I wrote this for a Beijing newspaper back in December, thought I would share it with you now and hope you have questions and opnions.

Kids need to know how to lead, not just follow

A formidable 15-foot high wall towered over the group of junior high school boys. For us, between 10 and 12 years old, this obstacle posed an impossible challenge: to pass the entire group over the barrier with nothing more than teamwork.

Such challenges were a typical part of my childhood. Growing up in the US in the 1980s, I was an oddity, an only child to a single mother and an only grandchild to her parents. I was the only one of my kind.

Every single one of my friends had brothers and sisters. My mother ushered me into boy scouts, basketball, baseball, American football, soccer, leadership camps, volunteer groups, and a church group.

My first job was working on a crew of lifeguards at a beach. These various group activities were a way for me to have surrogate brothers and sisters.

I moved to China more than a year ago, and the land of the only child opened my eyes to the importance of teamwork.

Looking back, these groups offered more than fake siblings, they offered an education in social interaction; being a teammate, being a follower, being a leader, being a problem solver, taking responsibility, effective communication, future planning, and being prepared.

Being an only child is not an oddity in China, far from it. China's "One-child Policy" was enacted in the late 1970s to curb a population explosion.

The policy worked and we are left with a generation of only children, whom some argue are a generation of "little prince and princesses."

I would say they are a generation not of spoiled offspring, but of followers, not leaders, with little to no motivation to work as a team and accomplish goals in the most effective and timely manner.

Having worked as a teacher for the past year at two different Chinese-run schools, I worry that leadership training appears to be missing from Chinese children's experience.

Although the equivalent of organizations such as the Boy Scouts do exist, few children join them, and they are not taken very seriously by the participants.

Groups such as the "the Young Pioneer of China" seem to exist mostly to drag kids to political events. Unlike their Western counterpart, "young pioneers" rarely have team-building activities

Even the compulsory military training at the beginning of university is entirely orientated toward teaching the students to follow orders, not to give them. Its (optional) US equivalent, ROTC or Reserve Officers' Training Corps, in contrast focuses on identifying and training potential officers.

Paradoxically for a communitarian country, sport training here also tends to emphasize individual development, rather than working together as a team. This is visible in China's team sports perfor-mance in soccer and similar activities, which is far below its size and sporting capabilities elsewhere.

The examples set by superiors are also depressing. From my limited experience, it seems that long-term planning, goal-setting, and cooperation are rarely found inside Chinese businesses.

Instead, everything appears to operate at the individual level. Conferences are chaotic, unscheduled events, people only know they're going to meetings at the last moment, and grand schemes are embarked upon without having been thought through.

More optimistically, however, there appears to be a current shift toward more teamwork building activities and curriculum.

Chinese high school students are now able to take classes based around teamwork.

Television production is one such class. In this class students are challenged to create and build an original television program as a team.

Everyone is assigned a role. They lead, follow, and work as a team from the beginning to the final product.

Even if the students have no future in TV, they have successfully worked as a team. This ability can be applied to almost every field of employment.

Be it a wooden wall, a part-time job, or a sports team, American children are inundated with team building activities throughout their adolescent life.

These activities are only a supplement to an institutionalized emphasis on problem solving at both the individual and the group level.

There is a time to listen, a time to follow, and a time to lead. Now is China's time to lead.