Out of all of the
trivial information that my adolescent brain has kept from AP World History,
the ‘jinshi’ academic period of the Qing Dynasty has continued to be an
important learning tool for me. During the rule of the Qing Dynasty, one of
many dynastic families that defined Chinese history throughout the ages, the
‘jinshi’ represented a group of scholars who, after years of rigorous education
and an even more frightening examination, were awarded high honors and were
promoted into the state’s bureaucracy. The final test was conducted on a
three-day period, in which students were held in cells that prevented cheating
and not to mention, severely limited the students’ restroom possibilities.
Nevertheless, after the three day period, the passing scholars celebrated
merrily as the state’s new legislature while many of the failing students out
of depression and unbelief jumped from the roof of the academic department
where the tests were held. The test defined the difference between honor and
shame, and many students decided they could not live with the latter. Though
this is a very drastic and gruesome example, many of its ramifications can be
compared to modern day high school on the other side of the Pacific.
I, Ryan Cobb, too, was
a jinshi. I remember ever since the age of ten I would dream about college and
believe in this idea that my report card defined who I was. As I grew older, I
continued to see the pressure placed on high school students combined with the
overwhelming financial pressure of college. Even in the 8th grade,
my science class watched a documentary titled “2 Million Minutes,” which
addressed the time that high school students have to be the best of the best
and to make sure that college spots in America are not being taking by the
brighter and ever harder-working students in India and China. In my
preparations for high school I had a pretty good idea of how the next few years
of my life would proceed: I would have to work “a hard day’s night” during high
school just in order to not bankrupt my family for college, another place in
which I would have to work excessively to get a job that may or may not exist.
At fourteen, my childhood was completely out the window and I quickly became a
lean mean learning machine. On my first day of high school, I had my entire
course curriculum picked out for the next four years. I had calculated all of
my possible GPAs that hopefully would declare me as valedictorian, a title that
swirled in my head as I worked into dawn every single night, a title that pervaded
my dreams and thoughts, and led me also to many emotional breakdowns that were
cured on mother’s lap. As extracurricular activates are just as important as
the GPA, I was involved not only in
track and cross country during my sophomore year, but also in the theater
department, meaning that most days I didn’t see home until 9:30 p.m., at which time
I would begin my average four hours of homework. I led an indescribably
pressured life, the tension of which was only lightened by the occasional ‘A’
on a report card or the satisfying acknowledgments of my loving parents. What
is important to note here, is that I am not an exception to the rule. Thousands
of other students in America are pressured with the same work load and are
deprived of the same amounts of sleep, regardless of the fact that the U.S.
Department of Education claims that high school seniors should have only two
hours of homework daily, and the National Sleep Foundation says that teenagers
should be sleeping at least eight and half hours a night. Why, I ask myself,
were we receiving twice the workload and half the sleep as sophomores? In retrospect, I can see clearly that there was a
problem in the education system, one that becomes exponential worse every
single year.
That being said, at
that time I had no idea that the amount of work I was doing was a comparatively
ridiculous amount. I even would become mad at myself when I heard that other
students had even more exhausting workloads, as this millennium old
idea of ‘jinshi’ was still deeply rooted in my mind. I also would have
continued at the pace, working through the back-breaking challenges of junior
year like the rest of America’s sleepless zombies, if it weren’t for my very
special and eccentric German teacher. On one rainy day in December of 2012, she
presented a flyer to the class that was advertising a scholarship-based
exchange year to Germany with the Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange program, a
thirty year-old program that was created to strengthen the ties between Germany
and America during the Cold War. My initial thoughts were, “Eh, why not apply?”
I figured that my chances of being accepted were slim, but still I figured a
year in Europe could be pretty nice. Because of the overwhelming exhaustion of
exams, I decided finally to not finish my application before the deadline. I
believed in some sort of idea of fate and that what wasn’t meant to be wasn’t
meant to be. However, during Christmas break I was graced with the blessing of
a deadline extension and like the efficient American student, I had my
application turned in at 11:56 p.m. on January 3, 2013, four minutes before the
deadline. At the time, I wasn’t totally sure that I even wanted to spend a year
in Europe. It would mean sacrificing my GPA and valedictorianship chance, and that it
would take away another valuable year of education. Still, the idea of a “dream
year” in Germany grew inside of me, and after being declared semi-finalist and
after my following interview in Atlanta, I was completely sold on the idea.
Even my parents were open to the thought of losing their son for a year after a
month of constantly asking, “Are you sure you want to do this to your life,
son?” And sure enough, on March 13th 2013, I received word that I
was as finalist, and that in less than half a year, I would be packing my bags
for ten and a half months of German cultural and language immersion (important
to mention is that the first people who found out that I was leaving were the
other people in the movie theater, who ran from the room in alarm, probably
because there was a demented kid running around and screaming at full volume,
“I’M GOING TO GERMANY. SHOOSH YEAH, ICH
FLIEGE ZUM VATERLAND.” In early August, after a million goodbyes and a
thousand reality checks, I was on a flight to Deutschland with forty-nine of
the total 250 American exchange students participating in the thirtieth year of
the Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange, or CBYX for short. At a German high
school in a small village of Bad Laasphe, we were provided with many of the skills
necessary in order to survive a year in the beer-drinking, extremely
environmentally friendly, ridiculously regulated, and not at all prudish
society of the Deutschen. After three
weeks of integration, I was shipped off to my host family in Lower Saxony,
which is where my year started its wild and beautiful ride. I was enrolled in a
German high school and started understanding the difficulty of the German
language and the what’s and how’s of German culture. Outside of school, I
enjoyed the German soccer addiction, became involved with my school and
community, and took many vacations, traveling across Germany and its
surrounding nations. Now, I am looking at the last thirty days of my exchange
year, and I have already started to finalize my comparisons between American
and German life, and the outcomes of which have had an overbearing effect on my
character, my beliefs, and have given me the impression that many American
systems, especially the educational system, are severely flawed. Contrary to my
former values, I learned that I was indeed no true ‘jinshil’ as previously
thought, and that I did not have even a shred of desire to be one.
Before my first
day of high school, I had learned a trifle of
information about the German educational system and how it operates. Basically,
all children are required to go to a general elementary school until, after
completing the 4th year of school, they are divided into three
groups based on academic ability: at the bottom of the system, the Hauptschule, followed by the Realschule, and on the top of the
scholastic pyramid, the Gymnasium, where
my study took place this last year. Despite this background knowledge, my first
impressions of the German education system were, as many might assume at such a
beginning, superficial and misinformed. On Day 1, when the bell rang at 12:55
announcing dismissal, I jumped from my seat in surprised astonishment; this
year was undoubtedly going to be the best year ever. Sadly, I was later
informed that we are only dismissed on 12:55 three days per week and at 3:20 on
the other two. Germans utilize what we know as a block schedule, meaning that
they have different classes every single day and have the less important
subjects only twice per week. This means, however, that they have the ability
to take many more classes than what is possible in the rigorously set American
system. For example, several of my classmates have fourteen different subjects
in school, ranging from computer science to ethics to English. Whenever I tell
a student that I only have seven subjects in my American school, they laugh
insultingly assuming that a smaller amount of classes means a smaller workload and
thereby that school in America is much easier than its German counterpart.
Initially, I thought that that may have been true; however, I began to realize
that many Germans would find my American school life a deadly insanity. Most of
the Germans, with whom I am acquainted, have a maximum of 2 hours of homework
per day, which, as aforementioned, would actually satisfy the U.S. Department
of Education suggestion of daily homework amount. Now, that being said, many
American students might also only have to deal with a two hour dosage of
homework per day; not all American students are pulling all-nighters for AP
classes. However, if you do recall I am now speaking of the German Gymnasium, the school system at the top
of the ranks. These kids are or should be the AP class-taking, International Baccalaureate,
college-crazed scholars precisely like in America. Right? No, because the youth
here does not experience the same immense amount of pressure to which American
students are subject. Nevertheless, they are just as successful in college and
in the world beyond as every single Honors Society student who has or will ever have
turned the tassel on that ever-looming graduation day.
On another note, one of the major differences between German and
American high school life is that wonderful term that appears on every single
college application: extracurricular activities. A majority of American
students participate in school activities even after the final bell rings, may
it be fighting your school to victory with a well-played ‘Checkmate’ or going
the “whole nine yards” in a football game. Most extracurricular activities,
especially sports or drama departments, can be exhaustingly demanding. Last
year, I was involved simultaneously in track and my school’s musical, both of
which had daily three-hour practices. On the other side of the Atlantic, I was
also involved in my school’s theater group, but we only met one day per week.
Many German teenagers are also quite athletic, but in relationship to their
American counterparts, there is no idea of “school spirit.” All athletic
activities are conducted off campus in sport clubs. There are no coaches, pom-poms,
trophy cases or anything of the sort to be found in a German high school. In
fact, many German students who see American high school portrayed in television
series such as Glee are fascinated
and astounded by our cultural tradition of school colors, pep rallies, prom,
and not to mention, the amazingly hilarious and occasionally smelly mascots. That
same pressure of performance that American athletes experience is not even
relevant inside German schools, because there is such a division between what
happens inside and outside of the halls. There is also no fight among athletes
to be seen by college scouts, namely, there is no “NCAA” of Germany. The best
of the best go straight from playing in their neighborhoods to playing for
world-class clubs like FC Bayern Munich, in fact, many German soccer players
debut by age seventeen while still participating in their Gymnasium. In conclusion, German students are able to participate
in extracurricular activities without feeling the need to fill up a transcript.
Another reason for why there is no athletic fight to be seen by colleges
is the same reason for why there is no academic fight: college in Germany is
practically free. That being said, many German college students hold protests
because their schools have forced them to pay 2000 Euros for books and other
expenses, regardless of the fact that this 2000 Euro fee was the only fee required for tuition. You see,
Germans like being insured. It has been said, “If Germans had insurance
insuring insurance, you would see an entire nation of over 80 million people
die from happiness.” And insured education is just another facet of that
concept. The Germans live far away from a world of depressing news stories of
middle-aged people finally paying of college loans. Most bachelor-seeking Germans exit college employed and with no burden of debt. In America, college
prices are growing exponentially every year and I, like my fellow classmates,
am doing everything in my power to ensure that I will be an exception to the
rule. Hopefully, I will not have to worry about my future kids’ college
experiences while still drowning in the bills of my own...
... I could go on for eternity about
the problems pointed out by the German school system, and maybe one day I will
write a book about this topic, but the point is clear, we need to fix the
education system in the United States of America. Naturally, the system in
Germany is not perfect. There are always complaints about the Hauptschule being used merely as a
holding location for illegally immigrated students who can’t speak German
(mostly Turks). But I am not here to claim that America needs to adopt the
German system or to say that the German system is pristine, I am just here to
try to get out the word to the thousands that already think it: there is a
problem in our school system. Internationally, our students are constantly
falling behind in ranking. Tests show that American students grasp some
mathematical and scientific concepts not as well as their international
competitors. Meanwhile, many of the students, especially the ones higher ranked
in classes, are working an impossible amount of hours daily, only to end up
paying back college debt fees until the age of forty. In such a time when we
are facing multiple foreign crises, the never-ending problem of gun violence,
and a confused economy, it can be very easy to leave education to the side or
treat the topic with tongue-and-cheek politics. But now is not the time to
stray away from making change. At the heart of a good democracy is a
well-informed and educated public. If we can promise to our students a job or
at least reduced college costs, we can live with the certainty that our
students can have something for which they can work. The millions of dollars
for college spending can go elsewhere, and the millions of students can use
their motivated minds to drive the economy in a better direction. We need
changes not only on the high school and college fronts, but rather also in
ourselves. It is time for us to accept that changes need to be made, and only
upon making them can we see a brighter and better tomorrow for ourselves and
those before us, one in which the right to education can exist without a sticker price that belongs at a Lexus dealership.
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