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The new semester has begun and students have gradually returned to their schools. However, the end of the summer holiday doesn’t mean a return to school for some children. Today, a growing number of children in China are staying at home, not because they are giving up education but because their parents think they will actually receive a better education at home.
Ye Wanhong is an advocate of homeschooling. For 12 years she worked as a Chinese teacher at a primary school in Guangzhou, south China’s Guangdong Province. Despite her experience as a teacher, she was unable to find a suitable kindergarten for her daughter and moved her from school to school. Last year she finally resigned from her school and began teaching her daughter at home.
Ye believes education should be like a delicious meal that is prepared by a mother for her children: nutritious and warm. She hopes to offer tailored courses to her daughter and never tries to limit her to any fixed textbooks.
Today, many parents in China, particularly those in cities, are dissatisfied with the country’s education system. They believe the current education mode, such as its contents and teaching and appraisal methods, is outdated and prevents children from experiencing the joy of learning. To change the situation, they choose to educate their children at home or send them to smaller private schools.
This phenomenon has attracted a range of commentary from experts as well as parents. Supporters say that today’s education system is too fixated on exam results to allow students to reach their full potential. Opponents, however, argue that insulating students from normal school education will affect their ability to integrate with the rest of society in the long-term.
Diversified education modes
Xu Xunlei (www.zjol.com.cn): As early as the 1990s, Zheng Yuanjie, a famous Chinese writer of children’s stories, decided to have his son Zheng Qiya study at home after his son finished primary school study. He compiled textbooks for his son. Today, his son has grown up to be a successful person, opening bookstores, starting magazines, and setting up photography studios. He now owns a culture company. Zheng Yaqi is not the only example of successful homeschooling. Another example, Han Han, a young Chinese writer who quit senior middle school, has grown into an excellent writer.
China’s current education mode is killing students’ personalities and depriving them of happiness. Look at Chinese middle school students, especially those who are preparing to go to a higher-level school, they live with such extremely heavy study pressure. That’s why we have seen so many students suffering from depression and even committing suicide. They are forced to do mountains of schoolwork. Besides, they have to go through numerous examinations. Because only by pressing them in this way can schools manage to prepare them for college entrance examinations, which are the final aim of all that tough experience. At
first they are creative children with unique personalities, but after the torture of 12 years’ traditional education, many of them are finally made into mediocre people passively adapted to the social environment.
Deprived of the happiness of childhood, they finally grow up and enter universities, but by this time, they have almost totally lost any interest and enthusiasm for studying. What matters is the education method—a love of learning, not particular courses. However, the traditional education mode is going in the opposite direction.
Good education will make the public feel happy, but bad education policy, such as an examination-focused education system, will add to students’ misery. People’s personalities differ, so education should be diversified. It’s not time to oppose homeschooling, but time to reform the current rigid examination-oriented education system.
Yuan Zheng (Yangcheng Evening News): In 1997, China signed the United Nation’s International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The covenant reads: parents can choose for their children non-public schools that suit their religious and moral beliefs. Private schools and parents’ rights to send their children to these schools should be respected.
Education should be conducted in different modes and whether the mode employed is mainstream or not does not matter. As long as the law does not forbid it, private schools are allowed to adopt whatever methods they like. In this sense, private schools are always the locomotive for education reforms.
Luo Zhigang (www.cnhubei.com): Because of dissatisfaction with the current education system, some parents are choosing to homeschool their children. Children are being homeschooled at every level—kindergarten, primary, junior middle and even senior middle school.
However, homeschooling is a rich people’s game, which cannot be expanded to the whole of society. Only wealthy families can afford to provide effective and comprehensive education to their children at home. The poor cannot possibly successfully homeschool their children. The majority of China’s residents are still farmers, and even ordinary working class urban residents cannot possibly find the time to cope with the demands of homeschooling.
Besides, private schooling is a profitdriven industry. Taking advantage of some rich people’s desire to be unique and different from others, some individuals and organizations have begun to start the socalled “modern sishu (private school in ancient China).” Education is critical to the country’s future, it’s necessary to properly deal with the relevant institutions to ensure children’s healthy growth.
Niu Xiaohua (www.cnr.cn): I don’t understand why parents choose schooling at home. Is it because of their dissatisfaction with the current examinationoriented education system, or because they think what schools impart is simply wrong?
In schools, children not only pick up academic knowledge, but also the knowledge of how to communicate with others. Students need rich extracurricular activities and interaction with classmates, so that they can live better when they leave schools and fit into society.
Today, most children are the only child in a family and in need of companions. If they are limited to homes, unable to interact with their peers, cooperation and communication will be very difficult to manage when they go into society. The experience of going to school imparts far more than book knowledge.
Qingzuozheliao (bbs.longhoo.net): The biggest shortcoming of the current education system is the lack of respect for a student’s personality. Parents who homeschool their children aim to nurture their children’s personalities and this is a great leap forward. However, these parents have not fully understood how a child’s personality develops and what the final aim of education is.
A person’s personality will become rich and strong only in the process of interacting with others. Everyone is part of society. Children are happiest when they are interacting with others. This interaction helps open their minds and makes them stronger in social life.
Those who advocate homeschooling are paying a lot of respect to their children’s personalities, but nowadays what students need most is to learn to respect others, or we’ll see a future society lacking in love and mutual respect.
Anyway, to educate children at home is a blind and impulsive choice. There might be one or two successful examples, but this does not necessarily mean that this education mode is replicable. For the majority of children and their parents, homeschooling will not lead to a good outcome.
Even if there are really tens of thousands of children studying at home in other countries, that does not mean this education mode will also work for Chinese children.
Zheng Xiaoqi (Beijing Evening News): Whether they choose to go to university at home or abroad, children brought up at home schools will eventually have to face real school life, which will compel them to compete and cooperate with others.
After children reach a certain age, their peers become more important to them than their parents. Healthy psychological development requires them to interact with classmates. In home schools, children have no outlet to express their need to socialize. Thus, it cannot compete with normal school education.
Some parents are worried that school education will kill children’s personality and creativity, but to a large extent, school education is irreplaceable. During the compulsory education period, children are still incapable of making proper choices for themselves. Parents therefore decide to educate them at home. But what if these children want to go to standard school when they grow up? What will the parents do then?
Ye Wanhong is an advocate of homeschooling. For 12 years she worked as a Chinese teacher at a primary school in Guangzhou, south China’s Guangdong Province. Despite her experience as a teacher, she was unable to find a suitable kindergarten for her daughter and moved her from school to school. Last year she finally resigned from her school and began teaching her daughter at home.
Ye believes education should be like a delicious meal that is prepared by a mother for her children: nutritious and warm. She hopes to offer tailored courses to her daughter and never tries to limit her to any fixed textbooks.
Today, many parents in China, particularly those in cities, are dissatisfied with the country’s education system. They believe the current education mode, such as its contents and teaching and appraisal methods, is outdated and prevents children from experiencing the joy of learning. To change the situation, they choose to educate their children at home or send them to smaller private schools.
This phenomenon has attracted a range of commentary from experts as well as parents. Supporters say that today’s education system is too fixated on exam results to allow students to reach their full potential. Opponents, however, argue that insulating students from normal school education will affect their ability to integrate with the rest of society in the long-term.
Diversified education modes
Xu Xunlei (www.zjol.com.cn): As early as the 1990s, Zheng Yuanjie, a famous Chinese writer of children’s stories, decided to have his son Zheng Qiya study at home after his son finished primary school study. He compiled textbooks for his son. Today, his son has grown up to be a successful person, opening bookstores, starting magazines, and setting up photography studios. He now owns a culture company. Zheng Yaqi is not the only example of successful homeschooling. Another example, Han Han, a young Chinese writer who quit senior middle school, has grown into an excellent writer.
China’s current education mode is killing students’ personalities and depriving them of happiness. Look at Chinese middle school students, especially those who are preparing to go to a higher-level school, they live with such extremely heavy study pressure. That’s why we have seen so many students suffering from depression and even committing suicide. They are forced to do mountains of schoolwork. Besides, they have to go through numerous examinations. Because only by pressing them in this way can schools manage to prepare them for college entrance examinations, which are the final aim of all that tough experience. At
first they are creative children with unique personalities, but after the torture of 12 years’ traditional education, many of them are finally made into mediocre people passively adapted to the social environment.
Deprived of the happiness of childhood, they finally grow up and enter universities, but by this time, they have almost totally lost any interest and enthusiasm for studying. What matters is the education method—a love of learning, not particular courses. However, the traditional education mode is going in the opposite direction.
Good education will make the public feel happy, but bad education policy, such as an examination-focused education system, will add to students’ misery. People’s personalities differ, so education should be diversified. It’s not time to oppose homeschooling, but time to reform the current rigid examination-oriented education system.
Yuan Zheng (Yangcheng Evening News): In 1997, China signed the United Nation’s International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The covenant reads: parents can choose for their children non-public schools that suit their religious and moral beliefs. Private schools and parents’ rights to send their children to these schools should be respected.
Education should be conducted in different modes and whether the mode employed is mainstream or not does not matter. As long as the law does not forbid it, private schools are allowed to adopt whatever methods they like. In this sense, private schools are always the locomotive for education reforms.
Luo Zhigang (www.cnhubei.com): Because of dissatisfaction with the current education system, some parents are choosing to homeschool their children. Children are being homeschooled at every level—kindergarten, primary, junior middle and even senior middle school.
However, homeschooling is a rich people’s game, which cannot be expanded to the whole of society. Only wealthy families can afford to provide effective and comprehensive education to their children at home. The poor cannot possibly successfully homeschool their children. The majority of China’s residents are still farmers, and even ordinary working class urban residents cannot possibly find the time to cope with the demands of homeschooling.
Besides, private schooling is a profitdriven industry. Taking advantage of some rich people’s desire to be unique and different from others, some individuals and organizations have begun to start the socalled “modern sishu (private school in ancient China).” Education is critical to the country’s future, it’s necessary to properly deal with the relevant institutions to ensure children’s healthy growth.
Niu Xiaohua (www.cnr.cn): I don’t understand why parents choose schooling at home. Is it because of their dissatisfaction with the current examinationoriented education system, or because they think what schools impart is simply wrong?
In schools, children not only pick up academic knowledge, but also the knowledge of how to communicate with others. Students need rich extracurricular activities and interaction with classmates, so that they can live better when they leave schools and fit into society.
Today, most children are the only child in a family and in need of companions. If they are limited to homes, unable to interact with their peers, cooperation and communication will be very difficult to manage when they go into society. The experience of going to school imparts far more than book knowledge.
Qingzuozheliao (bbs.longhoo.net): The biggest shortcoming of the current education system is the lack of respect for a student’s personality. Parents who homeschool their children aim to nurture their children’s personalities and this is a great leap forward. However, these parents have not fully understood how a child’s personality develops and what the final aim of education is.
A person’s personality will become rich and strong only in the process of interacting with others. Everyone is part of society. Children are happiest when they are interacting with others. This interaction helps open their minds and makes them stronger in social life.
Those who advocate homeschooling are paying a lot of respect to their children’s personalities, but nowadays what students need most is to learn to respect others, or we’ll see a future society lacking in love and mutual respect.
Anyway, to educate children at home is a blind and impulsive choice. There might be one or two successful examples, but this does not necessarily mean that this education mode is replicable. For the majority of children and their parents, homeschooling will not lead to a good outcome.
Even if there are really tens of thousands of children studying at home in other countries, that does not mean this education mode will also work for Chinese children.
Zheng Xiaoqi (Beijing Evening News): Whether they choose to go to university at home or abroad, children brought up at home schools will eventually have to face real school life, which will compel them to compete and cooperate with others.
After children reach a certain age, their peers become more important to them than their parents. Healthy psychological development requires them to interact with classmates. In home schools, children have no outlet to express their need to socialize. Thus, it cannot compete with normal school education.
Some parents are worried that school education will kill children’s personality and creativity, but to a large extent, school education is irreplaceable. During the compulsory education period, children are still incapable of making proper choices for themselves. Parents therefore decide to educate them at home. But what if these children want to go to standard school when they grow up? What will the parents do then?