Focus
Children stuck inside this spring
By Wang Wei (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-04-07 08:00
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Students of the Experimental School of Beijing Economic and Technological Development Area have fun on a trip to an outdoor center in Daxing district. [Wang Xibao / for China Daily] |
Beijing parks emptier as schools send students to museums instead of on annual outdoor excursions
It has been six years since Mi Nan, an 11th grade student at Beijing Yuyuantan Middle School, participated in an outdoor spring excursion organized by the school.
Mi told METRO that, because of safety concerns and busy study schedules, the school abolished the annual spring outing years ago in favor of indoor field trips, such as half-day visits to museums.
He recalled using tree branches as guns and swords to play with classmates and pulling his favorite snack - his mom's tea eggs - out of his backpack on the outdoor spring trips he went on as a young student.
"It used to be my favorite time of year," he said. "I really miss those good old days."
He said that these days his only leisure time is when he eats and sleeps, since he is extremely busy preparing for the university entrance examination, even though it's still two years away for him.
Beijing's parks, once the most popular destinations for spring outings, have seen a sharp decline in the number of students coming for group activities.
A media officer surnamed Hu with Yuyuantan Park told METRO that a few years ago, when cherry blossoms started blooming in late March and early April, students from as many as 20 primary and middle schools came there for spring outings, but there were only six student groups last year.
"It would be lovely to see many students playing games in the park, but unfortunately we don't see it often anymore," she said.
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Yuyuantan is just one of many schools in Beijing to cancel its annual outdoor spring trip or to swap it for a more academically serious indoor trip.
Pan Xiaona, a teacher at Luhe Middle School in Tongzhou district, told METRO that the school hasn't organized a spring outing in the six years she has worked there.
The only three group trips that Luhe Middle School organized in that time - to the China Science and Technology Museum, a sewage disposal plant and a Capital Iron and Steel Co facility - were all indoors and were all heavily educational, said Pan.
"Many of my friends who are teachers also work at school that don't organize spring excursions," she added.
"Safety issues are the major reason our school doesn't organize spring outings," she said. "Most of the children are the only child in their family and if an accident happened during an outing, the school would have trouble dealing with the fallout."
Many primary and middle schools in the city stopped organizing spring outings in 2003 after the Beijing Municipal Education Commission urged them to do so.
The commission also barred schools from organizing group activities or trips to other provinces during the weeklong May Day holiday.
The latest regulations on spring excursions from the education authority stipulate that schools must apply to the relevant superior departments and get ratification before any outdoor trip. Schools must send an inspection team to the location the students will visit to identify potential hazards. The trip must not be more than two days and every student must have insurance.
But as restrictions on outdoor activities tighten, an increasing number of students and parents are voicing oppositions.
Sending students only on indoor trips can be dull and losses educational value after a while, said a woman surnamed He, who is the mother of a fourth grade student at Xinyuanli Primary School.
He said Xinyuanli Primary does two trips a year, always to museums, and that her daughter has now visited almost all the museums in Beijing.
"In the beginning she was excited, but after spending so much time in museums she has become bored of them," she said. "I had hoped she would spend more time outside playing with her classmate, getting closer to nature."
Some educators suggest that China's education authority learn from Japan when it comes to organizing group outdoor activities.
Japan set up a foundation to compensate students who are injured during field trips, a policy China should copy, said Sun Yunxiao, vice-director of the China Youth and Children Research Center, in her blog.
Junior high school students in Japan often have outdoor group trips lasting three to four days and senior high school students normally have field trips outside the country, said Sun in her blog.
"Outdoor spring excursions are an important way for students to learn about our society - if schools are afraid of taking students outdoors, it may have an impact on the student's development," she added.
