Debra Li

debra_lidan@163.com

THE other day I checked out my WeChat Moments, I saw an elaborate timetable posted by the mother of my kid’s classmate.

That kid has packed eight studying sessions into each weekday during the winter vacation, including Chinese, math, English and science. The fourth-grader also has an online English class from a tutoring center in the evening.

The past semester was most carefree for primary school students of public schools in China, since the education authorities asked schools to alleviate the burden of homework and banned after-school tutoring for students on weekends and in vacations in the compulsory education period.

While private schools are fairly untouched by the policies, parents of kids in public schools cannot really let their hair down, since all students will face the same exams that will decide, to some extent, the kids’ future paths.

With less homework and no frequent tests at school, parents are even more worried: Can my kid go to a top-level senior high school, and then, in three more years, to a good university?

The term “involution” sums up the anxieties of our time. The pressure to outcompete others starts at a young age, for only a small proportion of the population can go to top universities, secure a well-paying job that guarantees a comfortable life, and achieve the conventionally defined success, which many people equate with happiness.

Though many of us were taught in school that all jobs are equal and it is decent and honorable to earn one’s living by hard labor, people still hope that their kids can at least take a white-collar job, especially the growing middle-class population.

These people have the resources and resolution to offer their children a good education, because they themselves have benefited from university education, which has given them the opportunity to climb up the social ladder.

Several decades ago, a university degree almost guaranteed a young person a better start in the job market than their peers who were denied college education.

With the continuous expansion of higher education in accordance with social and economic development, more people can go to college, and the competition has been upgraded. Only those going to prestigious universities remain competitive in the job market.

In societies driven by competition, things are similar. In the United States, for example, statistics show that four in 10 millennials born between 1981 and 1996 have a bachelor’s degree or above, but earning less than the previous generation of the same education level.

The Chinese parents’ anxiety mirrors the fierce competition in the workplace and the society as a whole. People are no longer surprised when reading headlines that some newly recruited teachers at the Shenzhen Middle School are Ph. D degree holders graduating from top Chinese universities. Shouldn’t these people be busy working on some advanced research projects that would change the world? Have they just spent the past seven-nine years in college proving they have the abilities to get a degree well enough to teach high-schoolers?

Competition is the force that drives social and economic growth, but overdoing it can harm the well being of everyone in the society, forcing people to participate in a breathless rat race at the sacrifice of their health and happiness.

In the most extreme case, excessive competition at every step in growing up can give rise to a group who will curb their desires and ambitions, and refuse to make efforts at all.

The Chinese always believe in the golden rule of the medium way. Hopefully, we parents can be wise enough to find a balance between taking it easy and pressuring our kids to realizing their potentials, whether it is academic success or something else.

(The author is an editor of the Features Department of Shenzhen Daily.)