In the playground of a private kindergarten, 4-year-old Chenchen waits for her classmate Nande, who, as usual, is late. She does this every day, come rain or shine, and it's a habit that her teacher does nothing to discourage. 

In another scene, 2-year-old Xikun tries to gauge the capacity of a garbage bin by putting basketballs and other children's shoes into it.  He does this every day for a month until finally losing interest, then turns his attention to the objects on a shelf in the classroom, throwing the contents of a box onto the floor. Instead of scolding him, his teachers encourage him to indulge his curiosity. 

Despite complaints from angry parents, 5-year-old Chi Yiyang, notorious for his bullying attitude toward other kids, has never felt singled out for his behavior. Instead, the teacher tries every means to help the boy establish rules for his games. Chi eventually changes his ways, and even tries to uphold justice in a fight between two boys.

These are all scenes from "Kids' Kingdom", an 80-minute documentary that enters the world of a group of kids by following their lives at the Ba Xueyuan kindergarten in the outskirts of Beijing. 

Most Chinese kindergartens try to get children to learn as much as possible in order to give them a strong start for their intensive elementary school studies.  Ba Xueyuan, inspired by a similar school featured in the popular Japanese book Little Bean Beside the Window, took a different approach, immediately drawing attention from parents who wanted to give their children a happy and carefree childhood, a notion that is anathema to most of China's public and private kindergartens. 

"Looking back, I feel my son did have a normal childhood that was based on his natural development. No extra knowledge was taught in advance, and the focus was on growth in a fun and free environment," said mother Xin Xuhui, as she looked back at the four years spent at the kindergarten by her son, who was one of the first students at Ba Xueyuan.  

Unique approach

Established in 2004 with only six children as a family nursery, Ba Xueyuan is well-known for its unique education method, which respects children's natural development and helps them build their personality, unlike mainstream pre-school education in China, which is largely focused on encouraging children to memorize things they may not even understand. 

 "This overzealousness ruins everything, and it's sad to notice that most of the time, pre-school education in China is not based on a basic understanding of our kids, who, first of all, are human beings with their own rules of development," Li Yue'er, the founder of Ba Xueyuan, told the Global Times from her Beijing school. 

As a professional painter, Li veered into children's education after discovering that some of her students ended up with only technique, but no passion for or sense of appreciating art. "The nature of education is to teach human beings how to create a good life, but a good life comes from a person's sense of the world, and if such personality traits are all denied in a person's childhood, they can never be restored," said Li. 

At Ba Xueyuan, kids are encouraged to explore the world on their own and at their own pace, without too much interference from the teachers. "It's like a kids' kingdom in which they take the initiative on almost everything," said Li.  Partly utilizing the Montessori method, Li emphasizes that education is based on real life, hands-on and concrete experiences. 

In one outdoor activity, some children get busy building houses with real bricks and wood, while others try to dig tunnels for a small irrigation project. 

"They might encounter difficulties in these projects, but their ability to figure out ways to solve the problems through persistence, and to turn their ideas into action, are the key to a child's ability to succeed in the future as a person," Li argued. 

Of course, Ba Xueyuan is not unique in this market. Thanks to the arrival of the Montessori and Waldorf education systems, China has seen a blossoming of many kindergartens based on the two Western mainstream pre-school education methods over the past 10 years. Though they have different focuses and approaches, such schools all aim to help children develop into confident, morally responsible and integrated individuals. 

Amid complaints that China's excessively exam-oriented education system does anything but cultivate students through independent thinking and integrated development, such schools have, to some extent, become parents' first choice for their children's education. "While we can't change the current education system, at least I can choose to give my daughter an environment in which she can just be a happy girl and won't have opinions from the adult world imposed on her," Cai Xueyi, a young mother of a 2-year-old daughter, told the Global Times. 

"Compared with China's traditional pre-school education, a Montessori education gives kids more freedom in their exploration of this world in their own way, and most importantly, shows enough respect to the kids by responding to their needs," said Zhou Yuan, a mom who recently sent her 3-and-a-half-year-old son to the Little Oak Children's House in Beijing, which bases its education on the Montessori method. 

Adapting to reality

However, after nearly 10 years' development, though very popular in small circles, especially highly educated people, kindergartens like Ba Xueyuan and Little Oak are still a minority in China's pre-school education system.  In addition to its comparatively high tuition fees, due to the greater investment in teacher training and wider variety of teaching materials, doubts remain among many parents, who worry that the laissez-faire approach and lack of systematic learning might leave their children at a disadvantage when they enter primary school. 

 

"It would be hard for a kid whose freedom to explore the world was encouraged in kindergarten to get used to the mainstream primary education in China, which puts a great emphasis on discipline and self-restraint," said Tu Shuo, a young mother from Nanchang city, Jiangxi Province, who finally decided to send her daughter to a mainstream kindergarten focused on cultivating children's reading and expression abilities. 

In response to these doubts, several modifications have been made to these non-mainstream kindergartens, who all agree that it's hard to simply apply Montessori or Waldorf methods to children in China, as their living environment is totally different from that in Italy or Germany.

At Little Oak, children aged 5 and 6 are required to learn a maximum of 500 Chinese characters and basic math computing in the last year of their kindergarten life. "We have to make such preparations for our kids, as the education in primary schools in China is based on an assumption that these kids have already learned part of their primary school courses in kindergarten.  When there is nothing to change, we have to try our best to adapt to the situation," said a teacher at Little Oak surnamed Gu. 

At Ba Xueyuan, a class simulating a primary school environment has also been set up, with the aim of helping students to transition from learning through behavior to learning through thinking.

Meanwhile, Li argues that building a complete personality before the age of 6 tops the agenda in children's pre-school education. "Is it possible that a kid who has a strong ability to adapt to different environments and an ability for creative learning finds it difficult to get used to China's mainstream primary education, and is it possible that a passionate person with independent thinking and a strong problem-solving ability is not wanted by any companies?" said Li. 

Acknowledging that it will take time for his son Lele to get used to the new environment at a public primary school, in which even students' sitting postures are strictly regulated, Zhao Lei still feels grateful for the education his son received at Ba Xueyuan. 

"Lele was shocked by these rules.  It was a painful period, but we feel his ability to adapt to a new environment helped him get through it quickly," said the proud father.

For mother Xin Xuhui, her son Zhu Jiangqiu was definitely not a top student in terms of academic performance at his class in a public school, especially in the first two years when he found it hard to catch up with the others, but Xin believes that is not the most important thing. "In my eyes, my son is just a very sunny and optimistic kid, who knows how to deal with problems in his own way, has his own opinions and never goes with the crowd," said Xin. 

Future prospects

As Chinese parents grow increasingly anxious about their children's academic achievements, educators say it's time for Chinese education to return to its nature. 

"The purpose of education has never been to distinguish winners from losers, but to cultivate, develop and perfect a human being," said Lu Linyue, President of the Zhejiang International Studies University. 

However, despite Ba Xueyuan's concept of pre-school education gaining wider recognition, Li feels uncertain about the future of her kindergarten. "It's always a big challenge for us to find qualified teachers who know how to love children, especially when a child could change every minute," said Li, who feels the lack of teachers will make it difficult for her school to expand.

And most Chinese parents will still need a lot more persuading before they accept the ideas put forward by these non-mainstream approaches.

"The best preschool is defined by the values that the parents want for their children. Do parents want their children to pass exams or do they want them to be curious, make mistakes, take risks, and voice their opinions and concerns? The decision is theirs to make," Sovandara Chhin, with the Montessori Country School at Bainbridge Island, Washington, told the Global Times in an email. 

Li worries that her school will finally end in failure in this fledgling market, where many profit-driven schools are just imitations that don't truly respond to children's needs.

"I do feel puzzled when I see so many schools advocating Montessori education in China. I just wonder how many of them are truly trying to integrate the core concept of the method into their teaching, or simply hanging up a signboard just to make money," said one mother.