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Gibson Katz

Two Chinese kindergarten students die after rival school poisons yogurt - 15 views

journalism China

started by Gibson Katz on 20 May 13
  • Gibson Katz
    #1 Gibson Katz on 20 May 13
  • Sonja Hutson
    #2 Sonja Hutson on 21 May 13
     
    This is truly shocking. It speaks to the competition that has been so engrained in some cultures (including America's- obviously not to this extent). Even still, I find it difficult to believe that this actually happened. It doesn't seem logical that someone thought killing two 5-year-olds would help their students to get ahead.
  • Morgana Sidhom
    #3 Morgana Sidhom on 27 May 13
     
    This shows the ramifications of over valuing competitive behavior in the education system. We hear instances of academic sabotage in places of higher-level learning and higher stakes situations, but I can't recall an instance in which this sort of unusual and extreme measures have been taken. It is a cautionary tale that warns of the detrimental effects of academic rivalry that could potentially rekindle the issue of the use of grades in schools.
  • Meg Weiss
    #4 Meg Weiss on 28 May 13
     
    This is horrifying. It seems crazy to me that school rivalries start in kindergarten, and that someone would be willing to murder two children in order to put their school on top. I think that we do see rivalry between schools in the USA, but I don't see a Tam kid planning the demise of someone from Redwood. Hopefully this is a one time incident.
  • Sarah Asch
    #5 Sarah Asch on 28 May 13
     
    This is a very disturbing example of school rivalries being taken too far. The article seems to be largely based on supposed sources that aren't identified which takes away from the legitimacy of the story. However, if it did in fact happen, it represents the competition that can clearly get out of control and cause serious damage. In movies like Daddy Daycare all the school rivalry is comical and mostly harmless. In real life, apparently things can get a lot more serious. I don't see how doing this helped the rival school. All it did was take away the children of two families.
  • Daniel Carroll
    #7 Daniel Carroll on 30 May 13
     
    Question: why would the grandmother of these kids pick up some random yogurt/notebooks she found on the street. Doesn't seem like such a great idea. However on a serious note, this is quite alarming. It really gets me wondering about the type of environment they have there in China. I guess this competitive spirit is what makes China so damn powerful, but this makes me think that this spirit has been taken too far.
  • Devon Stoeber
    #8 Devon Stoeber on 30 May 13
     
    This is extremely horrifying to me. I don't understand how a competition between two schools could get to the point of actually hurting the students of that school. When I think of rivalry between for example us and Redwood I think of people booing and saying Redwood sucks, I couldn't actually see someone intending to severely injure or even kill the students there with intentions of doing so. What makes it even more horrifying is that these were two kindergarteners, and the poison was injected into the yogurt by an adult. However I do agree with Daniel that even kindergarteners should know better than to eat yogurt they happen to find in the street.
  • Sam Allen
    #9 Sam Allen on 30 May 13
     
    Daniel: Maybe she thought the notebooks belonged to her children or their friends. As for the yogurt, I can't see any reason why any good parent would bring random food from the street into their home. Not the best example of parenting I've ever heard of. However, this article says something about violence in the world. Kids are exposed to violence at such a young age, that these rivalries form and can grow so much that lives are lost. This could potentially happen not just in the United States, but really anywhere. In order to solve this potential problem, exposing children to less violence would definitely be a solution.

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