Live and let learn (2)

Unique approach

Established in 2004 with only six children as a family nursery, Ba Xueyuan is well-known for its unique education method, which respects children's natural development and helps them build their personality, unlike mainstream pre-school education in China, which is largely focused on encouraging children to memorize things they may not even understand.

"This overzealousness ruins everything, and it's sad to notice that most of the time, pre-school education in China is not based on a basic understanding of our kids, who, first of all, are human beings with their own rules of development," Li Yue'er, the founder of Ba Xueyuan, told the Global Times from her Beijing school.

As a professional painter, Li veered into children's education after discovering that some of her students ended up with only technique, but no passion for or sense of appreciating art. "The nature of education is to teach human beings how to create a good life, but a good life comes from a person's sense of the world, and if such personality traits are all denied in a person's childhood, they can never be restored," said Li.

At Ba Xueyuan, kids are encouraged to explore the world on their own and at their own pace, without too much interference from the teachers. "It's like a kids' kingdom in which they take the initiative on almost everything," said Li. Partly utilizing the Montessori method, Li emphasizes that education is based on real life, hands-on and concrete experiences.

In one outdoor activity, some children get busy building houses with real bricks and wood, while others try to dig tunnels for a small irrigation project.

"They might encounter difficulties in these projects, but their ability to figure out ways to solve the problems through persistence, and to turn their ideas into action, are the key to a child's ability to succeed in the future as a person," Li argued.

Of course, Ba Xueyuan is not unique in this market. Thanks to the arrival of the Montessori and Waldorf education systems, China has seen a blossoming of many kindergartens based on the two Western mainstream pre-school education methods over the past 10 years. Though they have different focuses and approaches, such schools all aim to help children develop into confident, morally responsible and integrated individuals.

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