Get Saturdays off
Tuesday, May 01, 2002
My primary school has accepted the five-day week when I was in Grade 5 within my memory. Almost at the same time, in April 1995, Japanese government ended the Saturday classes at public schools across the country.
But the attitudes of Japanese and Chinese students or parents are quite different from each other. I am wondering that in Japanese people's mind, the consciousness of competition is much stronger than other nations. Sometimes it is too strong. So it is acceptable that when the government carried out the five-day plan, so many people 乗 not only the parents, but also some students who is 12 years old 乗 would make some complaints. By contrasting with Japanese students, Chinese society seemed accept this system more peacefully. In my opinion, I also approve of the new system, as we students will get more separate time and do your favorite things these two days. When I was young I was really eager to do some things I enjoyed so much, just like playing the piano, studying computer and the things like that. But always I have a lot of homework to finish and revising is a usual but perfect excuse for parents to make the children stay at the desk and do some additional exercises. So there comes another problem, does the two rest days available for the students? Is that true that children spend these days on playing or anything else?
Well, it is very popular in 90s that the parents sent the single child to some extra school to learn playing the piano, Chinese hand-writing, and so on. They just want to the child to learn an ability of art or something else, but they consider much less that whether they really love the piano they play or they are indeed interested in practicing Chinese Hand-writing. I had seen a lot of parents scolding the child after the class, as the child didn't do the practice very well and they want to play in the Sunday afternoon.
I know that some Japanese parents are against the new system just because they want to get more quiet time to have a rest after 5-day working. But the Chinese parents prefer to lose the resting time to carry the child to the Sunday-school. They also hope that their only child get more education than other students at the same age. The new system just private them plenty time to take part in one or two new classes.
Reforming the system of school-day in one week is a good beginning. But the more important thing is to make the parents know that play and discover by children's interests will be more effective than teach then by force. So we still have a lot to do for both Chinese and Japanese parents and children.
Last update: 01/18/2004 23:07