Digging My Way to China - observing Chinese and Thai children, and comparing them with American children - Brief Article

School Administrator, May, 2001 by Paul D. Houston

When we were children, many of us had the experience of digging in our backyards. I remember my mother saying if I dug far enough I would end up in China.

In those simpler years, we thought by moving some dirt we could travel to exotic places. Later we learned that would involve lots of cash, lost luggage and airline delays. On a recent trip to China and Thailand those days were brought back when one of our guides said that when she was a child she and her friends would dig in the yard. Her parents told them if they dug far enough they would dig to the United States. It reminded me of how no matter where we grow up, childhood holds many common experiences.

I remembered my own childhood thoughts of how once we dug to China we would have to get used to walking around upside-down. Because our side of the world was right side up, the other side must be the opposite. China was also a land of scary enchantment. It was a place of dragons and great walls. It was a place of mysterious foreboding.

Isn't that how we often view other people and other cultures? They are different and less right than we are. And perhaps something to be feared. Once on a school visit to Australia I was shocked to find that the world map hanging in the classroom had Australia in the center of the map and the United States off in a far corner. How could that be? Everyone knows the United States is the center of the world. Of course we are the dominant economic and military power and our popular culture permeates all corners of the world, but we aren't all there is.

Self -Discipline Pervades

I came back from my trip convinced we needed to embrace China, but I also came back disturbed. On one of the school visits we made, we watched over a thousand young people doing their morning exercises to music-everyone moving in unison in exercises so perfect they seemed choreographed.

At first, our group was envious of the discipline and control shown by the exercise. But the more we watched, the more some of us worried. There was such regimentation and conformity that any sense of spontaneity was missing. They were together, but they didn't look happy. In fact, the schools and the society were fairly joyless places.

We were struck that we saw very few birds in China. And we saw very few smiles. It was as if the birds and the smiles had both taken wing to a happier place. There is an external discipline and control that permeates the culture that makes everything mechanistic and not very human.

When I asked different people there to tell me their dreams, they had a hard time answering. I finally got it. The dreams have gone with the birds and smiles. Dreams require freedom to soar. As we learned more about the country, we found that about 95 percent of the people consider themselves atheists. Even though China has a rich religious history, spirituality is mostly a relic of the past. And gone with it are their hopes for the future. Dreams also require hope to thrive.

A Joyous Contrast

We had an interesting contrast to that when we visited Thailand, a place where 95 percent of the population is Buddhist. It is also a country where smiles and joy are embedded deeply in the culture. I never have seen a friendlier, happier or more centered people. And it became increasingly clear that happiness sprang from the rich ground of their spiritual beliefs.

When viewing a kindergarten class starting its day, we had a wonderful counterpoint to the regimented exercises we saw in Beijing. The Thai children were passing a candle from child to child. As the candle was handed off, each child's task was to meditate on the day, on his or her goals for their life, the kind of person he or she wanted to be and how each needed to interact with classmates. It was a totally internal and organic process that created an inner discipline and a sense of joy.

The external process of China led to a disciplined world where people followed orders, but without the inner gyroscope of human dreams. The Thai journey is internal and seems to produce joy.

That led me to wonder about where America might be going in the days ahead as we work at improving our schools. Let us guard against the temptation to create a place where everyone dances to the same tune played by others while they lose the rhythm of their own dreams. And let us remember that spirituality is important in a good society and critical to a child's possibilities. That will allow us to unearth a society that will always be right side up.