Source: CCTV.com

08-02-2006 17:07

Peter Mo is one such superkid, even among other mental arithmetic star students. His Chinese name is Mo Fan, but at the Shanghai kindergarten he attends, the “New Century Kindergarten,” every student has an English name. Xu Jun, age 6, speaks Mandarin and the Shanghai dialect natively, but he uses English to answer math questions his teacher poses. And he’s faster than many college students. His father works for an airline, and his mother is a primary school teacher. They both place great importance on Mo Fan’s upbringing, and feel that the extra money they spend to send him to a private kindergarten is completely worthwhile.

Every morning, Mo Fan yields to his parents’ urgings to get out of bed, eat breakfast, and get in the car to go to school. Once he is delivered safely, his parents part ways to go to their own jobs. Mo Fan brings his favorite toys with him to school, thus beginning another day in the life of a preschooler. Shanghai has relatively few privately-owned preschools, and the average of cost of this option is fairly high. But in many of this type of preschool, nearly all of the so-called “interest classes,” like mental arithmetic, English, and piano lessons, among others, are included in the price of tuition. Thus, many parents are still willing to pay the higher price.

At the beginning of this program, we asked the question, “what is 6 + 8 – 7 + 6 + 5?” If you honestly knew the answer was 18, without having to calculate step by step, you’re very much in the minority. And if you could have done it in a foreign language, then you’re on par with Mo Fan. With so many obvious symbols of China’s rapid modernization all around, you could be forgiven for overlooking what is probably China’s most precious resource, and greatest indicator of change: a new generation of “superkids.”

Educators and experts generally agree that the attention span of preschool-aged children is usually no more than 15 minutes. Faced with this reality, many preschools have reconfigured their overall approach to scheduling. In most preschools today, the average class is around 30 minutes long. With smaller intervals of time devoted to each subject area, the options of things for kids to study open up, and more and more preschools are offering extracurricular, or non-traditional courses, to fill the gap.

After a long day at school, Mo Fan returns home. What he looks forward to most each night is playing basketball with his cousin, who lives with him. Mo Fan said he might even be able to see himself growing up to be a basketball star. He also enjoys watching cartoons and playing chess with his father. It is said that this kind of game is beneficial to children’s cognitive development. And when it gets to be 9:30, Mo Fan calls it a day. For Mo Fan, and others like him, the line between goals his parents have for him and goals he has for himself has long since blurred.