For children, what do parents and family mean and what responsibilities should they bear? Yin Jianli, the author of A Good Mother Is Better than a Good Teacher, has been paying attention to the problems that the younger generation of parents in China may face, especially those born after 1970s and 1980s. We share a long article of hers, hoping that young parents will realize their role as "educators" and have an enlightenment.
Separation of birth and rearing-unnatural behavior must have a price.
Allow me to give a real and typical example first.
One of my nephews, born in 1982, worked and got married in Beijing after graduating from college. His child has just celebrated his first birthday and will soon be taken back to his hometown by his grandmother. The reason is that their house is not big, and several people have been squeezed into a narrow space for a long time, and their psychological pressure is relatively large. In addition, it is also a problem that the child's grandfather is alone in his hometown and has been neglected for a long time. As the "post-80s" couple, they have realized that it is not advisable not to see their children for a long time, but they have to compromise because of reality. The family finally agreed that grandma would take the children back to their hometown and live in Beijing every other month, so that they could run alternately. Although grandma works hard, she can ensure that children can see their parents half the time every day. Generally speaking, it should be said that this is a relatively "kill two birds with one stone" approach.
In recent years, I have contacted many parents in my life and work, and found that the puzzles or problems faced by parents at present are concentrated in several aspects. How to solve the problem of separation from children should be the first confusion they encounter.
At this point, it should be said that "post-80s" have more feelings than "post-70s". I think this confusion is actually a good phenomenon, which shows that the parents of the younger generation are more and more aware of the importance of getting along with their children and no longer simply separate "birth" from "upbringing". This may be because parents are more and more aware of learning. From the quality and level of parents, each generation is stronger than the next.
A few days ago, I read the media reports about the "labor shortage" in various places. A few years ago, migrant workers couldn't find jobs in cities, and now urban enterprises can't recruit workers. The media analyzed several reasons, one of which is that the "post-80 s" generation became parents one after another. They see the problem of left-behind children in rural areas and are unwilling to let their children become left-behind children. They have clearly realized that it is not cost-effective to go out and earn more money now, but they have lost the opportunity to accompany their children and delayed their education.
An American psychologist once did a famous psychological experiment with macaques. He isolated some young macaques from their mothers and put two "fake mothers" in cages. One mother is made of hard steel wire with a bottle hanging on her chest, and the other mother is wrapped in soft flannel, but there is no milk. According to the common sense that "having milk is a mother", the little monkey should be closer to the "mother" with milk. That was not the case. Little monkeys only get close to their tightrope-walking mothers when they are hungry. As soon as he finished drinking the milk, he went back to Mother Flannel. This detail shows us the instinctive yearning and fear of infants, and their attachment and demand for warmth even exceeds food. This experiment is not over yet. As adults, these macaques basically show various psychological obstacles. After the experimenters put them together with other breast-fed macaques who grew up normally in their mothers' arms, these macaques who had not received normal maternal love since childhood could not integrate into the collective life normally, and most of them were indifferent, unable to mate or refused to mate. The experimenter artificially conceived these female monkeys and made them suffer psychological trauma. After the birth of their children, these female monkeys are indifferent to the little monkeys, and some even cruelly abuse the little monkeys and even kill their own children.
There are 94% genetic similarities between macaques and humans, which reflect something related to the initial emotional state of human beings. This experiment shows that warm arms, loving eyes, gentle words and skin care are indispensable things for the normal growth of intelligent life.
The evolution of nature is meaningful. Let's think about it. Why can a man's fertility be maintained until he is sixty or seventy years old, or even eighty years old, while a woman's fertility can only be maintained until she is about fifty years old? This state is to ensure that after the child is born, the mother has enough rest of her life to raise him. Children who lose their fathers lose the integrity of the world; You lose your mother, you lose the whole world. There is a folk saying in China that "an official's father would rather die than be a beggar's mother", which is a helpless but reasonable choice summed up by countless people.
Dad can't replace mom, let alone grandparents!
Another situation is that some parents send their children to "full-care" kindergartens early because of conditions or concepts, and only see their children once a week. In recent years, in many rural areas, the movement of "merging schools" has been carried out, and kindergartens, primary schools and middle schools have been merged, which has forced a large number of young children to live in boarding early. All these situations will lead to some problems in continuing education.
Letting a child leave home prematurely and throwing him into the collective life will lead to the damage of the child's early emotional development. No matter how good school education is, it is difficult to make up for what is missing in early mental development, and anti-natural behavior will eventually pay the price.
Many parents of the post-70 s generation have begun to taste the "bad consequences" brought by their "left-behind children in rural areas" and "foster children in cities". With their lessons, the younger generation of parents have consciously avoided separating from their children and regarded getting along with their children as part of "early education". Many parents make painful and rational choices when raising children conflicts with their careers. For example, some mothers gave up the opportunity to go abroad to study for a doctorate or work in order to accompany their young children to grow up; Some mothers would rather give up high-paying jobs in order to prolong lactation. This is a new value orientation in family education.
This is a positive signal, but having such a positive consciousness does not mean that there are conditions. There are indeed many young parents who are worried about not getting along with their children. For example, women in the workplace often take on as much work as men, and the role of mother requires her to have more opportunities to get along with children. This is the first dilemma faced by young parents, and it is also a common social problem.
Competitive anxiety-Competition from childhood rarely wins.
Nowadays, young parents generally feel anxious, and these anxieties can be said to be similar. For example, can I provide children with good living conditions and a good education? Am I capable of raising a competitive child? This will involve a lot of specific confusion: other people's children will go to early childhood classes in four months, should I bring them? How to choose a good kindergarten, how to choose a famous primary school, how to choose a good middle school, how to help children win the college entrance examination, and how to let them find a good job. ...
The "post-70 s" and "post-80 s" generations all grew up in the competition and still survive in the competition. Most of them have no sense of economic security at present, and at the same time have a strong motivation to succeed. Therefore, the sense of competition has been strengthened into their immanence, and this "nature" will definitely be transferred to the education of children. Coupled with the competitive environment created by the school and the competitive culture advocated by the society, "leading children to work hard" has become their subconscious mentality of raising the next generation.
Life is not completely without competition. We don't deny that competition brings people a sense of accomplishment and can promote social progress. But from the perspective of education, competition must grasp two dimensions, one is psychological and the other is age. The former says "moderate" competition is good, not "losing"; The latter said that it is not suitable for people of any age to compete, and there should be no competition in the lives of the elderly and children. Because they are vulnerable groups, there is little energy in their bodies, and competition consumes energy, which will accelerate the withering for the elderly and affect the normal growth of children. Competition among the elderly is not a problem now; The problem of children's competitiveness is very prominent. Parents project their competitive psychology and pressure on their children. Children have entered the stadium since kindergarten. They have to take cultural classes, start doing homework, be obedient and perform better than others. In primary and secondary schools, exam-based and various evaluations almost control school life-there are too many anti-child psychology and anti-education incidents!
Social psychology research believes that competition is one of the important sources of frustration. The philosopher Nietzsche said: "Competition produces dissatisfaction with oneself. Anyone who is dissatisfied with himself is always ready to take revenge. " It can be said with certainty that most of the competitions, for the vast majority of children, have not been fulfilled, and even if they get the certificate, there are often long-term injuries behind them. Children who grow up in an atmosphere of competitive anxiety and are forced to enter the competitive track are more likely to have a sense of powerlessness, inferiority and psychological imbalance-in the competition that began in childhood, there are few winners.
Parental power-the most concealed but sharpest knife
What I want to say most is the third confusion. It is often ignored or misunderstood, so it has never attracted everyone's attention. But from my research in recent years, this is precisely the most urgent and influential issue, that is, "parental rights."
At this point, I think it is necessary to talk about the "post-70 s" and "post-80 s" generations respectively. The difference is that the "post-70s" themselves play the role of strong parents, while the "post-80s" are still "strong" targets even when they grow up to be parents because of their only child status.
The post-70s were born around the end of the Cultural Revolution. Their adolescence is a period of rapid social transformation in China, and their market awareness stands out and quickly shapes the way of thinking of a generation. At the same time, their education level is higher than their predecessors. They are confident that they have the ability to educate their children well, but the scientific and democratic awareness of education has not been popularized. Therefore, this generation often treats children in the way of thinking in a commercial society or in a technical way. For example, sending children to boarding schools requires their children to do well in exams, and all parties are strict with their children. Parents' opinions are always right ... in short, they are strong in life. The essence of "parental authority" is the deprivation of children's free will, and the direct consequence is that children are weak, rebellious and not self-motivated.
Over the years, people have talked about the common problems of children now, saying that children are spoiled. In fact, this is a wrong induction. This kind of wrong induction has been deeply rooted in people's hearts for a long time, so that parents can't find the crux of the problem for a long time, and even make mistakes and go further. For example, some people are more strict with their children and even beat and scold them in order not to get used to it. Of course, the consequence of this is certain, that is, children are more unhappy.
In fact, as long as it is normal love, no matter how much you give your child, you will not feel bad about your child, because without love, there will be no healthy growth. If some "love" can make children worse, it is definitely not "love", but "over-regulation" in the coat of love. For example, from eating to attending extracurricular classes or choosing a major, parents want their children to follow their own ideas. Obedience is still the core aesthetic psychology when we educate our children. People say that there is something wrong with the "April 21" family structure. Yes, there is something wrong, but the problem is not that children are too much loved, but that there is too little freedom. Several adults are in charge of a child. If parents insist on being strong again, how many ropes must the child wear? How can a child tied with too many ropes become a happy, healthy and promising child? !
The word "freedom" has not yet become a consensus in our education circle, and the public still has too many misunderstandings about it. Whenever I talk about giving children freedom on different occasions, I will always be questioned. The skeptics will always understand freedom as "laissez-faire" or "lawlessness". It shows how naive our understanding of freedom is. Freedom and respect are two sides of the same coin. When the whole society is talking about "respecting children" but there is a blind spot in the concept of "freedom", respect actually becomes an empty talk. Therefore, young parents should have an enlightenment, re-understand freedom and re-evaluate the value of freedom in education. Knowing how valuable people's free will is in education will set off a "de-power movement" in parents' minds, which is not only the progress of parents, but also the progress of the whole social education and culture.
"Post-80s" parents, based on the aforementioned differences in the times, have a stronger sense of learning; Or because their children are still young, the issue of power has not been highlighted in this generation of parents. But they have to face the strength of their parents. Because most of this generation are only children, and most of their parents are "born after 50", their parents are still young and strong after their children are born in recent years. These "old people" in their prime raised only one child when they were young. They have not only accumulated some experience in taking care of children, but also have not enough addiction to taking care of children. Therefore, after their grandson was born, they almost did not hesitate to rely entirely on themselves. In many families, the "post-80s" parents have become supporting roles, and grandparents take care of everything except nursing their children and finding their mothers. Elders stick to the old habits of the past in educational concepts, even go too far, refusing to learn new educational knowledge and listen to other people's opinions. In this way, in the process of taking care of children, two generations will continue to have contradictions. Many young people are in a dilemma. They need the help of their parents to take care of their children, but they can't stop their parents from giving their children a destructive education.
Many educational problems have nothing to do with "policy" or "system", but with human nature. "Parental power" originated from individuals, but its destructive power spread to the whole society. It is the most concealed but sharpest knife, and it will hurt people if you are not careful.
What are the deep-seated reasons and direct incentives behind the problem?
Nowadays, parents do have some problems in educating their children, but we should not look at them with a negative attitude. In which era and which country did not have its own problems? It's normal to have problems, but it's strange to have no problems.
At present, parents are faced with the confusion of educating their children for many reasons. Analysis, mainly these kinds:
The first is the change of life structure in the period of social transformation. Mainly the change of thinking mode brought by market economy. Many changes made by parents are passive. There is no experience worth learning from in the past. Self-knowledge is a slow process, which can't hydrolyze near thirst and can't be seen for the time being in the future. At this time, if you don't keep up with your studies, you will be in a kind of "where, before me, those lost years?" Behind me, are the future generations? " Situation. This should be the root of most parents' anxiety.
The second is the influence of certain values, the most typical of which is the sense of competition. If we talk about "competition" in isolation, I think it is a neutral word, both good and bad. But if you invest in education, considering a child's long-term development, it is more destructive than constructive. Now we worship "competition" as a kind of praise and introduce it into children's lives early. Parents and schools put pressure on children, and this pressure of children bounces back to parents and teachers. In the vicious interaction, both sides are unbearable.
The third is the reason of national literacy. Now, whenever there is a problem, we are in a hurry to torture the system. Are there perfect policies and systems in the world? No, no matter how perfect the system is, it will become a bad system in the hands of idiots and bad people. Adam Smith, a British economist, once said, "When wisdom and virtue are insufficient, all ruling facilities are just an imperfect remedy. Therefore, whatever can be attributed to political achievements must have the wisdom and virtue of a higher level. "
In my opinion, the wrong education and poor management of basic education in China are the chief culprits for the decline of national quality. Improving people's quality is not such a mysterious problem, but now many public opinions guide people to look for reasons and answers in the illusory world, and they are always "times", "policies" and "systems", and the board is always playing in the air.
In fact, the role of Chinese education is very deep, far beyond our common sense understanding. It should not be juxtaposed with the functions of mathematics, physics, English and other courses. The relationship between Chinese education and all other disciplines education is the relationship between orchards and fruit trees, but now we just regard Chinese as an ordinary and isolated fruit tree, without seeing its influence on other fruit trees and even the whole orchard country. Some people say that the current education in China has seriously damaged the quality of the people. I think this sentence is not too much.
There is also the problem of basic education management at present, and the most acute problem at present is the issue of educational equity. This issue has been arguing for so many years, but the unfairness is getting worse. In fact, "unfair education" is a false goal of shattered glass, and the real driving force behind it is human greed and unscrupulous market, which reflects people's quality.
When discussing some educational problems, we can't just stay in the framework of education. Education and society are inextricably linked, and its tentacles will extend to every corner of social life. When solving a problem, we often pull out carrots with mud. Some of these problems can be solved through change, while others can only be handed over to time and the future.
One of the ways to explore: don't be more westernized, but return to the excellent tradition.
When exploring the current education, I have been asked this question more than once: how to change the traditional educational concept and better accept the advanced western educational concept?
The question itself has two wrong premises. First, I think some confusion of parents now is caused by old traditional ideas, so we should torture "China traditional ideas"; Secondly, we think we haven't done well enough, because we haven't learned the advanced ideas of the West-it seems that the only way for us to solve the education problem is to learn from the West.
The first point I want to make clear on this issue is that China's traditional education concept is actually very advanced, which makes our Chinese civilization the only uninterrupted civilization in the world. Sword and shadow, artillery fire, once made some highly developed civilizations on earth almost completely disappear, and some splendid cultures basically collapsed; Chinese culture, after suffering, is not only immortal, but also has the ability to absorb and assimilate.
Comparing the traditional education in China, we can find that what western educators said a hundred or two years ago was what our ancestors said two or three thousand years ago.
The concept of "early education" seems to have been introduced from the west in recent years. Our ancestors have long emphasized "teaching women when they first arrive, teaching children to teach babies"; Modern western educational thoughts especially emphasize giving children free room to grow up, and parents should not interfere with their children too much. Our predecessors have summed up this concept as "teaching without doing anything, teaching without words"; Now our school is introducing western personalized education with great fanfare. Isn't this the view that the word "teaching students in accordance with their aptitude" was born more than two thousand years ago? Another example is "reading thousands of books and taking Wan Li Road", which is consistent with the views of educators such as Suhomlinski and Dewey who advocate reading and emphasize learning by doing.
We can list many traditional educational concepts. From Confucius in the Spring and Autumn Period to Tao Xingzhi, a modern educator, and then to some contemporary educators, their theoretical demands are strikingly consistent, and they are not contrary to the advanced western educational concepts, but only in different ways. Modern people not only forget traditional ideas, but also often misinterpret them.
For example, the word "the dignity of being a teacher" has been misunderstood for almost a hundred years. In fact, its original intention is that teachers should adhere to teaching principles, so that they can have dignity. Only teachers with dignity are qualified to be spiritual teachers of students and to be loved by students. And what is a teacher's way? It is not only the ability to "preach and teach", but also the mind and equality consciousness of "teaching and learning have priority" and "disciples don't have to be inferior to teachers and teachers don't have to be superior to disciples". How broad and pure the realm of being a teacher is, but it is misunderstood by later generations as the unequal relationship between teachers and students and understood as absolute obedience to the authority of teachers. This is a typical crooked mouth monk who mispronounced the scripture and passed it on.
Tradition also tells us that "the son is not the godfather's fault", but now, when there is something wrong with the child, many parents immediately think of how to transform the child, but refuse to reflect on themselves; The traditional five-character principle of "courtesy, tolerance, honesty and sensitivity" has been replaced by the values of competition first and money first; Traditionally, "no step, no step, no trickle, no river and sea" tells the long process of educating people for ten years, but now the propaganda of "learning to write in three days" and "improving 200 points in half a month" is everywhere in newspapers, and the more rapid it is, the more popular it is.
Therefore, "China's traditional ideas" have not wronged us. China's traditional educational thought is very advanced, and we failed it. If we do have a lot of confusion now, it is not that traditional concepts bother us, but that we have lost our way after abandoning excellent traditional concepts.
The second inquiry method: reevaluate the weight of school and family, and give family education its due position.
China tradition attaches great importance to family education, so that education has always been a very personal thing. The imperial examination, for example, lasted for more than 1300 years, but there was never any government behavior such as "imperial examination training class". Since the opening of modern schools in the Republic of China, the function of family education has been greatly degraded, and people began to entrust the function of education to schools. After 1949, the government set up schools in an all-round way and controlled school education. On the one hand, the school is the exclusive place to train scientific and technological talents, on the other hand, it is the most important educational place to ensure people's ideological unity. Its importance has been paid unprecedented attention, its status has risen to an unprecedented height, and teachers have become the most glorious profession in the world. At the same time, family education is more marginalized and its function is almost forgotten.
After entering the new century, with the "post-70 s" generation becoming parents one after another and the intensification of social competition, young parents began to devote a lot of energy to their children's education. However, there is no consensus on how important family education is to children and what a good family education should look like.
Neil, a British educator and founder of the famous Xiashan School, believes that "family is more important than school. If there is no fear and punishment in the family, children will not believe that school is always right. Parents should tell their children honestly what they think of bad schools. Paradoxically, parents often remain loyal to the stupidest teachers. "
My title "A good mother is better than a good teacher" was criticized. Critics always put "mother" and "teacher" in opposition and say things in a binary tone. They don't want to know what is written in the book, but they just can't tolerate comparing family education with school education, just as they can't tolerate comparing buttons with clothes. In fact, I just made a new evaluation of the importance of school education and family education with my professional knowledge and work experience, as well as my experience as a parent, and made an easy-to-understand statement on the most basic principles that school education and family education should grasp, so that people can see the inseparability of school education and family education, see the beauty of education and gain confidence in education. It is based on these that it will be recognized by the public.
As far as the influence weight of school education and family education in a person's development is concerned, I believe it will tend to be more and more balanced. The situation that school education is superior to family education will gradually improve. With the development of science and technology, the vague division of labor between men and women, the increase of women's participation in social life, and the development of personalized education, the limitations of school education will become more and more prominent, and the influence of family education will become greater and greater. Even if family education cannot form an organized and serialized educational entity like modern schools, its position will be confirmed and consolidated at the cultural level.
The third inquiry method: improving the quality of educators is the basis to ensure the good operation of education.
When I say "educator", I mainly mean two kinds of people, one is an educator who works in a school, and the other is all parents. Parents of the younger generation must realize that they are "educators"-such a role requires that you can't simply follow the parents' teaching methods and discipline your children only by feeling. To ensure the effectiveness of education, we must first ensure its scientificity.
Parents of "post-70s" and "post-80s" may feel confident when they see the word "quality". As parents with higher education level than any previous generation, when their children are born, they may be very confident about their education level. But in fact, the quality of being an educator is sometimes different from that of being an ordinary person. Now the children born after 80 are still young and have no clue. Many post-70s are already in pain and confusion. I have met many parents with high academic qualifications, enterprising spirit, good quality and a sense of responsibility for their children, but the result is that they "educate" their children badly. A literate destroyer is more destructive than an uneducated person.
Faced with the unsatisfactory "products" that they have worked so hard to make, many parents have no choice but to come to the conclusion that "children are different from children" in order to find reasons for their failure. This also leads to another saying: the method that applies to your child does not apply to my child, and the child is different from the child-as a reason for refusing to study.
Confucius said that people in the world are "similar in sex, far from learning", and all western educational theories are based on the commonness of people, which always studies the parts that can be followed by the laws embodied in people. However, we misinterpret this concept as "children are different from children, and there is no one-size-fits-all education method in the world"-I have heard this view publicly more than once. To tell the truth, as long as a simple scrutiny can be found, how incredible this statement is. If education is really irregular, as many people as there are in the world need as many educational methods, then is there any need for educational research and even education itself? People who do educational research should go home and sell tofu.
I think education can often be compared with medicine. A doctor will meet countless patients in his life. These patients are different, but can we say that people are different and there is no common treatment principle? Pain-killing tablets can relieve pain for blacks, whites and yellow people, and poison can be fatal for people of any color. First of all, people are all the same. Zhang San needs to prescribe medicine for headache and Li Si needs to prescribe medicine for stomachache. Only a fool would use Zhang Sanzhi's effective painkiller to treat Li Si's stomachache. But this difference is that Zhang San and Li Si are different as people, and the medical principles behind them are different-all education is the same.
Don't think that you become a parent just because you have a baby, just like you don't have to wear a white coat to prescribe medicine. Now, if you want to be a good parent, you must have the mentality of "studying medicine" and learn and understand the most basic educational concepts and scientific knowledge, which is the master key to help you solve all educational problems.
As parents, facing children and education, we should have awe. Whether you can persist in learning and constantly ask questions from the teacher determines your own differentiation and the future development of the children you influence. As the predecessors said, "saints are holy, fools are stupid" because of this. If the reform of basic education and the change of countless parents' ideas can form a benign interaction, a beautiful new era of education will emerge.