Author: Xia Feijun Source: Feijunsixianghui (ID: feijunsixianghui)
Today is Children’s Day. Wishing children and friends a happy holiday! On this special day of June 1st, I would like to talk about an “inappropriate” topic, a phenomenon that many people may not have noticed – the worship of foreign things and the negative impact of some preschool education in kindergartens.
I have a deep understanding and firsthand experience of this. I personally believe that this matter deserves attention and deserves discussion, as it concerns children and the future.
What exactly is going on, give a few examples.
Firstly, children’s picture books are preferred from abroad, while domestic picture books are simply not on the market.
Reading picture books is an important enlightenment and learning activity for kindergarten children. Picture books with different themes and stages, if the content is of high quality, are very beneficial for children’s growth.
But it’s this picture book that makes me, as a parent, have too many ‘slots’ to spit out. For example, every time the season changes, the kindergarten requires the child to bring a few picture books of the season for “book rafting” (where everyone exchanges and reads). Because I prefer traditional Chinese culture and Chinese style things, I bought several domestic picture books. The teacher didn’t say anything at the time, but there was a class meeting where he said without naming anyone, ‘It’s best to choose foreign picture books.’ He said that foreign picture books have good quality, and both the painting and content are better than domestic ones. ‘.
It is undeniable that foreign picture books are indeed good in terms of painting presentation and imagination, but they may not be entirely suitable for us. For example, in a foreign picture book borrowed by my child from kindergarten, when it comes to the changes in plants during the season, an example is a beech from the United States. The child asks what a beech is and can you take her to take a look.
This type of tree is mainly distributed in North America, and similar trees are also found in some parts of China, but they are not called beeches, but water green hills, and are only distributed in a few areas, and cannot be seen in most areas. What is the significance of such a picture book? Why not go see Chinese people’s own picture books?
Forget about science popularization, the subtle influence of culture is even more noteworthy. In Western picture books, there is inevitably a lot of content about foreign religions, cultures, and other aspects. As a result, children are so familiar with Christmas, Easter, and “Thanksgiving” that they cannot say much about our own traditional festivals.
I have been to several bookstores to buy Chinese style picture books. But in the picture book counter, the vast majority are foreign picture books, and the recommended ones in the bookstore are mostly from abroad.
Of course, it’s not that foreign picture books are bad, and I’m not blindly excluding them. It’s important to note that picture books are also a type of teaching material, and when it comes to teaching materials, we must take them seriously.
Why do Chinese people have so few picture books themselves? Why do major publishing houses and bookstores mainly promote foreign picture books? Why do kindergartens also choose foreign picture books?
Secondly, the teaching plans of kindergartens are basically copied from foreign countries.
A senior preschool educator, recalling his career, said that when he first started working, he was a preschool teacher. At that time, besides leading the class, his biggest task was to translate lesson plans from American kindergartens. After so many years, the current situation is similar.
The preschool education expert also said that parents of kindergarten children can try translating the lesson plans issued by the school into English, changing a few words, and searching on Google. You may get a lot of surprises because it is copied from someone else.
Most kindergartens do not have dedicated personnel responsible for curriculum design. What if there are no professionals? Borrowing from others, borrowing from others. Since we must learn from others, who is better? It is widely recognized in the industry that international kindergartens and bilingual kindergartens are the best. Where do the lesson plans for international kindergartens come from? The vast majority are copied from the United States.
Of course, I have never been to the United States and I am not familiar with the kindergarten education in the United States. It may indeed be good, but it is definitely not the most suitable for China’s national conditions.
The picture book examples mentioned earlier also apply to lesson plans. Those who can copy and fit us perfectly are called “international front-end educational ideas”; If it is not in line with the national conditions and cannot be properly handled, unrealistic tasks will be completely left to parents, which is called “parents should cooperate with teaching” or “home education together”. The main reason why parents nowadays are so tired is this. There are too many examples to list one by one.
I have found that this is not only true in kindergartens, but also in primary schools. There are also primary school students in my family, which is not bad at ordinary times. Especially in winter and summer vacation, the so-called “holiday practice and project-based homework” assigned by the school is very ungrounded and does not conform to the actual situation. Parents are complaining about it. Now think about it, there is a high probability that the homework was also copied from abroad, and it was just renamed.
Why do many people still believe that “foreign=best”, or more simply, “American=best”, in today’s China’s rapidly advancing national strength and unprecedented increase in national confidence.
This phenomenon is particularly evident in the field of education, not only in preschool education, but also in university education. In university textbooks, many professional textbooks are basically American versions. Some universities, because the textbooks are all in English, also teach in English in the classroom, which is called “international integration” or “American education”.
In short, in the eyes of many people, picture books, lesson plans, and textbooks from the United States are better than those from China, and we need to learn from them. Whether they are really good or suitable for ourselves is not important.
The current situation is difficult to change at the moment, as parents, we should have judgment and action. When I buy books and picture books for my children myself, I usually flip through them to see if there are any misconceptions or unhealthy content. In addition, as long as I have time, I will popularize some traditional Chinese cultural knowledge for my children, buy Chinese people’s own picture books, listen to some Chinese stories before bedtime, and so on.
At the same time, we sincerely offer a suggestion to the relevant departments, hoping to strongly support and encourage our own picture books, lesson plans, and textbooks.
Because in order to overcome the battlefield, one must first overcome the mind; To win over ideas, one must first defeat textbooks and classrooms!