CCTV News:Recently, Mr. Wang from Bengbu reported through the "internet plus Supervision" platform in the State Council that Yuying Middle School in Wuhe County asked each student to spend 5,800 yuan to buy a tablet computer, saying that it was necessary for homework and study.
At present, the local government has responded that Yuying Middle School has been ordered to immediately stop the illegal charging of students’ tablet fees, clear all the fees already charged, and dismiss the principal within a time limit.
On the social platform, the issue of "Bengbu No.1 Middle School requires students to spend 5,800 yuan to buy tablets" has caused many netizens to discuss. In addition to questioning the compulsory fees charged by the schools involved in the news, many netizens also expressed their concerns about the current e-teaching.
Student Homework: From "Handmade Age" to "Electronic Age"
"Now the ipad has become a must for primary school students’ homework, and it has to be used for homework and daily punching." Ms. Liu’s daughter is a third-grade primary school student. In order to facilitate timely communication with teachers, Ms. Liu has added four or five WeChat groups and nail groups. Last year, during the online class of the epidemic children at home, she had to "shuttle" her homework on WeChat group, nail group, APPlet and mobile app every day.
"When we were young, when we went to school, the teacher wrote the homework on the blackboard, and then we copied it into the notebook. Now the teacher sends the homework to the WeChat group, and we will tell the children what to do when they get home." Ms. Liu lamented that today’s primary school students’ homework has entered the "electronic age" from the "manual age".
As a head teacher of a primary school in Henan, Xiao Yangang heard many parents’ "complaints" in his first year of employment. "Many parents used their mobile phones to chat on WeChat and watch the news before, and some of them never used nails, let alone small programs." Xiao Yan introduced that, generally speaking, English and Mathematics will be arranged with online exercises after class.
(Parents of students in Xiaoyan’s class are punching in the circle of friends)
In fact, not only primary school students, but also more and more parents of preschool children have joined the "online education" army. Ms. Xiao, 56, spends her daily life attending classes with her granddaughter on the ipad. She laments that she has to learn to "punch in" when she is retired. In order to make her granddaughter "not lose at the starting line", Ms. Xiao’s daughter reported Dashan English and Little Spark Thinking AI classes to her granddaughter. Because she was worried that her children’s eyesight would be affected at a young age, Ms. Xiao would control her granddaughter’s "study time" within 20-30 minutes every day.
Does electronic teaching increase the burden? Parents and teachers disagree.
With the advent of the era of electronic teaching, social software such as WeChat, QQ, and various apps have become more and more frequent in primary and secondary education and teaching, and to some extent, they have even become inseparable ways and assistants for teachers.
In November last year, the news that a Jiangsu student’s parents sent a video angrily attacking the teacher for correcting their children’s homework and quitting the parent group quickly fermented on the Internet, causing public concern and discussion. Subsequently, the news that "children learn three courses and I am drawn into eight parent groups" appeared on the news pages of major media, and netizens expressed their feelings that "it only takes one parent group to crush adults".
In January 2021, the Ministry of Education issued the Notice on Strengthening the Management of Mobile Phones for Primary and Secondary School Students, requiring primary and secondary school teachers not to use mobile phones to assign homework or require students to use mobile phones to complete homework. Earlier, the Ministry of Education also issued a document clarifying that teachers should not hand over the task of correcting homework to parents.
In the eyes of parents who support the ban on electronic homework, the appearance of "electronic homework" has changed the boundary between teachers and parents about educational responsibilities and obligations, such as correcting homework that should have been done by teachers and manual homework that should have been done by students, and now all of them are passed on to parents.
Ms. Liu feels that compared with when her eldest daughter was in primary school more than ten years ago, the pressure of tutoring her younger daughter is obviously greater now. On the one hand, electronic products such as tablet computers have become the "standard" of primary school students, which has increased the financial burden of parents; On the other hand, parents also have to undertake more educational tasks. "Assigning homework through WeChat or App, in fact, the task is transferred to parents. Some of them have to correct homework for their children after a day’s work, which is really tiring." Like most parents, Ms. Liu is also worried that her children lack self-control and will be addicted to electronic products in the future.
However, according to Xiao Wu, a primary school English teacher in Hangzhou, in today’s mobile Internet era, it is impossible and unnecessary for education and teaching to exclude technology. She thinks whether to arrange "electronic homework" depends on the characteristics of the subject and the type of homework. "It is definitely more convenient to read and recite English and Chinese, especially oral English homework online."
Xiao Wu introduced that in her school, some physical education class’s training is also punched in through the APP. "Children write their own exercise content like a circle of friends, and then attach videos or pictures." Xiao Wu said that at present, parents are more supportive of this online and offline teaching mode. She believes that the Ministry of Education should take into account the characteristics of different subjects while introducing relevant bans and prevent "one size fits all" implementation methods.