Abstract.The present paper concerns itself with a study of the differences and similarities of family education between China and the West. Different from previous research, this paper wants to emphasize the ways of changing the actualities of family education in China. Our major motives for this study include: 1) to learn something from the ways that the West educates their children; 2)to find out ways to change the actualities of family education in China.
Key words: family education；aims of education; contents of education; style of education
1.Introduction
As family education plays an important role in the development of a country, more people began to pay attention to the study of family education. Family education is concerned not only with the development of individual and the nation, but also with the trend of the whole human society. Therefore many scholars both at home and abroad have focused their studies on family education.
Westerners have studied family education for a long time. And they have accumulated a lot of research material and data. Now they form family school and make it legal. They also set some organizations, such as National Center for Education Statistics to protect the right of family school. There are even some non-government organizations, such as HSLDA and NHERI. It means that in the West, family education has become a new form---family school, which is not only the former family education.
Smedley’s research, which adopts Vineland Adaptive table, shows that children who receive education at home are more sociable and mutant than children in school(Smedley 86). Shyers’ research shows that children who get education in traditional school are more attractive, noisier, and have more consciousness of competition than children who receive education at home(Shyers 122). John Holt said that children have their own ability of learning; they don’t need others to tell them how to learn or when to learn(Holt 185). He advocated that children learn by themselves, learn from their interests. He insisted on developing children’s motion and passion. In his books How Children Fail and How Children Learn, he publicized his opinion about children education. He thought that it is children’s nature to want to learn(208).
Most of the research on family education has been performed abroad, and moreover, has been focused on comparing children’s education at home and in the school.
2.Definition and Description of Family Education
2.1.The Definition of Family Education
Though in ancient China there are many educational stories, such as “Mencius’ mother moved three times”, there was not a definite definition. In 1925, the famous early childhood education expert, Chen Heqing, published a book called Family Education. In this book, he did not define family education, but he pointed out that family education should emphasize on personality training and proposed 101 principles for children education (Chen Heqing, 58). Though he didn"t propose the definition of family education, his book laid a theoretical foundation for the study of China"s modern education. Since then, the definition of family education appears frequently.
In the West, there are also some definitions on family education. Children"s school and adult college in Chester once states that education is a kind of training and development taken for their own, which includes abilities of mental, intelligence, and physics. One explanation thinks that family education is a formal preparation, which includes classes at school, in religious organizations, or other welfare groups, in order to develop good relationship between parents and children. The other thinks that family education is an informal education. It is taken at home. And it aims to learn knowledge and skills about family life.
2.2.The Position of Family Education
As we have talked above, family education is a process. It mainly means the influence parents made on children. In order to analyze the position of family education, we should at first analyze the differences between family education and the other kinds of education.
Firstly, family education is a kind of private education. Compared with school education, family education is taken place at home, and the educators are not trained ones, the content and the level they teach mainly depend on their own standard of education. However, school education is taken at school, which is a public place. And at school, many people study together, and the educators at school are trained to teach others.
Secondly, family education is a kind of informal education. Formal education refers to the education that is organized, planned, purposeful and systematic implemented. Though family education is purposeful, it is not planned. And the educators are not trained; they do not have the ability to teach the special knowledge. How to teach, what to teach, and what kind of person to cultivate into all depend on the educator.
As family education is so important in our life, it can influence the whole life of us, we should put it in the very beginning of education. And we must pay much attention to it.
3.Differences in Social Background Between China and the West
3.1.Difference in Social System
"The Western countries are mainly capitalist countries. And most of them are developed countries. They have the consummate social pension insurance system. That means that old people do not need to worry about pension. They just take care of their children until the children reach the age of 18"(Musgrove 1996). Then, the child becomes an independent individual. “The future of the children is just depending on their own efforts. Parents care less about whether the children would be famous or rich" (Li Ziying, 139). On the other hand, because of such social system, the westerners are more independent than people in China. To some extent, they are too independent, and they focus on individualism. This is the core of western culture, especially that of the United States. A scholar in America pointed out sharply that "in a democratic society, every citizen accustomed to think about a small goal, that was himself. Everyone is independent in the family, and has the maximum value" (qtd. in Li Ziying, 139).
China, on the contrary, is a socialist country. And it is a developing country. Its economic situation is worse than the West, and it does not have the consummate social pension insurance system. Parents care much about the future of their children. They treat their children as their own property. This means that their children are not independent individuals. On the other hand, Chinese people think highly of similarities, and emphasize collective interests. In China, parents lose themselves and they do not respect their children. They have a sense that parents and children are unity. They treat their children as the continuity of their own values. And they think that children are all of their life and hope of their life.
3.2.Difference in Traditional Culture
Education is part of a culture. “Education has the function of choosing, communicating, and creating culture. Therefore, to some degree, education must reflect with different connotations of the social culture” (Tang Mei, 49). And culture also affects many aspects of education. Culture value orientation affects the value of education, and family education is a small part of it.
Confucius culture has gone deeply into all aspects of family education in China and affects the thinking methods of parent education. Traditionally, Chinese culture is a kind of ethics-based culture, and the value orientation of Chinese culture is the pursuit of personal perfection. Family education in China pay much attention to the development of etiquette and the sense of collectivism. In the relation between individual and collective, Chinese culture emphasizes that personal interest must be subordinate to that of the collective absolutely and unconditionally.
From the ancient, parents think that children should be trained to be obedient. They must follow what their parents ask them to do. The “control type” family education makes children invaluable. They can not even decide what to do. Until now, many parents think that an obedient child is the best kind.
In the eyes of western parents, children are independent, and equal to adults. They communicate with the children on an equal state and pay more attention to the children"s opinion. What is more, they adopt the children"s idea positively. All these are helpful to the cultivation of the children"s independent personality.
3.3.Difference in the Position of Family Institution
Family institution is an important part of the socio-economic system. And it moves along with the movement of the socio-economic and culture. “Family is the foundation of Chinese society. Family bureaucratic system is the typical characteristics of Chinese society”(Min Zhengwei and Li Haofeng, 20). Feudal society is absolutely family regime, and the genetic relationship is the foundation of family bureaucratic system.
China emphasizes family life. It organizes the society by the ethical, and ablates the opposition position between individuals and groups. Therefore, it has been called the "Ethics-based" society.
The base of western society is individual. Westerners focus on group life, and lack family life. They depend on religions to unify individuals, and cohere social, and finally establish the independence and freedom of the individual. Therefore, it has been called the “individual-based" society.
All in all,“ China is a developing country, and it does not possess the wholesome social system. The West is well developed, and it possesses the wholesome social system"(Bu Dezhen and Sun Aixue, 109).
4.Similarities of Family Education between China and the West
4.1.The Contents That They Think Highly of
As we have talked above, family education is very important in people"s life and it is the very beginning of the children"s education. Its function on the children is very great. It exerts a subtle influence on the development of the child"s personality and emotion.
Compared China with the West, we can find that parents in both China and the West all think highly of the position of family education.
Family education has great preconception. Family is the first school of children. And parents are the first teachers of children. In the family, “children firstly receive the ideological and moral influence, which will be the foundation and the initial cognitive structures of the ideological and moral education they would get in school" (Song Jinling and Lian Yongjie, 18). This characteristic is common in each country.
Either in China or in the West, parent-child relation is built on the basis of blood ethical relations. Parents living together with the children in the long-term and their care for the children form a child"s trust of parents. That is to say, children are easier to be educated by their parents, their habits and moral behavior can educate the children. Therefore, based on this, parents can foster children"s emotional quality and develop children"s moral enthusiasm and creativity. That is to say, children can be taught in the example of their parents.
In family, though parents make a plan to educate children, there is no stable teaching time and place in daily life. Parents always teach children anytime and anywhere. For instance, when seeing the national flag or hearing Anthem in the road, parents could educate the children some patriotic knowledge. When watching TV, parents could teach children to tell right from wrong. It can be said that family education exists everywhere. Parents can teach their children by percept.
As the saying goes “no one knows a son better than his own father”, compared with school education, parents just teach their own children. And because of this, they will have a complete understanding of their children. On the other hand, “because children rely on their parents, they will show their true idea in front of their parents, then parents can teach the children and solve the problem timely according to the performance of the children” (Riley 38).
In the West, parents think that children are also independent people, they should solve problems themselves. Because of this, children in the West are taught to find out answers and solutions by themselves.
4.2.Family Education Starting from Childhood
In China, children are taught from the time the mother is pregnant. Then, when he was born, he is taught to learn how to walk, how to use chopsticks, how to speak, and so on. When he is growing up, he is taught to study mathematics, physics, chemistry, and so on. He was learning in his whole life.
As the saying goes“ when you are three years old, people could calculate what kind of people you would be, and when you are seven years old, people could calculate your qualities. ” From this proverb we can see that in Chinese’s minds, education in childhood is very important. And there is a famous story in China that is “the three movings of Mencius’s mother”. This story tells that Mencius’s mother thought that the place they lived in could not teach his child well, so she moved to another place, however, the second place is also not good, and then she moved again. From this story we can see that Chinese pay much attention to education in childhood from the ancient.
In modern times, parents pay more attention to education, especially in childhood. Now, children in China should not only learn lessons in school but also some other “Interest Classes”, such as, drawing, piano, dancing, and so on. No matter whether this type of education is right or not, this phenomenon at least represents that parents in China think that education should start from childhood.
In the West, as we all know, children are taught to do everything themselves. When they are young, they are taught to work for what they want. For example, in America, children about six always go out to deliver newspapers, it is not because his family is poor, but because their parents want to educate them that money is hard earned. And in the West, little babies also sleep in their own rooms. Everything parents in the West teach their children begins from childhood.
4.3.The Role of Parents in the Education Division of Labor
From ancient China, there is a phenomenon that fathers went out to make money and mothers stayed at home to teach children. Because of this difference in the roles, parents divide the task of raising their children on the nod: father often plays games with children, teach the children the lessons, and help children deal with the outside world; mother is mainly responsible for the child’s daily life, and care.
That is to say, through communicating with their father, children learn more responsibility and obligation; in the process of living with their mother, children learn how to care others.
In the West, parents think highly of birth. They think that if they can not give the child a comfort and independent space, they would not be fertile in imagination. Though there are many differences between China and the West on family education, the role of parents in education division of labor is the same. The mothers deal with the daily life of children; fathers always play with children.
5.Differences in Family Education Between China and the West
5.1.The Aim of Family Education
The aim of family education, to some extent, has a close relationship with the current society. It can be considered from two aspects: for the family or for the individual.
In China, the idea that “Study goes beyond everything "is accepted by most of the parents, therefore, the most important aim of family education is to foster the children to learn as much knowledge and skills as they can. However, the aim of family education in China is so utilitarian. Below is an example which reflects this phenomenon:
Because the son did not study well and he loves drawing from childhood, the parents then sent the son to a very famous drawing teacher, and hope that their son would get high score. What is more, he asked the teacher to treat the son severely, and emphasize the importance of learning well. However, just a few classes later, the boy, who loved drawing so much, said that he would not draw again. The reason is that the boy drew things to express his own feelings, while the class aimed at skills for examinations, and the teacher taught children just according to the standard, the child"s confidence was attacked; on the other hand, the mother gave the boy much pressure. Therefore, drawing was not an interesting thing to the boy, it was a task (Liu Bo, 81).
This kind of family education has no advantage on the development of the children, and can add pressure to the children.
In terms of the value of the aim of family education, China is inclined to be community-based. Many parents would connect the education of children with the benefit of the whole family, and if the child can not reach the goal, parents would say “We entrust to the care of you, but you are so bad”. At this time, the children would feel more tired, because he owns the hope of the whole family. What is more, when setting the goal of education, parents often think about the benefit of the whole family, and hardly consider the feeling and desire of the children. All the above would make the children bear too much during his growth.
Western culture, including American culture, is on the base of the business activity of the individual. They always consider benefit as a fine pursuit of value. That kind of culture encourages people to pursue the benefit, compete equally, and try their best to get the most benefit.
In the West, the sense of competition permeates into every family. And if you want to win, you should be provided with strength to live in the society. Therefore, parents in America pay more attention to train the children with all kinds of ability they need to live in the society. Generally speaking, they aim at foster the children with the sense of independence. And parents like to praise their children.
5.2.The Content of Family Education
The content of family education contains many aspects: moral education; mentality education, and so on. Meanwhile, we should see that because of the differences in history and background, different country may have the different key points of family education.
The content of family education is inheritable, which means to some degree, that the ancient family education would affect the content of modern family education.
Zeng Guopan"s Letter Home is an important book from which we can have a good knowledge of the content of family education in the tradition. In the book, he said that parents should cultivate children’s moral character, knowledge education, and so on (Zeng Guopan, 78). Zeng aims at educating by examples and his writing is very good. It can be said that Zeng has achieved Confucianism"s goal, which is, to make benefits, have the moral character, and practice what you preach.
All this influences the modern family education. However, because of the influence of the society, knowledge education in modern society becomes utility. Children should study not only at school but also after class. They even do not have spare time to play. What parents think is just to make benefits.
Moral education in China mainly expresses in the development of the children"s warm heart and the habit of good behavior, because many children in China become selfish and self-willed.
There are three countries that can stand for the West, which is England; America; and German.
John. Locke, the famous educator in England thinks that early family education could affect the whole life of a person. He thinks that the mistakes in education are just like eating the wrong medicine, there is no second time to repair (qtd. in Huang Quanyu, 66). Now parents aim at affecting children by examples. They pay much attention to developing the habit of children"s good behavior, and the connection between families.
In America, parents are equal to their children. The children are treated independently as soon as they are born, and what they do is always encouraged. Parents not only develop children"s consciousness of independence but also train the children to be patriotic. They are told that when they see the national flag, they should fix their eyes on it for two minutes; when they hear national anthem, they should put their hand on their breasts and sing. And the children are told the history of the country. Children are told to do everything by themselves. A child should do some housework, such as washing bowls, clothes, sweeping, and so on. And they may work part-time to earn their pocket money.
6.Conclusion
Family education as an important part of education owns an irreplaceable position in the development of individuals as well in the social progress. It has a close relation with the development of the whole society. If we absorb good things from the West to change the situation of family education in China, our society will develop quickly and our country will become stronger and stronger. Because of the importance of family education, educators around the world have been very concerned about family education all the time along. What to teach and how to teach become an art that people should study.
This thesis first makes an analysis on the differences and similarities of family education in China and the West and then offers some suggestions on family education in China from the following two aspects: 1) what can we learn from the Western family education? 2) What should we do to change the actualities of family education in China? It is hoped that this thesis will draw people’s attention to family education and provoke researchers’ interest in further exploration of family education in order to well educate our people and develop our country.
7.Refercence
[1]Holt, John. How Children Fail. New York: Delacorte Press, 1982.
[2]Musgrove, F. The family, Education, and Society. London: Rout ledge & Kegan Paul, 1996.
[3]Riley, Donald P. “Parent-Child Communication”. Families Intl, 1977：38.
[4]Shyers, Larry Edward. “Comparison of Social Adjustment Between Home and Traditionally Schooled Students”. Ph. D. Dissertations. University of Florida, 1992.
[5]Smedley, Thomas C. “Socialization of Home Schooled Children--A Communication Approach”. Radford uversity, 1992.