Children Are Not "little"

The view of "miniature adults" on children has a long history in the West and China. In ancient times, human beings’ self-cognition was in a low level. Adult-centeredness also had dominated people’s attitudes towards children for quite a long time. Accordingly, children were simply regarded as miniature adults whose bodies were shorter than those of adults. At present, due to the negative influence of Chinese traditional culture, competitive social background and talent selection system, the view of "miniature adults" on children still has its existent conditions. Although the view of "miniature adults" on children carries different connotations and implications in different historical periods, it has the same manifestation that people consciously or unconsciously take children as miniature adults, and evaluate children by the standards of adults. As a matter of fact, the essence of the representation is that people have not yet found the special significance and the value of childhood, as well as the essential differences between children and adults.With the influence of view of "miniature adults" on children, ancient children education has the following characters. The contents of education focused on ethical and moral indoctrination and the recitation of the Confucian classics; teaching methods focused on the form and rote learning; the choice and arrangement of teaching materials neglected children’s cognitive characteristics; in addition, education at that time stressed such concepts of education, as "Diligence is meritorious, play is useless","Be quiet", and so on. There are also a series of problems in contemporary children education. Parents are normally anxious for their children’s early success, they automatically join in the ranks of urging children to develop. Schools and some educational institutions also act as the parents’"right-hand men". Thus, some mess has appeared in children education, such as pulling and pushing education, discipline education and the education in advance. That is to say, with the influence of view of "miniature adults" on children, contemporary children education neglects the characteristics of children’s physical and mental developments, and it is against the natural rate of child development and has done great harm to the healthy development of children.Facing the reality of alienation of children education, we have to ponder:how children education should treat children? The author’s view is that children are not miniature adults, children are children. Compared with adults, children’s physical and mental developments are not yet mature; they have their unique cognitive characteristics and the spiritual world; children are on the road leading to the adults; they can’t become adults immediately and they can’t always be children. Therefore, education should regard children as kids, respect the nature of children and the natural development of children, treasure the value of childhood. Only in this way, can children have a happy childhood.