"Cross-Ocean Family Letters: A Sample of Family Education in the Era of Globalization" is a heavy collection of letters written by mothers during their children's study abroad, which details the warm interaction between parents and children and the growth suggestions and educational methods of children of all ages. Originally, the story of mothers educating children is not new, and there is no shortage of such works on the market, but in today's era when everyone can't do without mobile phones and iPads, the mother in the book has been writing letters to her children for more than ten years, knocking on the door of children's hearts with ancient letters. Therefore, it is particularly "instigating", precious, and affectionate.
Nowadays, many people have almost no experience of writing letters. A phone call, a video can efficiently solve many communication problems, why can the mother in the book be separated by half the world, and insist on writing so many letters to her children for more than ten years? This piqued my interest and became the impetus for the publication of the book.
"Smelling Parents from Letters"
This is a sincere collection of letters, but also a well-referenced family education book, how to combine the two and make it distinctive?
We first thought of the positioning of the "family letter". The family letter has been around for a long time and has a long cultural tradition. In ancient China, there was the "Yan Family Training", which admonished the descendants from 20 aspects, such as governing the family, encouraging learning, and nourishing the heart. In modern times, there is also the very famous "Book of Fu Lei". And today's manuscript, although the background of the times and the topics discussed have been completely different, the spiritual concepts have similarities. The concern, love and patience for children that flow between the lines of his words are read with a sense of remote echo.
At the same time, the children in the book have gone to the United Kingdom and the United States to study since the age of 16, and the mother's education has kept pace with the times and has a broad vision of globalization, which naturally has a lot more modern atmosphere than the "Fu Lei Family Book". Therefore, we decided to position it as "Fu Lei's Family Letter in the New Era", hoping to truly show the practical experience of an excellent mother in educating her children and provide reference for the majority of families. The book was eventually titled The Book of The Transoceanic Family: A Sample of Homeschooling in the Age of Globalization (hereinafter referred to as the "Transoceanic Family Book").
The contents of the "Book of the Transoceanic Family" can be described as rich, detailed, and the time span is very long, up to 16 years. Since the letters were originally a personal and fragmented textual form, we also spent a lot of effort in the process of arranging them. In order to facilitate the reader's reading, we first divided the 80 letters into 14 chapters in chronological order, each chapter has its own focus: "adapting to high school", "independent management life", "going to adulthood", "shaping personality charm", "learning to manage money", "wonderful turn, going to society" and so on. According to the linear narrative, reflecting the most important things in the child's growth trajectory, the scattered letters have a clear theme and are more compactly connected.
In addition to the daily exchange of letters, the author Lu Bo also provided many additional interesting articles, for example, she writes a special "birthday letter" every year on her son's birthday. She also gave rites of passage to her children and gave speeches at their weddings. This part is more targeted, and the educational concepts mentioned are more common. We are pleased to "accept it all according to the order", separately compiled into the final chapter, and named it "Private Documents in the Post-Study Abroad Era".
We can see that the letter did not make the psychological distance between the mother and son farther away, but closer. His son Peng Yingzhi wrote in the preface that when he was abroad, he would put his mother's letter on his pillow so that he could read it at all times. Mom also admits that reading letters is precious, "even if one day the child has become old and we have left, you can still smell the smell of parents from the letter."
In view of the distinctive characteristics of this manuscript, we established its design style early on - retro, elegant, the cover is designed with a huge envelope and postmark, and the concave and convex process is made, showing the exquisite texture of the open letterhead. In a society full of electronic products, education that retains the smell of books seems so back to basics, and we also hope to show its unique charm through the form of paper books. As the book says: "Now that it is popular to send messages on mobile phones, some young people have almost forgotten what it is like to write a letter, which is very bad." Writing letters can not only exercise people's language ability, but also exercise people's thinking ability. Writing a letter can also leave a vivid memory for life. In a person's life, if you can't leave some letters, when you are old, you will feel very sorry. ”
Perhaps, this kind of parent-child communication method will lead to a retro trend.
"A Comprehensive Educational Book"
How do you find the highlights of this collection of educational letters and let readers see what makes it different?
This is the second problem encountered during the editing process. During the review process, I found that there were two special things about the book. First, the resumes of both mothers and children are very good. His mother, Lu Bo, graduated from Fudan University with a master's degree from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and served as the chief representative of the Shanghai representative office of Italy's Italia Bank and a director of Ceibas Fund Company. His son Peng Yingzhi graduated from Princeton University in the United States and is currently the head of the China business of a quantitative trading fund in the United States.
The same study abroad experience, the same self-discipline habits, and self-improvement requirements allow us to see a fairly high level of educational philosophy, social issues, and even philosophical speculation in the letters of the mother and son. In this book, we focus on highlighting the proportion of this part of the letters, and select some valuable diaries and notes attached to the letters, including a discussion of the "History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire", statistics and other topics, aiming to show an equal and in-depth atmosphere of parent-child communication. The preamble uses the phrase "mentor and mother and friend" to describe this relationship, and the appendix also mentions, "This is a correspondence between two adults, a friend-like honest and heart-to-heart exchange."
Second, the mother Lu Bo has a very clear educational proposition at every stage of the child's growth, from going to high school at the age of 16 to starting a family after the age of 30, the mother has given the child many suggestions and encouragement at the key nodes of the child's life, such as further education, adulthood, job search, marriage and other important moments. This is also the essence of the epistle collection. In order to show this more clearly, at the beginning of each letter, we excerpt the most representative "education golden sentence" in the letter, and make a special design in different fonts to "draw the focus" for the reader.
For example, in the early childhood of the child, the mother made a very clear educational plan: "We helped him determine the time for activities in the evening, including the time to learn English and play games" "Since the third grade, I have agreed with him to write a travel diary for each trip."
Mothers also expressed their opinions on typical issues such as academic performance and "winning at the starting line", which are most concerned about parents: "What our family cares about is his interest in knowledge, not about his ranking and score." This will subtly affect the child's focus, so as to develop the correct learning attitude that he does not learn for himself or his parents. "I encourage my son to do more for the class and the group, not just for the cadres on duty." "Cultivating interests and habits is the most important. When his interest is mobilized, any age can be the starting line. ”
As children grow older, mothers explore more and more topics, how to manage money and invest, how to enhance interpersonal skills, how to manage time, how to look at work and career, how to establish their own outlook on life... The 80 letters are full of dry goods, involving literature, history, finance, philosophy and other aspects, which can be called a comprehensive education treasure book. It breaks the "only success theory", and believes that such a comprehensive quality education can bring children a broader future.
"Two-way parenting, growing together""
In the "Letter of the Family Across the Ocean", the letters written unilaterally by mothers to their children are mainly included, how to show the results of mother's education in a more three-dimensional way?
In this book, the author Lu Bo most often mentions a sentence is "two-way parenting, common growth."
This is a new type of educational method that she has summed up over the years, requiring parents to lead by example, constantly enrich themselves, and grow up with their children. Many parents are unilaterally outputting their children when educating them, imposing views that they think are right and good to their children, without considering whether they are suitable or not, whether they need it or not, and eventually lead to a longer and farther distance from their children.
The author, Lu Bo, has no such trouble at all. As a "post-60s" mother, she and the "post-80s" children have no generation gap at all, and actively understand the ideas of young people. From childhood to adulthood, her son Peng Yingzhi is interested in what things, she is like a family treasure, and will follow along to understand and learn. In middle school, her son was very interested in debate, so she carefully read the Chinese and English debate drafts written by her son and proposed suggestions for improving the text. After college, my son read the History of Central Asian Civilizations, became interested in the Silk Roads, and traveled and researched in related countries. Not to be outdone, the mother asked her son to recommend a list of books to supplement historical knowledge. She proudly said in the book: "It is the interaction with my son that gives me the pressure to make progress, so that I dare not slacken off, and I can't rely on the old and sell the old." "After reading it, I couldn't help but be deeply moved by this family education model.
In the preparation of the manuscript, I also hope to highlight the characteristics of "two-way parenting", so in addition to the mother's own letters, the book also added a part of the son's reply, showing the child's attitude and response to the mother's education method. His son Peng Yingzhi would admit his mistakes when his mother criticized him and find ways to improve. At the same time, the son's debate draft, diary and other contents are also interspersed, showing the process of parent-child education in a more three-dimensional and vivid way. The son said: "They have provided the best example of parenthood. Hopefully, my wife and I and my future generation will pass on this relationship as well. "This is the greatest affirmation of the way mothers are educated."
Of course, family education is not a matter for the mother alone, and other members of the family have also contributed their own contributions to educating the children. Therefore, we asked the child's father, Professor Peng Xizhe of Fudan University, to write the preface, and included the words of the child's grandfather in the appendix, expressing our views on family education from another perspective, and finally formed the complete "Cross-Ocean Family Letter" that everyone sees now.
Dad said: "Our concept of education for our sons is different from the parenting concept that is currently dominant. We have always insisted that education is not only to enable children to enter first-class universities and get good-paying jobs, but also to invest in the survival and development of a lifetime. This corroborates with the mother's concept of education in the book, forming an interaction and exchange. The child's grandfather wrote: "Teaching by example is more important than words, and parents are the child's first teachers." Communication between mother and child is a thing of the past, but can serve as a case study for those who care about the education of adolescents. ”
This is the meaning of the publication of this book, in the words of the author, "If this book can provide some help for the growth of today's children, it is my happiest thing."
"The Book of The Family in The Ocean: A Sample of Family Education in the Era of Globalization", by Lu Bo and Peng Yingzhi, Xuelin Publishing House
Column Editor-in-Chief: Gu Xuewen Text Editor: Wang Yi
Source: Author: Shi Jiayan