Getting a kick out of school

When my sister recently visited me, we talked the most about education. In Xi'an of Shaanxi province, all parents send their kids to after-school classes. My sister had been resisting the trend, believing my niece should have as much playtime as possible.

The only exception has been Taekwondo, which is "easy to learn with belts of different colors to mark the learner's level". My 10-year-old niece has shown great interest in the kicking sport since kindergarten and has won several awards in the city. Her coaches are proud of her, and my sister regards the two nights of training each week as a precious chance for her daughter to have some fun.

But, two years ago, my sister had to send my niece to an Olympic math class. Both my sister and her husband are engineers, but they couldn't quite comprehend their daughter's fourth-grade primary school math textbook.

There was a math teacher in the school who asked the kids to copy the arithmetic problems they learnt during the day 50 times over each night. My sister didn't want to disrupt the teacher's plan, but she changed the numbers, so my niece could at least gain some training.

However, when the exercise books were handed out, my niece got red checks, because she didn't give the same answers.

In the 1980s, the whole nation got excited over news Chinese teenagers won top prizes at the international Olympic math competition. Before long, Olympic math classes had blossomed across the country. Some schools even enrolled students according to their math score.

Well ahead of her teenage years, my niece is already learning quadratic equations. Though her textbooks do not talk about Olympic math problems, they have appeared in her exams. My sister says the students who score low in exams are under great pressure because the teachers' income is directly linked with the score of the students. The teacher receives a bigger bonus according to the number of classroom students who enter college.

Deeply dissatisfied with the exam-oriented education system in China, neither of us knows what to do. The talk gets me worried about my son's future. The other day, when the principal stopped by my son's class, the kindergarten teacher said my son surprised everyone by identifying all the Chinese characters the class has been learning. While the first Chinese word I learned was "yi" (one), which is only a horizontal line, my son began his Chinese lesson with "wo" (I), a word with seven strokes. I didn't learn how to write that word until I reached primary school.

In just a few pages, my son's textbook is teaching "wo ai you er yuan" (I love the kindergarten), which is certainly a well-meant phrase. Unfortunately, my 3-year-old son doesn't show any interest in these complicated words.

If he objects to such basic learning, how can I persuade him to learn Olympic math? Or should we just emigrate to a country where children enjoy a lighter childhood and are allowed to maintain their creativity?

The good news is my son's kindergarten also offers Taekwondo lessons. And, my son has declared, he will grow up to be the Taekwondo teacher of his cousin.

(China Daily 06/25/2008 page20)