Anti-Myopia Devices For Short-Sighted Chinese Children
Whoever would have thought that too much reading combined with anything could ever be a bad thing? And yet, when combined with poor posture, these two elements in Chinese schools are producing a generation of short-sighted kids.
China has more school children wearing eye-glasses than any other nation in the world. The national educational emphasis on rote learning enforces a strict regimen where pupils spend at least eight hours every week day sitting in class, reading and writing. In some boarding schools, the children start school at 7am and finish at 9pm, five days out of every week.
It shouldn’t be and yet it has been a surprise to educators that this kind of schooling has taken its toll on young bodies. The tired children naturally seek some respite by laying their heads on their desks and viewing the reading material from a distance.
This is the source of the problem and the government in Qingdao has finally addressed it, albeit not the teaching methods. The local education bureau has distributed, free of charge, 10,000 anti-myopia devices. The device is a fixed vertical bar that prevents the children from stooping forward.
It is surprising that China has not advanced in its educational techniques considering how progessive the culture is in so many other ways.
Such an anti-myopic device is no more than a band-aid on a system that is failing its children, if not in the essentials of reading mastery then in their general health and vision as adults.
China, wake up!
Your future is at stake.
(Link)
By MDeeDubroff on 09-01-2011
