special situation. Creativity is finally about the ability to produce an outcome of value and worth45.

When we consider creativity in young children, I guess that it is appropriate to adopt a broad definition of it. In this way, every child can be considered to have creative potential and to be capable of creative expression. It is important to consider what might constitute originality in the work of a young child. Instead, each child’s creative abilities can be related to his/her personal stage of development. For example, a young child’s work may be adaptive and original for that particular child and/or in relation to children in their class or age group.

44

Jane Healy, Your child’s Growing Mind, Broadways books, 2004.

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B. Importance of creativity

In my opinion, the possibility to discover, to experiment, to develop creative ability, to search and find new ways to use an object, contributes to the well-being of a child. This is why creativity is important for children. The child who can react sensibly to what he hears, sees, touches or feels, develops more easily his capacity and desire to communicate with others. And one of the most natural forms of childhood expression is through artistic expressions. By creating the child can feel free, act without constraints, to develop his thoughts and feelings about himself and his entourage. He or she can build his/her own personality.

Additionally, when a child experiences a stressful situation, creative activity can provide him a good escape from it. That is why when I was young, my parents always suggested me to do some breaks during my studying times, to go out, to get some fresh air and to do something else, as sport for example, in order to decompress and think about something else. These breaks are very useful when you are stuck into a problem and do not progress anymore. It helped me to come back on my work in better conditions by being more concentrated and more inspired.

We can take the example of the educational system in Germany.

I remember when I travelled in Germany with my school, that German students had lessons only during mornings, and had “free time” during afternoons. This schedule allowed them to work on their homework, but especially to have hobbies as sport or music, creative time in youth centres and also time to do nothing. I agree that it could seem contrary to our vision of education, but German students are often faster in their work and better than French students at school. It shows that working and studying all the time without any pause is not the best way to be productive and efficient.

Caroline Sharp, Developing Young Children’s Creativity: What Can We Learn From Research?, “NFER”, Issue 32, 2004.

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Moreover, through creativity, children learn to deal with their feelings and are often able to work through a problem on their own. A simple crayon drawing can sometimes express better what the child is feeling than words can.

I also trust that, at the individual level, being creative is the insurance to be balanced and happy and therefore to be more productive. To me, life is not about repetition but more about adaptation and constant innovation. On the scale of a country it permits to be innovative and to move forward. Creativity is used to get off the beaten track, to get out of routine and allows you to explore new approaches, which is a major advantage in our globalized and increasingly competitive world.

I believe this is the reason why Shanghainese children generally do not like to answer to “what is your favourite..?” question, as it involves giving their point of view and their feelings.

They prefer answering to questions related to the book48. In fact, Shanghainese children love to work in teams and to repeat. That means they are very good at taking notes, memorizing and spelling.

Ivana49, an English foreign teacher explained to me that, in her classroom, to make the students interact she needs to push them to ask questions. They nearly never ask questions because it seems as if they are stupid and it can lead the teacher to lose face, as if she was bad at teaching her lesson. There is also the notion of the face, which is 面子 (“Miànzi”) in Mandarin Chinese, referring to one's own sense of dignity or prestige in social contexts.

I think that education programs’ teaching lack real-world practice. Indeed, more internships in companies and competition are needed to bring students up to speed while providing them with a personalized follow-up at school. In China, Master’s Degree students are often alone to face their studies. Indeed, Gem50 who is a student in Fine Arts College of Shanghai University, explained to me that he learned all his 3D and creative software by himself thanks to tutorials. On the contrary, in our creative studies and schools, we are followed and instructed by the supervisors in all different topics, both on practical and theoretical levels.

C. Creativity in Chinese education

"Chinese kids learn to see their original idea as a problem, rather than as something creative or exciting." 46

I think that it is difficult for Shanghainese people to be creative, as they learned by heart all the standard answers to questions since their very early age. Indeed, in the Chinese educational system, the initiative and creativity are less emphasized at school than memorization, copying and imitation. That means they are never really pushed to think by themselves and differently.

It is not that they are not creative, but more that they never have the opportunity to be so. Shanghainese people need time to dare giving opinion, taking risks and trying creative things. The following citation proves my statement:

48

Interview, Shanghai, June 2014, with Ivana, English American teacher of Grade 1.

49

Interview, Shanghai, June 2014, with Ivana, English American teacher of Grade 1.

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Interview, Shanghai, May 2014, with Gem, Chinese student from Fine Art College.

“We have seen the advantages and the disadvantages of our education system, and our students' abilities are still weak”, said Xiong Bingqi, an education expert at Shanghai's Jiao Tong University. “They do very well in those subjects the teacher assigns them. They have huge vocabularies and they do math well. However, the level of their creativity and imagination is low. “In the long run, for us to become a strong country, we need talent and great creativity”, Xiong said.

“And right now, our educational system cannot accomplish this.”47 46

Nancy Pine, Educating Young Giants – What Kids Learn (And Don’t Learn) In China And America, Palgrave Macmilla, 2012.

47 Megan K. Stack, Chinese students' high scores in international tests come at a cost, articles.latimes.com, 2011.

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(in Chinese, mathematics, English, Arts) by passing some oral and written tests, but also performances.

4. Schooling in Shanghai

I decided to focus my research on Shanghai, as it is one of the most important city in China (with Beijing and Guangdong) but also as this is where I live. It was more relevant for me to understand the challenges appearing in my city.

Thanks to my experience among different Shanghai families, I have noticed that Shanghainese parents try more and more to teach a foreign language to their children, especially English. The learning of foreign languages has a real big importance in the society and in Shanghai. Indeed, Shanghai, being an international city, is open to the world and offers a lot of opportunities worldwide. Actually, Shanghainese parents try more and more to send their child to study abroad or attend international schools, as most of them do not trust the traditional Chinese educational system anymore. Indeed, they think it is too much focused on memorizing and not on creative thinking.

In fact, James51 who is married with a Chinese woman and father of a 4-year-old girl, explained to me that since their daughter was born, they took the decision to educate their daughter in a Western way, by living with her mother only in the United Kingdom. This decision is a very important one to take for a family and it proves that expat families, and more and more Shanghainese also, try to avoid the traditional Chinese education.

Let us see how the situation is in Shanghai schools. The school to which I went (Shanghai International Studies University Bilingual School) in order to meet Amanda52, vice provisory of the school, is in the Top 2 of Shanghai’s schools. All the schools of the city have a ranking on the Internet, to know which one is the best. Every year, they accept 198 students out of 1800 passing the exam. This entrance exam is to find some special talents 51

This shows the importance of the 关系 “Guānxì”, which is in China the network and the relations that you have. It refers to the benefits gained from social connections. The more you get, the more you have power in the society and you can have privileges.

That is why parents do not know how to escape this competition, because according to them, this is not fair, and if they do not have any big relation, their child will not succeed as much as the other ones. The problem, according to parents, is that in Shanghai there are not enough good schools and a too big population. Thus, Shanghainese parents are fighting to get the best place for their child.

Shanghai is popular for its diversity and quality in the education field, which is why a lot of students want to enter Shanghai schools and Universities to get the best education.

Parents spend a lot of money to attend an international school in order to have their child in the best school ever. In China, the importance of the international and bilingual schools is increasing, while the traditional Chinese educational system is more and more accused as parents are not very confident with it.

“Chinese adolescence is known as a time of scant whimsy: Students rise at dawn, disappear into school until dinner time and toil into the late night over homework in preparation for university entrance exams that can make or break their future. So it came as little surprise when international education assessors announced last month that students in Shanghai had outperformed the rest of the industrialized world in standardized exams in math, reading and science.” 55 53

Interview, Shanghai, June 2014, with James, English father married with a Chinese

woman, parents of a 4-year-old girl.

52

I thus understood the importance of relationships, with which you can more easily enter the school you want.

If your parents work in a school for more than several years, you can also enter the school easily53. That is why having parents who work in a good school (with a good ranking) makes it easier for the student’s future education. Shanghainese parents are facing this unfair situation and do not know how to escape from it54.

Interview, Shanghai, September 2014, with Amanda, Chinese Vice Principal of Shanghai International Studies University Bilingual School.

54

Interview, Shanghai, September 2014, with Amanda, Chinese Vice Principal of Shanghai

International Studies University Bilingual School.

Interview, Shanghai, September 2014, with Jane & her husband, Chinese parents of a 7

year-old boy.

55 Megan K. Stack, Chinese students’ high scores in international tests come at a cost, articles.latimes.com, 2011.

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5. Evolution and reforms

The government is aware of the need to stimulate more innovative education. The education ministry suggested a curriculum reform: "We must make students become aware of, and understand, the process of knowledge production and development; we must cultivate students’ spirit and creative habits of thought."56 Several efforts to reform classroom practice followed such as the modernization of textbooks. According to Jane57, a Shanghainese mother of a 7-year-old boy, the education system has evolved for the past 10 years in China. The earlier generations did not have to work that much at home. When she was young and student, she had to work hard in class, but when the school time was finished, she came back home and had free time. Through their education innovations, she declares the government moved the pressure from schools to home, and she can see the difference with her young son.

Nowadays, there are new reforms to enhance the innovative spirit and the real-life ability of the students. The goal is to get a global development through diverse learning experiences, referring to the ability to go beyond textbooks knowledge to acquire new knowledge and know-how to solve problems.

Thanks to my personal interviews, I have learned that the new reform focuses on the National entrance exam which will be more focused on the student as a "person" than only on his grades.

They will be able to make more choices for their subjects, have to go out of the school and do social activities (volunteer jobs, help people…). The student will need to provide a written report with all these social activities. To do so, many schools take their 56

Nancy Pine, Educating Young Giants – What Kids Learn (And Don’t Learn) In China And America, Palgrave Macmilla, 2012.

57

Interview, Shanghai, September 2014, with Jane & her husband, Chinese parents of a 7

year-old boy.

Personal Picture - High School - Shanghai - July 2014 66

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students outside the classroom to visit cultural centres in order to open their minds. But I believe that these reforms will need a lot of time to change people’s mind. In fact, the schools apply these reforms, but parents do not agree with it and does not want to change the current system as they always want their child to be the best.58

I think that the system is going to evolve, as the education system is already undergoing great change, from a mentality of memorization and “no-questions-asked” exams to one of exploration and innovation. As China is in a continuous quick changes process, it will bring new opportunities for those who take the time to learn about this vast country. I am also convinced that China will continue to make many contributions to the rest of the world. “Like the 2008 Beijing Olympics ceremony, it will show beauty and discipline through its modernization.”59 Moreover, through my observations and searches, I have noticed that there is also an evolution in students’ behaviours. Indeed, they are less shy and obedient than before. The traditional way of teaching is evolving, partly due to the rise of the number of foreigners in Shanghai (teachers and students). Before, the education at school was focused on grammar and repetition, so they were good at written test but they could not speak naturally. Now they try to develop more the listening and practicing aspects60.

Nowadays, students are more and more open-minded because they have more chances to see what is going on outside China or to travel. I am also persuaded that the presence of foreigners’ communities in Shanghai plays an important role in this phenomenon. Since there are more and more foreigners in China (teachers, parents, students), Shanghainese people can learn from them and change their way of teaching or learning.

Of course, foreigners also learn from Chinese people, and it creates a mutual influence on their way of thinking and studying.

The Chinese traditional way of teaching is ongoing, and I think that it will be better years after years.

Picture from Helena Sykes - Website Teach English in China.

In fact, Shanghai itself imposes creativity on children through its transculturality and the huge presence of foreigners.

58

Interview, Shanghai, September 2014, with Amanda, Chinese Vice Principal of Shanghai International Studies University Bilingual School.

59

Lorraine Justice, China’s Design Revolution, The MIT Press, 2012, page 118.

60

Interview, Shanghai, September 2014, with Amanda, Chinese Vice Principal of Shanghai International Studies University Bilingual School.

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TRANSCULTURAL B ENEFITS O F CREATIVITY

As we have seen previously, the definition of creativity is a cultural matter. In fact, the values describing this vague term are clearly different between Shanghainese and French people at least.

Shanghainese people see more the practical aspects of the creativity, in order to become better in their field, as for example have better GÄ okÇŽo grades or to be more efficient in their memorization. For them, this is more a skill that ensures success, stability and peaceful future in the society. Contrary to us, Creativity is not about fun or inspiration, but rather about being efficient, competitive, and again, successful in every situation.

We could also compare this approach to studying abroad. For Shanghainese parents, this experience will bring to their child better English skills, an international diploma, and things which are very specific and tangible. On the opposite, when I came to China to study, it was in order to be more mature and open-minded, to discover a new culture and to get an international profile. This is quite close conclusions, but we approach it in different angles.

Personal Picture - Workshop "Cultural discoveries" - Shanghai - October 2014

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2. Transculturality and creativity

Why is it important to teach children creativity?

To my opinion, teaching creativity to children, with new ways of independent and creative thinking, is important in order for them to better manage their future work and life, in transcultural community. I believe that if all these creative workshops are present in Shanghai, this is because Shanghainese people want their child to go out of the Chinese cultural frame. Creativity then becomes a tool, and those creative activities are also influenced by the foreign patterns which are more and more successful in China.

I then wonder how creativity and its skills could help to support the transcultural identity of the kid.

How could the transculturality and creativity influence each other? What is the link between the two? In fact, these are quite close to transdisciplinarity when there is team work with different specialities, as for example Graphic designers with Product and Space designers all together.

In this kind of multidisciplinary team, everybody becomes flexible, and gives his or her own knowledge to solve a particular problem. Thus, the mix is useful for creativity.

1. Vision of success

"Hoping your son will be a dragon, your daughter will be a phoenix". This Chinese saying expresses the strong sociocultural desire of Chinese parents for their children to be successful in life.

And success in China must begin with academic success.

In Chinese families today (labelled “4-2-1 families” for four grandparents, two parents, and one child), children demand so much attention that they have been called “little emperors,” “little princesses,” or even “little suns.” Treated as little emperors in their childhood they then passed through a state education machinery seeking to transform them into economically and scientifically productive citizens.

We can also point the importance of being bilingual, which brings a very strong flexibility to our brains. In the article “Why you should hire Bilinguals even if you don’t need their Language skills”61, the author explains that the bilinguals are faster thinkers and more productive, even in roles that do not necessarily require them to use their second language.

Bilinguals are apparently more efficient at making linguistic and visual connections, possibly because of the mental acuity required to constantly balance two competing vocabularies.

This flexibility of the brain trained to adaptation is contrary to the imposed patterns from educational systems.

Thus, children raised up by bilinguals develop brain connections and thinking patterns that are much more efficient and stronger than children who were educated with one language.

To sum up, their thinking patterns are much more efficient and creative than those of other people.

61

Oscar Raymundo, Why You Should Hire Bilinguals Even If You Don’t Need Their Language Skills, www.inc.com, 2014.

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Creativity could allow people to manage their own identity in a creative way. I mean that they can face issues with different points of view and different approaches thanks to their daily adaptation from a culture to another.

Personal Picture - Workshop "Cultural discoveries" - Shanghai - October 2014

3. Being a transcultural child

How could transcultural children benefit from creativity and why would it be important in the transcultural community to make people creative?

In fact, a transcultural kid who has grown up in different cultures and environments (with family members from different nationalities, or living in different countries) is much more able to adapt himself to different situations and to imagine more solutions to a problem. In that way, we could pretend that transcultural children are more creative. Indeed, since their very early age they have been facing several identities, ways of living, thinking and understanding the world, which make them more open-minded by having more adaptation abilities. They have been living long enough in such different cities or countries to be able to appreciate and understand deeply some cultural behaviours, while a visitor will be surprised by them. I believe that they are able to manage all the different patterns that surround them and thus become more flexible. However, this flexibility and this particular transculturality shapes the kid by making him unique through his own experience.

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Furthermore, in what way could transculturality be introduced to school in a more creative way than just through the learning of foreign languages? This would be by putting transculturality at the centre of education. In fact, the contents of education at school are aimed at developping a national identity, which is specific to each country. This means that a French child raised up in China has the choice to enter a French school (or some other foreign school), thus to mostly speak French and apply the French system, or to choose the Chinese educational system and be immersed in the culture. We could also think about a more transcultural education, in which every student can benefit from different cultures.

The transcultural children are often interested in what happened in the country they live in. They need and want to better understand their environment, in order to better adapt themselves. These children try to better apprehend the lifestyle’s differences in order to respect the values and ideals of people through their cultures. It make them sometimes feeling that they belong to the culture of the country they are living in, more than to their own culture. Moreover, children behave according to their feelings and intuitions. They directly know how to act in the different situations encountered. Switching from one culture to another becomes intuitive for them.

I believe that transculturality is also present through China itself. Indeed, China is composed of a lot of different provinces which all have their own dialects and culture. This is sometimes also difficult for Chinese people to tell from where they come when they have been raised in Shanghai for instance, with parents from another province and all their family in their hometown. Transculturality in China is about connections between different parts of China which have different languages.

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CON CLUSION

Education helped me to experience culture in a deeper way and this experience has affected my understanding of Chinese culture, by making me more open-minded about Chinese people’s traditions, ways of working and studying, but also choices, attitudes and feelings. I learned a lot from them and am now able to perceive the importance and the pressure put on the only child.

Finally, this dissertation helped me to better understand nowadays’ challenges in China, to face new ways of thinking, doing and apprehending the world. Based on my research about children, I have been able to deepen my knowledge about Chinese culture and society.

Then, the relation between transculturality and creativity have been studied. In fact, transcultural children are much more efficient and creative than others. Indeed, from their early age, they are used to adapt to different situations and ways of thinking.

Moreover, the Chinese government is aware about the lack of creativity and imagination, so the educational system is undergoing great changes by focusing more on the students as a person than on their grades. To implement this new reform, teachers bring their students out of the classroom, to visit museums, historical sites, etc.

In education, the predominance of extracurricular activities lets no free time to children and illusion of having fun, while they always have to excel.

These extracurricular activities are aimed at improving the knowledge of children before they enter school. In China, teachers are very important in children’s education and there are high expectations towards them.

The core content of this dissertation is about combining creativity and education in China. The results of this research show that parents do not know how to improve the creative thinking of their child as they never learned how to be creative. But some tools are known to encourage the creativity of young children such as being in a favourable environment and leaving time to the child to go from basic to original ideas. Moreover, parents spend a lot of money for their child’s education in order for him or her to succeed in every situation.

This success is very important for the whole family as the child should support his parents and fulfil the needs of his future family.

Through this dissertation, the benefits of Creativity for Shanghainese people have been studied. The definitions clearly show that creativity is a cultural matter and thus differ from one culture to another. Shanghainese people see more the practical and tangible aspects of it, while French people match it with innovation and productivity. But I believe that in every country, being creative is important for an individual’s happiness but also for the country as a whole.

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Besides, I created this book in an original way in order to stimulate readers’ creativity. Indeed, this new approach towards reading, including various directions of reading, requires that people adapt to this and manipulate the book.

As a Graphic Designer, my goal is to improve the lives of people, through visuals, communication and products, in a favourable environment for education. Through my research, I am now more able to face real life’s needs and issues. Involve and raise parents’ awareness in the creative process and increase the child’s development through Graphic Design: these are the main axis of my project.

All these questionings and information helped me to structure my end-of-studies Project, in order to find a relevant and appropriate solution to each of these points. With my design project, I would like to answer some of these challenges : children do not have enough free time, schools focus only on exams and not on thinking, parents are frustrated by the dominance of the exams system and do not know how to improve their child’s creativity, and a lot is expected from the teachers.

Op e n i n g

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biblio graphy

. Rémy Jost, Un Regard Sur L’éducation En Chine, IREM de Rennes, 2013.

. Kim Kyung Hee, Cultural Influence on Creativity: The Relationship Asian Culture (Confucianism) and Creativity among Korean Educators, Volume 43, Number 2, The Journal of Creative Behavior, 2009.

. Karen S. Meador, Emerging rainbows: a review of the literature on creativity, “Journal for the Education of the Gifted”, 1992, Vol. 15, 2, 163–81.

. James D. Moran III, Creativity in Young Children, Educational Resource Information Centre, 2011.

. Elisabeth Rudowicz and Xiao Dong Yue, Study Compatibility of Chinese and Creative Personalities, Creative Research Journal, 2002, Vol. 14.

. Caroline Sharp, Developing Young Children’s Creativity: What Can We Learn From Research?, “NFER”, Issue 32, 2004.

. Amy Chua, Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior, “The Wall Street Journal”, 2011.

Articles

. Nancy Pine, Educating Young Giants – What Kids Learn (And Don’t Learn) In China And America, Palgrave Macmilla, 2012.

. Lorraine Justice, China’s Design Revolution, The MIT Press, 2012.

. Jean Epstein, Le jeu enjeu, Dunod, 2011.

. Haihua Zhang, Geoffrey Baker, Think Like Chinese, Federation Press, 2008.

. Gladys Chicharro, The Burden of Little Emperors: A Generation of Single Children in China, Société d’ethnologie, 2010.

. Edward De Bono, La Boite A Outils De La Créativité, Groupe Eyrolles, 2004.

. Charlene Tan, Learning From Shanghai, Springer, 2013.

. Carl Rogers, Liberté pour apprendre, Dunod, Paris 1971.

. Amy Chua, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, Penguin Books, 2011.

Books

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WE BO graphy

. "Mamans Tigres" : Le Retour de l’éducation à la Dure, 66 minutes Reportage, 2011.

. Les Supers Enfants, CNTV, 2010.

. Inspiring Creativity, Brian Farmer, Highsnobiety, 2014.

. How School Kills Creativity?, Ken Robinson, TED, 2006.

. Creativity in Chinese Education, The World Science Podcast.

Videos

. Un Regard Sur L’éducation En Chine, www.bleton.com, 2012.

. Oscar Raymundo, Why You Should Hire Bilinguals Even If You Don’t Need Their Language Skills, www.inc.com, 2014.

. Nguyen Tha Anh, Confucius et le confucianisme, www.larevuedesressources.org, 2009.

. Megan K. Stack, Chinese students’ high scores in international tests come at a cost, articles.latimes.com, 2011.

. Marketing Chine, The Perception of the Creativity in China, www. marketing-chine.com, 2013.

. Le Quotidien du Peuple en ligne, Moins De Sommeil Chez Les Jeunes Chinois, En Raison D’un Manque D’activités Ludiques, french.people.com.cn, 2012.

. Jiang Xueqin, How China Kills Creativity, thediplomat.com, 2011.

. Editorial Du China Daily, Li Woke, The Children of the Dragon, www.chinadaily.com.cn, 2012.

. Editorial Du China Daily, Le système éducatif manque de Créativité, www.chinadaily.com.cn, 2010.

. Editorial Du China Daily, Incitons Notre Jeunesse à La Créativité, www.chinadaily.com.cn, 2010.

. Chine des enfants, Éducation Des Petits Chinois, www.chinedesenfants.org.

. Asmae Association, L’enfant et le jeu, www.petitestetes.com.

Websites

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acknow le dge men ts

Moreover, I would like to thank my supervisors Karolina Pawlik, Francesca Valsecchi and Jeremy Cheval for the great help and useful comments they gave me all along the learning process of this Master’s thesis and design project. Finally, thanks to Thibault Dechartres for helping me proofreading this dissertation.

I would like to express my gratitude to each person I interviewed who have willingly shared their precious time to exchange with me about this topic. Thanks to Gem, art design student in Shanghai University and Hanbing, product designer at centdegres. Also to Amanda Wang and ChloÊ who are both working in head of Shanghai’s schools. To Ivana, American teacher working with Chinese students, who shared with me her transcultural approach of education.

To Andy who kindly invited me to participate in his creative workshop.

And finally, thanks to all the parents: James, Apple, Lu Qiuju, Jane & her husband, for sharing with me their daily lives, challenges and fears about their child.

acknowledgements

Camille Dechartres Master's Dissertation - Transcultural Design China Studio - L'École de design Nantes Atlantique 2013-2015