Recently an article in New York Times has elicited some discussions among my friends, largly around comparison of the education systems of the United States and China- http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/07/education/07education.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=homepage. The fact that China is investing so much money into educating the next generation should indeed be taken seriously by the United States, if it still wants to maintain a lead in science and technology.
Incidentally, I scheduled a visit to the Stanford daycare center where Winston is on the waiting list to enter next year as a two-year old. I figure that I should at least see what it’s like. Considering that only Stanford affiliates can get in, and it almost never has openings, I expected a great daycare center that would blow my mind away.
Suffice to say that the exact opposite happened. It’s a two-story building, but each class is confined to its own classroom most of the day, except for when they are let outside in the small yard to play. The classroom has some toys, and the teacher to kids ratio for the 2 year old class is 6 to 1, which is not bad. I asked where they would eat and nap, and the answer was the same room. When I expressed puzzlement as to where they could sleep, the teacher pointed to a stack of mats, which are rolled out for the children’s nap. Each family supplies a sheet and a blanket, and the kids would sleep in their clothes on those mats spread out on the floor. The teachers have associate degrees but there were no musical instruments around for music classes. They supply two snacks but parents would have to supply lunch.
I always thought that my son would have better opportunities than I did when I was growing up. However, when it comes to daycare/preschoo/kindergarten, I have to say that Winston might be worse off than I was. My daycare/kindergarten which I attended was the experimental kindergarden affiliated with Beijing Normal University. The campus is at least 10 times as big as the Stanford one. All the teachers were trained in early-childhood education, and most can play the piano. We had a classroom, a dining room, a bedroom where each kid has his or her own bed, where we would nap comfortably in our sleep clothes under our own warm blanket. There was a big performance hall with hardwood floors, where we would put on shows to entertain foreign visitors. The yard has a huge fountain, big trees, large area to run around, lots of play structures, and a vegetable garden where we were taught to pick cucumbers and tomatoes when they were in season. We were taught to sing along with our teachers’ piano playing, listen to stories and put on various performance shows. When we got up from the afternoon nap, the teachers would comb each girl’s hair. I remember wanting to have long hair, so that the teacher could braid my hair. But unfortunately I always had short hair. Both lunch and dinner were served, although I recall not liking the food too much.
When I complained to a friend of mine, she pointed out that my daycare/kindergarten was perhaps one of the most elite ones in China. She talked about hers when she was a kid. The teachers would chat among themselves instead of paying attention to the kids. While the yard was big, there was only one or two play structures, and all the kids would have to wait in long lines. The worst was the open-air bathrooms with those holes in the ground – apparently sometimes kids would fall into those holes. Out of fear of falling into those “shit-holes”, she often tried to hold herself instead of going to the bathroom, when many other kids just peed in their pants without the teachers noticing anything. Is that the norm in China then?
Regardless, I recall visiting my old high-school where my mom was a teacher before her retirement. In terms of facility and resources, it exceeds even La Jolla High School, which is supposed to be one of the top high schools in this country. And this article in New York Times further makes me question the quality of public education in the US. Private schools in the US, on the other hand, easily surpass the schools in China in terms of hardware and software.
Well, perhaps that’s why I feel the pressure to make some money so that Winston can go to private schools from the beginning...
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