Job Discussion Forums

[wonderingjoesmith]

Visually impaired young people seem to be quite common on mainland China. There are scores of teens in classrooms that aren’t able to see the blackboard and that read or write with their noses touching the paper. Some have their vision reduced so severely as to handicapped young people.

Questions how those peoples eyes get so affected as to such reduced vision and whether the education system has anything to do with it beg to be asked.

[NoBillyNO]

Many parents still refuse to allow their offspring's to wear glasses.

[mambawamba]

The irony is it's cool to wear glasses with no glass in the frames but it's not cool to wear glasses so you can actually see.

[NoBillyNO]

glasses are Not Cool to the parents of those who are not allow to correct their vision....don't confuse fashion for parental disregard of the notion that if your child wears glasses it somehow denotes a family flaw.

[JoeKing]

Interesting. I've only been in China a few months and work at a rich kid's high school and did not know this was a problem.

In fact, I was asking some of my students who wear glasses where I could buy some plain, non-prescription reading glasses. You know, the kind you just pick off the turning display back in the states, trying on a few pairs until you find the strength you need? My current pair is about to fall apart.

Anyway, just today one of the students surprised me by bringing in two different strength pairs for me to try on - turns out his mother is an eye-doctor. He would not accept any money either, and he's already the smartest kid in class so I don't think he was sucking up or anything. Just a good kid.

[MisterButtkins]

I've had a couple of girls over the years who clearly needed glasses and did not wear them. Not a widespread thing tho

[Bud Powell]

A lot of it has to do with socioeconomics. In the universities where I have taught, it seems that 80% of the female students wear glasses. Some of them wear designer glasses.

In the lower-end vo-tech two-year colleges, only the kids from more-affluent families wear glasses. I can only guess at the students' socioeconomic strata. Their clothing is usually a good indicator, I think.

There was one student at one very good university who refused to wear her glasses, even when she crossed the VERY busy street in front of the university main gate. One day as I crossed the road, I saw her negotiating the traffic that whizzed by. It was scary. I caught up with her and, not thinking, I took her by the hand as we crossed the street. When we got to the other side, I asked her if she could even see the traffic.

She admitted that she had difficult with the smaller passenger cars and could only barely see them coming. Large trucks, she said, were no problem. She said she could see them if they were large enough!

I heard nothing about my rash act of taking the girl by the hand, by the way. I think that everyone who was crossing the street with us knew what was going on.

[toteach]

I've had a number of female students who would keep their glasses on their lap and hold them up quickly to see the board before tucking them back under the desk, hoping no one would see. Each explained vanity when I questioned it after class...

[Toast]

[NoBillyNO]

yars ago when I was in the 2nd grade, my teacher told my mother that I needed glasses but my eyes may become stronger without them.

[fat_chris]

[NoBillyNO]

[chinatimes]

I just wear contacts, I don't see what the big deal is. I can see and look cool.

[wonderingjoesmith]

You all are right with the COOL or NOT COOL thing. When a 17 year old is at 500 and about to enter higher education abroad where another language is used, the thing ought to be much more worrying than just that cool or not though. My few visits to local public schools and looks into their educational concepts give me the idea that they exercise their eyes in the mornings all right but they go OT on them with all the crappy tests memorization techniques and loads of daily meaningless homework assignments from early childhood.

[NoBillyNO]

many students do wear contacts to avoid parental knowledge of their poor eyesight which would be evident if they wore spectacles around the ole homestead.