Anxious Parents (4) — Early Education

Anxious Parents (4) — Early Education

A child is a treasure filled with limitless potential. You never know how much can be discovered and developed. If a child has a latent gift in some area, naturally you would not want that gift to fade away simply because it was not recognized in time. But on the other hand, “over-extraction” may create even greater hidden risks. The tension between these two possibilities is the hardest boundary to grasp in early education. Yet this distinction exists only from the parents’ point of view; for children themselves, it does not really exist. Even children whose parents have never seriously considered educational questions, and who are raised in a completely “free-range” way, are still constantly learning and growing from their limited external environment. This is an innate human ability. Animal young learn through play and interaction with their mothers and peers, acquiring the skills needed to face the real world; it is an instinct for survival.

But as human beings, compared with animals, our misfortune is that instinct alone is far from enough to support us in facing the real world. The abilities of fighting, hunting, and gathering have long disappeared from modern humans. Yet for children, at the moment they are born, they are in essence still primitive humans. During the short span of infancy and early childhood, what they must accomplish is not merely what animals do—learning how to survive—but completing the entire evolutionary journey from the primitive to the modern. Under such circumstances, a “free-range” model of natural education is obviously not enough to meet the needs of a child’s development. Parents and society have the responsibility to provide children with an early educational environment that both accords with their nature and supports their growth.

That is easy to say, but in practice there is no mature standard that can serve as a reliable guide. Going further, because children themselves differ so greatly, perhaps no such unified standard exists at all. A child’s learning and practice, like that of animal young, is continuous and unbroken. They are learning all the time—in daily life and in play. The role that various kinds of early education institutions can play is actually very limited. At most, they offer guidance to parents in terms of form or direction, because children still spend the vast majority of their time living with their families. Therefore, consciously providing an environment and conditions for learning—in the broadest sense—is absolutely necessary.

Children need references and models for learning. They learn through imitation and interpretation, and they need constant practice in the process. This requires caregivers to devote more energy to creating conditions for imitation. Language, behavior, and every other aspect matter. Talking as much as possible, singing, reading aloud, inventing new games and new ways of interacting—all of these are extremely valuable learning opportunities for children. Only on the basis of such rich resources can they gradually develop their own experience and systems of knowledge. Children cannot distinguish clearly between play, work, housework, and other specific situations. To them, these are all part of one unified world, all skills they must learn and master in order to live. Therefore, when they are practicing through participation in family tasks, they should be met more with encouragement and guidance than with criticism.

Natural circumstances alone cannot provide children with all the material needed for abundant early education. Parents and other family members need to take on a more active role in providing such material. As long as one is conscious of it, every person in the family is themselves an object for the child to imitate. Fully and diversely expressing oneself, while intentionally guiding the child, is one of the keys to early education. Overall, I believe that early education should not be rigid, nor should it introduce overly standardized courses and teaching models too early (though a limited amount of structured education can of course help cultivate discipline and a sense of rules in children). On the other hand, the influence of electronic devices in daily life has already become unavoidable. For children over 18 months old, appropriate, limited, and guided exposure to a small amount of electronic devices and educational programs may be beneficial in making up for what family education lacks. But such supplementation must be kept within strict limits.