Kids need to know how to lead, not just follow
- Source: Global Times
- [21:31 November 23 2009]
- Comments
By Jimi Sides
A formidable 15-foot high wall towered over the group of junior high school boys. For us, between 10 and 12 years old, this obstacle posed an impossible challenge: to pass the entire group over the barrier with nothing more than teamwork.
Such challenges were a typical part of my childhood. Growing up in the US in the 1980s, I was an oddity, an only child to a single mother and an only grandchild to her parents. I was the only one of my kind.
Every single one of my friends had brothers and sisters. My mother ushered me into boy scouts, basketball, baseball, American football, soccer, leadership camps, volunteer groups, and a church group.
My first job was working on a crew of lifeguards at a beach. These various group activities were a way for me to have surrogate brothers and sisters.
I moved to China more than a year ago, and the land of the only child opened my eyes to the importance of teamwork.
Looking back, these groups offered more than fake siblings, they offered an education in social interaction; being a teammate, being a follower, being a leader, being a problem solver, taking responsibility, effective communication, future planning, and being prepared.
Being an only child is not an oddity in China, far from it. China's "One-child Policy" was enacted in the late 1970s to curb a population explosion.
The policy worked and we are left with a generation of only children, whom some argue are a generation of "little prince and princesses."
I would say they are a generation not of spoiled offspring, but of followers, not leaders, with little to no motivation to work as a team and accomplish goals in the most effective and timely manner.
Having worked as a teacher for the past year at two different Chinese-run schools, I worry that leadership training appears to be missing from Chinese children's experience.
Although the equivalent of organizations such as the Boy Scouts do exist, few children join them, and they are not taken very seriously by the participants.
