The Global Times piece on the State Council’s promotion of the Di Zi Gui posits a contrast between unquestioning obedience and critical thinking.
There is another contrast which may matter more, given that the discussion concerns a fairly early stage of childhood. I mean the contrast between two views of the child: one, that he is a miniature adult in need of information which adults are in a position to transmit, and the other, that he is a creature whose emotions and thought processes follow different patterns than those of an adult. Much of twentieth-century educational research in the West was directed toward exploring the latter view and its implications. Haim Ginott liked to say that children (including adolescents) speak a language that he called Childrenese and anyone who wishes to communicate effectively and constructively with a child needs to learn that language.
Tang Fengling has written an essay on changing views of the child in modern China. I found a copy of it here:
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/article/Childhood-Education/150695592.html
Mentioning the Di Zi Gui and also the San Zi Jing, Tang writes, “the Chinese traditional perspective of the child is as a small adult who should behave according to the criteria of the adult world. It was equivalent to non-existence of the real child.”
If the State Council’s directive is a retrograde one, it is not because it will promote mindless obedience in children, but because it will reinforce a natural tendency in educators to overlook the peculiar needs of developing children.
A. E. Clark <aec@raggedbanner.com>