《小士兵》讲述的是一位华裔美籍女性Lenora Chu在中国教育制度下的成长经历，以及她将儿子送入中国顶级幼儿园后所观察到的教育现象。作者以亲身经历展现了中国教育系统中存在的压力和竞争，以及家长对孩子期望的巨大压力。书中描述了作者在严格的教育环境中成长，以及她后来将儿子送入中国顶级幼儿园后，所目睹的强制性教育方式和对孩子压力的施加。

🥺 **中国式教育的压迫感**: 作者从小在父母的严格要求下成长，学习成绩、钢琴练习、考入名校等都是父母的期望，这让她感到极大的压力和痛苦。这种压迫感并非个例，而是中国教育系统普遍存在的现象，家长们为了孩子的前途，不惜一切代价，将孩子置于高压之下。

😠 **强制性教育方式**: 书中描述了作者儿子在幼儿园被老师强制喂食鸡蛋的经历，这反映了中国教育系统中存在的强制性教育方式。老师为了完成教学目标，不惜采用强迫手段，忽视孩子的意愿和感受，这不仅会对孩子造成心理伤害，还会扼杀他们的创造力和学习兴趣。

🤔 **中美教育的对比**: 通过作者的观察，我们可以看到中美教育的不同之处。中国教育更注重知识的灌输和考试成绩，而美国教育则更注重孩子的兴趣和个性发展。这种对比引发了人们对教育本质的思考，究竟哪种教育方式才是真正适合孩子的？

💪 **反思和启示**: 《小士兵》这本书为我们提供了对中国教育制度的反思和启示，让我们看到教育的本质不仅在于知识的传授，更在于培养孩子的独立思考能力、批判性思维和创造力。我们需要重新思考教育的目标，如何才能让孩子在学习中获得快乐和成长？

https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/01/22/book-review-review-little-soldiers/

 

Little Soldiers is a book by Lenora Chu about the Chinese education system. I haven’t read it. This is a review of Dormin111’s review of Little Soldiers.

Dormin describes the “plot”: The author is a second-generation Chinese-American woman, raised by demanding Asian parents. Her parents made her work herself to the bone to get perfect grades in school, practice piano, get into Ivy League schools, etc. She resisted and resented the hell she was forced to go through (though she got into Stanford, so she couldn’t have resisted too hard).

Skip a decade. She is grown up, married, and has a three year old child. Her husband (a white guy named Rob) gets a job in China, so they move to Shanghai. She wants their three-year-old son to be bilingual/bicultural, so she enrolls him in Soong Qing Ling, the Harvard of Chinese preschools. The book is about her experiences there and what it taught her about various aspects of Chinese education. Like the lunches:

During his first week at Soong Qing Ling, Rainey began complaining to his mom about eating eggs. This puzzled Lenora because as far as she knew, Rainey refused to eat eggs and never did so at home. But somehow he was eating them at school.

After much coaxing (three-year-olds aren’t especially articulate), Lenora discovered that Rainey was being force-fed eggs. By his telling, every day at school, Rainey’s teacher would pass hardboiled eggs to all students and order them to eat. When Rainey refused (as he always did), the teacher would grab the egg and shove it in his mouth. When Rainey spit the egg out (as he always did), the teacher would do the same thing. This cycle would repeat 3-5 times with louder yelling from the teacher each time until Rainey surrendered and ate the egg.