This is one of the best books on motherhood that I have read and often refer to. It has given me valuable help in my personal experience of opposing the popular concept of educating children. At that time, the general idea was that I chose to spend my early years at home with my children, which was a pure waste of my education at MIT. ?
Parents are the best people to educate their children?
I had dinner with a friend the other day, and she told me the story of one of her friends. This friend had many problems with her teenage children, so she decided to send her children to Canada for a good education. Children have no desire to study and go to college at all, and are unwilling to listen to their parents' suggestions, threats, reasoning or cajoling. Is it the child's fault? I said, if both parents are busy professionals, the result will be like this. ?
I often see such tragedies. Many busy and successful parents believe that the key to their children's success is to receive a better education (and a better education means more money to support it). What puzzles me is that they are actually the most qualified candidates to raise children. How can these smart people convince themselves to entrust their most precious resources to their doting grandparents or "professional caregivers", or simply send their children to a "more advanced culture" for education? Who loves children more? Is it themselves or those nannies? Nannies may have no education and no sense of family mission. Sending a teenager to the United States or Europe can provide them with a better education and suddenly be willing to listen to their parents? ?
Before having children, my husband and I spent a lot of time helping "space children", such as providing psychological counseling for some children who live alone in Los Angeles (their parents work in Asia). We see the struggle and confusion of a whole generation of smart and talented children: why do you keep saying that you love your parents but don't want to spend time with them? All their parents want from them is good grades. We heard that there was such an extreme mother whose son committed suicide because he didn't get into Berkeley or Stanford. At the funeral, the mother stood by her son's coffin and said, "If he can't get into Berkeley or Stanford, he'd better die." She is indifferent to her son's death. She didn't hear the child crying inside, and even when his mother refused to force him to death, her mother was indifferent. ?
My school experience and my son's school experience.
I grew up in a patriarchal family, and my grandmother thought that my two sisters and I were not worthy of education. As the eldest son of the family, my father is destined to inherit a huge business kingdom. Unlike his grandmother, he sent us to study in Canada. At that time, there were no other China people around us. Father has repeatedly told us not to blindly worship western culture, but to absorb the essence of the two cultures and turn them into our own. I grew up in a British culture prejudiced against colored people, and gradually formed the wrong idea that I critically look at Chinese and Western cultures and don't think which culture is "advanced culture". ?
Now that I live in Beijing, I have found a popular trend that bothers me-one culture is better than another. This tendency is especially true when parents are faced with various choices of children's education. In the uproar, they either support this education system or that education system. But the best education system is the common choice of parents and children, so that parents and children can become partners in this process of receiving education. ?
Don't polarize the problem into East and West. I believe that no matter what kind of education system a child grows up in, he can succeed. Here, I quote a passage from Jim Collins's "The Foundation is Evergreen":
In the next part of this book, we will continue to use the Taiji diagram of Yin and Yang in China's dualistic philosophy. We deliberately chose this symbol to represent the key elements of a forward-looking company. These companies don't need what we call "either-or" to limit themselves-that's a rational view that can't easily accept contradictions, and two seemingly conflicting forces or ideas can't coexist at the same time ...?
We're not just talking about balance here. "Balance" is the golden mean, with half each. Far-sighted companies do not seek a balance between short-term and long-term, but pursue short-term and long-term excellent performance ...?
Is it unreasonable? I think so. Is it rare? Not bad. Is it difficult? Absolutely. However, as Scott Fitzgerald pointed out: "The test of first-class intelligence lies in the ability to have two opposite ideas in your mind at the same time but still keep acting." This is owned by a visionary company. ?
Throughout nature, you will find the same contradiction: light is both particle matter and wave energy; Quantum physics and Einstein's special theory of relativity are full of this contradiction. Life and nature are a picture full of "harmony" instead of "or". I think only one aspect exists, and the other is possible. Therefore, the themes in the following chapters are organized in pairs as far as possible-without self-discipline (a character highly advocated in the East), there is no real creativity (a character highly advocated in the West); Without competition (eastern way), there would be no cooperation (western way); Without tenacity (eastern style), passion (western style) is just a waste of emotion. However, pure tenacity without passion will lead a person's life to boredom and boredom. Without self-knowledge (western style), humility (eastern style) will become empty, without real humility, self-knowledge will become selfish. ?
Other topics complement each other: be careful to fall into super-row, so that you can have more space to rest; Without the unfairness of life, adversity quotient cannot develop; It takes courage to take risks. Unless we face up to our poverty and weakness first, there is no way to help others. You need to challenge yourself and change your old ideas, but it is entirely possible to get rid of "or tyranny" (meaning that people can easily frame themselves in a binary opposition space). The secret weapon is: thoughtful parents, who have the courage to face these contradictions bravely with their children, instead of going to either-or extremes. ?
My eldest son Kevin is studying in an international school. In the past five years, according to these school systems, after interviewing the children of this international school and combining my years as an interviewer at MIT, I have obtained first-hand information about the life results of the best and brightest children here. Besides, I myself doubt whether it is wise to invest so much money in this kind of education. However, since Kevin arrived in China in the sixth grade, and had no educational background in China before, he had to go back to the United States to study at a university, so he had to complete his middle school education in an all-English teaching environment. ?
What are the popular children in international schools?
Kevin returned from the local school where he taught Chinese for four years to the international school where he taught all English. This is the first year. Kevin is the most considerate and talkative of my three children. I often communicate with him during the adjustment of this semester. He told me that compared with the initial adaptation when he first entered the Chinese teaching environment four years ago, although he didn't know any Chinese characters at that time and didn't know the culture of China from other places, it was more difficult for him to return to this English teaching environment this time. This is because the teachers and classmates in the local schools in China are very friendly and helpful, and he found that he got sincere help in the process of adapting to and integrating into the strange environment. ?
After that, Kevin told me about the temptations and struggles he faced. Western middle schools are ruled by popular children, and those popular children are usually not smart. In some schools, these people may be "handsome guys" or athletes, or they may be beautiful cheerleaders who lead athletes to cheer in the competition. In Kevin's school, the popular children are musicians and heavy metal music lovers. They show off their shiny long hair and seem to be floating in outer space most of the time. This has led to a general "lowering standards". Under this influence, children who express smart views on various things will be considered stupid by others because they are too smart, but the atmosphere of playing dumb is very popular. Schools, on the other hand, only make basic and minimum efforts to meet the minimum expectations. ?
As a freshman, my son is eager to mingle with these popular children because he is a guitarist and has his own band. But because I was taught to be friendly to others from an early age, I pay special attention to those who are easily overlooked. Soon, Kevin found himself making friends with both popular and unpopular people. Whether he is with a popular friend or a friend who is not in this popular circle comes to chat with him, he can feel this constant struggle in his heart. ?
In fact, Kevin's math and English are outstanding in his class, so he is listed as a gifted student, and the school will provide him with enough challenging things to do. By talking with Kevin constantly, his teacher is glad that we can teach Kevin how to be a man. Kevin is a musician. He can make friends with people from different circles. These people have other interests besides music. In fact, Kevin also loves science, because his dream is to work in the field of green energy. If that's not enough, he will write, shoot and edit movies after practicing with the school tennis team several times a week. In other words, he can't be easily labeled and stereotyped, and he needs to constantly find new ways to define himself. ?
Challenge peer pressure?
To make matters more complicated, all Kevin's friends have stable boyfriends or girlfriends, but he doesn't know what kind of girlfriend he really wants, and he has almost perfect high standards on how to treat girls. Kevin is trying to resist the influence of associating himself with a girl just to avoid being labeled as "abnormal" (abnormal). When he came home, he told me that he sometimes really missed the simplicity and naivety of his local school in China. There, everything is clearly planned and defined, and there is no circle of friends who don't talk to each other. ?
As Kevin said, temptations and challenges are now more subtle. A student is more likely to lose himself, more likely to succumb to peer pressure and become the person he should not be. ?
At the end of last semester, Kevin was working on the last design project in the design technology class. He decided to design a simple machine to help him pick up tennis balls instead of bending down to pick up each ball by hand. Everyone else chose the simple solution, but he spent a lot of time designing his machine, trying different materials and building many models. Although he hasn't finished making the machine, he got an A in the class. +Such a good result. But he decided to apply for an extension of two weeks for his plan because he wanted to finish it. While his classmates laughed at his achievements and wasted time and energy, Kevin was immersed in the fun of solving problems and wanted to complete the whole program. He found that he had the talent of creatively solving problems and inventing new things, and was willing to explore with his own hands. ?
He had never received such encouragement in the local school system in China before, in which he was only required to concentrate on the study of books and make some achievements in a certain subject, rather than in the process of hands-on learning and discovery. But at this time, other children who lack the guidance and encouragement of their families waste their extra time playing games on the computer or going to Sanlitun for drinks on weekends. ?
Therefore, freedom is a double-edged sword, and children need help to use it wisely.