Homely lessons from a Tiger Mum

Patti Waldmeir:

Cao Qing is home-schooling her 13-year-old son because, among other things, "he doesn't like homework".

In the land of the midnight homework project, the average teenager's distaste for homework would not normally give Tiger Mum pause. Most Chinese children learn early to sacrifice playtime and sleeptime on the altar of schoolwork: kids who do not excel in primary school fail to get into the middle school that gets them into the high school that guarantees the right university entrance scores. School is a serious business in China, right from the beginning.

So who cares if the offspring hate homework? Is that not part of the human condition - not just in China, but around the world?

Ms Cao is one of an increasing number of Chinese parents who no longer think suffering is a necessary condition of academic success.

"The school gives too much homework," she says, as an autumn breeze blows through the open patio door of the walk-up duplex flat she rents in a Shanghai suburb to use as a home-schooling base for her son, Zhou Yi. "Besides, he's a boy, and boys like to play, they don't like to sit still for a long time," she says, adding: "They can't just get all their knowledge from textbooks." Our chat is obviously distracting the boy in question, who pops up from his studies at the nearby kitchen table and goes off to fondle the family's newborn kitten and fetch his beetle collection for us to admire.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at October 25, 2013 12:34 AM
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