Make childhood healthier and grow happier
2024-12-10
The concept and goals of collaborative education between family, school, and society need to be unified. In the past six months, Zhang Li has been "worried" about her son Maomao, who has just entered the second year of junior high school. Half a year ago, Mao Mao refused to go to school and locked herself in her room playing with her phone every day. What troubles Zhang Li is that she and her husband have been attending prestigious universities since high school, and after graduating from university, they stayed in first tier cities with decent jobs. Children don't have to worry about snacks and drinks, and they have elderly people taking care of them in their daily lives. As long as they focus on studying, they can "rush" to Tsinghua University and Peking University, and at least get into a "211" university. However, 'If he continues to play with his phone like this, he probably won't even be able to get a copy, it's too embarrassing for us!' In order to bring Mao Mao back to the classroom, Zhang Li and her husband have tried many ways, verbally criticizing and even forcibly confiscating the phone, but with little effect. Zhang Li is worried that if things continue like this, will the child really not be able to go back to school? She took the initiative to contact the child's homeroom teacher, hoping that the homeroom teacher could visit the child's home and help them find the reasons for their disinterest in learning together. However, what Zhang Li received was only a vague answer: "I've been too busy lately, wait a little longer" "You should take good care of your child's phone usage"... Helpless, Zhang Li had to ask someone to introduce experts from the university's psychological counseling center, and even hung up at the hospital's "study aversion clinic". After examination, the possibility of the child suffering from serious mental illness has been ruled out. Despite this, Mao Mao still refused to go back to school, and the originally joyful family was shrouded in a suppressed atmosphere as a result. Cases like Mao Mao are very typical in my daily consultations Zhu Xu, a specially appointed family education guidance expert in Shunyi District, Beijing, told reporters, "On the surface, a child's aversion to learning is a problem with their personal behavior. However, when we delve into the reasons that cause their situation, family members, school teachers, and social support all have responsibilities. This also exposes the problems that exist in the current family school social collaborative education." On the one hand, some unscientific and disrespectful concepts still cling to families, schools, and society. There are still some utilitarian phenomena in current education, reflected in parents' excessive focus on exam rankings, primary and secondary school students' advanced learning, and children's normal sleep duration being compressed. These erroneous or biased practices are contrary to neuroscience and educational laws, and undermine children's physical and mental health and happy growth. Therefore, it is urgent to patiently guide and correct them Zhang Zhiyong, Director of the National High end Think Tank Education National Survey Center at Beijing Normal University, pointed out. On the other hand, there is still no consensus on the educational goals of families, schools, and society, which affects the effectiveness of family school community collaboration. A survey led by Professor Kang Liying from the School of Preschool Education at Capital Normal University, covering 1.644 million people in 22 provinces across the country, showed that for parents, the most concerning thing for their children is their studies, followed by physical and mental health; For teachers, the expectation for students' physical and mental health ranks first, with academic performance ranking sixth. In collaborative education work, both parents and teachers believe that they bear more responsibility: over 40% of parents believe that the family bears the most responsibility, and over 90% of teachers believe that the school bears the most responsibility. About 40% of parents and teachers believe that home school community collaboration has not achieved the effect of mutual complementarity and promotion. The growth dilemma that Mao Mao has encountered is also a dilemma that many children and families are currently facing. Only by first reversing the educational philosophy of schools, families, and society, establishing common educational goals, and enhancing the synergy of education, can the situation be fundamentally changed‘ The proposal of the 'Education Alliance' is aimed at deepening the collaborative education between families, schools, and communities, and creating a better environment for children's growth Zhu Xu said. What is the construction of an "education consortium" to achieve the integration of educational responsibilities? Essentially, it is an innovative mechanism for collaborative education between families, schools, and communities Zhang Zhiyong introduced that "various regions have connected various entities related to student health growth, safety management, and other educational responsibilities through the 'Education Alliance', including governments, relevant departments, schools, street communities, families, social resource units, etc., clarifying their respective responsibilities and tasks, and achieving the 'great integration' of educational responsibilities." In fact, even before the formal proposal of the 'Education Alliance', various regions had already begun to explore the mechanism of family school community collaborative education. In 2023, the Ministry of Education and thirteen other departments jointly issued the "Opinions on Improving the Mechanism of School Family Social Collaborative Education". In 2024, the Ministry of Education designated 97 counties (districts, cities) as national experimental zones for school family social collaborative education. How effective is the exploration? Based on my research and observation, after years of promotion and practice, the collaborative education work between families, schools, and communities has basically achieved the transformation from the original 'single point blooming' to the current 'comprehensive deployment', and has received high attention from governments at all levels. The concept of collaborative education between families, schools, and communities has begun to penetrate people's hearts. From an institutionalized perspective, the current collaborative education work between families, schools, and communities has entered the stage of institutional and organizational innovation in the mid-term of institutionalization Professor Wu Chonghan from the School of Education at Jiangxi Normal University pointed out, "However, this institutionalization stage has the characteristics of instability and recurrence. In some areas, it is expected that there will still be a 'gust of wind' in family school social cooperation, and the collaborative education mechanism still needs to be improved." In the interview, the interviewees generally reflected that the imperfect education mechanism and the unsmooth cooperation channels are important factors affecting collaborative education. As early as 2021, the Education Bureau of Qingshan District, Baotou City, jointly established the Qingshan District Family School Social Collaborative Education Alliance with the District Organization Department, the Customs Working Committee, the Women's Federation, Baotou Normal University, and the District Parents Committee. Because there are only six units participating in the alliance, when we encounter practical problems, we also need to contact units outside the alliance, which is time-consuming and labor-intensive Wu Shengqiang, Secretary of the Party Group and Director of the Education Bureau of Qingshan District, Baotou City, Inner Mongolia, told reporters. The lack of establishment or smooth operation of the leadership group or joint meeting mechanism, low coordination between departments, insufficient policy support from superiors, and the absence of an evaluation system are all prominent problems in the construction of the education mechanism that we have discovered in our research Kang Liying pointed out. In addition, the reporter found that insufficient resource sharing and limited policy guarantees are also urgent issues that need to be addressed. Collaborative education between families, schools, and communities has its own resource advantages, but resource utilization is often scattered and lacks integration, and there are still obstacles to the mutual use of resources among different entities Kang Liying said, "In our research, we found that there is a lack of dedicated staff, incomplete evaluation systems, and inadequate funding support in terms of policy guarantees, which are also obstacles to the operation of the current family school social cooperation education mechanism." Building consensus, adapting to local conditions, and drawing a "concentric circle" of student growth together, the next step is to effectively integrate educational resources from schools, families, society, and other aspects, form a consensus on educational concepts and methods, and form a "teaching consortium" of collaborative education, and work together to draw a "concentric circle" of student growth? In the view of Dong Zhujuan, Secretary of the Party Committee of the Beijing Academy of Educational Sciences, the first step for all parties in the family school community is to gather consensus on education: "We need to grasp the correlation and coupling of various elements and parts of family school community collaboration in education, clarify the responsibilities and tasks of each main sports person, and stimulate new energy for collaborative education." "The" Education Alliance "collaborative education involves multiple aspects such as library school collaboration, medical education mutual promotion, sports education integration, family school interaction, community education synchronization, and police school synchronization. Zhang Zhiyong stated that each "education alliance" should establish a normalized platform and activity carrier for nurturing talents, providing comprehensive conditions and guarantees for students to participate in cultural learning, physical exercise, artistic activities, labor education, science education, social practice, after-school services, etc. Zhu Xu specifically pointed out that "when building activity carriers, each 'education alliance' must adapt to local conditions, make full use of the advantageous resources in the region, and avoid being stereotyped and rigid." Active and effective exploration is being carried out across the country - Xishan Community, Xiashi Street, Haining City, Zhejiang Province, located in the old city area, fully utilizes community party and mass service positions, and has created multiple child friendly spaces such as Rainbow Reading Room, E-Smart World, Parent Child Activity Area, Neighbor Nursery Center, etc., to carry out the summer 'Love Classroom' project, providing students with academic guidance, community activities, and social practice services. As the only large-scale comprehensive thematic memorial hall that comprehensively reflects the history of the Great War of Resistance, the Memorial Hall of the Chinese People's War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, together with 19 schools, established the Lugouqiao Education Cluster Anti Japanese Spirit Inheritance Volunteer Service Group. Through the cooperation of the museum, school and community, the workshop of "carrying forward the spirit of the War of Resistance and bearing the mission of educating people" was established, and the series of educational activities of "learning from the deeds of heroes, chanting the classics of the War of Resistance, and being a red successor" continued. In terms of establishing and improving the guarantee mechanism of the "Education Alliance", Zhang Zhiyong emphasized the need to improve the government's overall planning, departmental coordination, and social responsibility mechanisms. The Party committee and government strengthen the overall leadership of the collaborative education work between families, schools, and communities. The education department and relevant departments establish a regular communication and coordination mechanism, and various relevant departments, community streets, social resource units, and schools establish a work docking mechanism. At the same time, it is necessary to clarify the specific responsibilities of the responsible units of the "Education Alliance", improve the working mechanism, strengthen team support, and establish a sound responsibility system. Recently, Qingshan District drafted the "Charter of the Family School Society Collaborative Education 'Education Alliance'", which clarifies the working organization, responsibilities, etc. of the 'Education Alliance'. The district's family school society collaborative education 'Education Alliance' is about to be established. Compared with the previously established Home School Social Education Alliance, the biggest change is that the number of participating departments has increased from 6 to 21, the responsibilities of relevant departments have become clearer, and the normalized communication and coordination mechanism has been further improved Wu Shengqiang said, "Next, we will continue to improve policy guarantees in terms of funding, personnel, venues, etc. Through the construction of the 'Education Alliance', we will jointly study and promote the resolution of new challenges and problems faced by children and adolescents in their growth