1 rocket factory
We often use our own version of educational experience to guide children's education, especially some young people with or without children will say, why are you in such a hurry? When we were young, we were confused. Isn't it great that we grow up?
I also naturally want to apply my growth model to children. The education of children in small cities is often: enter a decent primary school, rank above the average in the primary school, and then be admitted to one of the best key middle schools in that city. Usually key middle schools have direct admission and sponsored admission. Children with poor grades will often be sponsored by their families to send them to a relatively good school. In this way, parents are less anxious. Then there may be 30-40% of high school graduates, and 60-70% of them have two or more. Everyone has a university to go to, live and work in peace and contentment, and find a job after reading.
However, in Shanghai, everything seems different. All-round competitive pressure and anxiety about the future are also aggravated and amplified by a large number of information asymmetries. Many parents of primary school students are like lonely boats in this city, and it is difficult to choose a wooden stake that can be relied on slightly.
Some people compare raising children to building rockets. At first, they tried their best to make all the parts perfect, but when they launched, they might fail because of a technical link or accidental factors. Even if it succeeds, it will disappear into the distant outer space and occasionally send back a signal: Mom and Dad, I want money. ...
Of course, this is a joke. But every parent who gave birth to a child has already made a rocket embryo. Who doesn't want their children to aim high? Especially among a large number of new Shanghainese, they all gained social mobility by studying hard at a cold window and came to Shanghai from a small city to take root. It is hard for them to imagine that their children will be inferior to themselves in learning (at least emotionally unacceptable) and will eventually go to second-and third-tier universities in second-and third-tier cities. (I think it is common for old Shanghainese.)
Therefore, the expectations of new Shanghainese for children are higher than those of children in small cities from the beginning. Parents who usually meet some children who don't go to primary school say that we are stocking their children and have no expectations. But this kind of "no expectation" actually has a bottom line: as long as there is an undergraduate course.
There is "no hope" to return to a small city, that is, if the child can't read, parents will want to find a way for him in society, perhaps doing business or even making a living as so-called "pawns". New Shanghainese can't accept that children with excellent backgrounds will come this far.
However, when your child enters primary school, you will find that "having an undergraduate course" is not so easy. If you are a "vegetable baby" (in parenting website terminology, it is "an ordinary baby in a vegetable farm primary school"), there is a good chance that you will have no choice. Why? Because the Matthew effect of Shanghai's educational resources is very serious.
Let's look at a number first. Among the candidates 120 1 admitted by Fudan University to Shanghai Jiaotong University, 50% are from six key middle schools and 70% are from 12 key middle schools. Among these key schools, the rate of one copy is at least above 80%, and the most famous Shanghai middle school has reached an astonishing 99%. In ordinary schools, the rate of one copy may be only about 20%.
This enrollment rate of about 20% may not be as good as that of key high schools in some small cities. Children must have a way out, and there is no need to amplify their anxiety. On the one hand, as mentioned above, the expectations of parents of new Shanghainese have increased. On the other hand, children have been in ordinary schools, which is not conducive to the cultivation of self-confidence and study habits.
So, how can an ordinary Shanghai child enter those high-yield and competitive education chains? This means that you will lose quite a few competitors in three major points: primary school entrance, junior high school entrance and junior high school entrance. Take the 20 15 class of about 400 senior three students as an example, of which 139 can enter Fudan jiaotong university Shanghai No.1 1 middle school. Its high school students mainly come from its own private Huayu Middle School, and most other schools only contribute a few students sporadically. Few students can get into middle school. This chain continues to pursue, and most of the students who can enter Huayu Middle School are Shanghai primary school students. Therefore, the school district of Shanghai primary school is enduring, and by extension, so are other famous schools.
Therefore, the school district housing boom in Shanghai is popular not only in famous primary schools like Shanghai Primary School, but also in a large number of second-tier primary schools, because it is at least a guaranteed choice for parents. Moreover, from the perspective of financial management, school district housing is also a kind of value preservation or investment. The unit price of the school district in the first echelon has exceeded 65,438+10,000/m2, and the second echelon is a good investment target of 60,000-80,000/m2.
However, there is no pie that is so easy to eat. The more people compete, the greater the variables. As a parent, I felt quite strange and unaccustomed to the asymmetry of educational information in Shanghai at first. From the perspective of small city thinking, you usually have a stable understanding of a school's source of students, the proportion of students' graduation, competitiveness and so on. But in Shanghai, the situation is very complicated. In fact, it is difficult for parents to understand the above information, and schools are often reluctant to provide too clear information. So I saw on the parenting website that some parents tried very hard to compare the Olympic math scores and enrollment rate of two primary school students she liked with big data statistics, not to mention the difficulty of collecting the data itself, not to mention the principle of using professional statistical knowledge, which was really admirable.
But on the internet, such statistics are useless and have attracted too many people's attention. Why? Because Shanghai's education policies, including implicit policies, are changing every year, these figures can't keep up with the changes.
For example, most school districts mentioned above now stipulate that children's household registration should be moved in 3-5 years in advance. Some schools require a family of three to move in, and then the school district you bought will not be used once every five years. Even if you buy it three years in advance, it is not special insurance, because if there are too many students, the school will sort them according to the time when they move in, and those who move in for four years will be more competitive than those who move in for three years.
Recently, the Ministry of Education is planning a new policy, saying that it is necessary to introduce a "school district linkage mechanism". Instead of a single school district corresponding to one school, multiple school districts correspond to multiple schools to reduce the enthusiasm of school districts. But no one knows how this policy works and whether it is a new medical form. The school district is still hot.
Well, you should be very tired after reading this. However, this is only the first step in primary school. In junior high schools, one primary school often corresponds to several junior high schools. According to the official statement, some schools with poor students recruit students through computer lottery, and these schools have become "ghost schools". Sometimes this primary school corresponds to a good school, a middle school and a poor school at the same time. I wonder if anyone manipulates the computer rankings.
Then, a few years ago, Shanghai implemented a policy to privatize all famous junior high schools, that is, not linked to school districts. For example, the junior high school in Shanghai mentioned above has become Huayu Middle School. In this way, a primary school student has to try his best to compete for places in these private junior high schools. This kind of competition is generally achieved through the results of Olympic Mathematics, winning prizes in academic competitions and euphemistic "school activity day" interviews. As a result, a large number of children began to learn Olympic Mathematics almost from primary school, participated in English competitions, and participated in these "small five classes" run by junior high schools, also known as "pit classes", in order to obtain some preparatory places in advance. Because, there is a popular saying in Shanghai, "You don't study in private schools in junior high schools, but in universities!"
Here, I want to talk back to an obvious feature of the parents of new Shanghainese, that is, the awareness and intensity of parents' participation in children's education is unprecedented. When we were young, our parents basically gave us free-range education and didn't know much about it. Now, behind every child, there are two parents with high IQ. They will help children compare, choose and decide strategies. If you are not enthusiastic about children's education and don't do much research, you will be passive in dealing with these policies that change every day.
For example, many people think that if they miss the primary school district, they can make up for it through the junior high school district, so they are all thinking about the junior high school district. However, some policies are that if you go to primary school in other places and want to come back to junior high school, even if you have an account in the local school district, you still have to participate in the overall distribution, and you don't know where to go. A pupil has two major factors, one's school status and one's household registration, which determine his whereabouts. With all due respect, I still don't understand the priority of education department, student status or household registration.
Another way?
Then, many people will say, Oh, it's so troublesome, so I won't study in public, but in private. My children will go abroad in the future anyway.
Yes, you're not the first person to think so. Before you, thousands of parents in Qian Qian thought so. These parents are ambitious, disappointed with China's education system, and have the strength and ambition to let their children go out to study. Therefore, private education in Shanghai is the most developed in China, and there are 10 good schools in primary schools.
But the competition for admission in these schools is as fierce as that in famous universities. Usually the ratio is 100: 1. For a five-year-old child who went for an interview, it was still a bit confusing. It is difficult to express yourself in an interview with a group of 10 people unless you have an extroverted advantage in personality. You know, with the ratio of 100: 1, a group of 10 people usually can't choose anyone.
After primary school, junior high school exams and interviews are equally intense. Moreover, there are some private primary schools that study on the dual-track system, that is, you can keep the possibility of choosing the college entrance examination, take public classes and add some foreign language classes. In junior high school, this dual-track system is becoming more and more unsuitable. As a parent, you should decide whether your child will take the senior high school entrance examination as soon as possible. If not, you don't have to suffer from public education. If you want to study abroad, you should step into the western learning system now, enter the IB or DP system of high school and connect with foreign countries.
So, the truth is that a child in grade four or five in primary school is around 10, and parents have to decide what path your child should choose. Besides, look at your wallet. You can't study abroad with three or four million dollars from a private school. Are your parents in their thirties and forties strong enough?
The fashion of going to private schools and studying abroad has increasingly become the standard of new middle-class families, and people naturally yearn for a modern and advanced education system. For the domestic teaching system with huge pressure, many policy blind spots and general anxiety, many people naturally prefer foreign education.
There are many people, and the road is not easy. Now is the best time to help educational intermediaries who apply for undergraduate studies and high schools. It's almost crowded. For families preparing to send their children abroad, if they can help their children apply to the top 50 or even the top 20 universities in the United States, hundreds of thousands of agency fees are definitely worth it, because a delay is a child's time for one year.
The road to the "foreign college entrance examination" is not easy. If you have money, you can do anything. To apply for the American SAT, there is no test center in Chinese mainland, so you need to go abroad to take the test. The nearest to Hong Kong is the World Expo Pavilion near the Hong Kong Airport, which is called the "mass grave". Ten thousand candidates take exams in it, and the state is easy to be bad, so students choose Tokyo, Singapore and other places to take exams. They usually go in groups, and there are also intermediaries to help organize them. Often have to take the exam more than once, because China's children are the most popular, and American schools only require lower scores. You take TOEFL 100, and I take TOEFL 1 10. In this way, people who have passed 100 have no confidence to apply for the exam, so they want to take the exam again and improve their scores.
In addition, there are all kinds of competitions in personal statements and personal performances. At the parent-teacher meeting of my children's private school, I gave an example, saying that a child in their school who attended Oxford University this year started a project from the second day of junior high school to study the water resources protection in cities around the world. For this reason, he went to 13 cities in five countries to make a survey and formed a report. Their example means that children who want to go abroad have to form their own projects in junior high school. I don't object to this way, but I was thinking that besides the material and economic support of my parents, I need a lot of efforts from my parents to participate. If I can help my child complete this water conservation project, and with my professional experience as a journalist, I can certainly help him to contact various research experts from the United Nations and Zhong Da and distribute various field investigation resources. But if I do this, my child will only be the front desk representative. If you don't do this, your child's competitiveness will definitely be discounted. I haven't entered this stage yet. I hope I can do a good project with my children. I won't do too much, but I will definitely give resources guidance.
This is the requirement for parents to participate in parenting education in the new era. In all fairness, every time I see the efforts of various parents in the parent group, including the big data statistics mentioned earlier, my wife and I are a little embarrassed and feel that we don't care too much about our children. We should do more.