Education and Parenting

    After I read Ivy’s journal, I also have common ideas about the education and parenting. Taiwanese children are poor because they don’t really have real memories at their childhood. All they do during the leisure time is studying. Children who were born in wealthy family are sent to various cram schools at nights on weekdays. Some of them also need to go to cram schools on Saturdays. The schedule is full which is even busier than mine at the university. Is this what a child wants? I have the same feeling and idea as Ivy’s. Parents need to spend time with kids and communicate with them as much as they can. I also need to learn to be a person who does not focus on the grades too much. Because of grades, children are measured as good students with bright future or bad students without any future.

    People believe in good grades equal public high schools and universities, which also mean better jobs in the future. Of course parents all want their children to be excellent. Have they thought carefully? Do they need to train a straight A child to honor themselves or force a child who is not good at studying to go to cram schools for English or Math. The child who might have talent of drawing is commonly told that it is useless to be a painter. Studying is much more important. You can earn more money as a doctor. It is hard to get by as a painter.

    Speaking of the interests, parents usually get involved in what their teenagers choose for their majors. It is another intervention. I heard some said parents want their children to fulfill what they did not accomplish. “I did not graduate from National Taiwan University. I want you to study hard to enroll the school.” “I hope you will inherit my career, so you need to major in a related field.” If the children keep receiving this kind of messages, it is impossible having a good school life.

    Children have the right and dream to be what they want to do. They are not here to live for their parents or compensate what parents have lost in the past or be a tool to make them look good in front of relatives and friends. The roles of parenting are guiding and consulting. If the child is not good at studying, I will try to find out what he or she is interested in and support him or her to become whom they want to be. I read an article about Northern Europe where the teachers don’t grade students from the first grade to the seventh. I totally agree with the concept. It is difficult not to compare the scores or to view the children with the performances of academic work. The only way to solve the educational problem will be the strategy used in Northern Europe. I hope it will be put into practice someday in Taiwan. (498)