TALKING THE TALK—At left, Howie Yu, left, of the Chinese Association for Sciences and Technology, Los Angeles, introduces Los Cerritos Middle School Principal Antonio Castro, students, parents and Conejo Valley Unified School District Superintendent Jeff Baarstad to a Chinese delegation during a visit to the school Nov. 7. Photos by WENDY PIERRO/Acorn Newspapers The importance of teaching creativity is just one of the lessons the Chinese could learn from the American school system, according to Howie Yu, chair of the board of directors of the Chinese Association for Science and Technology, Los Angeles.

Yu acted as a translator for a delegation from China that visited the Conejo Valley Unified School District office on Nov. 7. The three delegation members, who did not want to be named or photographed, were a middle school principal, an education bureau director from Hanan province in northern China and a manager of a communication company.

Los Cerritos sixth-grader Henry Wang, 11, acts as a translator for the Chinese delegates. The purpose of the visit was to find out why middle and high school Chinese students who perform well on math exams don’t go on to become good scientists and engineers, Yu said. The group also visited schools in New York, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles.

“In China they publish research papers, but how much of that research becomes product? It doesn’t turn into something that can improve life,” he said.

In addition to learning about American schools, the educators in the delegation intended to arrange plans to send Chinese students to a local school for summer classes, Yu said.

“It’s popular in China to send kids abroad to study,” he said.

During meetings with Superintendent Jeff Baarstad at the district office and Los Cerritos Middle School Principal Antonio Castro at his campus, the delegation asked questions about education in the United States and took notes as they toured the middle school.

“In China, students are trained to use one tool to solve a problem. Here (in the U.S.), they train kids to be creative,” Yu told the Acorn.

“When I was young, the teacher never taught us how to recognize a problem and how to find help,” said Yu, who grew up in China and moved to the U.S. 20 years ago.

As a result, he said, “The Chinese are good at following orders, but they’re not good at being creative.”

Another difference between Chinese and American education is the latter’s focus on collaboration, Yu said.

“In (Chinese schools) we don’t have group projects,” said Yu, who added that individuals in China feel even less connected to each other because of the country’s one-child policy.

“People don’t have siblings, so they don’t know how to work with others,” he said.

Baarstad told the delegation about the challenges inherent in modern U.S. education, such as the abundance of hand-held Internet devices such as smartphones and iPads.

“Our kids are no longer content to memorize facts because they’ll say, ‘I have it right here,’” said Baarstad, holding an iPod. “We’re facing a challenge of how to make our classroom instruction more relevant to kids who have grown up with (the Internet).”

Translating the delegation’s response, Yu said that Chinese students feel pressure from parents and teachers to learn facts in order to perform well on tests, gain entrance to a competitive university and go on to work for a good company.

“We have that same motivation in parents and students in Thousand Oaks,” Baarstad responded. “But there’s a subset of students for whom that isn’t enough. They don’t buy it. They say they want to explore, they want to be creative. If we want kids to learn, they have to have a natural interest in and curiosity about the things that we want them to learn.”

The delegation asked the superintendent how to handle students not engaged in learning at school.

Baarstad pointed out that tactics to engage a student should be based on whether a student is struggling because the student “can’t understand” and needs help or “won’t understand” because of lack of motivation.

“It’s the process of learning that needs to stay with them,” he said. Students need to remember, “How can I find that out in the future? How can I work out a problem we can all agree to?”

At Los Cerritos, the delegation observed the learning process during classes, including a class where students used iPads that Los Cerritos is renting for a three-year term. The visitors also listened to the school’s band play the Christmas tune “Sleigh Ride.”

Castro said this was the first time he’d hosted a foreign delegation at Los Cerritos. Baarstad said the last time a Chinese delegation visited the district was three years ago.

“I think the Chinese are trying to do what we’re trying to do, to figure out the best way to educate our students,” said Castro, who led the tour with Mandarin-speaking students and parents. “We want to create the most prepared citizens for this modern economy, and I think they’re trying to do the same thing.”