Let’s, do away, with those homework, vacations assignments, that, is what the schools are, doing right now over here, and, this will, cause a series of chain reaction, and, the children’s studies will, not be as good as it used to be, from the Front Page Sections, translated…
Tomorrow, will be the first day of summer vacation, what to do, in the following two long months? In the past, before the summer vacations, the superiors all gave us pointers to tell the kids; this year, there wasn’t, the head of the department of education in office, and so, each and every of the schools is, on its own, although, there was, a group of students who’d, continued studying, but, there’s, just something missing, the precise direction of which, these students should be, working towards.
Back in the 1970s and 1980s, when the economy in Taiwan is only, starting off, the dues are given, to education; for the students, summer became, an alternative learning opportunity, different from the focuses on the academia in school, it’s, a learning the lessons in life; the government encouraged the families, to set up a small production line at home, and the students were, asked, to take part in the production lines, to help their parents, and helped them set up good character; the students were told, to help with the household chores, harvesting the rice grains, cooking, patching up the clothes, cleaning up the house; they’d, become, more able-bodied; and, their academic skills were, also, improving along, practice writing calligraphy, reciting the ancient verses, the poetry, reviewing over what’s learned already, these were, all the assignments from their school instructors, for the sake, of building up the foundations for their next semesters’ school work.
Back then the instructors often said, “Summers is not time for vacation, but, another form of learning process; those who weren’t doing well during the semester, use the summers, to learn, to catch up; those who’d done well enough in school, use the summers, to study more in depth, to improve ones’ own skills even more.” And now, these children became, the midstream workers, the building blocks of our society, and this started, from back, when they were, younger.
Looking at the students from across the straits in China today, they’d, worked hard, like we’d done back then, especially, they are, even more focused on learning the Asian histories; and yet, at this time, our government, couldn’t wait, to leave that part of history behind, and, gave our experiences of success, to those in China.
And now, who cares, how the children spend their summer? The teachers assigned more work, everybody start crying, said it was, trying on the parents; and, what’s weird is, someone said, no assignments for the summer, returning the vacation, back to the students, like sending the cattle to pastures, to graze as they will, and we talk about a competitive edge? Playing the video games, the cell phone games, does that, make the children smarter today?
And so, this, is how unconstructive summers became right now, unlike how when we were going to school here, from ???? years ago, we’d had pages and pages, and pages of vacation assignments to get done, and now, the kids are, slacking off in the summers, because, the government believed, that hey, let’s stop pushing the children, give them the summer they deserved!
Without realizing, that assigning the homework for summer is helping the children to become more self-disciplined, which will help them go far in life, but, does the government care??? Of course N-O-T!