送交者: apate 于 2005-1-03, 18:34:31:
回答: there is a cultural difference 由 PhonyDoctorPhD 于 2005-1-03, 18:05:44:
and here is my two cents, again.
in the previous response, i was indeed angry, and anger is the moode of a "tragic" critique, meaning we as critics are lamenting the destruction of the good (a la Lu Xun). and this tragic sense is indeed what my gut feeling tells me as i read the Lius' remarks. something precious seems to be missing, disguised, or even destroyed by these two parents, who, in the name what they may call "long-term goals" neglected their own child's well-being, such as the basic needs of sleep, comfort, and personal relationship with peers, to name a few. to say the least, their educational methods are always some kind of trade-off, for they are depriving the kid of many precious things about childhood. but to infer the most tragic sense of it, what i have read so far about their self-claimed scientific methods are serious symptoms of more fundamental issues, such as morality and virtues (i said about these in some previous responses).
now, the slip side of the whole story is the problem i had with the Lius' god damn "seriousness" with the whole deal. why seriousness is a problem then? because teaching as an art is hard to be routined. for there are a lot of contingencies constraining the intellectual growth, i seriously doubt the extent to wihich the Lius' methods are repeatable. but, unfortunately, the Lius are so damn serious about their enterprise that they allow no one else to doubt their self-claimed scientificality. in part then it is a matter of ethos, or the desire to protect their self-defined title of "quality education experts" (Suzhi Jiaoyu Zhuanjia). but unfortuantely, they don't know that what they stand on is nothing but thin ice, just like Chaplin skating elegantly, not knowing on the edge of the stage, where he could fall off and break his neck. the same laughablity can be said about the Lius. they don't know - or pretent not to know - that their kid's admission to Harvard college was really a matter of lucky factors. now, if they pretend not to know such factors and still puch for a scientific and controllable method of producing Harvard girls, they are hypocratic and immoral. if, however, they don't know such contingencies but still claim to be "experts", then, they are ignorant and irresponsible. both cases are laughable, the former comically so, the latter miserably so.
in short, if only they stopped being damn too serious about their pedagogy and had some inklings of self-awareness, critics like Xiao Yu would not have to be so bitter in this rally ("war of mouth water" as the chinese saying goes) and many enthusiastic parents in China would be less deceived, either by themselves or by others.