The end of the Lantern Festival also means that Zixuan, a Beijing girl, has started her long class again. With the coming primary school stage, the courses in Zixuan are more specific-Pinyin and Mathematics, and classes are held from 9: 00 to 1 1 every morning.
Zixuan's father, Xu Ming, once resented the so-called "enlightenment class" or "preschool class" for her children, but in the words of this middle-aged man, she was "finally brainwashed".
The way to brainwash is simple. Friends and family get together and even have dinner with customers, which will eventually bring up the topic of children's education. "It can be said that at the dinner table, in Weibo and on WeChat, as long as there are school-age children, education is inevitable. In the end, talking about Kan Kan will become a mutual inquiry, exchange and even competition for which extracurricular classes are reported for children. " Xu Ming said that in the face of such "contradictions", he gradually became anxious. "In the past, I despised the ethos of forcing children to be' only me' and' only the phoenix is the respect', but now it is getting more and more prosperous."
"Junior high school curriculum, junior high school curriculum, pre-school literacy 100, the number of pre-school students increases or decreases ..."-This kind of advanced learning has become the norm for most children in interviews with reporters.
A few years ago, educator Yang Dongping used the word "educational panic" to summarize the current situation of excessive competition in education in China. However, today, in Xu Ming's words, he and his parents around him "look anxious, fidgety, and even disagree", while emphasizing quality education, while dismissing the so-called "burden reduction" measures, pulling the children to "run like hell".
So where did this panic come from? Who created this panic?
Crazy extracurricular training
"I don't want my daughter to' run away', but I don't want to be alone."
"I prefer winter vacation to summer vacation, because there is a Spring Festival in winter vacation and schools are closed."
The "school" in Zheng Tong's mouth, a boy who is in the second grade of primary school in Beijing, should be a remedial class more accurately. Whether it is "making up the difference" or "cultivating outstanding students", only "summer vacation" has no "fake", which is Zheng Tong's summary of holiday life and many children's summary.
It should be said that Zheng Tong's happy and carefree life changed when he was five years old. In order to go to primary school, father Zheng Shutao began to prepare early. He intends to let his children enter a private primary school, which is regarded as a "prestigious school" in the area where they live. Although I have heard all kinds of stories about the "young to young" exam, the interview site still surprised Zheng Shutao-"The campus is full of anxious parents and dignified children. Everyone is waiting in line for the teacher to call his name, and the atmosphere is like applying for a job. "
Fortunately for Zheng Shutao, he "made the first move". He told reporters like this:
"When Tong Tong went to the kindergarten middle class at the age of five, the head teacher said that his math ability seemed to be lacking, so we immediately evaluated his math ability ... and took math, Chinese and English classes in two educational institutions, twice a week, twice a piano class and once a violin class, with a total of 13 classes a week."
Results Two years ago, Zheng Tong's schedule became like this: getting up at 7 o'clock every day, doing morning exercises at 7: 40 in kindergarten, going home after class at 6 o'clock in the evening, practicing piano and doing homework after class, and going to bed at 9 o'clock in the evening.
At the beginning of the interview, the reporter thought that Zheng Tong's schedule was only a special case, but some "tiger mothers" worried that their children would lose at the starting line. However, after the investigation, the reporter found that this is actually the normal state of many families.
Take Zixuan as an example. She should have been in kindergarten in the morning, but she appeared in the training class. The reason is simple-she asked for leave.
In fact, around Zixuan, three or four students have chosen to leave the park. "Some have found preschool classes and will leave the park next semester." Xu Ming said that parents around him are very worried, from prenatal education and parent-child classes to trying to find out all kinds of gossip, struggling whether to send their children to a better kindergarten, and then signing up for various learning classes and interest classes. Now they leave kindergarten to preschool before they finish school, in order to lay a good foundation for primary school first, and also add points for primary school interviews. In addition, many parents are also secretly trying to give their children classes and find teachers to give special guidance, which makes people feel great pressure. "
Xu Ming told reporters that before the holiday in Zixuan, parents discussed in the QQ group whether their children should read and write before going to school. I didn't expect that most of them reported the "enlightenment class" to their children and studied the first grade of primary school in advance.
"I don't want my daughter to run away from home, but I don't want to be alone." Zi Xuan's mother told reporters that as soon as the kindergarten had a holiday, she signed up with several parents who were familiar with her. "After I signed up for class, I found that I thought I had taught my children more than 100 words. I chatted with the parents of the' enlightenment class', but I didn't expect four or five hundred children to read. Such' Xueba' dolls are very enlightening, and' white paper' children like daughters should also cheer. "
When Zixuan's mother said this, the reporter heard a familiar word from her mouth-"Lucky".
For such vocabulary, some parents are even more eager to try. Sandy, a three-year-old Beijing girl, began to take various courses at the age of one, from singing and dancing to playing games at the beginning, to the right brain development course at the age of two, and now to ballet, drama performance and English courses.
"Singing and dancing is to make children's personality more cheerful. Right brain development is to lay the foundation for future study habits and learning ability. Ballet is a compulsory course for almost all little girls now, and posture is very important. " For the other two courses, Sandy's mother, Huang Xiaoling, said that the reason surprised the reporter. "Now many primary schools have English drama performances, so it is necessary to learn English. If you are not fluent in spoken English, you will have no chance to perform on stage. Drama classes can make children more confident in this respect. "
In 20 17, Sandy will welcome three new courses: table tennis, painting and musical instruments. Regarding what musical instruments to learn, Huang Xiaoling intends to give Sandy an evaluation, because "nowadays, musical instruments can't be learned too popularly, and minority musical instruments are more likely to stand out".
Next, there are fencing, shooting, skating and even bridge waiting for Sandy to try. In Huang Xiaoling's view, learning to learn is "different, don't follow others' advice, because children are learning now".
Everything is for the school.
The comprehensive anxiety disorder of family education "snowballs, getting bigger and bigger"
Looking at the children and their families who have been tossed in class, Huang Xiaoling, who is tired of accompanying students, is frank and self-deprecating. He has fallen into a comprehensive anxiety disorder of family education, which is like snowballing.
This kind of trip doesn't just happen in this family. Xiao Kai, a 4-year-old boy who studies in the same swimming center as Sandy, has no classes seven days a week. There are two kinds of English classes alone, one focuses on spoken English and the other on spelling.
On WeChat, Xiao Kai's mother introduced herself to reporters like this: Because she doesn't have to work, she basically completes her work tasks by her own arrangement. The old man at home is still alive and can help with the children. The family has an annual income of about 600,000, a car and a house, and has invested heavily in education.
For this reason, such a seemingly carefree mother said that "the more so, the easier it is to be anxious on the road of children's education."
"We have the resources to give our children a better education. Why not? " Xiao Kai's mother said on WeChat that her friends even asked her to see a psychiatrist. "I doubt if I will have obsessive-compulsive disorder, but they just don't have a deep understanding of the big environment."
For Huang Xiaoling, the original intention of enrolling children in these training courses is very simple, that is, I am afraid that children will lose at the starting line, and I am more worried that children will be laughed at or even abandoned after school.
"A while ago, my friend's daughter in the second grade of elementary school was smashed by her classmates. The reason is that the students have to take two hours of Olympic math class, 1 hour of table tennis class, two hours of English class and two hours of Chinese class on weekends, while her daughter just learns to dance and play the piano, and chats with foreign teachers online by the way. " Huang Xiaoling said, "I can only persuade her to stay calm. However, it is difficult to calm down. Anyway, I can't let my children' be seconds'. It is undeniable that there are not a few parents who are' anxious' like my friends. Parents who are crazy about giving their children various training classes are the mainstream now. "
"Don't let your children lose at the starting line"-where this spell-like slogan came from is now impossible to verify, but since its birth, it has been recognized by most parents in China. In fact, the expectation of parents in China is that their children should not lose at the starting line, and should not lose to others at any time and in any field of life.
Looking at the fiery domestic extracurricular training market, we can see parents' eagerness for success. I once heard such a true story. A mother in Beijing took her children to an educational institution for an English class. The mother's initial intention to send her children to learn English was not strong, but the idea of seeing other children fluent in English and afraid of falling behind immediately prevailed. Soon after, she also paid tens of thousands of yuan for her children and became a student of this educational institution.
Yang Shubo, an academic consultant of an educational institution in Beijing, told reporters that the publicity of private education and training institutions has contributed to the "educational panic". They exaggerated the situation of educational competition in order to earn more money from their parents' wallets. However, this statement is obviously unacceptable to practitioners of private educational institutions.
Employees of relevant institutions have posted posts, listing the corresponding relationships among schools in Beijing. In other words, if parents want their children to attend a prestigious school, they can know from this article which high school, which junior high school and which primary school their children must attend.
Another fact is that an official WeChat account about professional counseling information of primary schools in Beijing has 65,438+million+readings as soon as it comes out.
Zheng Shutao understood the situation in Huang Xiaoling. "This may be a bit extreme, but not too much. If you don't accompany your child to the exam, it's really hard for parents to imagine going to primary school through such a competition. In the memory of our generation of parents, as long as they reach school age, parents will send themselves to primary school, and the pressure of further education will not be realized until at least the senior high school entrance examination. "
"Now if children want to go to a better primary school, they must be fully prepared, because there will be a higher-level interview. I heard that some interviews in super-key primary schools are close to IQ tests. " Zheng Shutao said that the interview is about language ability, mathematical logic ability and spoken English. "I will also ask my children what their specialties are, and many key schools also have home visits."
As a first-grade Chinese teacher in a primary school in Dongcheng District, Wang Juan confirmed to reporters all kinds of "sensational" introductions from parents. "Now learning Pinyin and English before primary school has become standard. If you don't learn English, you won't have the opportunity to express and perform in class later. Learning pinyin in advance is because the first grade speaks too fast and the children can't keep up. "
"Mathematics can be taught by parents themselves without having to report to class. Other majors are optional, but they must be available. " Wang Juan told reporters, "If parents don't want their children to have anxiety in the first grade of primary school, they should start working hard when their children are around 3 years old."
"No compensation order" idling
The original intention of the education department has turned into another form of competition, and the pressure on students has become heavier.
As early as the beginning of 2000, the Ministry of Education issued a "No Make-up Class Order", prohibiting primary and secondary schools from making up classes during holidays. Every summer vacation, local education management departments will reiterate the "No Make-up Class" rule, but as we all know, it is not uncommon to make up classes during school holidays. For these schools that commit crimes against the wind, it is a bit "wronged" to say that they are all trying to earn extra money-the pressure from the principal comes not only from superiors, but also from parents who disagree with the school's "herding sheep". In the eyes of these parents, it is irresponsible not to make up lessons.
If schools and in-service teachers secretly make up lessons, then the popularity of various make-up institutions in society is obvious to all. In Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and other big cities, the summer classes of large and small off-campus training institutions are overcrowded. After each tutorial, the vehicles that pick up and drop off students outside the school gate often cause traffic congestion.
The Survey Report on the Status of Teachers in Counseling Education Industry and Counseling Institutions in China released by China Education Society in late June this year (5438+ 10) shows that the scale of extracurricular tutoring expenditure of parents in primary and secondary schools in China exceeds 800 billion yuan. Why is the holiday training getting worse and worse under the pressure of the Ministry of Education's "no-supplement order"?
During the interview, many parents reluctantly told reporters that they rushed to send their children to off-campus educational institutions, not because of inhumanity, but because of the big environment. The concept of "winning at the starting line" is deeply rooted in the bone marrow. A child starts from kindergarten, and the academic competition continues to advance.
In the interview, Wang Juan sent the reporter a resume of the children who had participated in the primary school entrance interview before: English passed a certain oral test, mathematics has been admitted to the top class of an institution, piano level 3, China literature has been logically thinking, and literacy has exceeded 1 000. "This is the children who are preparing to become young now. It can be said that every child has special skills, such as piano, cello, violin, horseback riding, fencing and so on.
It is precisely because of this that Huang Xiaoling had this rhetorical question-"When most children in a class go to cram school, how dare you be' different' and let the children enjoy' happiness' exclusively?
Behind this is the collective anxiety of parents in China. Even though there are endless news questioning various cram schools, parents know that children nowadays have no childhood.
Twenty years ago, musical instruments, dance, art and other skills were regarded by parents as the "specialties" of individual children. Only those gifted children will be sent to special training classes by their parents. Now "specialty" has become a compulsory course, and every parent requires his children to master various skills, and the more the better. In the eyes of parents, children must learn all the skills that may take the lead in future competition.
A person in charge of a private education institution in Beijing told reporters that such changes began to appear around 1998. At that time, the education department carried out many reforms, among which the compulsory education stage was required to cancel the unified examination, with the aim of reducing the burden on students and diluting the examination competition in the compulsory education stage.
"But the original intention of the education department finally evolved into another form of competition, and the pressure on students has not decreased, but has become heavier." Yang Shubo said that due to the cancellation of the unified examination, high-quality education resources are concentrated in a few schools. In order to recruit high-quality students, these schools began to try to organize examinations independently or set various enrollment conditions. The prosperity of Olympic mathematics also began at that time. In order to select students, "good schools" take certificates such as Olympic Mathematics as enrollment conditions.
"A prominent problem in China's current education is that it essentially excludes the participation of young people, and it is an education that lacks the right to choose freely. The so-called quality education is not much different from cramming exam-oriented education, except that exam-oriented education is filled with' book knowledge' and quality education is filled with various talents. " Huang Shuyang, who studies Chinese and western education, once wrote that it is even more ridiculous that everyone says that children have no childhood and hate Olympic Mathematics and training courses, but no one wants to quit, because quitting means falling behind. Model kindergartens, key primary schools, key junior high schools, key senior high schools and key universities are linked one by one, and every link cannot be broken. Competitive pressure has created "tiger parents and tiger mothers", which further worsens the competitive atmosphere. This is a self-circulating system.
Sweep away educational anxiety
Violate the law of "for children" and deviate from the fundamentals.
"In the atmosphere of education panic, the most pitiful thing is the children, who should have been the happiest time in their lives, but they have to go to this class and go to that class. They lack a lot of experience now, and these experiences are very important for people's lives. " Yang Shubo said.
If we go deep into the root of the education panic, Diao, a professor at the School of Economics, Management and Law of Foshan University of Science and Technology, believes that the state's insufficient investment in education leads to the unbalanced development of basic education and the unreasonable allocation of educational resources, which in turn leads to parents' competition for limited high-quality educational resources. Under the baton of "scoring hero", parents with conditions are desperately trying to give their children the best education so that they can go to a good university and find a good job in the future.
"In the distribution of educational resources, the threshold for each child to enter school is different: some children can enter by paying money, some children can enter through written tests and interviews, some students need talent and expertise to enter, and children of school stakeholders can also enter." Yan said.
During the interview, many people in the industry told reporters that the current situation may not be good enough, but the reform of education is still deepening and the educational resources are constantly balanced. Parents who are too anxious need to think about this question: life is not a sprint, but a marathon. Always thinking about winning and sprinting at the starting line, will the effect be good? Can you really get what you want by keeping your child in a state of tension? After all, what we want is not a learning machine, but a person with all-round development in morality, intelligence and physique. If we look at the present from the perspective of 20 years later, we won't feel guilty because we didn't go to cram school. Parents should think twice.
"Although the country has continuously reformed the examination system and the provinces have responded positively to ensure the comprehensiveness of talent selection, as far as the current situation is concerned,' one paper achievement' is still the most direct and important criterion, especially when it comes to entrance examinations." Teacher Wang from a counseling institution in Beijing told the reporter, "Parents send their children to cram schools in order to let them learn more than other children outside the classroom and let them stand out in the fierce competition for the senior high school entrance examination."
Many parents believe that although universities have expanded their enrollment, the competition among good universities is still fierce. High marks are the key to attending famous universities, and every effort should be made to improve children's academic performance.
Chu Zhaohui, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Educational Sciences, believes that although the tutorial fever is ostensibly the result of mutual comparison, the fundamental reason is evaluation. "The evaluation based on scores is too simple. Only by establishing a professional team, comprehensively evaluating students' academic and social activities, and adopting a system of separating enrollment from examination, can we stop the tutorial fever. "
At the same time, it is precisely because of this that "reducing the burden", an old topic that has been discussed since the 1990s, has been given a new hot spot this year. 65438+1October 17, Han, secretary of the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee, first talked about "reducing the burden" at the panel discussion of the Shanghai People's Congress. Two days later, even the Shaanxi Provincial Department of Education, thousands of miles away, came to join in the fun. Shaanxi Provincial Department of Education forwarded the article "How should we treat" reducing the burden "by Shaanxi Education Publishing House on the front page of official website, and deeply analyzed the viewpoint that" reducing the burden is not just the business of the Education Department ".
At the Shanghai People's Congress, Han Zheng said that compulsory education is "all for children". If policies and methods deviate from this law, they deviate from the fundamentals. If the training does not conform to this law, it is definitely not allowed. "(Give) third-grade children training junior high school content, ok? This is against the law and disrupts the education system. "
Han Zheng said that parents don't know the situation behind the training institutions or who is running them. "Only by managing this market well can the party and the government reflect the fairness and justice of our society. This year, delegates are so concerned about this issue, and the municipal party Committee and municipal government will certainly do a good job in this issue. "
"In fact, when the demand for holiday training courses is strong, even if the campus is reduced, the overall burden of students will not be reduced. Because increasing the off-campus burden will hedge the effect of reducing the burden on campus. This will change the fierce competition from primary and secondary schools. Recently, some media reported that some parents have prepared more than 30 pages of resumes for students, which is really amazing. To change this situation, it also depends on the change of the evaluation and selection system of enrollment in primary and secondary schools according to rankings. In fact, this problem is also an old problem, but as long as it still exists, it is necessary to emphasize the disadvantages. " Educator Xiong Bingqi said.
Even so, after the interview, Huang Xiaoling sent a message to the reporter: "Every training class is necessary, because every education stage has different pain points, which are places where parents are anxious. In recent years, everyone has been desperately trying to squeeze into key primary schools, because many primary schools enroll in advance, which is equivalent to selecting good children. Young people will train their thinking when they are promoted to primary school, and they will teach Olympiad and English when they are promoted to primary school. In high school, a good school admitted in advance depends on a certificate, not a school. You ask me why I'm anxious? Because these have already pushed me into a hurry. "