Asia's Overscheduled Kids
http://www.time.com/time/asia/covers/501060327/story.html
Forget about playtime. Children today are caught up in an endless race
of extra tuition sessions, tennis classes, piano lessons, late-night
homework and much, much more. Are we preparing them for success or
overloading them with stress?
Posted Monday, March 20, 2006; 20:00 HKT
The "E.M.B.A." program that kicks off on a Sunday morning in the heart
of Shanghai's financial district is much like any other curriculum
designed to train the future business leaders of China. "We give
students the tools they need to build up their confidence," says Vivian
Liu, general manager of the popular two-year-old program, which has
seen 1,500 participants pass through its doors. But the difference
between Liu's course and others is this: when the demands of subjects
like economics or communications get too taxing, her students might
just respond by having a good cry and asking for their mommies. How so?
They're children. The e in this E.M.B.A. program stands not for
executive but early, and the oldest student in the class is age 6.
Civil servant He Jiachen sends his 3-year-old, He Xingzhen, to the
E.M.B.A. course while he and his wife pursue their own adult M.B.A.s.
"My son is developing well," he says. "In class, he isn't afraid of
giving speeches, and he likes to be a team leader in group activities."
High expectations for children are nothing new in China, where the need
to master the thousands of characters necessary for basic
literacy-coupled with the educational legacy of Confucius-has
turned many an inquisitive, bright-eyed student into a sullen rote
learner. But the pressure on even the youngest children is intensifying
as their parents embrace the notion that education is a primary driver
of the kind of upward mobility that was previously unthinkable in
China. Eager to provide their kids with a head start, Chinese parents
are signing them up for everything from weekend prep courses for
under-sixes to boarding schools for toddlers. And we mean toddlers: for
$700 a month parents can send children as young as 3 years old to the
Hualan International Village Kindergarten in the port city of Tianjin,
where they live full-time in landscaped villas outfitted with 42-inch
plasma TVs and pianos.
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