Shadow Education During the Outbreak

Dr. Zhang Wei

ICI, ECNU

01

Globally, the development history of shadow education is the history of family education and school education being increasingly externalized and commercialized with the expansion of the education market, and it is also the history of shadow education developed from sporadic individual behavior to institutionalization and popularization. In this process, the boundaries between the three learning spaces of school, family and shadow education are constantly blurred, and even dispelled.

We had observed the above trend in China before the outbreak, the outbreak has accelerated the integration of three learning spaces, and the boundaries between school, shadow and family education have been broken and dispelled. The three learning spaces coincide in the families where the students are located. The education children receive at this stage largely depends on the judgment and choice of the family, which is influenced not only by family culture, economy and social capital, but also by the education market.

We are going through a special period, the outbreak gives us an opportunity to face squarely the function of shadow education, to analyze the current problems of shadow education, and to think about the future development of education.

02

During the outbreak, I saw some educational institutions focus on the quality of curriculum and services carefully and patiently; at the other end, however, some online training institutions also caused controversies.

The value orientation of the mainstream media is also worrying. The search software has been used by many students as a sharp tool for copying homework and cheating since its advent, but the relevant advertisements have been repeatedly broadcast by the mainstream media. One-stop service seems quite considerate at first glance, students do exercises after class, and search on the software if you can't solve it. However, is that the right way to cultivate the ability of independent thinking and critical thinking that we urgently need in the “post-truth era”?

With the development of shadow education in China, there is a tendency to replace educational rationality with economic rationality on both the supply side and the demand side. Economic rationality is important, but if the rationalization of economic logic violates the educational logic and educational law, it will “Put the cart before the horse”.

To strengthen the “immune system” and moral boundaries of the shadow education market, we may start by returning to the professionalism and basic values of education.

03

Let’s talk about “innovation”. During the process of the development of shadow education, its flexibility, diversity, resources and data advantages provides a natural soil for educational innovation. If we make full use of it scientifically, it would be the “experimental field” of our future education, and become the driving force to promote the reform of school education. Even if the current online training has made many useful attempts and innovations on tools and models, it aims to copy offline scenes through technical means, the purpose is to promote large-scale mass production, and the content is highly homogenized.

Educational technology has become popular in recent years. If institutions intend to use develop technology by education, they should get rid of their dependence on overseas capital and technology, and make use of our educational advantages to make technological innovation of Chinese characteristics.

If the institutions intend to develop education by technology, we should avoid using technology for the sake of technology. We cannot achieve the goal of educating people that schools and offline education can’t achieved by using technology. We are supposed to release children’s innate imagination, and liberate education from the mode of large-scale industrial production.

04

Finally, I would like to return to the topic of “responsibility”. At this critical moment, we all deeply feel the importance of “responsibility”. In order to improve the level of governance, every country is improving its own accountability mechanism. In fact, “accountability” is a mechanism that has to be established in a society where there is a lack of trust and individual responsibility.

The UNESCO once made such a cartoon for a monitoring report with the theme of “accountability”. It warned us not to mistake “blame” for “accountability”. When we point at others, three fingers point to ourselves, education is the responsibility of each and every one of us.