摘 要
人们普遍认为父母是孩子的第一任教师，是家庭教育的主体。家长制教育作为一种传统的家庭教育模式，在教育发展史上占有举足轻重的地位。然而，很多人认为只有中国家庭仍在实行家长制教育，殊不知美国家庭的教育观中也沿袭着这一理念。本文将详述美国家长制教育模式的演变，以帮助人们改变片面观点，更全面地了解美国家庭教育。本文从家长制教育的概念入手，继而从产生背景、表现形式、结果与影响等方面详述其三个发展阶段：20 世纪初美国南方家长制教育；20 世纪 60 年代以来美国基础教育改革下家长制的成功；以及美国当代高失业率背景下的新型家长制。通过研究与分析，我们发现美国的家庭教育在不断进步的民主化基础上，始终突出家长的作用，并强调家长的协作能力。因此，这一课题在中美家庭教育研究中具有重要意义，也为中国家长更好地培养孩子提供了一些启示。
关键词：美国；家长制教育；精英教育；合作
On the Evolution of the American Parental Education Pattern
ABSTRACT
There is a common belief that parents are the first teachers of their children, andfunction as the principal part of family education. Parental education, a traditionalpattern of family education, plays an important role in the history of education.However, many maintain that parental education is only put into practice in Chinesefamilies nowadays. Little do they know that this concept is also implemented in theeducational views of American families. The aim of this paper is to help peoplechange their one-sided views and have a more comprehensive understanding of theAmerican family education by describing the evolution of the American parentaleducation pattern in details. Based on the concept of parental education, this studyintroduces the background, manifestations and effects of three development stages ofparental education: parental education in the south of America in the early 20thcentury; the success of parental education under the basic education reform of theUnited States since the 1960s; and the new-type parental education under theunemployment situation in the modern United States. Through research and analysis,this study shows that, with the improvement of democratization, American familyeducation always gives priority to the influences of parents and emphasizes thecooperation capacities of parents. Therefore, this study is of great significance in theresearch of American and Chinese family education, and has promising implicationsfor Chinese parents to provide better family education for their children.
Key words: United States; parental education; elitist education; cooperation
TABLE OF CONTENTS
摘 要
ABSTRACT
Chapter One Introduction
Chapter Two Parental Education in the South of America in the Early 20th Century
2.1 Introduction of parental education
2.2 Influence of parents
2.3 Effects on children
Chapter Three Parental Education under the U.S. Basic Education Reform since 1960s
3.1 Definition of parent-school-cooperation pattern
3.2 Parents' roles in education reform plans
3.2.1 The Head Start Project in 1965
3.2.2. “A Nation at Risk” in 1983
3.2.3 Goals 2000: Educate America Act in 1994
3.2.4 No Child Left Behind in 2001
3.3 Effects on children
Chapter Four Parental Education under the Contemporary U.S. Unemployment Situation
4.1 New concept of parent-child-cooperation pattern
4.2 Parents in American elitist education
4.2.1 The tiger mother
4.2.2 Cooperation between parents and children
4.3 Effects on children
Chapter Five Conclusion
REFERENCES
Chapter One Introduction
In recent years, a large number of Chinese scholars have made comparisonsbetween Chinese and American parental education in various aspects. The majoritytends to criticize the traditional parental education in China and expects to call onChinese parents to learn from the democratization of American family education.
Deng Wanxiang (2011:123-24) summarizes four concepts of American familyeducation as its distinct advantages: a strong sense of nationhood, the notion ofequality, the virtue of honesty, and the spirit of self-dependency. As is pointed out bySui Minglan (2009:241), many Chinese parents always occupy a commandingposition and maintain unequal relations with their children, which do no good to theirchildren's growing up. Under this circumstance, the analysis of American parentaleducation (hereafter APE) is always a neglected field.
In 2011, Wei Ran summarized the parental education in the south of America, butthe study is relatively simple and general. Besides, the social background is soexcessively limited that it is a little bit hard to have a better understanding. Therefore,it is necessary to analyze the APE pattern with a more specific conception, so as tohelp parents rethink the American family education from a more rational perspective,avoid the simple copy of America family education and properly convert their roles infamily education.
The thesis analyzes three development stages of the APE pattern to reflect thepermanent influences of American parents. The Introductory Chapter provides thebackground of the present study. Chapter Two is concerned with the parentaleducation in the south of America at the beginning of the 20th century. It is theoriginal stage of APE, whereby mothers get neither positions nor powers at all, whilefathers become the only representatives of families. In Chapter Three, the parent-school-cooperation pattern under the basic education reform of the United States isexplored. With the explanation of various reform plans ranging from the Head StartProject in 1965 to the No Child Left Behind Act in 2001, it is evident that children areunder an invisible and moderate control of their parents. Chapter Four focuses on theweird cooperation between parents and children in the current unemploymentsituation. Parents once again strengthen influence on their children's study, and forcethem to attend elite colleges. At last, a conclusion is given in the fifth chapter.
Parental education is part of American family education, and American parentsoccupy important positions in educating their children. It is of great necessity forChinese parents to draw on successful experiences from the evolution process andbetter educate their children.
Chapter Two Parental Education in the South of America in the Early 20th Century
At the beginning of the 20th century, the parental education is fundamentallyrooted in the south of America. Children should obey all the commands made by theirfathers for their whole life, and they are reluctant to fight against the long-termideological control, behavior restrictions and mental dominations. It is not surprisingthat those children's life ends with tragedies. They are reduced to sacrifices of thedepressing society in the south of America, and their father's ruling education makesthem idiots without courage, happiness, and freedom.
2.1 Introduction of parental education
Family education can be classified into a narrow meaning and a broad meaning.
In the narrow sense, family education refers to the elders' (mainly parents') educationtowards and their impacts on the next generation (Zhao 2001:25). This is quite similarto the parental education in the south of America. One of its most importantcharacteristics is paternalism. American parents in the early period were over-confident in their own authority, and became the ruler of family education. Besides, itis worth noting that fathers are the main actors of the APE pattern.
Two main factors contribute to the emergence of the parental education pattern.
In those days, people in the south of the United States are under the control ofPuritanism. Patriarchy, a Puritan discipline, holds that children should obey thearrangements of their parents without any condition. However, the parents here oftenmerely refer to the stern fathers. The Christian religion also clings to the basicprinciple that father is the head of a family, and that father is the model of a familyand even the whole society. In this precondition, fathers determine the destiny of theirchildren. They educate their children by adhering to the old traditions and rules. Theynever take into account the real feelings or ideas of their children, but blindly imposetheir adults' point of views on their children, and severely punish disobedient ones.
Then why are American mothers lacking in the same power, making fathers theactual manipulators? The main force is Puritanism as well. In the 20th century, theChristian religion laid numerous strict restrictions on women and dominated thewhole society of the American South. Women in the south of America “leaded thesame life as the ancient Chinese women, behaving under the three obediences and thefour virtues” (Wei 2011:92-94). As a result, women of that generation are mentallyrestricted. They live with neither expectations nor desires, and inevitably becometools of giving birth. Having no place in the society, they are just subordinate to menand have to be obedient to men.
2.2 Influence of parents
In the parental education pattern, fathers “function as the holy God, giving ordersto their children” (Cash 2011: 35). They firmly lay hold of their children by means ofcontrolling their thoughts, regulating their behavior and shackling their spirits.
The most prominent manifestation is ideological control. Affected and directedby the Puritan patriarchy thoughts, fathers in the American South thoroughly abide bythree old ideas: geographical discrimination, racial discrimination and absurd ethicsfor women. Firstly, they look down upon people in the north of America, and regardthemselves as more elegant and gentle ones. Secondly, due to the existence of slavery,black people are always pushed to the bottom of the society, making white Americansfeel superior to the blacks. Thirdly, authoritarian fathers tend to require theirdaughters to strive for being standard southern women. They emphasize abstinent andreserved manners, believing that their daughters should abandon their own ideas anddesires, and complete their only mission of carrying on the family blond line.
Behavior restriction is also highlighted, since all the above ideas are implementedin the practice of educating children. Fathers taking pride in their absolute powersalways interfere with everything of their children, ranging from childhood tomarriages. They resolutely stand for the old feudal conception of being matched formarriage. Neither the people in the north nor the black people can be qualifiedspouses. On the other hand, children in the south of America should definitely followall the rules set up by their fathers, with no dissatisfaction or opposition allowed.
Once there is something improper with their children's behavior, they will mercilesslyenforce punishment, getting their children to surrender under the huge and oppressivefamily pressure.
What is fundamentally bound to poison the minds of the young is mentaldomination. Puritans even make use of the Bible to advocate paternalism. Differentfrom the control over what children think and do, the involvement of the Bibleundoubtedly provides a more convincing reason for respecting fathers as well asfathers' decisions. Therefore, in the south of America, the image of fathers is furtherenhanced. Every father becomes the only spiritual pillar of his children, and fathermeans everything. What is worse, such mental influences on children turn out to beprofound and permanent. Therefore, fathers' instruction turns to be a lifetimeeducation. Children can still feel the inhibitory pressure and force themselves tobehave in the way as their fathers' willing, even if their fathers have passed away.
2.3 Effects on children
There is no doubt that parental education in the south of America puts significantemphasis on the role of fathers. However, it is fathers' autocratic and arbitrary rulingthat makes every child an idiot. Children, especially girls, lose their instinctiveabilities of thinking, imaging, and yearning. Their life has been chosen by their fathersearly before their birth. Old ideas have been planted in their minds from childhood, sothey have no consciousness of being against their fathers, their families, let alone theawful society. They do not have the chance of living their own lives, nor have thecourage to express opposed opinions.
In the long run, children under the restrained environment are apt to developobstinate dispositions to an extreme. Sometimes they even deal with problems in anabnormal manner. Emily, the leading character in William Faulkner's book A Rose toEmily, is such a typical representative. Emily killed her lover Barron with arsenic andpreserved his dead body, in which way, she thought she could live with Barronforever. As is commented by Wei Ran (2011:92-94)，the terrible and abnormalbehavior conducted by Emily reminds readers of the humanity devastation in thehorrible society. It is those huge pressure put on women that causes moredisappointment, suffering, and loneliness. Eventually, people themselves in the southof America are bound to become victims of the parental education pattern.
Chapter Three Parental Education under the U.S. Basic Education Reform since 1960s
The late 20th century and the early 21st century have witnessed the rapiddevelopment of a new type of parental education, the core of which is parents'
cooperation with schools. APE pattern in this period achieves enormous success inAmerican public schools, and this is closely associated with the basic educationreform in the United States.
3.1 Definition of parent-school-cooperation pattern
It is true that private education in the United States is prior to common education.
Until the 1920s, the American government came to recognize the importance ofpopularizing compulsory education, and put forward the slogan “education is the rightof every citizen”. Public schools are thus established and developed on a large scale.
Compared with the expensive tuition of the American private schools, public schoolsare more affordable to ordinary families and later become the first choice of mostparents. However, with the excessively rapid development of public schools, a lot ofproblems occur and need prompt solutions. Students lose their interest in study andfail in school. Pregnancy at a young age, drug taking, and violent behavior areextremely common among school students (Ma1999: 153).Consequently, the overallquality of common education gets worse, and more attention are paid to solving thecrisis of American public schools.
The idea of getting parents to be involved in the school education is universallyregarded as one effective way. During the latter half of the 20th century, successivegovernments of the United States have introduced various measures of educationreforms, and have encouraged parents to engage in their children's study throughcooperation with schools. The key is that since parents expect to better teach theirchildren on the basis of understanding their children, and the government policies cansatisfactorily help them have legal access to the information about their children'sschool performances, they are quite glad to further strengthen cooperation withschools.
In light of this, the new APE pattern can be defined as the parent-school-cooperation pattern. In the mode, though American parents abandon their rulingposition and turn to guide their children to study, they still have invisible control overtheir children by participating in school administration, teaching and other activities.
And the school-selecting system realizes parents' maximum control over theirchildren's study.
3.2 Parents' roles in education reform plans
As is suggested by Ma Zhonghu (1999: 153), the cooperation between parentsand schools will be a constant theme of education research and school reforms in thefollowing 30 years. In fact, such cooperation has existed for more than a century. Onerepresentative is Parent-teacher Association, an organization founded in 1897, whoseaim is to strengthen parents' self-education and better promote the sound developmentof children. However, such cooperation is destroyed by the complex political andsocial conditions of that age. The advantages of this cooperation pattern are not paidenough attention until the 1960s. From then on, parents' roles are always attachedgreat importance in American education reforms launched by different presidents.
3.2.1 The Head Start Project in 1965
The Head Start Project is intended to accomplish poverty alleviation of Americaneducation. As it is summarized by Yang Hanlin and Yang Jia (2010:20-21), federalgovernment funds children from poor families (including the black people, Indians,and foreign immigrant families) to receive free preschool education, so as to eliminatethe differences between children formed before entering schools and realize the equalaccess to education.
In this plan, parents are inspired to involve in school's instruction programs anddevelopment plans for their children. It is emphasized that parents are of greatsignificance to the development of their children at a young age, so requirements areparticularly made with the focus on parents' involvement and their self-education. Sofar the connection between parents and schools is formed. For example, it is providedthat nursery schools should take the initiative to help parents improve theircapabilities of educating children and organize them to participate in their children'seducation. Equally, parents endeavor to guide children correctly through improvingthemselves first, and make progress with their children jointly. Therefore, they aredevoted to learning more relevant family education knowledge and experiences, andcreating a favorable family environment for children.
3.2.2. “A Nation at Risk” in 1983
In 1983, the National Commission on Excellence in Education, an educationalinstitution working on national teaching quality research, delivered a famous report“A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform” after making analysis ofthe scores of American high school graduates from 1973 to 1982. The report showsthat school performances of American students are further worse than before, andwarns that the drawbacks in the field of education have severely threatened the futureof the United States and the American people.
According to the report, parents should not only ensure that their children canreceive proper education, but also have to assume their responsibility of activelypartaking in educating their children. In response to the urgent call, American parentsset out to take effective measures to improve their children's school performances.
Rather than the only involvement in the education of their own children, parents turnto take schools as a whole, and “participate in the decision-making of schools bymaking the most of their school-selecting rights” (Ma 1999:86). A typicalrepresentative is charter schools. Charter schools are unreligious public schools andare famous for academic achievements, responsibility for parents and strong spirits ofinnovation. However, the excellence of charter schools shall be decided by parents'
evaluative feedbacks in part, and schools' annual education plans shall be formulatedon the basis of these feedbacks.
3.2.3 Goals 2000: Educate America Act in 1994
The Clinton government issued Goals 2000: Educate America Act in 1994. Basedon the six objectives put forward in America 2000: An Education Strategy by GeorgeHerbert Walker Bush, two more goals are added to the new act. As the eighth goal ofnational education listed in Goals 2000, the comprehensive involvement of parentsmarks a milestone in the development of basic education reform in the United States.
According to the law, every school shall encourage parents to become its partners,and American states should carry out curriculum reforms based on the standard.
Parents become genuine supporters of school activities. They come to parent-teacher conferences, attend parents' schools, and keep in touch with teachers byphones weekly. An American writer, Chen Wan (2011: 75), shares her experience ofattending parent-teacher conferences. Mothers and fathers in the United States alwayscome together to attend the conference, and frequently exchange ideas, such as theirchildren's exam scores and weak points, with teachers respectfully. In spite of thebasic way of communicating with schools, parents are also special resources toteachers in the area of teaching, and function as volunteers, providing free services forschool activities. Some well-educated mothers even quit jobs and contend for beingvolunteers (Xue 2005: 17), so as to know their children's performances beyond study,and come up with a more reasonable education plan for their children. Chen Wan(2011: 14) says that American parents always seriously calculate their children'sscores. And the thing that immediately strikes her is that those parents also writedown the other students' scores secretly for comparison. Therefore, it is clear thatAmerican parents quite care about their children's marks and expect them not to fallbehind peers.
3.2.4 No Child Left Behind in 2001
The 1980s have witnessed the thriving school-selecting system, which isrecognized and accepted by the whole society (Shi & Yu 2005:18-22). However,parents in those days can only choose among public schools, while in the 1990s,parents' choices are extended to both public schools and private schools. With thepurpose of improving students' performances in schools at the stage of basiceducation, and narrowing down the score gap among American students, PresidentGeorge W. Bush signed the Act of No Child Left Behind in January, 2001. It can beregarded as the mature development of the school-selecting system. It is provided thatschool districts are responsible for giving out transcripts of all the students in differentschools to parents, so parents can have a general idea of teaching performances ofeach school and choose the most suitable school for their children.
Ever since, parents have more rights to be informed of their children's study,teachers' qualifications and education quality of schools. As is written by Huang,Heqing (2008:163-66), the transcripts sent to parents not only contain students' testscores in the semester, but also report their discipline knowledge, study techniques,and some habits of study. Therefore, parents can promptly get to know theirchildren's performances at school, and give guidance to their study in accordancewith their weak disciplines.
3.3 Effects on children
Thanks to the basic education reforms in the United States, schools offer utmostconveniences to parents, for example, the training of parents' self-education, theencouragement of parents' involvement in school activities, school instruction andschool administration. Meanwhile, parents are granted with the chances of guidingtheir children rather than ruling them, and they prefer to instill education theories totheir children in a more tender way, compared with parents in the south of Americabefore the 1920s. Therefore, parents have made a big step in the development offamily education.
However, it is still inaccurate to regard the new cooperation pattern as a freeenvironment for the development of children. Though parents have the tendency toimpose tender and moderate rules on their children, children are still closely tiedtogether with their parents in the area of education, which is kind of an invisiblecontrol by parents. To be concrete, parents choose to cooperate with schools to realizetheir goal of keeping pace with their children's study and making it easier to guidetheir children. In effect, they just lessen control over their children, and interfere withtheir children's study in schools in an unperceived and kind manner.
To sum up, the new APE pattern is easily accepted by most children, and theinfluence of parents in the new pattern is positive. Since parents are so passionate forestablishing role models for their children, most children can improve themselvesvoluntarily after experiencing the happiness of their parents' self-education, andfinding motivation for study from their parents' study. And since parents have a betterunderstanding of their children's performances in schools, it will be much easier forparents to exchange ideas with their children and guide them to have serious attitudestowards school education.
Chapter Four Parental Education under the Contemporary U.S. Unemployment Situation
Stepping into the 2010s, though parents strive to create a relatively relaxed andfree education environment for their children, the pressure from the society forcesthem to strengthen the control over their children's study. Surprisingly, in this casestrange cooperation is established between parents and children. They fight for theelitist college education with joint hands, but parents' over-interference with theirchildren's college life brings about some challenges.
4.1 New concept of parent-child-cooperation pattern
With the deepening development of economic globalization and world integration,the United States does not seem to achieve more success in education synchronously.
The high unemployment rates of college graduates in recent years best illustrate thephenomenon. Most Chinese people may still have a lively remembrance of a series ofprotest movement in New York called “Occupy Wall Street”. It begins fromSeptember 17th, 2011 and lasts for more than half a month, spreading to Boston,Chicago, San Francisco and other metropolises in the whole world. Thousands ofprotestors gather in Manhattan and attempt to occupy Wall Street. Set in the financialcrisis in the United States, the protest is mainly triggered by high unemployment rates.
It is worth noting that most participants of the protest are the unemployed youth,including college graduates finding no jobs.
These students who have not sought jobs return home after graduation and livewith their parents. Gradually, they become the so-called boomerang children. Parents,on the other hand, in order to avoid their children's desperate reliance, have to relievetheir burdens by putting forward more requirements on their children. Then parentsregain their authority as parents. They urge their children to strive for elite collegesand are involved in every facet of their children's college life. Strangely, theirchildren are not against such over-interference. Instead, they follow their parents'
arrangements and strive together with their parents for elitist education and for abetter future. Then the parent-child-cooperation pattern is existed, and the so-calledcooperation has already been tortured.
4.2 Parents in American elitist education
Several American education critics have pointed out that the overall quality ofAmerican college students is declining, and an investigation report in USA Todayuses some statistics to prove it: 32 percent of students refuse to select the coursesrequiring them to read 40-page books; 36 percent study for only 5 hours per week, buttheir annual test scores in universities can reach as high as 3.16; 45 percent of collegestudents make no progress in the first two years, and 36 percent of students improvelittle in four years. Therefore, parents, who are clearly aware of the weak job market,tend to attribute their children's poor competition to education background and schoolperformances. They attach more importance to elitist education and believe that elitecolleges are equal to high degrees and guarantee satisfying jobs. Parents, rich or poor,black or white, give support to their children for receiving excellent college educationas much as they can.
4.2.1 The tiger mother
In 2011, Amy Chua, the John M. Duff Professor at Yale Law School, publishedBattle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. It is an honest story of Amy Chua's practice inextreme parenting, which brings about a heated discussion among the Americaneducation community. American parents, especially parents of the upper middle classand the educated class, show excessive anxiety and rethink the way of relaxed anduncompetitive American education. The Boston Herald even claimed that more andmore American mothers will learn from Amy Chua after their children receive theletters of acceptance.
The tiger mother Amy Chua sends her two daughters to the Johns HopkinsSchool in the city of New Haven, which is a preparatory school for upper-classstudents. She requests her elder daughter Sophia to get A in every subject, preventsher from watching TV, and asks her to have meals only after playing the piano well.
Finally, Amy Chua helps accomplish the success of her daughter, and succeeds inmaintaining the elite status of the family's next generation.
However, in addition to the strict family education conducted by Amy Chua,another easily neglected fact is that Amy Chua chooses a private school for hisdaughter and she needs to pay the tuition of more than 30,000 USD per year, whichcan by no means be afforded by the average American families. According to thestatistics, among the top one hundred high schools that have graduates admitted toHarvard, Yale and Princeton, 94 are private preparatory schools. From the perspective,Amy Chua can not only be viewed as a Chinese mother, but also a typicalrepresentative of American condescending elites. She is far from choosing schools atrandom, but in accordance with the reality of the American society. That is, “theupper-class elites take a high proportion of the schoolmates of private schools,including President Obama and Vice President Joseph Biden. They send their childrento expensive private schools in order to preserve their social status, just as whatObama has done” (Yu 2011:106).
4.2.2 Cooperation between parents and children
The war between “ordinary people” and “condescending elites” is one of the greatthemes of American politics, and it is the same with American college education.
Among the ordinary parents, it is commonly believed that “the education quality ofprivate schools is further better than that of public schools” (Chen 2011:14) , so manyof them are working hard to support their children to attend private colleges and graspthe opportunity of being elites. From entrance examination, college courses andactivities, to college graduation, parents are involved all the way.
First and foremost, financial support. It is true that American children at the ageof 18 are free to move out of the home and do not live with his or her parents. But thisdoes not mean that they are thoroughly separated from their parents. In effect, in themodern society of the United States, a lot of college students choose to rely on theirparents to get financial aid and pursue better elitist education. Parents, on the otherhand, are also willing to support their children in receiving college education andhaving a better future.
Secondly, parents actively participate in the application for elitist colleges. UnlikeChina's Gaokao, American students' college entrance examinations consist of variousparts：Scholastic Assessment Test, autobiographical essays, resume, social practiceand other written documents. Rich families can spend some money asking otherpeople to prepare perfect materials for children, while parents from lower middleclass families shall take every means to help their children make up the applicationmaterials. As a result, both parents and children are engaged in the fierce competitionof college entrance.
Then after their children are accepted by universities or colleges, parents beginanother new round of maneuvering. They are concerned about everything with regardto their children, ranging from the majors and courses their children select to thedormitory arrangements and extracurricular activities. As is narrated by Chen Wan(2011:15) in Creativity Makes a Child's Life, an American girl in St. Louis isadmitted to Harvard. Since she is the only child of the family, her parents quit theirjobs and move to a place near Harvard to look after her more conveniently.
Finally, thanks to modern technology, emails and cell phones make therelationship between students and parents closer than ever before. Even if parents arefar away from their children, they can still keep pace with their children's study incolleges. Some senior college students even “ send their papers or reading notes totheir parents in advance, and then hand in the revised papers to their teachers” (Xue2005:16) . Though it is an extreme example, it reveals a social phenomenon thatstudents rely on their parents blindly and are scary of dealing with problems bythemselves.
4.3 Effects on children
It is not the time to jump to conclusions about the advantages or disadvantages ofthe parent-child-cooperation pattern. After all, the unemployment situation is stillgrave, and even if the APE pattern is effective to change the adversity, there is still along way to go. However, there is no denying that the pursuing of elitist education inthe United States enables parents to re-exercise control over their children.
The elitist education is existed in almost every stage of student's education, fromelementary schools to colleges. In elitist college education, both condescending elitesand ordinary parents are engaged. However, it is unfair that students whose parentsare American elites can enjoy more chances of achieving success. They possesseconomic advantages and other resources, which are beneficial to their training intooutstanding talents with stronger abilities. In spite of this, nothing can preventordinary parents from pursuing elite education together with their children. They careabout their children's performances in colleges and spur on them afterwards.
Different from the total control over children in the 20th century, the APE patternin the 21century has experienced several changes. To start with, mothers and fathersstrive together for their children's future. The example of the tiger mother bestillustrates that mothers can also take the major responsibility of educating theirchildren. Secondly, parents find a new reason to persuade and encourage theirchildren to forge ahead. That is the reality, but not the theoretically Bible. Thirdly,since the American society values democracy and freedom, American parents do nothave many restrictions on love and marriages; the only thing they interfere with isstudy.
In the new cooperation education, parents and students become comrades in oneside, but parents are appointed as the monitors. To fight for the same goal, thechildren have to strictly carry out the orders of the monitors regardless of true or false.
In the long run, it does harm to American children. Since parents have made detailedplans and spread good roads for their children, college students do not have to strivehard, but just surrender to the reality, and choose to join hands with their parents.
Gradually, children will lose the fun of college life, lose the nature of pursuingfreedom, lose the confidence of striving alone, and eventually lose the ambition offighting. This is one weak part of the APE pattern in the 21st century.
Within this perspective, it is necessary for parents to strike a balance betweenhigh expectations and letting go. Parents should be confident of their children'sabilities to find jobs, but not merely turn to the American elitist education for help.
Making one's own efforts is always more useful than relying on external help, so whynot trust children and let them lead a free college life?
Chapter Five Conclusion
The thesis analyses the varying APE patterns during three different periods, withconcrete backgrounds and manifestations provided to support the changes. At thebeginning of the 20th century, the APE pattern indicates fathers' parental educationtowards their children in the south of America. It is a ruling education, due to whichfathers have overwhelming control over their children, and children are reduced tovictims of the depressing society in south of America. During the period from 1960sto 2000s, the APE pattern experiences fundamental changes and is transformed into acooperation pattern. Since parents abandon their ruling position and turn to guide theirchildren to study, the new pattern is easily accepted by most children. However,children are still closely tied together with their parents in the area of education,which is a kind of invisible control by parents. In recent years, the APE pattern isgranted with a new concept: weird cooperation between parents and their children. Inthe fake cooperation mode, parents unprecedentedly strengthen the control towardstheir children's attending elite colleges and are over-interfered with their children'scollege life.
Above all, among the differences of three APE patterns, there is one thing incommon: children are always affected by their parents in family education. Parents, inthe old society and in the new era, of the upper class and of the middle class, alldevote themselves to their children's life journeys. In the early years of last century,fathers in the south of America stick to the extreme control over children. Then yearslater, parents in the whole nation generally restrict the control over their children tothe stage of basic education. Currently, mothers and fathers attach importance to theirchildren's elitist college education. Therefore, though the well-known democraticeducation is the main melody of American education patterns, parental education is anindispensable part of American family education, which lays stresses on the role ofparents.
Undoubtedly, in different countries, in different social environments, it is ratherdifficult for parents to get clear orientation in family education. The thesis helps havea better understanding of the American family education, in which parental educationmakes different impacts on children. Based on this, Chinese parents will not be full ofenthusiasm about sending their children to study abroad, because they are moreclearly aware that the success of American education is due to parents' influence inpart, and it is easier for them to be involved in their children's study at home. Besides,with national conditions taken into account, Chinese parents can draw on somesuccessful experiences from the varying APE patterns. They will be clearer abouttheir positions in family education, and make more efforts to play roles in a properand positive manner, so as to rectify and avoid some of the deficiencies inherent intraditional parental education pattern.
REFERENCES
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