When he was teaching at Taft University, he wrote the book Home School. This book was written in 192 1, but now it has undoubtedly become a masterpiece in the history of education. After the publication of his book, Dr. Barr received hundreds of letters from readers, all of which asked Dr. Barr to continue his in-depth research in this field so that his educational thoughts could be popularized quickly. Such a strong response is very rare in the history of education, so we come to the conclusion that doctors have achieved great success in early education. However, this phenomenon also reflects how our society lacks correct early education knowledge. Now, the revised edition of Family Education has also been published at the request of readers. Dr. Barr's book Family Education is mainly about how to bring the best early education to our children. Dr. Barr believes that according to the research of biology, physiology and psychology, people are born with a special ability, but this ability is hidden in people's bodies and invisible on the surface. We call this kind of ability potential ability, which is what people often call talent. Therefore, talent is not what we usually think only a few people have, but the potential hidden in everyone. Dr. Barr's educational ideal is to give full play to children's potential ability. As long as we can give full play to this potential ability, people can become extraordinary people. Unfortunately, due to improper education, people's potential ability has not been fully exerted, which is also the reason why there are so few geniuses. How to create more geniuses? The most important thing is to explore early and provide opportunities for free development of this potential ability. Mode period determines a person's life. So, how can we develop children's potential abilities? Early education, of course. But when will this "as soon as possible" arrive early? Dr. Barr's experience is: "Education must start from the day of birth." Newborn babies have no discrimination. In three or four months, or five or six months, they can distinguish their mother's face from others' and know how to "recognize strangers". But he didn't remember it after analyzing the facial features, but after repeated observation, he completely printed his mother's whole face into his brain. This pattern recognition ability of babies is far beyond our imagination. Educating babies before the age of 3 is actually "model education". During this period, the baby will not be bored with things repeated many times in front of him, so it is also a period of "hard irrigation" before the age of 3. Babies rely on animal intuition and have the ability to instantly master the whole pattern recognition, which is far from being achieved by adults. Babies' brains are blank and can't analyze things like adults. So it can be said that he has a direct absorption ability that does not need to be understood or understood. If you don't input the patterns that you think are correct into children's brains, they may absorb a lot of bad things indiscriminately, which will affect their future growth, just like the old saying: "You can see what you look like as an adult from childhood." When a child reaches the age of 3, he already has some basic characteristics of an adult. If we carefully analyze many people, we can see from them the environment in which they grew up before the age of 3 and the influence of this environment on their character. Therefore, the mode period determines a person's life. What should model children "cram" before they are 3 years old? Generally speaking, there are two aspects: on the one hand, it is the so-called basic mode of brain activity that lays the intellectual foundation by repeatedly instilling language, music, words and graphics; On the other hand, it is to input the basic principles and attitudes of life. Generally speaking, giving birth to a healthy child is only the first step for parents. The road ahead is longer, things are more trivial and responsibilities are more important. Language training is the most effective way to develop the brain. Dr. Barr always believes that language education for young children is the first step in early education. Language is the most powerful weapon and tool for human beings. It is of great significance for any child to master this useful tool as soon as possible. Dr. Barr has repeatedly emphasized this point. He also stressed that when teaching children to speak, they must not be too casual, but should teach him the most standard pronunciation and the clearest meaning of words. Only in this way can it be the most effective, otherwise language education will not be implemented and become meaningless. Dr. Barr believes that it is necessary to teach children a standardized and complete language. In fact, as long as the method is correct, it is not difficult to do this. We see that many children are not standardized now, which is actually caused by parents not teaching them as soon as possible. The training of children's language ability should start from the children's listening training, from listening to parents' words to letting children listen to them repeatedly, and constantly train and correct them, so that it is very easy for children to learn standardized languages. When teaching children standard language, it is best to teach them written language to lay the foundation for their reading and thinking when they grow up. Dr. Barr believes that children with standardized language are also more rigorous in thinking. It is hard for us to believe that people who can't even organize their languages well can still live happily and work rigorously. So instead of making up some unreasonable stories for children, it is more beneficial to read them a good book seriously. Dr. Barr said that language training is the most effective way to develop children's brains. Therefore, it is necessary not only to carry out standardized mother tongue education for children as soon as possible, but also to teach children foreign languages as soon as possible. Dr. Barr taught children many languages as early as three years old, such as Greek and German. We should try our best to teach children knowledge. For example, when eating or relaxing, we should choose appropriate topics to arouse children's interest and encourage them to actively ask or answer questions. The topic should be very flexible and interesting. When eating, it may be related to food, and when drinking tea, it may be related to the legend of tea. This kind of education is very effective and can quickly arouse children's interest in knowledge. The root of all wisdom lies in memory. Dr. Barr believes that whether a child can succeed in the future has a lot to do with his memory, imagination and creativity. However, when cultivating these abilities, children should not be trained mechanically, but some flexible and interesting methods should be adopted. A scientist said: The root of all wisdom lies in memory. According to the principle of "use in and waste out", early education can greatly advance the time of memory development. Especially in infancy, repeating the same vocabulary every day and constantly stimulating the vocabulary in children's brains can promote the rapid development of children's memory. In order to make children remember the myths and stories in the Bible, Dr. Barr often writes relevant contents on cards, and then educates children by means of prize-winning games and quizzes. Later, he used the same method when teaching his son the history of various countries. When his child is over 1 year old, if he picks up a toy and starts to concentrate on it instead of throwing it away, Dr. Barr will praise him in time and enjoy playing with him. If a child comes up with some unexpected ways to play with toys, not only praise him, but also encourage him to come up with several more ways. Take his son Adolf for example. When he was 2 years old, his mother invented a set of methods to attract him to listen to stories. That is to say, only one paragraph at a time, after the child's appetite is lifted, the rest will not be said, so that the child can imagine and add it. The next day, before telling stories, mothers always let their children tell their own supplementary stories first. Therefore, children always try their best to guess the story. If the son guessed correctly, the mother clapped her hands happily. If the son didn't guess correctly, his mother praised him and said, "Oh, my son made it up better than the story itself!" " "Adolf's creativity and imagination are constantly cultivated in this training. Teach children how to spend money. Dr. Barr believes that strict education for children from an early age, including teaching him how to spend money, is directly related to his lifelong development and happiness. Dr. Barr calls this kind of education financial management education, which is an important part of family education and an important content of cultivating children's quality. He believes that financial management ability is one of the important abilities that children must have in their future life and career. The cultivation of this ability should start from childhood, and the earlier it is done, the better the effect. Some parents provide money to underage children for free, blindly and unconditionally meet their children's consumption requirements, and indulge their children's material desires, which can only encourage their children's bad habits. When they live on their limited income as adults, once they need to make important decisions that affect the economic situation, they will be at a loss, lacking both decision-making ability and psychological resilience. The reason why Dr. Barr gives money to children is mainly to let them learn to plan from an early age and let them know the internal relationship between labor and remuneration. He never gives money to his children without a plan, just after he has done something, as mentioned above. Dr. Barr found that children began to sprout independent self-awareness around the age of 3, and they had the desire to express themselves. I can do it, and I can do it. Therefore, Dr. Barr began to educate his son Adolf when he was 3 years old. This kind of education, like other education, should be natural and timely for children, and it can provide essential rich nutrition for children's growth. Therefore, it is wrong for many parents to think that children should not be exposed to money in childhood. Dr. Barr believes that the purpose of financial education for children is not only to make them learn to save money or facilitate their future business, but to make them become capable, sound and real people. At this time, the cultivation of basic quality is particularly important. First of all, children should be taught honesty. Because it is related to what attitude he will take to engage in those money-related activities and what attitude he will use to face the social and public judgments brought about by it. Record the details of children's growth. Dr. Barr believes that it is very important for educators to record the educational process. The content of the record can involve many aspects, including the progress and backwardness of the child, his various performances, joys and sorrows, and even the little gains and experiences of parents in the process of educating their children. Just like keeping a diary, stick to it every day. In this way, parents can clearly understand the real state of their children every day, and education will be more targeted, thus receiving good results. At the same time, educators can tailor a growth plan for their children according to these records, which is actually their own education plan. Set big goals first, then set small goals in big goals, and finally lock them one by one. All plans are useless if they are not implemented. Some parents will complain that it is too much trouble. In fact, watching children grow up will bring more happiness than the troubles brought by records. For example, do you like to observe the growth process of small animals or plants? I know many people have hobbies in this field. But it will be more interesting to observe the growth of children carefully. The feeling and growth of life mostly comes from the experience of these subtle and important things. Therefore, whoever wants to educate his children well must have enthusiasm, perseverance, perseverance and share joys and sorrows. Because society and law have no constraints on every parent's education mode, it brings absolute freedom to many parents, and absolute freedom often leads to lax responsibility and moral degradation. Therefore, careless parenting and meticulous education are two completely different concepts. In the absence of constraints, many parents let their educational behavior drift and seriously neglect their duties. Therefore, people who want to educate their children should first make themselves full of confidence, make unremitting records every day and implement them step by step according to detailed plans. (Excerpted from Early Education and Genius (Japan) by Kimura Jiuyi, translated by Tang Xin, China Literature and History Publishing House)