A Dream for a Better World

On November 1, 2009, China World Hotel embraced the 2009 International Boarding School Fair in Beijing. Hundreds and thousands of parents attended with their teenage kids. Although Beijing welcomed it’s first snow of 2009 on the day, the hall with the fair going on was extremely hot with too much crowd as well as too much enthusiasm from both parts: the parents eager to consult and find their children the “best” schools while the representatives from North American secondary schools trying their best to convince the parents that they are the very one being sought.

The schools were unexceptionally boasting their colorfulness in terms of how many international students they enrolled, and their specialties in arts, sports and many other fields. The parents looked over each stand present, asking the most concerned questions, such as how much the tuition is, how the children are settled in the boarding schools, how their children can be helped and can receive individual attention. But the kids’ eyes full of curiosity and bewilderment, and some with excitement as well, it seemed that they had no exact idea what they were going to experience in the near future to come.

Though some parents in Beijing are well-being enough to pay more 200,000 RMB each year for their kids to study overseas (which is 20 times more than the regular tuition for high school or even university education), the real question behind the parents should be thinking about is whether this really fits their children. After all, they are just 13 to 17 years old. To attend a secondary school and maybe later a university overseas means that the children have to be kept apart from their families for 4 years or even longer. When they are not mentally and physically matured enough, staying in an exotic culture with no parents around may cause some problems in their growing up. In this day and age when it is difficult sometimes for even adults to cope with cultural shock despite their mature cultural cultivation, children will definitely run into similar situations, not to mention that they are not mature yet. The potential sense of isolation, homesickness and loneliness will likely to outweigh all possible gains.

So it is really recommended for the parents to think over and make sure it is the right decision to make before they send their children to a secondary school thousands of miles away. Although education maybe a different case, it is not always a good idea to seek far and wide for what lies close at hand. My tip: stay cool to the rush!