As known, children in some Asian cities such as Hong Kong, Shanghai and Singapore are becoming increasingly stressed out and overworked. Some of them are unhappy and the number of children among mental health patients is increasing.
False Dichotomy – “play is play” and “learning is learning”
In today’s world, a number of Asian parents – and some schools – tend to undervalue the educational value of play. They strongly believe in one of the false dichotomies that “play is play” and “learning is learning”.
Our reporter Peter Brown spent a day shadowing one Hong Kong learning centre Erudite Education to learn fun and innovative methods of teaching in different subjects.
Children are always capable and competent learners
“Every topic can be taught by play-based learning approach. Even when we face some math competitions, we won’t carry out training programs solely based on questions training.” said Leo Sir, a tutor of Erudite Education. “Children are always capable and competent learners; full of curiosity about everything. When you can make every child involve in one activity, everything can be learnt well in games playing time.”
Leo Sir made use of the blocks to teach some three-dimensional concepts in his math workshop. Photo: Samson Tsang
The Math Sense Team, managed by Erudite Education, took the greatest number of students being invited to represent Hong Kong to attend the final round in both the 2019 World Mathematical Invitational and the 2019 US Math League among all those local education brands after the preliminary rounds of local competitions.
Math Sense tutors always train in the mode of team discussion rather than intensive practices. Photo: Mara Wong
“This recent result announcement had shown encouraging results in terms of play learning approach. Play learning elements can play an important role in a more balanced form of education for students. Students won’t feel so nervous and they can realize their potential even in the process of preparation for every competition,” said Leo Sir.
Inventing many play-based learning products gained market attention to “Edutainment”.
In 2018, Erudite Education created the new brand name “Erudite Club” and joined the ‘Boutir Challenge Program’ organized by Boutir, an eponymous app to let smartphone users establish online stores and came into contact with five other startups. Hanson Chan, marketing manager of Erudite Education, said they would like to make use of this public enterprise competition to give one message to every parent customer, “Play is crucial for children to learn”.
Children enjoyed playing in Erudite Club’s Boutir flower fair store. Photo: Crystal Wong
Their “play-based learning products” are setting fresh records, with both online and offline activities from this Boutir Challenge program being sold for more than HK$250,000 (US$32,000), despite Hong Kong parents are still not so “ready” to accept the mindset of “edutainment”.
“Such surprising results go to show that the Hong Kong parents start to look for the solutions to help children learn in some other ways,” Hanson Chan said.
It is strongly believed that Leo Sir and other team tutors would continue to invent more edutainment games or activities to build up a new thought in the public, the more children play, the more they can learn.
Media Contact
Company Name: Mbsc.sd
Contact Person: John
Email: Send Email
Country: United States
Website: https://www.yshanpay.com
