Keep cool! Try telling that to obsessed parents of young children
Some local parents of kindergarten children spent part of their Spring Festival holiday writing resumes for their offspring to apply for enrollment in prestigious Shanghai private schools next autumn.
“My daughter has been taking cram courses of dancing, painting, math and science,” said Cheng Yani, a mother of a 6-year-old girl. “So I had to write one or two pages to describe her achievements and attach the certificates she acquired from those courses. When I searched online for some models of resumes, I was stunned by some of them, especially a 15-page resume for one boy that sounded like something an adult job-seeker would wish to write.”
The resume Cheng mentioned has gone viral online.
The young lad, who was applying for a slot in the Shanghai Star-River Bilingual School, is described as a person of independent personality with rich and varied experience, a wide variety of hobbies and the fortitude to withstand defeat.
He is said to have been learning hip-hop, go, soccer, piano, painting, swimming, math and science. The resume also says he is very curious about the world and always keen to learn new things and ask questions.
The resume includes a world map marking all the places the boy has visited and five pages of books he has read. It says he reads 500 books a year.
“I’m really surprised how he could accomplish so much at such a young age,” said Cheng. “Take reading for example. My daughter reads perhaps dozens of books every year. The boy’s resume was so well organized that I can only assume his parents spent a lot of time on its preparation.”
Although Cheng and other parents devote themselves to writing resumes for their children, such documents are actually banned by the Shanghai Education Commission for school admissions. Schools that accept such resumes face reductions in enrollment allotments and government funding support for three years.
The government has been trying to rein in parent zealousness in pursuing the best schools for their children. Parents, however, still believe that admission to top-tier schools guarantees scholastic excellence, eventual university enrollment and lucrative careers to follow.
The Shanghai Star-River Bilingual School, a private, coeducational institution in Minhang District, issued a statement after the boy’s resume went viral. It said it would not conduct candidate interviews ahead of the government’s designated dates and would not accept resumes or competition certificates.
In Shanghai, public primary and junior high schools admit all students according to geographic intake areas, while private schools are allowed to pick and choose through interviews on designated dates. Paper entry exams are banned in any school.
However, parents seem to pay little heed. They enroll their children in “cram schools” to learn everything from English, math and science to cultural arts and even social manners. The children also engage in various competitions to win certificates that will make their resumes more glittery.
Parents wait outside training schools when their children learn courses like English, math, science and arts.
The Shanghai Education Commission has been persistent in trying to end the parental craze and reduce the pressure that places on young children. It issued a series of crackdown policies in 2012, including those that ban schools from accepting resumes and competition certificates.
Several popular competitions and tests have disappeared in the past few years.
Cheng confessed that she knows the rules but said she still wants to “make the best preparation” for her daughter’s school career.
“When other parents are doing so, it’s difficult for me to convince myself that I don’t have to do it too” she said. “It’s also a way to show that we take the application process and the school seriously, which I think may give the school a good impression.”
Wan Wei, head of the Shanghai Pinghe School, a popular private school in the city, confessed that the school still receives bundles of resumes every year.
“The resumes come in different ways,” Wan told Shanghai Daily. “Some are dropped at the guard house by parents, who run away quickly, and some are delivered by courier. Many of them are very thick and include well-designed biodata and competition certificates. It’s like a competition to see who can prepare the thickest resume.”
But, are they really helpful? No, said Wan.
“It’s a waste of paper and time,” he explained. “How can you expect a child to do such resumes? They are obviously prepared by parents or even outside agents. A boy has travelled to many places. So what? We do not care for such information. What we care about is what we see when an applicant is interviewed. That’s the real student behind the paperwork.”
Wan said his school has trained teachers to assess applicants’ abilities in expressing themselves, in communicating, in logic thinking, in imagination and in concentration via games and activities.
“We do not test on academic knowledge, but rather on their potential for learning in the future,” he said.
A school application consultant, who preferred to be identified only as Kevin, said gold-plated resumes may actually have an adverse effect.
“When you describe your children as too outstanding, you are taking risk,” he said. “If the school admission officials took resumes seriously and had high expectations in the interview process, you had better pray that your child won’t be nervous and blow the interview.”
Kevin recalled the time he helped one couple prepare their son for an interview at a prestigious school. When the moment finally arrived, the child kept running around the room and screaming in complete antithesis to the description of him on his resume. He failed to be admitted.
“It’s useless to speak highly of your child when it’s really the child that plays the decisive role in an interview,” he said. “So my suggestion to parents is to prepare your child well, rather than wasting your time on resumes. Teach them the right manners and ensure they get enough sleep so they appear at their best when meeting with prospective school officials.”
Parents kill time by browsing their smartphones when waiting for their children outside training schools.
Xiong Bingqi, deputy director of the 21st Century Education Research Institute, said the boy’s resume that went viral may just be hype whipped up by organizations that make money training young children.
“Some organizations or online private media are profiting from parents’ anxiety, which only worsens the situation,” he said. “Parents should really sharpen their eyes to discern misinformation and stay calm to avoid falling prey to marketing ploys.”
Xiong said China needs to distribute education resources more evenly and to reform assessment systems to focus beyond just test scores. Parents, he said, need to change their mindset about education.
“When there is a competition for slots, of course parents want their children to come out on top,” he said. “But that only worsens anxious competition anxiety. Schools and parents have to return to the core values of education, that is, to develop human beings instead of pitting children against one another.”
Wan, the Pinghe principal, holds similar views.
“There is no huge gap between primary schools in Shanghai now,” he said. “Both private and public schools have attached great importance to comprehensive quality and have set up ample curricula for students to develop. Parents should realize that and not get obsessed with getting children into target schools. The life of these kids won’t be ruined if they don’t enter what are considered ‘good schools.’”
If parents tone down their zeal and become more relaxed about education, they will give their children a healthier environment for growth and development, he explained.
“The family unit is very important for young children to get an outlook on life and the larger world,” Wan said. “Parents’ anxiety about school, study and scores can pass on to their children. Being too pushy may destroy a child’s interest in studying.”
Children are individuals with different interests and should be allowed to follow their own roads to success, he added.
“Look at many successful people today and you will find those who never went to prestigious schools when they were young,” he said.
