The mental journey of Chinese mothers after emigrating to Australia

The mental journey of a Chinese mother who immigrated to Australia, as well as the education in Australia and China, triggered deep thinking on whether to take her children to study in Australia.

Our son 10 years old | We are very excited to immigrate to Australia with our family.

When my son/kloc-0 was 0/0 years old, my family immigrated to Sydney, Australia. At that time, we were so excited that we were amazed at the beautiful environment in Australia with the excitement in our hearts after coming to Xintiandi. The scenery here is pleasant, the air is fresh and the neighbors are friendly. I believe life in Australia will be very enjoyable. But anxiety always comes suddenly. The week after my arrival, I decided to send my son to a public primary school not far from my apartment.

The campus is full of laughter, and groups of children form a group and seriously compete for a game called "handball". The passing teacher stamped by with a gentle smile on his face, reminding the children to pay attention to safety from time to time. The area of this primary school is not large, and several big trees just block the dazzling sunshine, blue sky and white clouds in Australia for people to enjoy the cool. The wooden houses under the green trees are the classrooms and teachers' offices of the school. Just like small cities in China, simple and beautiful campuses can be seen everywhere.

My son is in the third grade to the fourth grade | he can only read and listen, but he can't write that I was cheated.

However, unlike China, children can't hear Lang Lang's reading on campus. They can sit in the classroom casually, with the teacher in the middle, and the children sitting around a small table. The walls of the classroom are covered with colorful and childlike children's paintings, just like kindergartens.

In primary schools in China, attending classes is even more unimaginable. Students can ask questions to teachers at will, speak freely, and even some students walk around. The teacher told me that classes start at 9: 30 in the morning and finish at 3: 00 in the afternoon. Each class lasts for 40 minutes, with a 20-minute break. There is no class on weekends. You can bring your own lunch at school at noon, or you can buy hot hamburgers and sandwiches in the school cafeteria.

My son began to attend classes there every day. I was immediately fooled. No textbooks, no syllabus, no homework, no exams, and even no final exams! The blackboard is full of words with international phonetic symbols and spelling, but students are never required to dictate and write, nor are they required to recite words.

So that when my son rose from grade three to grade four, he could only watch and listen, but he couldn't write well, and sometimes he couldn't even spell a complete long word. When people of the same age in China can write beautiful compositions, my son doesn't know how to write English on Monday and Tuesday! What kind of education is this! He studied in China primary school for three years, with average grades. Here, his math is the first in the class!

The most precious stage in life | Let children play freely. I feel a little uneasy.

As the days passed, I couldn't help feeling a little uneasy when I looked at my son's empty schoolbag and happy back. I don't know what to do. In the fierce competition environment in the future, how can this level of education compete with others? How are talents trained in this country?

At the most precious stage of life, if children are allowed to play completely, can basic education still play a role? How can high schools and universities be competent for those difficult courses? This growing sense of disharmony makes me feel that sending my only son to Australia for basic education is like giving something I love to someone I don't trust.

Education in China was criticized, but for me at that time, education in China made me feel more practical. I seem to understand why children in China always win gold medals in the World Olympic Learning Competition, and why children in China are among the best in studying abroad. In Australia, I can't feel the weight of knowledge at all. Can students learn knowledge by playing at school? I can't help it

My son's homework | The writing style after graduate school made me a little dumbfounded.

As time goes by, my son's English has improved a lot, but I find that I don't go home directly after school, but often go to the library. I went for a few hours, and when I came back, I came back with a big bag of books and asked him why he borrowed so many books at once. He said it was homework.

Out of curiosity, I couldn't help secretly looking at my son's homework. Is this called homework? I was really dumbfounding when I saw the questions my children typed on the computer screen ―― China culture in my eyes, which is actually the topic of primary school students?

So I asked my son who came up with this topic. My son told me: The teacher said that Australia is a multicultural immigrant country. Students come from different countries and have different languages and cultures. The teacher asked the students to write an article about the culture, history and geography of their own country, then analyzed the differences between their own culture and the main subcultures in Australia, and finally expounded their views.

I was a bit of a jerk. I remember when I was in primary school, I wrote an article "My Mom", and the teacher would teach students how to start, how to state and how to end. Now my son's homework should cover such a large amount of information, which is an area that China's basic education has never touched. At that time, I only felt that if a ten-year-old child was educated, how could he stand in society in the future? But a few days later, my son finished his homework quickly.

Unexpectedly, what was printed out was a booklet with more than twenty pages. From Qin Shihuang Hanwu to Tang Zong Song Zu, from the Silk Road to the Five-Star Red Flag ... This article is divided into more than a dozen chapters, and finally lists the bibliography. I'm a little shocked. I think this is the writing style I used after I was a graduate student. At that time, I was thirty.

The change of my son | The teacher's answer made me lost in thought.

My son has become unrestrained under the education in Australia, and has no fixed curriculum and careful education plan. But after one year's study, I found that he has learned to finish the homework assigned by the teacher independently, how to use the computer systematically in the library, and where to find the information he needs. Moreover, he has always been good at delving into what he doesn't understand.

The change of my son made me re-examine western education. Compared with the cramming teaching in China, the lively son is more comfortable in Australia. Here, he is the cleverest boy in the class. He is quick-witted and ingenious. Whether doing manual work or drawing, he can win the praise of the teacher more than other children. He's completely in control here.

Who is right or wrong in China's primary and secondary education and Australian education? Where is education more beneficial to children? I took this question to my son's teacher.

I suggest to the teacher that the children leave school early, so that they can leave some homework for them every day and avoid them always watching TV and going out to play. As a result, the teacher said that children, their nature is to play, and the purpose of sending them to school should be to let them play. Our education is to let them increase their knowledge through play. Too much homework will only limit their imagination, become their pressure, make them feel disgusted, but reduce their learning efficiency. Facing the teacher's answer, I was lost in thought.

Australian students | How do China students choose?

In Australia, I often see teachers with a group of students, both on the streets of cities and in beautiful beaches, wildlife parks and botanical gardens, holding paper and pens. From time to time, they squatted down to look at the objects they observed and wrote something in their notebooks. Someone told me that this is the teacher teaching the children.

As for the libraries and museums in Sydney where children often go, the happiest thing for my son is to "play" in the suburbs and museums with water and bread, paper and pens.

I asked the teacher, "Why not let the children remember something important?" For example, a lot of words. "The teacher smiled and said," For a person's memory, there are two things more important than rote learning. One is that he knows where to find much more knowledge than his memory; Second, he can comprehensively use this knowledge to develop new creative ability. If you let them learn by rote, it will neither enrich their knowledge nor make them smarter, and it will also stifle people's creativity. "

Maybe this teacher is right. I think of my college classmates, who are excellent in China's schools, ranging from domestic undergraduates to doctors abroad. They get scholarships by virtue of their own strength and academic performance, and most of other countries, including locals, are not their opponents.

But when it comes to practice, China students are often not as smart and creative as they are. I wonder if this is the difference caused by two different basic education systems. China people were brought up in cramming education, so they had little freedom to play. Once they lose the conventional reference, they may not be free, but they are at a loss and are afraid.

Facing the world of tomorrow, how should we choose our own future?

-Let children study hard and win numerous awards?

-let children grow up in play?