From the Ministry of Education's stipulation that children must learn to cook: "live well" is also a core competitiveness

Text | cooked rice

According to the news of @Xinhuanet on May 5, the Ministry of Education recently issued the "Compulsory Education Labor Curriculum Standards (2022 Edition)". Among them, the goals of "sorting and storage" and "daily life labor such as home cleaning, cooking, and home beautification" have been formulated according to different school segments, and will be implemented in the fall semester of 2022.

According to @ China News Network news, the Ministry of Education issued the "Compulsory Education Labor Curriculum Standards (2022 Edition)" mentioned that in grades 5 to 6, cooking and nutrition, students should use simple cooking methods such as stir-frying, frying, stewing and other cooking methods to make 2 to 3 home-cooked dishes, such as scrambled eggs with tomatoes, fried eggs, stewed bone soup, etc., and participate in the complete process from dish selection, washing vegetables to cooking and plate. Be able to design a nutritious recipe for lunch or dinner according to the needs of your family, and understand the relationship between different cooking methods and food nutrition.

(Excerpt from the "Compulsory Education Labor Curriculum Standards (2022 Edition)")

In fact, cultivating children's "life ability" has always been a core competitiveness of children that parents and schools around the world attach great importance to.

A reference list of living abilities

Children can participate in housework at the age of 1

Harvard psychologist Verante has tracked a group of teenagers for decades and found that children who are more involved in housework during childhood have better relationships and more optimistic attitudes in the future, and are four times more likely to get high-paying jobs in adulthood and fifteen times less likely to lose their jobs.

The new education regulations released in Guangzhou are also similar to the Harvard University research. Below, we share with you practical activities for children of all ages based on the new rules:

12-24 months: Give your child some easy instructions, such as having your child throw dirty diapers in the trash by himself.

2-3 years old: Throw the garbage in the trash at the instructions of the parent, or help pick up things when the parent asks for help; help the mother hang clothes on the hanger; use the toilet, brush your teeth, water the flowers (parents give the child the right amount of water); tidy up their toys before going to bed at night.

3-4 years old: Go to the gate to retrieve the newspaper on the ground, help your mother make the bed before going to bed, put the dishes and bowls in the kitchen sink after eating, help your mother put the folded clean clothes back into the closet, and put your dirty clothes in the basket of dirty clothes.

4-5 years old: Independently go to the mailbox to retrieve the letter, make the bed yourself, prepare the table (starting from helping the parents get the tableware), put the dirty tableware back in the kitchen after the meal, fold the washed and dried clothes and put them back in the closet (teach the child how to fold different clothes correctly), and prepare the clothes to be worn the next day.

5-6 years old: Help wipe the table, change the sheets, prepare your own things for school the next day, and pick up the things that are messed up and put them back in place.

6-7 years old: Wash dishes with the help of parents and be able to clean their own room independently.

7-12 years old: can cook simple meals, help wash cars, sweep and mop floors, clean toilets, toilets, sweep leaves, sweep snow, and use washing machines and dryers.

13 years old and older: can change the light bulb, change the garbage bag in the vacuum cleaner, wipe the glass, clean the refrigerator, stove and oven, make a list of food before cooking, master the whole process of washing clothes, including washing, drying clothes, folding clothes, and putting them back in the closet and repairing plants at home.

Children who are in charge early are more independent

Yes, doing housework is a small thing, but it is an important sign that a child is moving towards independence. More and more countries in the world regard housework as a skill that children must master.

From kindergarten, Japanese children have to bring two rags to school, one for wiping the table, one for wiping the floor, and at the end of the semester, they have to wax the floor and brush the fan; since the fifth grade, they have 50-60 hours of "family classes" every year, including learning to cook, sew, wash clothes, etc.

Finland, a global education powerhouse, insists on spending great efforts to incorporate housework into the curriculum system and systematically train children's ability to live a good life.

Mr. Chen Zhihua, who authored "The World's First Secret of Finnish Education", also shared the class schedule of the seventh grade of a middle school in Lohja, Finland:

The "family economy" in the curriculum is what we usually call "home economics class". When many Chinese parents listen, they may think that their children go to school, but not to do housework or to be nannies, why should they take this kind of class? That is to say, I think that the home economics class is too "earthy"!

But finns take the subject very seriously. They believe that this is a "life education class", which should be taught from three aspects: cooking, housework, and family finance, with the goal of enabling students to master life skills and be able to live economically and make the living environment sustainable.

To put it bluntly, it is to give children the ability to live a good life. In many Finnish schools, students come to school early in the morning, do not study, and cook their own lunches. The classroom teacher usually spends 15-20 minutes reading the recipe and sharing tips with the students, and then the students go to the "kitchen classroom", pick up the pots and pans, and cook the recipes.

The home economics class also focuses on training students in two other skills – doing housework and participating in household consumption.

It will teach children to develop good habits of cleaning up kitchen utensils in time, such as washing the family's tableware with a dishwasher, knowing how to wash the dishes by hand to save water, how to classify garbage more environmentally friendly, and even reading the washing instructions on the clothes and using the washing machine more efficiently - these things, many adults will not.

It will involve children in the daily consumption of the family as early as possible. In class, students should understand the basic concepts of a family's income, budget, expenditure, etc., practice how to use the right money, buy practical and aesthetic items, and other skills to make life sustainable.

In a word, Finnish home economics class accurately explains the Finnish educational philosophy, that is, the child can not only be responsible for reading, he also needs to be deeply involved in family life, social civic life.

Children are not only themselves, but also members of a family. By studying home economics, they can learn to take care of themselves, share the housework, and know how to take care of other people, and later, they can have the ability to live a warm and comfortable life.

In fact, we have been calling on children to study political science at three and a half o'clock after class, and then look at the Finnish home economics class, he can attack the jade, and the family economics class is the core, not pure physical work.

I want my child to move

Dad's role model was the most powerful

So, how can parents guide their children to take the initiative and even be willing to do housework? The key lies in the attitude of the parents. If we can all give a more positive connotation to housework, not as a chore, but as a way of taking care of the family – especially the fathers – the children will be more motivated.

Take a look at what wealthy American dads do.

In 2016, bill and his wife released their annual open letter, specifically discussing what role Mom and Dad should play in the family.

In this open letter, this set of data is shared about the amount of time that men (shaded) and women (non-shaded) spend each day on "unpaid work" (i.e., housework) around the world:

A more systematic combing of this set of data shows that the average Chinese woman spends 4.3 hours a day on housework, while the average male spends 1.8 hours, a gap of 2.5 hours.

Therefore, no matter how busy they are in their careers, they must also pay attention to the family and return to the family, and all of this can start from doing simple housework.

Many parents have begun to change their minds. For example, actor Huang Lei is a model warm man who loves to do housework, always changing tricks to cook for his wife and children. This kind of personal participation has made the children also become a master of housework, and the daughter Duoduo has been in the kitchen since she was a child, and recently made donuts with her sister who is only 4 years old:

Junior Business School is also a great advocate for children to learn from life. We have launched the "Teach Children to Cook a Dish" initiative to improve children's hands-on skills and enhance parent-child relationships.

Happily, a lot of parents and friends really pulled their children into action, and at the beginning, these parents were particularly anxious, such as: "The child is so small, is it not too dangerous to move a knife and fork?" "But when you really make up your mind to teach your child by hand, you will find that your child is far more powerful than we think—

One of the mothers left us a message after the child completed the task: "Eating the dishes made by the children, the taste is barely strong, but it is really touching, the children have grown up!" ”

Life is the best teacher

"Teaching children to do it themselves, whether it's washing, dressing, preparing a snack or pouring a drink, can help your child on the road to independence. When children cultivate a considerable degree of independence, they also lay down good work habits, self-discipline and responsibility for a lifetime. Tim Seldin, chairman of the Montessori Foundation in the United States, once commented on the importance of doing housework.

Yes, children will grow up one day, and all we do is hope that they will become independent individuals who can take responsibility. Therefore, instead of doing it with one hand and taking care of it, we may need to learn to be "cruel" and constantly think and practice these three things:

1. Let go strategically. Give the opportunity to learn to live a life, the opportunity to learn to make choices, the opportunity to bear responsibilities, and give it back to the child at the right age, even if it starts with making a dish and buying something once.

2. Sincerely rest assured. When the child bravely takes responsibility, give objective encouragement and praise, always believing that he can do it.

3. Take it easy with humor. Learn to endure the child's chaotic period, don't worry about him not doing well, moderately lower expectations and standards, and let the child grow from making mistakes.

At the end of the day, life is the best teacher for children.

When the whole society talks about innovation and education, we need to stop from time to time and think about what the most needed and fundamental ability of children is, so that children can become a truly responsible and life-loving person.