PCE Club - 第53次活动小结

了解中西文化的差异，帮助孩子培养自信

第53次活动小结

1月12日星期六晚，父母子女教育俱乐部成功举办了第53次活动。俱乐部有幸请到了在纽约市模范小学教师，具有十六年教龄的黄玉萍老师位为大家讲述怎样更好地理解生长在美国，接受美国文化熏陶的中国孩子，以帮助他们自信，自强，自立地成长，发挥创造力，挖掘最大潜力，走向成功人生。

部分与会家长与黄玉萍老师(前排中)合影

黄老师从中美文化差异的角度，抛砖引玉，启发在座的家长从一个不同于中国传统教育的思路来思考教育孩子的方式，提出教育孩子过程中应注重孩子的�Self Esteem�的问题，以帮助孩子从小建立自信心，发挥最大潜力，为将来的快乐人生和出色工作打好基础。

黄老师提到，对孩子的教育应该是殊途同归。不论用中国方式还是美国方式，对孩子的教育从小就应该注重应以不打击孩子的自信心，自尊心为出发点。这一点美国家长总的来说做的比中国家长好。根本原因在于中国与美国的文化差异。在中国语言中，似乎找不到一个对英文�self esteem�的确切翻译，原因是中国的传统文化中缺乏这种个性化的概念。中国的传统文化注重按照传统模式教育孩子，鼓励孩子成为一个社会公认的优秀人才，而不注重孩子的个人意愿和个人的能力。如果孩子没有按照固定模式成长成为公认成功的人，将被视为异类或失败者而被压抑或打击。这样的教育观念下培养出来的孩子一般来说循规蹈矩，但很可能缺乏自信与自我意识，他们的创造力与开拓精神也因此而被家长无意识地磨灭。

而在美国文化中，最被强调的是培养孩子的self esteem, 从小学教育到公司的企业文化，self esteem是最值得重视的一个方面，因为一个人的self esteem 程度决定了他的创造力和潜能的发挥。而美国的社会进步正是依赖个人的创造力和能力的最大发挥。美国文化也十分强调个性化，个人的自信与对生活的满足感要远远高于他人眼里认为的所谓成功。Self Esteem包含的内容很丰富，不是一个中文词就可以诠释的，包括五个方面：自信self confidence，自尊 self respect，自我信赖 self relliance，自豪 self pride与自立 independent。黄老师认为Self Esteem可以解释为对自我价值的肯定。

如果家长还是用中国的传统观念教育在美国生长的孩子，偏重学习能力和学习成绩与名次，忽视孩子的个性和心理感受，不注重引导孩子加强自信，自尊，自立等方面的培养，难免会阻碍孩子自信心和创造力的发挥，而影响孩子将来在美国社会中的竞争力。这样也会激化父母和孩子之间的冲突，加深双方的代沟。原因是孩子从小就在学校接受美国文化的熏陶和美国式的教育，他们接受的概念是如何发觉自己的定位，发挥自己的长处，培养自己的兴趣和选择自己的发展方向。家长如果对孩子的自我意识不给与足够的尊重和重视，与美国的文化与教育传统背道而驰，当然迟早会与孩子发生不必要的冲突。

黄老师这次讲座的内容是她与在美国土生土长的25岁的儿子Paul共同讨论共同准备的结晶，融汇了黄老师对中国文化传统的分析和Paul对美国文化与教育理念的理解，更多的是向大家介绍美国文化背景下美国人对孩子的教育思路，引人深思。

这次活动由俱乐部Simon Wang, Alison Zhang，和李丹青组织举办。共有60多位家长参加。

下期活动的主题是 �青少年在想什么？�
将邀请青少年主讲讨论。黄老师的儿子Paul也应邀出席，将成为主讲之一。时间：7 pm - 8 pm, Feb. 16th, Sat.
地点：Savior Lutheran Church, at 50 Calvert Avenue East, Edison, NJ 08820-3248

报名费：会员免费，非会员每家$10。欢迎大家报名参加。

欲了解更多有关俱乐部的信息，请参阅俱乐部网站 http://www.pceclub.org/ 或注册我们的免费通讯录 (电邮至 joinpceclub@pceclub.org).

The PCE Club's 53th monthly event was very successfully held on Saturday, January 12, 2008 at the Asian Cultural Center. The meeting began with PCE�s unique program: Children Talent Performances. After the extremely entertaining shows by the kids from 2 to 10 years old, Mrs. Huang gave a very eye-opening presentation on �Building Confidence and Self Esteem�.

才艺表演完之后的小朋友余兴未尽

Mrs. Huang, a model kindergarden teacher in a public primary school in New York, has over 16 years experience in early childhood education. She spent a lot of time to prepare for this presentation and had numourous discussions with her 25-year-old son Paul who was born in the US therefore was able to provide a lot of valuable imput from his point of view as an America- born Chinese child.

The core idea about this presentation is that it is extremely important for Chinese parents to have the awareness of kids� Self-Esteem when educating their childern in order to raise children who can reach their full potential and maximize their creativities, and who will be happy and confident in their long path of future life.

Different children have different personalilities and different level of capabilities. Although parents should not follow one patern to educate children, to guide and to rule them, but all the means should not be conflict with helping kids building their self confidence, self respect, self reliance, self pride, independence, the 5 core elements of Self Esteem.

Keeping in mind that children�s self esteem should be nurtured and fully respected will also help narrow gap between parents and children.

Most Chinese parents in the US were brought up in China with Chinese culture, in which the concept of self esteem has been lacking, intead, Chinese people have been encouraged to follow a certain patern to learn and behave which meet the society needs. If a person doesn�t follow the patern, he/she is not a good person in all other people�s view. Individualism and creativities have been ignored or even discouraged; while in American culture, our children are encouraged to explore the world arround them with little patern to follow, the children thus get the message from very young age that they need to figure out their own way to observe the environment, to make their own decision, to learn at their own pace, to perform at their own level, thus to create as they wish as long as they don�t break rules or the law. In this way, building and protecting kids self esteem is very much emphasized in the American way of education since it is deeply rooted in American�s culture as Mrs. Huang observed.

Different explosure to different culture lead to different understanding and reaction to the same thing and different way of handling things. Conflicts between the two generations thus arise. Conflicts will become more heated when children are in teens who want more liberty to think and do differently from their parents.

Understanding the difference of two cultures will certainly help parents to have better understanding of their children, and also to be as much supportive as possible to help them build their own self esteem.

The presentation certainly provided a different way of thinking to Chinese parents in child education from a different angle with more understanding on culture difference. About 60 people attended this event. This event was organized by Simon Wang, Elison Zhang and Danqing Li.

In PCE Club� s next monthly event, Mrs. Huang�s 25-year-old son Paul will be as one of the panelists to be on the forum of What�s on a Teenager�s Mind?

Time: 7 pm - 8 pm, Feb. 16th, Sat.

Address: Savior Lutheran Church, at 50 Calvert Avenue East, Edison, NJ 08820-3248

Please stay tuned for more info. To learn more about PCE Club, please feel free to sign up for the free emailing list at joinpceclub@pceclub.org or http://groups.yahoo.com/group/pce_club/. Please visit us at our website http://www.pceclub.org/ for more details on the Club's activities.

Danqing Li