Tuesday 30 October 2007

on children's books

One of the peculiarities of teaching both the little emperors and poorer than poorers of Beijing is acknowledgement of the possibility of cross fertilisation of ideas for lesson plans. A particularly poignant point of divergence comes with story telling. The likelihood that "My Dad's New Car", "the rooms in my house" or "Henry's New Book" will generate considerable empathy in minds of most migrants is somewhat hard to believe. 

Teachers in all but the private schools of the world would want to be wary of the new car phenomenon generating friction between the have nots and the have yachts. One supposes most kids in the rest associate homes with rooms, and most would have a new book, at least once or twice a year.

There therefore exists a gap in the market for relevant reading materials for the great unwashed. Margins may be low, but with four million migrants in BJ there is a market there.

So an an initial speculative venture into the rapidly growing education market, I propose to start off a set of books, beginning with;
My dad got a second hand Flying Pigeon, followed by
My bedroom is my kitchen

Other ideas are highly welcome and interested illustrators may wish to submit work pieces.

PS: The inspiration for this piece came from a somehwat shocking moment when a mother came into the school office to pay fees and was kindly if a little loudly informed that "Xiao haize pigu you shi"

which roughly translates as

"Pardon me madam, but there does appear to be fecal matter attached to your child's bottom"

what a wonderful world

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