A B C ......

[Slink]

My dd is 2.7yrs and is at preschool. She has been there 5 weeks and doing well.

I want to teach her the ABC she can say it and recognises the letters but i want to reach her to write them and her name and then 123 etc am i going to fast? i have brought these flash cards and a star book but am i being a pushy parent? i wasn't a bright kid at school bullied alot, so want to give DD a head start.

The concept of intellectual property doesn't exist in traditional (or much modern) chinese culture which is why the concept of plagerism doesn't exist.
I find it interesting that you are so critical of chinese education as being non-creative as compared to a british education. Personally, as an American I find the british educational system amazingly non-creative.

Having said that, it seems to me that educational systems are really a product of culture and reflect the values and priorities of a culture. Maybe when you have as many billion people as the chinese do, it's more important to have good educated followers, than creative leaders. Even if only .0001 percent of the population ends up creative, that's still enough in china.

AND could I disagree with Maria Luisa about her statement that "China doesn't produce world-famous academics/artists." China has produced and is producing amazing artists and academics. I think some of the most interesting conceptual and performance art today is coming out of China (just wish I could pronounce all their names). And my parents who are both scientists find that in general their best students are the Chinese ones (though they do need to have the western concept of intellectual property explained to them right in the beginning).

It isn't just people here who think that the Chinese lack creativity. It seems that their own politicians also believe this to be the case, to judge by this quote.

SofiaAmes, I was paraphrasing (well, technically, plagiarising the telegraph). Their point was that -the stars China creates tend to leave ASAP or are dissidents and ignored by the state anyway (Nobel author or something?). I'm on the more arty side of Psychology/Education Research and have taught Marketing to post-grad level. Sorry, but the Chinese/Taiwanese students struggle. They cannot develop their own ideas easily and struggle with anything that doesn't have a simple step-by-step way through. My DH works mainly on Neuroscience projects, there are huge numbers of chinese post-docs in his field. They are technically brilliant BUT they cannot be relied upon to supervise students because they do not understand the concept of evaluating someone else's work and then developing it further. They tend to believe that once something is published, it cannot be criticized...

As for UK schools not being creative, have you been in a US elementary school recently? Sorry, but I really don't think there's much difference! Hope you don't think i'm Yank-bashing, as a Bush supporter you must be sensitive at the moment! ;0 THAT IS MEANT TO BE TONGUE IN CHEEK NOT NASTY.