Japan, China, and the United States' Preschool

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Japan, China, and the United States' Preschool

Another over-riding concern of the book is the fact that things are--many times--not what they appear. An American mother who cuts up carrot and celery sticks for her preschooler's lunch would be perceived as caring in the U.S. That same American mother, if she were living in Japan, would be perceived as careless, or slipshod, for not having cut her child's vegetables into the shapes of bunnies and piglets. As was the case in one of the chapters on a Japanese preschool, the Japanese children made fun of the American child who had mere strips of carrots for lunch. Again, ethnographic studies must be done with caution, because things are not always what they appear. Having all three cultures watch videos of all the other cultures is a means of minimizing such narrow vision, and good research design on the part of the investigators.

Another glimpse of the work as a whole reveals the extent to which American, and, to a lesser extent, Japanese culture, considers socialistic (Chinese) child-rearing practices as a threat. American and Japanese observers who see such practices as "authoritarian," "cold or unfeeling," or even "mechanistic" are just revealing their own cultural biases against the Chinese version of groupism. Children being raised to function well in a Chinese society would be done a disservice if they were given the impression that whims of the individual

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were more important then the general good of society. The Japanese have a better take on groupism than Americans. At least the Japanese attempt to minimize confrontation and obvious ill-feeling among group members. Americans tend to single out (for immediate punishment) children involved in misbehavior--to "make a lesson of them."

The book quotes conservative Orrin Hatch as having eventually come around to realizing the benefit to the nation of good quality childcare. He has come to realize that adults cannot productively function in the workplace if they have to be concerned about their children's welfare during the day. Daycare in America has come to mean "the freeing up of parents" as much as it has "the education of the preschooler."

The quotation on page 175 about the "national child-care corporations" which have emerged in the U.S. in the past fifteen years is chilling in its implications for the future. These "McChildcare" and "Kentucky Fried Children" franchises are not a pretty picture. One can envision a generation of toddlers being trained to push pictures of Big Macs on a computerized cash register so that they will be pre-wired for maximum output at the MacDonald's counter. Unfortunately, however, like so many other small businesses in America, Mom and Pop day-care centers--and there are plenty of them--are pulling up stakes every day. In addition, the question still remains: "What do Mom and Pop really know about child-rearing, besides the fact that they may have had a few children themselves? The answer may be, "Nothing," which is why the U.S. needs to better subsidize preschools in the manner of Japan and China.

A look at the Chinese preschool, Dong-feng, reveals that what might appear as "worker ethic dogma" can be seen as American. For example, the preschool teacher in Nanjing who admonished, "A preschool teacher should never waste time. Unstructured time leads to trouble . . . it is important for teachers to organize their

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		Some topics in this essay

		Chinese American \| St Timothy's \| American Idleness \| Americans Japanese \| Japan China \| Preschool America \| China Chinese \| American Japanese \| Mom Pop \| Fried Children \| japan china \| american preschools \| japanese preschool \| preschool teacher \| preschool cultures japan \| american culture \| teachers japanese \| japanese observers \| economic well-being \| st timothy's \| japan china united \| cultures japan china \| example japanese \|