I published this article on Sina's blog. It attracted more than100000 hits and more than 500 messages at once. This educational contrast stung the hearts of most netizens. The original author, Ms. Xiao Shuzhen, has thoroughly analyzed why the education in China led to such a result, so I don't need to say anything here. But as a person who has lived in the United States for more than ten years, I have the responsibility to share my observations with readers: Why are children in the United States different from those in China?
Let me start with my six-and-a-half-year-old daughter's experience in kindergarten and primary school. When she was five years old, she joined the Girl Scouts. This organization is very popular with American children, but its structure is very loose. It's just that several parents get together and take turns to take care of their children. When my daughter was six years old, the boy scouts sent an errand: selling cookies, with the aim of cultivating children's social and business skills. The Boy Scout website also bluntly introduced that many successful entrepreneurs in the United States started by selling cookies in the Boy Scouts. Cookies cost four dollars a pack, which is at least 30% higher than the market price. Is it too much to teach children to make money like this? I didn't understand until I tried. Nobody thinks it's too expensive to buy cookies for boy scouts. At first, my daughter was so shy that she didn't dare to speak even when she met acquaintances. However, the adults are very enthusiastic. They saw her standing there timidly in a scout uniform, and they took the initiative to ask: What are you doing? Are you selling cookies? Can I buy some bags? In this way, under the guidance and encouragement of "customers", her business also started. Many buyers told us that they all grew up selling cookies in the Boy Scouts. Gradually, my daughter dared to take the initiative to sell it.
There are four kinds of biscuits, some are low-calorie biscuits, some are chocolate biscuits, and so on. Every promotion, children have to explain the varieties to others, tell them the reasons for buying some biscuits, and then settle accounts. Four dollars a pack, how much is it altogether? I also learn arithmetic. The specific sales method is to ask customers for orders first, register the number of purchases, and then "purchase", "deliver" and collect money, which goes through the whole business process. After a few weeks, my daughter actually sold 32 packs. The total amount is 128 USD.
When the biscuits are sold out, let's settle accounts together and see what the total income is, so that the children can discuss how to spend the money. The conclusion is that the money is divided into three parts, and the first part is given to the organizer. Because it is unfair for people to work voluntarily and pay by themselves, children want to pay the money posted by volunteers. In other words, children use their own labor to earn money to "hire" the adults of the organization. The second part of the money will be donated to the homeless. This is especially in line with my daughter's wishes. Because she was born in New Haven, which is a very poor city. We didn't have a car. We walked back and forth for more than an hour to buy food. Pushing a sports stroller, she met many homeless people along the way. So before she was three years old, she had an ideal: when she grew up, she would open a restaurant, and the poor would eat for free. She only took money from the rich. The third part of the money, stay for the children to celebrate.
If you know that the United States trains young children in this way, it is easy to understand the contrast between Chinese and American high school students. American children are really down-to-earth, starting from childhood, making money and accounting. They all realize that money can do many things, and every penny will not be ignored. So now I teach my daughter this way: if you want something, you must do something meaningful first, such as reading, practicing the piano and helping your parents. There is nothing for nothing, you have to earn it yourself. After making money, in the words of our childhood, we should think about the "two-thirds of the people who suffer" in the world. This kind of education changed her values. Once her mother discussed reading with her, a grandmother-like figure in the book told her granddaughter and her children that when a girl grows up and marries a prince, she will succeed in her life. Mother asked her what she thought. She immediately said that this is not good, because such people can only be "observers" of life, and there is no way to participate and learn. It seems that what kind of values children have depends on how adults educate them.
What do adults here teach their children? We have also organized activities to help victims in Africa, which are all mobilized by schools, just like organizing sports. What children learn from it, except a few ideological dogmas, is how to get rid of the errands sent from above. In our family, on holidays, children only have to eat and set off firecrackers, that is, they get gifts and red envelopes. There are few volunteer organizations like Boy Scouts, so parents will naturally instill the values of helping others in their children through the details of their lives.
It is even more necessary for me to remind readers that American elite high school students often spend their own money to volunteer in poor countries such as Africa, and this experience sometimes becomes the key to their competition to enter first-class universities. There is no great truth in others, but every bit of life is saturated with such moral sentiments: truth and wisdom are their values; Wealth and power are their means to realize these values. The meaning of life lies not in mastering wealth and money, but in taking on one's social responsibilities and making the world a better place.