Learn to think, and you can really learn to grow. That's right. But I don't want to say this to the children in the undergraduate class, but to my daughter who just went to grade one and children of the same age.

It is absurd, if not cruel, to talk about life with first-grade pupils. Can a group of kids who are still watching octopus all day and turning over their meals really think? Or fundamentally, is thinking really useful and meaningful to them? Indeed, this question is exactly what I want to talk to you here. As a philosophy teacher, so many years of teaching experience have made me understand that even young people with mature minds often think as a luxury rather than a necessity. So, what benefits can thinking really bring to those young minds? Everyone knows that it is not advisable to pull out the seedlings to encourage them. At an age that seems unsuitable for thinking, forcing children to "mature" is only parents' wishful thinking and even psychological anxiety. When we were young, our parents often said in a disciplined tone, grow up quickly and don't always act like children. But now, I would rather tell my children to enjoy their childhood. After all, maturity always means that innocence is gone forever.

However, this is of course not absolute. First of all, we must understand what "thinking" means. What kind of activity is thinking? Most people will find thinking difficult and rare. On the one hand, thinking seems to be a relatively advanced mental activity of human beings, which requires quite abstract concepts and complex reasoning, so it is bound to take a long time to study and train. Perhaps everyone will agree that in daily life, there are few opportunities and occasions that really need you to use your brain to "think". Even if there is, it is also a very important opportunity and key link. This shows at least one thing. "Thinking" and "intelligence" are two different things. Everyone has the ability to think. Arrange the order, group, select and identify the authenticity. These are all manifestations of thinking activities. We can always do it, which may be complicated, but it is often a common thing. But thinking is different. It involves grasping the "whole", it often asks "fundamental" questions, and it always uses those extremely abstract "big words". In this way, thinking is not just a simple daily thing, it has almost become the most important and critical activity in life. Without thinking, you can't have a comprehensive and thorough understanding of life, and without such understanding, your life is dark and even chaotic. Thinking gives you a clear direction and a meaning worth pursuing. In a word, thinking is to make you live clearly.

In this respect, thinking is very important for everyone, and it is a kind of ability that should be cultivated and developed throughout the whole life. Reading is useless and often true. Because blind reading will not only take up a lot of precious time in your short life, but also stuff all kinds of information and knowledge into your mind in disorder, which often leads to confusion and even confusion. In contrast, thinking is not only a useful and useless thing, but also a must. You can't do it if you don't do it. Whether studying, working or surfing the Internet, we should cultivate our own way of thinking. How can such an important thing not start with dolls?

Understand the importance of thinking, then we should further clarify two issues: what to think and how to think.

First, think about something. Just distinguish thinking from thinking, that is to say, thinking is the biggest whole and the most common problem. In the final analysis, there are only two such questions: "What is the world?" "Who am I?" In other words, the ultimate object of thinking is the largest external space-time range, that is, the world; The other is the deepest source in the heart, and that is the self. The real thinking is to return to self from the world, and then understand the position and significance of self in this world.

In daily life, we first immerse ourselves in the "world". We are busy all day, learning all kinds of information about the world, dealing with all kinds of things and dealing with all kinds of people. Therefore, the German philosopher Heidegger would say that the natural state of human beings at the beginning is "existing in the world". He also used a derogatory term in Chinese to describe this state, called "sinking". This is a little too much. Actually, let's just say "immersion" Immersion does not mean not thinking, but at this initial stage, the ultimate object of our thinking is the world, and we have no time or time to think about ourselves. This is a very important point. Because I still think there is a natural order of thinking, and this cannot be forced. So don't start thinking about yourself all day and ask, "Who am I? Where am I from? What is the meaning of my life? " This will only cause confusion, obstacles and even trauma. So it must be the same for children's young minds. Let them immerse themselves in the world first, acquire knowledge, acquire information and explore the unknown. First, we should arouse our curiosity and desire for the world, which is the real starting point of thinking. However, it is here that we find that the existing school textbooks and extracurricular reading materials have obvious defects. Of course, all these books are conveying all kinds of knowledge about the world to children, but as we said, thinking is not only to gain local knowledge and simple methods, but also to gain overall and fundamental insights. As an educator, I realize that our country has not done enough in this respect, at least no one has actively guided it to develop in this direction. Parents will take their children to messy cram schools to cultivate useful and useless abilities, but it seems that they just forget that these will eventually converge on the cultivation of thinking ability. You may question, how can such a young child teach him/her those profound truths? This problem can be seen from two angles: on the one hand, these so-called "great truths" are not necessarily hard-taught or mechanically instilled, but can be subtly carried out in the dribs and drabs of daily life. Because it is not a rigid set of rules and regulations, but a process of constantly guiding children to the bigger world and to more open thinking and sports. In all the learning and training processes, we should take learning to think about the world as a key leading role. On the other hand, some parents will complain, "How can I guide my children without thinking about this world?" This is not a big obstacle, because after all, not everything needs to be done by hand. You are not a very good cook, but you can also taste the exquisite craftsmanship of Michelin Samsung. Similarly, even if you have never thought about those big problems, you can still recommend relevant books to your children. It is not a bad thing to study and think with children.

But thinking about the world is still not the ultimate goal, or even the starting point and introduction of thinking. The real thinking is to learn to think about yourself. In this way, you will understand why the first real philosophical proposition in the history of western philosophy is not "The origin of the world is water" (Thales), but "Know yourself, Socrates". But "know yourself" is not so mysterious. This is nothing more than saying that you should start to pull yourself out of the primitive state of being immersed in the world and realize that you are an independent and irreplaceable individual. If you describe the whole outside world as a four-dimensional space-time coordinate system, then you are the center of this coordinate system. Of course, this is not self-expansion or even arrogance, but first let you understand that all your actions and choices are actually ultimately issued from the center of "self", and you have some fundamental spiritual abilities (will, thinking, desire, emotion, etc.). ) to launch and realize this movement. Furthermore, it is from this origin that you begin to re-recognize, reflect and construct the relationship between "self" and "world". All your previous thoughts about the world are now closely related to your inner self. This is undoubtedly the deepening and continuous advancement of thinking.

And if there are few books and materials that can guide children to think about the world, it is hard to find books that can further let children learn to think about themselves. But this problem can also be viewed from another angle. Considering the characteristics of children's thinking, there is no need to completely limit our eyes to the form of text-intensive books. Images, sounds and even various multimedia materials can be the media of thinking. This is not to underestimate children's thinking ability, nor to say that their cultural level is not enough to read long paragraphs, so they can only add illustrations to enhance their understanding. This understanding underestimates the great potential of images and sounds to promote thinking. In a word, image/sound is not a "supplementary" explanation of words, nor is it icing on the cake, but constitutes a kind of thinking activity with its own characteristics. Many psychologists and media experts have emphasized that the most outstanding advantage of thinking in images compared with thinking in words is that the latter is often a linear process, while the former always shows an intuitive and holistic appearance. In short, words need you to read line by line and think step by step, while images and sounds can really realize instant jumping and epiphany. Everyone is familiar with william blake's poem: "A world in a grain of sand and a heaven in a flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hand, and eternity in an instant." In just four words, it presents a very vivid insight into the whole world. Therefore, images and sounds will be more effective and positive channels to cultivate children's thinking ability. In this respect, it seems that Japanese animation should show better charm. Most domestic cartoons are funny and indoctrinated, while funny often has no bottom line, and indoctrination is often mechanical, so it rarely really activates children's ability and desire to think about the world and themselves. But in Japanese animation, there are many such themes. Responsibility, freedom and choice, seemingly profound propositions, can often be presented in images and stories, which makes people sigh. Not to mention children, I am my own students, and many of them also get the inspiration of philosophical thinking from Japanese cartoons.

However, I recently received a set of children's books from teachers and friends, but it made me feel a little bright and refreshing-the series "The Charm of Thinking". In addition to illustrations, the narrative of philosophical truth is also very close to children. It goes without saying that people who have taught the history of philosophy countless times like me will find it interesting to read. The reason why I recommend this set of books is mainly because it echoes the thinking process from the world to the self I mentioned above. I immediately agreed to the recommendation at the end of the book. Indeed, "the height of thought determines the height of life." Life may not be a climbing movement from low to high, but it is closer to the ups and downs. But in any case, thinking is definitely the highest point of the ultimate strength of life, which deserves our constant efforts to explore and pursue, and should be cultivated and practiced as soon as possible. No country is more active than France in this regard. It is indeed a feat to carry out systematic philosophy education from middle school. But there is no need to blindly deify this matter, as long as we fully realize the necessity and possibility of letting children start thinking as soon as possible. Then let's go through this interesting and colorful little book with our children. According to the theme, it does cover two basic aspects: thinking about the world and thinking about self. The former covers all kinds of topics from childhood, from football, dance and monsters to friendship, power, time and beauty. The latter is even more striking, and even directly touches on deep anxiety such as aging, death and freedom, which is extremely confusing for adults.

I might as well combine two of them to talk about my own ideas. Let's talk about what football has taught us. I chose this topic because it seems to be a very daily and specific topic, but the author really starts from such a microscopic life detail and guides children to think about the big problems of the world and life step by step. Skill and understanding are fully embodied here. Imagine what I would say to my child if I took her to a ball game. Nothing more than rules, teams, stars, gossip and so on. Talk to her about the so-called sportsmanship embodied in football at most, and encourage her to constantly have the courage to overcome all kinds of adversity in life. But when I opened this little book, what was said in it really opened my eyes. Because the author really regards football as "sand" and "flower", it reflects the various forms of life, the Vientiane of society and even the rise and fall of history. The book talks about the progress from barbarism to civilization, the essence of game spirit, the sociological model of interpersonal relationship, and even many basic but by no means superficial economic and political problems. I think the realm of real thinking is so much, that is, to understand the profound philosophy of the whole world from the most concrete phenomena. This is spiritual improvement, and this is real growth. It is to let children understand that growing up does not mean becoming sophisticated, or becoming disciplined and losing their personality. Similarly, growth is not only reflected in the digital accumulation of material wealth. The real growth is to become thorough and wise, and to face the world and life with a more open mind. Football is like this, so are seemingly trivial things in life? Watching a football match is also a valuable experience of growing up with children.

In addition to this superficial aspect, the whole book also involves many more fundamental problems. Let us face the ultimate problem of "death". Indeed, children are often concerned about death. They are not only amused, but also confused. The child asked me seriously: "Where did people go after death?" To tell the truth, I didn't know how to answer at that time. I have read and written many philosophical works about death, but I really can't find a suitable way to explain it to a child. I think the handling of why there is death is very commendable. It is also from an extremely daily phenomenon that death is compared with travel and parting. And this just captures the key point, because children's confusion about death is often: how can people who are always around never appear again? Did they go to another place? Is that place a part of the world? The book goes on to talk about funeral, because it is the most direct and real occasion for us to face the dead. Then the author tells the children that rebirth and afterlife are illusory comforts, and death is not terrible, because in life, everyone has to face loss and parting, but this is not a sad thing. On the contrary, only by learning and understanding these seemingly terrible things can we truly appreciate the preciousness and freedom of life. "With a wonderful life, accept the curtain call of life." You may question whether it is cruel to talk to your child about this, but after reading the whole book with your child, you will feel that facing death with him/her not only makes you understand the philosophy of life more deeply, but also brings the distance between two hearts closer. Full-time companionship, material help and knowledge infusion are not necessarily the true meaning of education. Only by growing up with him/her in reading and thinking is the real "education of love".

The Future, from a famous French art film, is about a middle school philosophy teacher's confusion and introspection. I use this theme just to express a simple meaning: when a child begins to think about the world and himself, it is not a childish and ridiculous thing. On the contrary, it marks the real starting point of his/her life. The future belongs to children. Let the future take care of itself. After all, who knows the future?

(Jiang, Master of Paris Normal University, Doctor of Philosophy, Fudan University; Professor of Philosophy Department of East China Normal University, doctoral supervisor; Director of Foreign Philosophy Teaching and Research Section; Shanghai "Dawn Scholar"; Director of the French Philosophy Research Association. His main research interests are contemporary French philosophy and artistic philosophy. His monographs include Studies on Deleuze's Body Aesthetics, Painting and Truth: Melo-Ponty and China Scenery, and his translations include Millennium Plateau, Proust and Symbol.