Issue 130

"How children are socialized today determines the destiny of society. Unfortunately, we have not yet learned how to raise children who can help bring about a better society."

Response:

Children are the future of a society, to which the appropriate education for children is crucial since early all the ideas adults hold originate from their childhood. However, the answers to the questions – what education is appropriate and how to implement it – are not easy to find. Therefore, I tend to agree with the speaker.

In the speaker’s statement, he/she puts forward a concept “socialization” which should include a wide range of significant problems, for instance, how children deal with their relationships with parents, siblings, peers, teachers, and strangers as well; how children define their own positions in the society; what is the concept of “motherland” in children’s mind. Accordingly, the speaker generalizes that how children are socialized determines the destiny of a society.

The problems summarized by the concept “socialization” are a series of puzzles in children’ mind when they come to acknowledge the world they are living in. As they grow up gradually, they will try to unravel one puzzle after another by virtue of what they have learned from the environment. So how to exert appropriate influence during the process is of importance. Unfortunately, admittedly, human beings have not yet found effective ways to solve the problem.

Flawed education results in numerous unsound phenomena around us. For example, different cultures have not known how to get along with each other. The conflicts between western and Islamic people corroborate this point. Lack of responsibility exists pervasively. As is well known, unsafe sex results in illegal abortion and AIDS. Violence on campus, drug abuse, and suicide are prevalent. Almost all the bad behaviors of adults could trace back to the influence on them during their children.

As with the social change, there appear new problems which make children’s upbringing more difficult. In U.S., for example, the number of single parents has been increasing. Parents are the first teachers of children. The children growing up in a family with only mother or father are all too often doomed to lack sufficient education. In china, the “one child” policy makes lots of children in urban areas don’t know why and how to share something with others.

In conclude, since the future of a society is determined by the socialization of children, it is vital to further underscore children’s upbringing and try to find more appropriate educational approaches, especially those suiting the new times.