Take a visit to the Hebei province of China and you might run into a school named Hengshui No. 1 High School. China’s Ministry of Education has investigated the school in the past for treating students too harshly — the kids are apparently required to study at least 15 hours a day with 15-minute breaks for food. But this militaristic approach to education got a whole lot more intense this week when Hengshui held a ceremony to welcome two tanks from the People’s Liberation Army onto the school property, reported The Daily Caller News Foundation.
This, of course, brings to mind the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests which resulted in a death toll ranging from several hundred to over 10,000 people depending on whether you ask the Chinese government or if you look at a British cable, which was secret until recently.
The tanks have serial numbers on them representing two of China’s most prestigious universities and an unnamed school staff member said “[We] hope that each student and teacher will carry forward the spirit of fearlessness towards any difficulties and of making sacrifices, and fight bravely … never taking a break in studying, in fighting and in contributing.”
There’s another branch of the Hengshui school in China’s Zhejiang province and that branch apparently rewards students who get into China’s top two universities with 500,000 yuan or $76,000.
The director of the education bureau over there said that Hengshui “is a typical exam-oriented case, in which grades are more important than humans….They believe this is advanced but we think it’s outdated, and we don’t need it in Zhejiang.”
But is it outdated, or just not in line with left-wing, feeling-over-fact sensibilities? After all, there must be a reason why Asian students are vastly overrepresented at top universities. No video games until homework is done, no participation trophies, and scolding if you get a B+…what if tanks at school are just the latest manifestation of the tiger mom parenting method?
