It is seventeen years since I first formulated 'The paradox of the
Chinese learner' in a conference in Kathmandu, Nepal. My original
formulation of the paradox was that westerners saw Chinese students as
rote learning massive amounts of information in fierce exam-dominated
classrooms - yet in international comparisons, students in the Confucian
heritage cla- rooms greatly outperformed western students learning in
'progressive' western classrooms. This seeming paradox raised all sorts
of questions to which many others have contributed important answers,
especially that by Ference Marton on how Chinese learners construed the
roles of memory and understanding in ways that were foreign to typical
western educators. Much of this work was brought together in The Chinese
Learner (1996), edited by David Watkins and myself. That work raised
more questions still, especially about educational contexts, beliefs and
practices, which were investigated in contributions to Teaching the
Chinese Learner (2001). And now we have Revisiting the Chinese Learner,
which is a very timely collection of excellent contributions that take
into account the many changes that have taken place since 2001, changes
such as: 1. The globalisation of education especially through
educational technology, and enormous socio-economic changes, especially
in China itself. 2. Changes in educational policy, aims, curriculum and
organi- tion, and decentralisation of educational decision-making in
many Confucian heritage cultures. 3.
