摘 要

随着社会飞速发展，青少年的教育问题成为了人们谈论的热门话题。由此，关于家庭教育的电影在近几年来层出不穷，其中《阿甘正传》和《士兵突击》广泛受到大家的喜爱。虽然阿甘智力没有达到正常水平，但是在他母亲的教育下，他永不放弃，走向了人生巅峰，过着比正常人更加成功的生活；许三多也是笨头笨脑，但在父亲的影响下，他努力追寻梦想，成功找到生活的价值，过着有意义的生活。从这两部电影来看，不同的家庭教育使他们获得了相同的成功。本文将大致分为四个部分：第一部分介绍中国和美国的家庭教育现状及其不同之处；第二部分从单亲家庭、健康成长、纯净内心三个方面着重介绍了阿甘与许三多的家庭教育的相似之处；第三部分从教育模式、交友原则、人生目标三个层次分析了阿甘与许三多的不同的家庭教育；最后一部分不仅陈述了阿甘与许三多在电影中的成功还展示了他们在现实生活中的成功。

关键词: 阿甘；许三多；中美家庭教育

Abstract

With the rapid development of society, the education of young people has become a hot topic. As a result, the films about family education have emerged in recent years, among which Forrest Gump and Soldier Sortie are widely popular with the people all over the world. Although Gump’s IQ doesn’t reach the normal level, he never gives up, achieves the hush time of his life and leads a more successful life than ordinary persons with the good family education from his mother; Xu Sanduo also looks stupid, however, under the influence of his father, he tries his best to pursue his dream, find the value of life and leads a meaningful life in the end. Seen from the two films, two totally different family educations result in the same success of them. This paper is divided into four parts: the first part introduces the current situation and the differences of Chinese and American family education. The second part focuses on the similarity of Gump’s and Xu Sanduo’s family education from the aspects of single parent, healthy growth and pure heart. The third part analyzes the teaching modes, principles of making friends and different targets of the differences of Gump’s and Xu Sanduo’s family education. The last part not only presents the success of Gump and Xu Sanduo in the movie but also demonstrates their achievement in the reality.

Keywords: Gump; Xu Sanduo; Chinese amp; American family education

Contents

1 Introduction 1

2 Differences of American amp; Chinese family educations 2

2.1 The Differences 2

2.1.1 The purposes of family education 2

2.1.2 The approaches of family education 3

2.1.3 The results of family education 4

2.2 The Primary Causes of the Differences 4

3 Similarity of Xu Sanduo’s and Gump’s family education 5

3.1 Single parent 5

3.2 Healthy growth 6

3.3 Pure Heart 6

4 Differences of Xu Sanduo’s and Gump’s family education 8

4.1 Teaching modes 8

4.1.1 Criticism 8

4.1.2 Praise 9

4.2 Principles of making friends 10

4.2.1 No bias 10

4.2.2 Good faith 11

4.3 Different targets 12

4.3.1 Try bravely 12

4.3.2 Pursue clingingly 12

5 The same success 14

6 Conclusions 16

References 17

Acknowledgments 18

Different Methods, Same Success

—— Forrest Gump and Xu Sanduo Family Education Comparison

1 Introduction

In all ages, no matter where you are from, no matter what you do, family education is always an eternal and the most important topic when it comes to someone’s education in his entire life which consists of family education, school education and society education. The family influence can’t be replaced by school or society. When you have not set foot on the real world, family education has begun, which benefits your future. For example, some appropriate music will stimulate the baby’s auditory sense, which benefits the baby’s language system to a large extent. After your birth, family set about playing a more significant role in the process of your growing up. The family member examples, the words around you, the behavior of family members and so on, all of these are the elements which will influence you in the whole life. The children who don’t have mature thoughts are easily affected by the human around them. At the moment, family education emerges its significance. The parents would try their best to normalize the kids’ behavior and their ideas in order to make sure they choose a right way to success. All above, the saying can be proved that family education is the basis of success. Recently, people always pay attention to family education and the country takes some measures as well, thus some film directors are advocated to direct some movies about education, result in a great number of movie whose topic is about family education, which guide parents how to teach their children. Such as the American film Forrest Gump, the Chinese TV shows Soldiers Sortie are popular with parents from all over the world. Both of them are about the education, although they use different methods, the major characters achieve their own hush time in their lives. The two shows reveal different topics in different ways, however, both of the good endings of the characters are attributed to the good family education. That’s why people like the two shows so much, which express a stream of positive ideas.

2 Differences of American amp; Chinese family educations

Regardless of where we are, what we do and when we are born, family education is always a hot topic. However, because of the regional divergences, the culture, the views of value and the thinking modes vary from country to country, resulting in the different purposes, methods and results of family education. The different educations breed the same successful famous people surprisingly. It is worthwhile for us to study it in depth, compare them in the essence and find the advantages and disadvantages in order to improve the quality of education.

2.1 The Differences

Due to geographical and cultural differences, it leads to a large difference of Chinese and American family education method, which is mainly embodied in the purposes, approaches and results of education. In contrast, family education between the two countries has their own respective characteristics. Thus, most American and Chinese people learn from each other. They succeed to educate their children with counterpart’s approaches.

2.1.1 The purposes of family education

Generally speaking, China is a miraculous country, which is the only country in the world which culture is passed down without interruption. That is to say, China is of a long history so that the culture has a profound foundation. Since the ancient time, the Chinese parents educate their children in a groovy mode. They place such great hopes on their children that they wish their kids are more excellent than others. They attach too much significance on the kids’ study to ignore their mental health. (Huang, 2009) They think after their kids, let them try their best to do well in the study, everything will become smooth. To create a better life for their children, they will be at any cost. Such as, in the Soldier Sortie, Xu Sanduo’s father forces him to study hard and join the army, only because he thinks it benefits Xu Sanduo’s future life. In conclusion, Chinese family education is a mode of cramming for a good life in the future. It focuses on the process.

The America is a young country who is just over 300 years history. The culture is quite different from Chinese culture. American is opener than Chinese so that the way of educating changes totally. They attach great importance to the cultivating of being independent and the capacity of will. They consider that the aim of education is not to prepare for earning a living but to be ready for surviving. (Wang, 2013) Because of these, the American parents train their children from the aspects of mental and physical. It results in that American kids can almost solve any problem like adults in their childhood. For instance, in the film Forrest Gump, although Gump has a low IQ, he knows how to survive in the war because of the education in his childhood. To conclude, American education is a mode of open type for cultivating the kids’ capacity. It focuses on the result.

2.1.2 The approaches of family education

Chinese people value the flesh and blood, parenthood, which cause that the parents intervene the kids’ private life too much. (Zhou, 2004) They think the kids are one part of themselves; they are bound to give their kids a better life. It is the idea that creates Chinese family education: they give too much love and protection so that the kids become coward and their operating capability is poor; everything should be decided by parents. (Wang, 2011) In the show Soldier Sortie, the most part of Xu Sanduo’s life is arranged by his father, from his schooling to enlisting, which makes him coward and poorer than other kids. (Gao, 2009) The parents are the leading actor in the family education.

On the contrary, American people attach great importance to the development of the children so that the parent seldom intervene the kids’ life. They teach their kids how to finish something rather than do it for them. When the kids come across some problems and ask the parents for help, the parents will encourage them, teach them how to solve the problems and ask them to try again. They respect the choices of the children, and the family is arranged in a mode of democracy. The awards and praises are much more than criticism. The parents evaluate his children at their own levels. In the film Forrest Gump, Gump’s mother is always encouraging Gump and teaches him how to overcome the difficulties. (Jules, 2009) The individual kids is the most dominant in the process.

2.1.3 The results of family education

Because of the educating mode of cramming, Chinese children are rare to solve problems alone. The Chinese parents always help them rather than teach them, which result in the kids’ being coward, poor at everything, asking for help rather than thinking over to overcome the difficulties when they come across the problem. (Li, 2009) These become the obstacles in the way to success. Such as in the show Soldier Sortie, Xu Sanduo is so timid and overcautious that he don’t dare to try. He should be more successful earlier. The primary cause is rooted from the education of his childhood that his father always looked down upon him. (Liu, 2008)

Differently, due to the mode of open type for cultivating the kids’ capacity, American kids dare to try anything, even the task is too difficult to finish alone by adults. The American parents encourage their children and teach them the right way, then let them try again. (Li, 2009) After they are 18 years old, they don’t rely on the family any more. The good habits make them so independent that whenever they run into some difficulties, they will think of a great number of measures to try again and again. In the film Forrest Gump, although Gump is stupider than others, he still succeeds to try his best to finish everything well. It is the encouragement of his mother that makes him confidant and creative. (Tang, 2007)

2.2 The Primary Causes of the Differences

Generally speaking, all of these differences above are caused by historical backgrounds, economic patterns: (Wang, 2011) the different cultures decide the different beliefs. China is the only country in the world which culture is passed down without interruption, however, there is an indisputable fact that China is conquered in a mode of feudalism until the People’s Republic of China is set up. The feudal ideas influence the Chinese people so much that people respect the kinship and have collective spirit. American is a country who is made from multiple nationalities so that it is very open. (Wang, 2011) At the two different social patterns, the way of thinking differs from each other, resulting in different outlooks on life values.(Jimenez, 2006 ) By the way, because of the economic patterns, Chinese has much more stress on the job choices and careers than American. Every parent wants their children have a brighter future so that Chinese parents are more serious with their kids. The approaches of educating differ certainly.

3 Similarity of Xu Sanduo’s and Gump’s family education

Seen from the Soldier Sortie and Forrest Gump, Gump and Xu Sanduo achieve their own dreams obviously: Gump is known by the people from all the world and attains his wishes that he wants to lead a happy life with Jenny, his beloved, although it is a short time. Xu Sanduo becomes an outstanding soldier who is respected by everyone. He succeeds to make his father proud. By rights, the different ways of family education should produce two totally different consequences, however, that is not what happened. Both of them are so successful to some degree. These are good examples for the parents to teach their children. From the process, we can see there are some similarities of Gump’s and Xu Sanduo’s family education.

3.1 Single parent

Gump was brought up by his mother alone. At the beginning of the film, Gump are seated at a bench recalling something about his past. When Gump’s president asks his mother where his father is. She answers that he is on vacation. When his mother read the Curious George to him, Gump becomes distracted and raises his head to ask that what the “on vacation” means and where his father goes. She thinks for a while and answers that vacation is to go somewhere and never return. Except this, there is nowhere to mention his father. He lives with his mother alone. That is to say, Gump’s mother is poised to step into dual role in his life. In daily life, she must take good care of Gump, cooking, washing and so on. She also should shoulder the responsibility of a father, teaching him some profound principles of life.

Xu Sanduo also grows up with one parent, his father. There is also a clue in the show. When his father asks his elder brother to join the army. All of them, three brothers, kneel before his mother’s portrait of the deceased in 1984. His mother died in this year and he is just three years old. That is to say, since then, he lives with his father alone. As a father, he also plays a role as a mother. His father not only teaches him to behave well but also takes good care of him as a mother.

Both of Xu Sanduo and Gump come from a family in which there is only one parent so that the single parent plays a significant role in their life. The similarity of their family education is the eternal love. They try their best to make their children more successful in an appropriate way.

3.2 Healthy growth

In the film of Forrest Gump, Gump’s mother attaches great importance to the mental health of Gump. She always says that life was like a box of chocolates, you never know what you are going to get. (Li, 2012) That means you never know what will happen next second, you should seize every chance to have a try. You can’t do something according to a plan, thus a plan may not be able to keep up with changes. Gump understands this sentence very well and tries his best to attempt everything. Everything happens to him seems occasional, for instance, the enrolling to the university, the enlisting, becoming a hero in a war and becoming a millionaire. Gump has no target in his life journey, however, he insists in keeping the promise and doing everything well.

In the show of Soldier Sortie, Xu Sanduo’s father also focuses on the mental health. When Xu Sanduo runs into troubles, his father tells that what weights the most is to lead a better life, and how to lead a better life is to do something meaningful.(Ning, 2008) This sentence looked so simple, but influence the whole life of Xu Sanduo. When he is distributed to a poor army, he never feels sad and tries his best to find something significant, repairing a road which is regarded as an impossible work. After he thinks it is worth doing, he overcomes all of the difficulties to finish the work alone. The spirit that is delivered by his father helps him very much.