The middle and upper classes have great convenience in resources. They can afford the school district, buy tens of thousands of pianos and receive more professional training, which is unimaginable for the children at the bottom. When the middle and upper classes complain that the school district is too expensive, the middle and lower classes consider food and clothing. If everything is distinguished by resources, where is the way out for poor students?
For poor students, examination is a road and a way to realize class leap. Although the rising road is getting narrower and even more difficult, it at least ensures the mobility of the class. Now, those who call for banning exam-oriented education are either the petty bourgeoisie of the upper middle class or the lower class who have been blinded by their eyes. Many people say that the uneven distribution of domestic educational resources is the root of all this, as long as the resources are enlarged.
However, this idea is indeed a bit whimsical. The richer the educational resources, the more likely it is to lead to the concentration of resources, and ultimately the upper-middle class will benefit. As a scarce resource, education will never be enough compared with the huge population base.
These upper-class people will still enjoy first-class resources, while the children at the bottom still have no resources to enjoy. Many people who have changed their fate through exam-oriented education are also supporters of exam-oriented education. Although they may not be able to afford a suite in Beijing for the rest of their lives, it is much better than the environment they once lived in.
First of all, exam-oriented education adopts a way of reverse learning, which inherently closes people's cognitive boundaries.
Its method is contrary to the active learning we are used to, and we remember knowledge by brushing questions to find answers. To achieve this goal, the questions you brush must have answers, and they are standard answers. In this way, even if there is no intention subjectively, it objectively enables learners to form a subconscious mind of "there is only one correct solution to all problems" and form a mindset.
And this series of "correct solutions" will be woven into an invisible net, isolated from everything outside the net. People who are used to this kind of study and have excellent grades since childhood will be forced to give up further thinking and return to the invisible net when they encounter problems that need to break through the border or accept more than one answer. Even if I study for a master's degree or a doctor's degree, I just make this network bigger.
Think about it, once you realize that the skills you were proud of since childhood must be reorganized, how strong and brave people you need to break this net. Sadly, the course of life after the ninth five-year plan and zero zero often lacks courage to shape, especially for children with good grades.
The most prominent loss of thinking ability is in composition. No matter those widely promoted model essays or excellent compositions praised by school teachers, they have no argumentation ability at all and are full of repeated rambles in different ways. One or two examples are considered convincing, and then stuffed into the end of a lot of cheap regrets or "eloquent" sentences that come out of nowhere.
In the article "Introduction to Exam-oriented Composition", Teacher Feng Ling used "a group of zombies" to describe it. It is easy to understand what Professor Wu of the University of Science and Technology of China said about the cliff-like landslide of students (see Professor Wu Weibo).
Secondly, the rote memorization of exam-oriented education destroys the foundation of in-depth thinking.
The above is only a question of degree, and the following is a question of zero and one. As the old saying goes, if you want to reach the top of knowledge or even make a breakthrough, the basic knowledge must be solid and firm. In the past, mainland education often praised students' solid basic knowledge and deep middle school curriculum.
This may be true in the post-70 s and post-80 s student days, but it is definitely a joke in the present exam-oriented education. Why do you say that? Because its goal is directed at the exam, the coverage of the exercise on the test questions becomes the only factor of the teaching effect. The core of exam-oriented education lies in the number of exercises.
Because the concept questions will only appear in the multiple-choice questions in the exam, we should remember the basic concepts by brushing the multiple-choice questions instead of "wasting" time to think about and understand the specific definitions and conditions. Anyway, vague concepts can also pick out the correct answer in the options.
The problem solved by the proof of concept definition is even more difficult to satisfy, which leads to the fact that the concept, as the cornerstone of basic knowledge, is actually unfamiliar and often unaware compared with its theorem and inference. After more than ten years of accumulation, it looks like a splendid castle in the air, with a hazy column bottom and too empty. How can we think deeply?
Third, exam-oriented education brushes questions, exams and quizzes, which weakens or even completely loses the endurance and willpower that thinking and research depend on.
The essence of exam-oriented education lies in using quizzes as tools. Our brains have advantages (or disadvantages). If it is constantly rewarded when engaging in certain activities, it will enjoy it for a long time.
Products designed according to this point can be seen everywhere in our lives, such as the interactivity of smart phones, the ubiquitous prizes and bonus points of video games and so on. Always give rewards before the brain can bear the limit, so as to overcome the boredom in the brain. Examination-oriented education is also designed with the same principle.
Needless to say, learning is a long process to change the degree of pain and boredom, and active learning is completed with strong interest and perseverance. Examination-oriented education looks more "scientific". On the other hand, it uses the pleasure of completing exercises to increase the duration of brain excitement and "get started easily". In the follow-up study, it gives students the pleasure of getting high marks (or "progress") through large and small exams, and skillfully adjusts this sense of gain through the difficulty of exams.
So strictly speaking, exam-oriented education is the real "happy" education, but some school teachers are not skilled enough. It is not difficult to understand the crazy scene of students who are accustomed to exam-oriented education, which is actually a similar reaction to drug abuse and academic competitions. But manipulating the brain artificially may bring sequelae.
There is also a threshold problem in the reward mechanism of the brain. The reward stimulus needs to be continuously strengthened, and its own perseverance will inevitably weaken or even die. When entering a university and subsequent scientific research cannot provide the same intensive and intense incentives (obviously, it is difficult to gain a sense of superiority in middle school in a university), one's perseverance may have weakened.
Even if you have established your interest in the subject and know how to adjust your learning direction, it's hard to say whether you can overcome the boredom of learning and calm down and study hard. In severe cases, you may even lose interest in learning and life itself. This is the risk to be considered in exam-oriented education.
It is in the process of practice and discussion that we found the second defect mentioned above and began to think about exam-oriented education. Fortunately, children are not used to this model since childhood. In their minds, the two models are parallel and the damage is not deep. It is good to learn to distinguish application scenarios.
But things are not over. Look at those academic tyrants, almost all of them are trained from exam-oriented education, so are other schools, and some are even worse. Don't think that you can get rid of nightmares after graduating from high school. It can be clearly said that most of those who can get into 985 are "products".
That is to say, your college classmates are basically high school students, and those who don't take the exam are probably rarely admitted. How will this affect university teaching? We still find clues from Professor Wu's Weibo.
In Weibo, where Professor Wu criticized the low level of recruiting graduate students, he found a message from the undergraduate teaching professor of his school, saying that undergraduate teaching could not make up for the middle school curriculum, and teaching could only reduce the depth to ensure the passing rate. I really understand the meaning of thinking in fear, and so does the physics department of Chinese University of Science and Technology. Obviously, the students who passed the exam in turn kidnapped the undergraduate teaching of the university.