In recent years, the trend of Australia studying at a younger age is becoming more and more obvious. Many parents choose to take them to Australia at primary school, and even one of the main purposes of emigration to Australia is to enable their children to receive a foreign education.
But many domestic parents also believe that Australian education is playing every day. Even some Chinese mothers are complaining: such a simple education has made our children stupid!
"Happy Education" is a hoax?
In fact, the editor said it doesn`t count, have to listen to those, the children have really experienced Sino-Australian education, what Australian Chinese parents say.
At the age of 8, our family emigrated to Sydney, Australia. The scenery is pleasant, the air is fresh, the neighbors are very friendly, and I believe life in Australia will be very pleasant.
After finishing the formalities, we sent our son to a public primary school not far from our apartment.
Unlike China, children are free to sit in the classroom, with teachers in the middle, and children sitting around small desks, surrounded by colourful, childish children`s paintings around the walls of the classroom, where there is no sound of long reading in the campus, and children can sit in the middle of the classroom at will.
In class, students can ask teachers questions at any time, can speak freely, some students also walk around, this is in China do not dare to think of things!
From that day on, my son went to class there every day. No textbooks, no syllabus, no homework, no exams, no final exams.
The blackboard is full of international phonetic and spelled words, but students are never required to dictate, recite, and memorize words.
My son doesn`t know how to write English on Mondays and Tuesdays when his peers in China can write beautiful compositions. He has been in primary school in China for three years, his grades are moderate, and he is the first in his math class here!
It turns out that this is how foreign children go to school. At home, my children from grade 1 to grade 3, changed four schoolbags, one bigger than the other, people feel as if the weight of knowledge is increasing, parents feel particularly steady.
At the most precious stage of life, let the children play at full discretion, basic education can do it? How can high school and college be competent for those difficult courses?
Unwittingly, a semester has passed, and my worries are getting stronger and stronger. Until that day, I saw that my son`s homework on the computer was: "Chinese Culture I know."
Is such a big question written by their children, who never read hard? This article, even in China, is also a scholar, researchers can do things, to these children of several years old, what kind of composition can they make?
So I asked, who`s the problem? My son told me it was a teacher.
He said that the teacher said that Australia is a diverse immigrant country, students are from different countries, all have their own culture and language of the motherland, this time the assignment is to ask each student to write a piece of their own country`s culture, history, Geographical article, and then analyze the differences between their own culture and Aussie subculture, and finally explain their own views.
A week later, my son finished his homework. What I saw printed out was a ten-page pamphlet. A turn, inside the content is really a lot of! From the Chinese hieroglyphics 5,000 years ago to the simplified Chinese characters today, from the Yellow River to the Great Wall.
At the end of the article, there is a list of references to which books he knows about the culture of his country.
After a year in school, I was surprised to find that his son, who had become unrestrained under Australian education, had learned something he could not learn in Chinese schools, even though there were no fixed curricula, no well-planned education programmes, and after a year in school, I was surprised to find that he had learned something that he could not learn in Chinese schools.
From the beginning of that composition, his son has learned to finish his own homework on one big subject after another assigned by his teacher. He can not only skillfully do his homework with a computer in the library, but also look up all kinds of information he needs. Quickly find the videotape, and know where to find something.
Moreover, he was already good at delving into things he did not understand, and rarely asked adults where he knew where to find answers. He is nimble and skillful. He wins more praise from his teachers than any other child, whether he does hand-work or painting. It is here that he is completely and fully self-possessed.
In Australia, I often see teachers with a group of students in the streets of the city, beautiful beaches, wildlife parks, botanical gardens, and students with paper and pens in their hands.
From time to time they squatted down to see what they observed, and from time to time they wrote in their little books. I was told that the teacher was teaching the children.
As for the library and museum in Sydney, where the children often go, the son is most happy to carry water and bread, take paper and pen, go to the countryside and the museum to "play".
My son`s teacher once told me:
"there are two things that are more important to a person`s memory than memorizing. One is that he knows where to find much more knowledge than his memory; and the second is that he can use it in a comprehensive way to develop new creative abilities.
If you let them memorize, it will neither make them knowledgeable, nor will they become smarter, but will also strangle the creativity of killing people. "
I can`t help but think about the primary school education in Australia when I see the pupils in Australia jumping around in school without worrying about it:
Think of the children of a young age sitting straight behind their hands in class; of the heavy schoolbags of that year; of the heavy homework that the children of several years old were doing under the lamp; of the three-day exams.
Of course, in Australia, there is pressure to go to school, want a good school, of course, can not fall behind. Children need to be encouraged and stressed as they grow up, but the key to quality education is:
How to control the ratio of encouragement to pressure
Day-to-day assessment of Australian students
The family emigrated to Melbourne to live in a public primary school in Melbourne`s East District at the age of six-and-a-half.
In the past six months, he has never heard of a "unit test" or "final exam", not to mention a "simulated test" and a concentrated review before the "final exam".
At the end of the term, the school opened a serious exhibition of children`s toys, much more important than the subject test.
Then how to judge whether the child has mastered the teacher`s teaching plan knowledge? The schools here rely on "on-the-fly tests" and teachers` daily records.
These day-to-day assessments, teachers will not give scores, let alone rank. The teacher will write the performance of each child in the classroom, carefully recorded, in the semi-annual student assessment report submitted to the parents.
At the end of June, Shrimp had just taken half a year of class and received the first Student Assessment report.
The report is an 8-page PDF document that is divided into three parts: how to read a child`s academic report, a major discipline assessment form, a teacher`s assessment of each subject, and a discipline review.
The main subject assessment form shows whether the children`s comprehensive ability, English, mathematics and science and technology can meet the requirements of the state education for students of all grades in the state of Victoria, in terms of comprehensive ability, English, mathematics and science and technology.
Under these four assessment contents, the division of three to four items has been done.
The yellow area indicates what the grade should be, and the black dot represents the level that the child can achieve.
C above the benchmark level, six months to one year above the benchmark level B, more than one and a half years above the benchmark level or rating A.
Some parents think, "Class C looks very unfriendly." In contrast, private schools look at a lot of A at a glance, appear to be more encouraging.
This large table is followed by teacher comments and unidisciplinary assessments from eight disciplines. The teacher first wrote down what the main points of the subject are for this semester, and how your children perform in their studies. Here, you can see the teacher`s detailed record of the children`s daily study, such as this English comment:
"in writing a short essay, Ryan writes` spiders,`he can use words about color, shape, texture and quantity, such as black, oval, soft, eight-legged. In writing an article on ideas, `can you bring pets back to school`, he can put forward two strong ideas: `pets make chaos` and `pets make noise`. "
Assessment reports for other disciplines include tables that reflect the level of students, as well as comments from teachers, such as this report on physical education:
In addition to giving a detailed record of the three subjects of English, mathematics and science, the class teacher will also give a comprehensive evaluation of the overall performance of the students, where the child needs to be improved.
According to the report, the individual`s studies are documented in detail, but he will not see how much he ranks in the class.
Along with this assessment report, it was sent to the parent`s mailbox, and a special note was given to the parent,
"to see the efforts of the child
Don`t blame them for failing to meet your expectations. "
In Australia, teachers never stingy praise and affirmation of their children, a way to educate many unconfident children step by step into this strange environment. No matter what you do or what you do, the teacher will say:
“Good Job”
“Well done”
Is primary and secondary education good in Australia?
Just take a look at this set of data.
According to the internal statistics of the Australian Embassy in Beijing,
Between 2009 and 2015, the number of small Chinese students from China (high school and below) rose from 3012 to more than 12000, accounting for 37 percent of Australia`s total number of Chinese students from 18 percent.
What is the difference in education between China and Australia? Family education
We Chinese can be said to be the most important people in the world, but unfortunately we have made education one-sided, narrow-minded and utilitarian.
We put almost all our energy into culture classes, exam scores, academic rankings, and we felt that scores were the only indicator of good or bad education, and that a high score would be a good thing.
Almost 2/3 of the child`s growing up time is spent at home with his parents, so family education, parental influence will undoubtedly bring a huge, subtle impact on the child.
Every move you make as a parent will leave a huge mark on your child`s life.
In our culture, it is natural to listen to what the parents say. In this atmosphere, the independent personality of the child will soon be destroyed, which is the elimination of the child`s personality. Children unknowingly become only promise, grow up to talk about what self-confidence?
We are also determined not to tolerate the insistence of our children when they disagree with us, nor to see the child`s intransigence. However, we do not know that behind this is the lack of parental dictatorship and the absence of family democracy.
But Australian parents are used to cultivating their children`s consciousness of thinking independently, so that they don`t agree immediately and think for themselves.
Australian children are encouraged to express their own opinions, think independently, parents rarely interfere, pursue truth, creativity, imagination, etc., rather than simply fill in duck education.
Australians will always do everything they can, consciously or unintentionally, to find the benefits of their children. We Chinese parents are born with a gift of finesse, even if they have the slightest advantage to light it up.
What Impressionists feared most when they were young was the "child of another family" in his mother and father`s mouth. "you see, you know better than you!" "look at one of the top five in the class again this time!"
In the eyes of parents, we are never the best, and even if you have done your best, Chinese parents will point out that there is still a "better" far away.
Social education
We often say that society is a melting pot and a touchstone. Even if the family, school education as usual, if this society is morbid, for minors` outlook on life, the formation of values will have a potentially fatal impact.
The social education is very broad, when the child walks out of the family, she (he) is faced with the education and influence that society gives him (her).
Australians never stink at smiling, encouraging, helping and forgiving strangers in public. We can always feel the warmth of strangers in the opposite smile, and the world is no longer cold.
outdoor activities
Australia`s basic education attaches great importance to outdoor activities, but the Australian Education syllabus does not set criteria for the assessment of various sports activities. It will only specify that students` outdoor activities should not be less than an hour per day.
Next to the school is usually a community park, large areas of lawn for children to play. The school also has a variety of balls for children to borrow, can fully meet the requirements of children.
As long as it is not extremely bad weather, the children will be driven out of the building to play outside, rain and wind.
In the domestic time, the teacher does not let the child go out to play on rainy days, afraid of getting caught a cold in the rain. Even if it`s not a rainy day, the best physical education teachers are always "sick", and physical education classes become extra-verbal.
The difference between kids growing up in greenhouses and Australia`s "naturally waterproof", windswept children is that one face is full of yearning for the outside world, and the other always has a sunny smile on its face.
Respect brings equality and uniqueness
Why does Australia, with a smaller population, have so many novel creations and designs that are dazzling in all its attempts? Only after life in Australia will understand that everyone has a unique personality, respect will make it free to release.
Schools that don`t teach anything also focus on educating children about all sectors of society and finding out where their interests lie. In Australia, chefs, drivers, paramedics, gardeners and university professors have no significant differences in social hierarchy. Some blue-collar jobs earn much more than white-collar workers.
People`s selfishness, even if there are different degrees of discrimination against race, religion, occupation, sex, etc., can never be openly expressed because they are well aware that this is wrong. The consciousness of affirmative power is also one of the key points of school guidance.
Children raised in Australia are particularly "wild". They can take off their shoes and play barefoot in the park and roll in mud ponds.
Children who grew up in Australia were "crazy", daring to challenge authority, not just listening to their parents and teachers, and even the prime minister daring to protest.
Children who grew up in Australia, they may not be rich, they may not be what we see as "good". But they are kind, happy, polite, rule-abiding, reasonable, assertive, enthusiastic.
It is not enough for children to take exams. What is needed in life is the wealth of education that should be taught to children. Unfortunately, these are China`s education, we have repeatedly ignored, and these are precisely the truth of Australian education.
