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Let the kids sleep!
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EVERY Chinese kid must be familiar with the line from the famous Tang-dynasty poem that reads “This spring morning I woke up late and heard birds singing everywhere around.” But unfortunately they seldom get the chance to experience this themselves, since as a rule they must wake up extremely early for school.
I'll never forget all the painful mornings I went through from the first day of primary school and all the way through high school when I forced myself away from bed each morning. Then, after a hurried breakfast, I ran directly to school, terrified about getting in trouble for being late.
“Why not get up earlier so you can go through a leisurely breakfast and walk to school at a more pleasant pace?” my mother often tried to persuade me. But she never succeeded, for I really wanted the sleep in those days and hated the feel of interrupting a sweet dream for school. Getting up at 6.30am was
already a cruelty that I had to put up with, especially in the cold winters of my hometown.
By the time I reached Senior Three, everybody was frantically preparing for the National College Entrance Exams, and teachers required us to start learning as early as 6.45am. That whole year I got up at 6am, spending 10 minutes dressing and cleaning up, 10 minutes eating breakfast, five minutes preparing the schoolbag and another 20 running to school. The first thing I did after the exams were completed was, at long last, to take a long undisturbed sleep.
In university, as in most universities in China, the first class often starts from 8am, which allows for a leisurely breakfast, morning reading or exercise if you like. But the students still suffer. That's too bad, since at their age they need ample time to sleep.
I hear that the SZ Municipal Education Bureau is collecting advice on adjusting the class starting time in primary and middle schools, and sincerely hope that a new policy will give the kids more time to sleep in the morning.
Truman Lan
Guangdong Foreign Languages and Foreign Trade University
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