Originally, I understood what the author meant. At present, children in China are under too much pressure. I use the example of "overseas developed countries" to remind people and advise parents not to torture their children too much. The intention of the article is good, but compared with the truth, the facts may not hold water.
Turn to the basic law enacted by Germany after the war and turn to the sixth paragraph of Article 7. The original text is "Vorschulen bleiben aufgehoben", and the literal translation means "still abolish (various) pre-vocational schools". The "prohibition of preschool education" mentioned above may be derived from this.
However, this is just a misunderstanding, because the understanding of "Vorschule" is biased. In modern German, this word means "all kinds of preschool education institutions, including kindergartens". Another meaning is a one-year preschool class attached to a primary school. There are two kinds of students attending preschool classes: one is that the cognitive level of school-age children is different from that of children of the same age for various reasons; Either the birthday lever is just enough to enter school, but compared with the children who entered school in the same year, they are much younger and have insufficient mental development, and they are "downgraded" at the request of their parents.
So what exactly does the abolished "Vorschulen" mean? It originally refers to a special three-year primary school that appeared in Prussia and North Germany in the past. These schools are both public and private, and the tuition fees are very high, which only children from wealthy families can afford. This kind of "aristocratic school" has a good resource allocation, and the rich children of officials can study here and get a quality education. Compared with children in ordinary schools, their enrollment rate is higher, and their chances of entering universities in the future are much higher than their peers. In addition, like "aristocratic schools" in other countries, children studying here will naturally form contacts. Many years later, whether politically or commercially, they will "help each other in the same boat", forming an invisible network that controls the political and economic lifeline of the country. Once such a network is spread out, it will inevitably become a natural obstacle for the outstanding children of the poor.
After World War I, the emperor abdicated and the first real democratic republic in German history was born. Weimar Constitution (19 19), which laid the foundation of the Republic, explicitly abolished this special "Vorschulen" based on the principles of education and social equity. Moreover, according to Article 146 of the Constitution, Germany has implemented a compulsory education system since 1920, and all children over the age of six must go to a unified primary school (Grundschule), and there can be no distinction between high and low.
After World War II, Germany was divided into two occupied areas, East and West. 1949, with the support of America, Britain and France, Xizhan announced the establishment of the Federal Republic of Germany and promulgated a new constitution. For the sake of reunification in the future, this law is not called "ver-fashion" (Constitution), but "Grundgesetz" (Basic Law). The new law lists the right to education as the "basic right" of citizens, reaffirming the principle established by Weimar Constitution, which leads to the clause of "still abolishing (all kinds of) preschool". Therefore, the German "prohibition of preschool education" is a typical Xi Yan Shu theory. The fallacy lies in confusing "Vorschule" with "vorschulische erziehung/vorschulerziehung". Both preschool education and kindergarten education mentioned in the previous article originally belong to the category of preschool education. According to the definition of German pedagogy, the purpose of preschool education is to reduce children's deficiencies in mobility, language, cognition, emotion and social communication, and to prepare for school. This kind of education is not only not prohibited in Germany, but also strongly supported and promoted.
You know, the word kindergarten in Chinese comes from German. Friedrich Fred? German educator Bell (1782- 1852) named his preschool education institution kindergarten. This model was later imitated by other countries in the world, and this concept was directly introduced into English without reform. How can such a "successful model" be abandoned by the Germans?
However, compared with primary education, pre-school education in Germany is not compulsory. However, according to the German Social Code (SGB), all preschool children over the age of 3 in Germany have the right to receive education in kindergartens. According to the consensus of pre-school education in Germany, the main task of kindergarten is to cultivate children's self-awareness, independent living ability, group communication ability and environmental adaptability, and to develop children's intelligence and language ability, but it is not allowed to offer knowledge courses similar to primary education.
However, legal persons can play word games. The word "right" in the code is "Anspruch haben" (meaning "can make a request"), not the commonly used "Recht haben" (right), so the binding force is greatly reduced. Due to various reasons, the current spatial distribution of child care institutions in Germany is unreasonable. In some places, as long as parents apply in advance and in time, children can get admission places. But in other places, the number of applicants greatly exceeds the number of places available in local kindergartens, so that many school-age children cannot enter the park. One of the chain reactions caused by this result is that many parents (especially mothers) can't return to work as they wish, which actually leads to the inequality of employment between men and women.
Interestingly, whenever we talk about this topic, the dead "Democratic Germany" will be mentioned repeatedly in a reflective way. Because, like many "socialist countries", in the former East Germany, in order to encourage women to give birth and get employment and let workers devote themselves to socialist construction without hesitation, the state set up many public kindergartens, which relieved the worries of working people. Many "old men and young women" in the former East Germany always talk about "it wasn't all bad in those days", and compatriots in the West always scoff at it. But in the preschool education system, the east is really not "useless".
After the merger of Germany and Germany, the system was one-sided, even the basic law was adopted by the unified Germany, and the preschool education system in East Germany also disintegrated. The reunification of troubled Germany is encouraging, but it faces multiple challenges. According to Hans-Werner Sinn, a famous German economist, the new Germany has started a "cold start". For a time, there were many difficulties. In contrast, preschool education is not a "dominant issue", so it is put on hold.
However, in the past few decades, the problem of social aging has become increasingly serious, and the stability of the social security system has also been threatened. With the change of people's family concept and the increase of pressure, the birth rate in Germany has been declining year after year. According to the latest statistics, German families have an average of 1.3 children. According to this calculation, after seven generations, the Germans will perish from the earth. There are many factors leading to the low fertility rate, one of which is that young parents (women are the first) are worried that it will be difficult to find a job after giving birth. Therefore, it is urgent to solve the problem of preschool education, because it is not only related to children's education, but also related to the future of the German nation and country.
In recent years, Merkel has complied with the situation and public opinion and vigorously promoted preschool education. In 2005, Merkel invited Ursula von der Leyen, a famous politician, to join her own cabinet as the Minister of Women and Family Health of the Federal Society. This female minister is a glorious mother herself, with seven children (two children and five women) and a professional woman. She was a doctor before entering politics, so this ministerial position seems to be tailor-made for her. After the new minister took office, he introduced a series of new policies, one of which was to establish a system and take substantive measures to promote early childhood education. In addition to improving and increasing the existing kindergartens, she also promised to build more nurseries so that children under three can enter kindergartens as soon as possible. According to the design plan at that time, by 20 14, all school-age children in Germany could go to kindergarten. Obviously, this plan is too optimistic. So far, many parents are still waiting in line, waiting for the limited places allocated by the nursery.
So what do children who can go to nursery do every day? I visited several child care institutions in Germany and had an exchange with nurses. They generally believe that their most important task is to take care of their children's daily life and gradually cultivate their good living habits, followed by early education and intellectual development. Children eat with the guidance and help of nurses and learn the skills needed for eating. If necessary and possible, parents can also come to the nursery to breastfeed themselves, or suck out the breast milk to make up for it, or transfer the formula milk to the wet nurse, so as to feed on time and on demand. Besides, it's game time. Nurses divide children into groups according to their age and physiological and psychological development stage, and let them participate in various games and small competitions (some of which are educational games). If the weather permits, give priority to outdoor activities, with the aim of cultivating children's sports coordination ability, communication ability and environmental adaptability. Whether or not to take a lunch break and when to rest depend on the child's own state, not forced.
Don't think that children in kindergarten must be "lucky". So far, there has been a controversy in German society about whether children should go to nurseries or even kindergartens. Excluding the differences in hardware, an important indicator to measure the quality of kindergartens is the ratio of nurses to young children. According to the currently recognized standards, the best proportion of children under 12 months is 1:2, children under 1:3 for children under 24 months, and children under 24-36 months are 1:4. In fact, many nurseries simply can't meet this standard. We should know that increasing the number of staff means increasing the cost of running a school and will inevitably lead to an increase in fees, which parents are unwilling to accept. This is exactly what the female minister wants to solve. She hopes to subsidize various preschool institutions by increasing public investment. However, due to different opinions within * * *, the financial situation is not optimistic, and there are various obstacles in policy implementation, so the promise she made at the beginning of her appointment cannot be fulfilled today.
Many parents are reluctant to send their children to nurseries, which was originally influenced by traditional ideas. Germany has a profound Christian tradition, and people's family values are quite heavy. Many parents believe that it is natural to take care of their children before they formally enter school. For middle-and high-income people who are willing to have more children, there is no need to worry about communication barriers when children enter the group in the future. They think that children can get more care and better education at home. Many powerful parents will put their human and financial resources into their children's "early development". When my German friends and I complained about the proliferation of "early education" in China, several of them frankly said that many German parents, too, would let their children learn all kinds of "skills" and buy books and intellectual toys. There are many advertisements for amateur art teachers in local newspapers and on the Internet. There are also many high-income families who recruit young nannies with high academic qualifications from abroad through intermediaries, so that they can take care of their children while teaching foreign languages. Besides, I'm worried that children who enter nurseries and live with children from low-income families will be adversely affected. For these families, it is unfair to subsidize child care institutions with public finance. Because they think that as a group that pays more taxes, they are discriminated and abused in this respect.
From this point of view, children's early education involves all aspects of the problem, intertwined. Go back to the article title quoted at the beginning of this article. The premise of "prohibiting preschool education" no longer exists, so what is the reason for taking away half of the Nobel Prize? Whether to abolish preschool education is probably not the key. Education is a long-distance race, and preschool education is just the beginning. In my opinion, the author still has the idea of "don't lose at the starting line" in his mind, although this time it is only the reverse embodiment.