Sweep away all cows, ghosts, dragons and devils
✍ Scribed by Bruce R. Vogeli
- Book ID
- 104766909
- Publisher
- Springer
- Year
- 1970
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 258 KB
- Volume
- 2
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0013-1954
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
of the Effects of the Great Cultural Revolution on Mathematics Education in Communist China
The Great Cultural Revolution in the People's Republic of China was launched officially in 1962 by the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. The main goals of the Cultural Revolution were:
(1) To promote the proletariat and to eradicate bourgeois influence from the cultural front;
(2) To place culture at the service of workers, farmers, and soldiers;
(3) To follow policies dictated by the proletariat;
(4) To consolidate and develop the socialist system while working toward the gradual establishment of Communism.
At the beginning of the Great Cultural Revolution the official pattern of education in Communist China was as follows:
(1) Kindergarten enrolling children up to seven (7) years of age.
(2) A six-year elementary school enrolling children from seven (7) to thirteen (13) years of age.
(3) A six-year secondary school partitioned into two three-year divisions enrolling children from thirteen (13) to nineteen (19) years of age.
At that time mathematics was taught on the average of six (6) hours per week at each level of the elementary and secondary schools -arithmetic in grades I-VII; algebra and geometry in grades VIII-X; and algebra, geometry, and trigonometry in grades XI-XII.
Following a policy established in 1958 to facilitate the 'Great Leap Forward', Chinese schools had implemented pan tu, pan kung (half work, half study) programs in various forms. In some schools students studied half a day, then worked in a factory near their school the other half. In others, a week of study was followed by a week of labor. In still others, classes were held regularly for most of the year, with students and teachers working in the fields at harvest. University and higher school admission was determined by a national examination that included literature, politics, mathematics, physics, chemistry, and foreign language. The syllabus for the mathematics portion of the admissions examination had the following major divisions:
Arithmetic and Algebra 1: 1. Real and complex numbers. 2. Algebraic expressions.