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before i came to switzerland, a friend sent me an article saying that switzerland is the most anti-involutionary country in the world.

there is a saying that says,getting the chinese to lie down is as difficult as getting the swiss to roll inward.。

at that time, i was very curious, why couldn’t they curl up?

i came to switzerland to work and planned to bring my child with me, so soon after i arrived, i started planning for school.

i asked my local colleagues, which area is better for going to school? is there a so-called school district house?

the answer i got was basically that it doesn't matter where you go to school.

i was skeptical about my colleague’s answer and started researching the education situation in switzerland on my own.

in terms of the school system, switzerland is the same as china, with 6 years of primary school and 3 years of junior high school.

butafter graduating from primary school, students will be divided into。

about 25% attend liberal arts and science long-term high schools, also known as "long high schools", with a six-year program, and after graduation they can go to comprehensive universities.

the remaining 75% of students attend three-year regular junior high schools and enterapprenticeship。

when i first heard about the apprenticeship system, i instinctively associated it with vocational high schools. i thought that once a child entered the apprenticeship system, wouldn’t that mean they were being optimized? what future could they have?

however, my colleague's sister told me that even if only 25% of children can enter comprehensive universities, it does not mean that the apprenticeship system is bad.

on the one hand,apprenticeships are not a death sentence for studiesif a child is slow to learn and changes his or her goals and ideas, he or she will have the opportunity to choose to study in a comprehensive university again;

on the other hand,even if you are just an apprentice in the end, you will have equal opportunities for promotion in the workplace.the ceo of ubs and two federal ministers were apprentices and have also achieved top positions in their careers.

in addition, the apprenticeship system is different from domestic vocational high schools.a dual-track education system combining education and training。

even if the child chooses an apprenticeship, he or she still needs to complete 2 days of school study per week, which also lays the foundation for choosing a comprehensive university in the future.

as parents, the reason why we try so hard to make our children study hard is simply because we hope that they can have a good job and don’t have to live a hard life.

when i see apprenticeships, i also wonder, is it difficult to make a decent living as an apprentice?

later i found out that this idea was completely unnecessary.

from my personal experience, labor costs in switzerland are very high.

whether it was buying furniture for delivery, buying curtains for cutting, or seeing the dentist, the labor costs always surprised me.

for example, i bought a pair of curtains at ikea for 29.9 swiss francs, and asked them to cut them shorter, and the labor fee was also 29.9 swiss francs.

judging from the apprenticeship arrangement, what they learn is not what we imagine technical school content to be.

i checked the local career advice website in switzerland and foundapprenticeships are available in many trades and occupations。

these include advertising designers, orthopedic surgeons, theater painters, etc. these jobs seem to have very high professional requirements, and even graduates from domestic universities may not be able to do them.

this means that moving towards an apprenticeship system does not mean giving up further education and in-depth learning.i locked in my career direction earlier and focused on doing one thing well.。

this also determines that children who graduate from apprenticeship system are no worse than those from comprehensive universities. there are no industry barriers between them and they have the same opportunities to obtain high-paying jobs.

so, overall, switzerland is really a country where you don’t need a coupon.

whether or not you enter a long-term high school, you will have the opportunity to go to university in the future. even if you cannot enter a comprehensive university, you will still have the same promotion opportunities by taking the apprenticeship route.

even if we take a step back, even if you only do technical work, you will have the ability to support yourself.

it can be said that here,everyone has the opportunity to learn throughout their lives and the possibility to start over at any time, which creates great tension in life.。

if, as everyone says, we are forced to stand up due to the circumstances, then we should be able to sit down in this place, right?

when i first came to switzerland, i wanted to collect some information about education and schools here on the internet.

since switzerland is not an immigration country, there are not many chinese people here and the information that can be searched is limited.

but among the limited content, what i saw the most was about how children go to high school.

there are successful people who share their experiences, and there are also parents whose children are still young but have already started to feel anxious.

under one of the posts, there was a comment saying:

the parents all graduated from reputable universities, so their children must go to high school at least.

i think this sentence should represent the voice of many people.

if you ask me why i have to go to high school, i may not be able to explain it clearly, but no matter what, it always feels wrong not to go to high school.

so you see, even in a place like switzerland, which provides lifelong learning for everyone and offers the opportunity to go to university even if you choose an apprenticeship, people still can't relax and are still obsessed with a fixed path.

what is the reason?

just like what that message said, if both parents went to a serious university, their children should at least go to high school.

many times, our choices are not the result of rational thinking, but the product of repeated past actions and experiences.

because i grew up following the path of elementary school, junior high school, high school, and college, i think my children should do the same.

but does this logic make sense?

first of all, our university education is not that impressive.

the enrollment expansion began in 1999, and by 2009, in just ten years, the number of college entrance examination admissions increased from 1.09 million in 1998 to 6.29 million in 2009; the admission rate also increased from 34% to 62%.

in other words, the reason why the post-80s generation was able to go to college smoothly is partly because the country lowered the entry threshold to higher education and gave more people opportunities.

to some extent, we just followed the pace of the times and caught a ride.

the country has also been vigorously developing vocational education recently. not surprisingly, most parents are reluctant to let their children attend vocational high schools.

going to high school and taking the college entrance examination are still the obsessions of many parents.

if the child has the ability and willingness, this path is naturally a good choice.

but there is really no need to think it is shameful for your children to go to vocational high school just because you have a university degree.

we are all just experiencers of different times, there is no question of who is more advanced than who.

secondly, the model of going to a good university and finding a stable job no longer exists.

the post-80s generation caught up with the expansion of university enrollment and was successfully admitted to university. they also caught up with the peak of economic development and found stable jobs.

even when we trace back to our previous generation, we can still see the shadows of going to school well, finding a job, and living a stable life.

but now, this model no longer exists.

not to mention, it is not certain whether the so-called iron rice bowl can satisfy everyone's basic needs for food and clothing.

even if we take a step back, it is not certain whether the iron rice bowl is really an iron rice bowl.

a few days ago, there was a news report saying that shandong province had launched a comprehensive reform to transform provincial public institutions into enterprises, involving about 100,000 public servants.

for a long time, taking the civil service exam and entering the system have been jokingly called "the end of the universe."

everyone feels that within the system, one can have a stable income regardless of drought or flood. although one cannot become extremely rich, at least one is better off than the rest.

but reality tells us that in the current era, there is no such thing as a guaranteed income regardless of drought or flood, what we have are more changes.

i was chatting with a friend some time ago, and she said that when she saw me updating articles on time, she felt that she was very ordinary and that she was just getting by, although her family was still warm.

i would say that having a warm family is great, and it shows that mental health is powerful.

she said,you always have to find the differences between you and others to prove that you are happy.

this sentence should have touched the hearts of many people.

in fact, our education has always been shaping the same type of people. when we are young, there are standards for behavior, actions must be consistent, and there are also standards for growth paths. if you are different from others, you are a loser.

on this basis, our happiness is obtained through comparison.

hence, there is the saying “not as good as the best, but better than the worst”.

but in reality,the perception and experience of life should not come from how others do, but from your own perception.

if our happiness depends on comparing ourselves with others, it means that we have handed over the right to our own happiness to others.

but what can truly make people feel happy and be willing to work hard for happiness is not how others act, but their own true inner experience and firm belief in their own actions.

when we mention "roll", we think of another word "lie".

it seems that as long as we refuse to "roll", it means giving up completely and lying down.

in fact, this is not the case.

rejecting involution does not mean that we want to give up on our children’s lives, but that we want them to see the bigger world and not be constrained by the limited environment.

to help children fight against internal competition, the most important thing is not what the children do, but for parents to broaden their horizons and relieve their own anxiety.

if you want to break the internal circulation, you need to first understand what "involution" means.

the term "involution" was first proposed by anthropologist geertz in 1963 when explaining the changes in indonesia's agricultural structure. it describes that in order to cope with population growth, the residents of java island in indonesia continuously increased their input of refined labor, but could only increase land production efficiency to a limited extent, resulting in industrial development being stuck in a state of repetition for a long time.

involution actually refers more to a social state, that is,how to deal with the limited resource endowment.

more than half a century ago, the residents of java island were faced with limited land on the island. without capital injection, they could not seek change. they could only invest a large amount of productivity into the limited land, which eventually led to the extreme refinement of rice cultivation, but did not bring corresponding output.

the same is true for educational involution.

whenever the topic of whether to take the exam or not is brought up, some parents will ask, if not, what if their children can’t even find a job in the future?

after all, the purpose of parents letting their children study hard is not that complicated, it is to enable their children to find a good job and live a good life in the future.

but the key point is,how to define a good job and a good life.

in the eyes of most people, a good job is stable, decent and high-paying. just like in some areas, being within the system is the end of the universe and no job is as good as a regular job.

if the jobs we see are just what we can say, such as doctor, teacher, electricity, and finance, then job opportunities are indeed limited.

but in fact, this society is no longer the same as it used to be.

a few days ago, i saw a video of a girl who had to do several jobs every day. except for that of a coffee shop clerk, the other jobs were eye-opening to me.

one is to do makeup for others, but her makeup is not done in the usual studio. instead, she provides services for young ladies who want to take a delicate afternoon tea photo.

her work location is very flexible. she will go wherever the customer wants to go. if the customer is alone, she can also provide photography services so that the young lady can have a beautiful afternoon tea.

another job is to walk the dogs at home and prepare nutritious meals for them.

when it comes to income, the girl said that she earns more than 5,000 yuan a month by doing dog walking at people's homes, and more than 100 yuan per makeup order. on weekdays, she can have two or three orders, and on holidays, she can have seven or eight orders a day, and she can't handle them all.

i roughly calculated in my mind, and adding her daily income from the coffee shop, she would be earning several hundred dollars a day, which is not much worse than many stable white-collar workers.

when asked if she wanted to find a stable job, the girl said,she does what she likes, which is the job she wants.。

after watching the video, i searched online for some new occupations and found many interesting new jobs.

for example, script-killing writers, parent-child activity planners, home chefs, etc.

the most effective way to fight against internal circulation is not to be forced into it, but to find another way and use innovation to break the repetitive internal cycle.

as parents, we don’t need to create new jobs for our children. we just need to open our horizons and see that there are many ways to gain a foothold in society, not just the professions we know.

in this way, there will be more relaxation in the education of children and less helplessness of being forced.

in march this year, i went to switzerland to work and planned to bring my 8-year-old child with me.

many people asked me what my future plans were. would my children continue to study abroad? what if they returned to china to study?

for me, these are indeed problems that i will face in the future, but i have never worried about them.

i always feel thatcompared with current academic performance, children’s underlying abilities are more worthy of attention and effort.

but what are the underlying core capabilities?

let's take a look first.where do my worries about my children's future come from?。

news reports say that the employment situation for college students is very grim; the children of friends around me have difficulty finding ideal jobs, and after changing jobs many times, they still can't find a suitable one, and in the end they can only rely on their parents at home.

all of this makes us worry that our children will make the same mistakes in the future.

it’s normal to worry, but the key question is, what should we worry about?

many people think that young people become unemployed after graduation and cannot find jobs because they did not study well enough or graduated from good schools, so they push their children hard, hoping that they can go to good schools and find good jobs.

but in fact, young people are unable to find suitable jobs in the workplace, or cannot face life problems and choose to be depressed. fundamentally speaking, this has nothing to do with academic qualifications and learning.

morebecause they cannot face results that are not what they expected, cannot accept a life full of changes, and are unwilling to continue to suffer after several years of pain and suffering.

the world of the future will be different from what we have experienced in the past few decades. change, uncertainty and instability are problems that we and our children will inevitably face in the future.

in this environment,there is no permanent solution that can guarantee us a worry-free life. the only thing that can help us get through this period is the courage to face change, the determination to face problems, and the strength to be ready to start over again at any time.

these can not only help us get through an uncertain life, but also help children overcome many obstacles and difficulties in learning, and invisibly achieve higher learning abilities and better grades.

when i think about my choices, i find thatbringing a child into a completely new environment, accompanying her to integrate and grow, and helping her to solve problems encountered during the process, aren’t all these things that bring children the most important abilities to face a changing future?

of course, these abilities do not necessarily require children to be brought into a completely new environment to be developed.

in our daily lives, we always encounter many unexpected events, such as travel rhythms disrupted by weather, unsatisfactory results and achievements, and unsatisfactory job changes.

in such experiences, how we think and respond, and the mentality with which we solve problems, will have a subtle influence on children and will also be a process of learning and growth.

when i was chatting with my friends before, i was asked this question:

what do your children learn? i see someone is practicing calligraphy, should we practice it too?

many parents seem to have made a lot of arrangements for their children's studies, but in fact most of them are just following the crowd, doing what others do, or what the school asks them to do.

however, many people are not clear about why they should do these things and what their goals are.

when your sense of purpose is unclear, it is easy to be led by the crowd. when others stand up, you will follow suit.

regarding children's learning, i have always insisted on cultivating children's independent learning ability, letting them understand the learning process and the experience of going from not knowing to knowing, which is more important than how much the children know now.

during the transition period from kindergarten to primary school, the teacher will teach some pinyin or mathematics every day and assign some homework.

although i knew i had homework, i was just reminded briefly every day and never forced to do it.

this is becauseat that time, i made it clear to myself that the most important goal of the transition period from kindergarten to primary school was to let children know that learning is their own business, not their parents’.。

at the beginning, the child did not do much homework, but maybe because she was told by the teacher that she did not complete her homework, or maybe because everyone else was doing it, she felt that she should keep up. from one day on, she took out her homework book on her own initiative and started asking to do her homework.

after entering primary school, i also started to help my child with homework. every day when my child was doing homework, i would sit beside him and read a book or do my own things.

my task is not to watch her write every word correctly or get every question right, but to accompany her when she feels like not wanting to write or when she has difficulty writing, to help her resolve her emotions, review the problem and find a solution.

because i always know what my goals are, i feel less anxious and can see more of the problems my child faces and help her solve them better.

therefore, even though we are in a public school system, we still maintain our own pace and give our children room to grow.

involution is a social problem in a broad sense, but from the perspective of each individual, if you don’t know what you want or where you want to go, all you can do is to be like others and use that to gain a sense of security.

only when we know our goals can we find the corresponding route, strengthen our own ideas, and not be swayed by others.

not rolling does not mean giving up, giving up or lying down.

rather, it means that we are willing to face problems with a clear mind, look for solutions more actively, and adapt to reality and the future more bravely.

in any era, there are ways to live a better life.

but this method should not be sought outside, but should be looked inward.only those who know what they want and what they want to do can persist better in the changes and uncertainties and finally wait for the flower to bloom.。

the underlying capability is the key, the times are changing. if you only rely on reading books and doing exercises, you can only chase after the policies;

self-goals should be clear, what do i really want? what is the best path for me? you must have a clear self-awareness. following the crowd will only make you be swept away by the chaotic external voices.