Resumé?

One of the things that is regularly on our minds is the girls' education. This is a big question wherever you live, but it becomes much more complicated when you're needing to answer it in a foreign country.  We are thankful that in many ways we do not have to "reinvent the wheel;" many expats have successfully educated their children overseas and have, in turn, produced lots of resources for others travelling the same path.  But even though there are many helps and models and support systems out there, every family still has to decide for themselves what is the best course for their own family.  And this might change from year-to year, semester-to-semester, child-to-child.  (sigh of exhaustion)

So far, these decisions have been pretty easy for us.  Katie would have started kindergarten in the fall if we were still in the States, which gave us a nice "buffer" year before we had to start making any real decisions.  Her education thus far has looked like 4 hours at a Chinese kindergarten (what we would call preschool, ages 2-6) every morning, for her language acquisition, and then about 1-2 hours of math, phonics, handwriting, and reading with me at home in the afternoon (the duration usually depends on how much whining/complaining is involved!).  The best part of this, by far, is the time we spend reading together; for a bibliophile like me, it is an absolute dream to get to stop in the middle of the day and read classic children's books for 30+ minutes, guilt-free!  I've had another post in the works for a long while about some of the books we've most enjoyed, but that'll have to wait for another day, because this post is about our attempts to navigate the monstrosity that is the Chinese education system.

We are hoping that for the fall we'll be able to work out with the public Chinese primary school in our neighborhood a similar arrangement for the fall as we had with the kindy this year. Trouble is, we can't get a straight answer anywhere about how the registration/application process even works!  And yes, I did say application. Chinese public schools are all ranked and there is stiff competition to get into the best ones (and to be quite honest, the whole process for Chinese people usually involves lots of bribing...let's just say I think being a school principal is a pretty lucrative business.)  I think this competition is a lot of what drives what we westerners think of as the intense, performance-oriented, "Tiger Mom" syndrome that stereotypes Asian education.  So, for example, we learned today that as part of the application process, Katie will have to submit a resumé.  A resumé.  Are you kidding?  What does a 6 year old even put on a resumé? 
"Said Dada, 6 months"
"Took my first step, age 11 months"
"Drew first person, age 2""Interned at McDonald's playland, age 4"
"Can color in the lines 90% of the time"
(sigh)
Sadly, I've become all too familiar with what 6 year old kids here put on their resumes. Most of Katie's friends have all their free time scheduled for them:
-piano on Mondays (they started playing when they were 3)
-art on Tuesdays (their stuff looks like Picasso...except of course that their teacher told them exactly what to draw and allowed no creative thought and yelled at them if they did it poorly...which is why it now looks like Picasso)
-ballet on Wednesdays (again, not a kid is out of line and every step is perfect, otherwise you get barked at by the teacher)
-English class on Thursdays
 
I could go on, but you get the picture. What's most interesting though is that as we've talked with parents, none of them like the way their kids feel so much presure and don't have any time just to play. But it's the way the system works, and (according to them) if they don't play the game, then their kids don't have anything to put on their resumes, and don't get into a good school, which means they don't get into a good middle school, etc.  You're familiar with this line of thinking. We have the same fear-driven mentality in the States...it's just on a whole different level over here simply because they are so many people competing for so few spots. I go back and forth between feeling frustrated with parents for putting so much pressure on their kids and then feeling extreme compassion and sympathy because they ostensibly have no other choice! (哎呀) (aiya, the Chinese version of a sigh)
 
So what about Katie?  I'm not entirely sure what we're going to do about her "resume."  I mean, we're still trying to work on being able to jump rope and start/stop on a bike (which her classmates could all do since they were 3 1/2!)  I guess we're hoping that "native English speaker" and "white skin, blue eyes" will be enough.  Pray for us!  We would love for her to be able to attend this school because from our (albeit limited) vantage point it would mean the most convenience and the most consistency since most of her classmates at the kindy will be attending this school next fall.  It's not without its risks though; to be honest, I don't really know what goes on inside those walls. I sincerely doubt that teachers would use the same shame tactics on the foreign kid, but who's to say they won't?  To avoid such, we plan on strongly communicating that our only desire for her in attending this school is for her to be in a Chinese immersion environment, to learn Chinese, and to make friends, and that's pretty much it.  We don't care how well she does in math (I'm pretty sure Chinese first graders are already light years beyond what American kindergarten math prepares kids for) and we don't actually care how well she does in Chinese (as far as reading/writing characters).  We simply want her to be able communicate orally and play with kids her age.  Think they'll go for it? We'll keep you posted. And are open to taking any suggestions on how to write a resume for a 6 year old. :)