What children in China lack is not knowledge, but opinions. In many cases, asking questions is more important than solving problems. Solving problems depends on knowledge and experience. Asking questions is the starting point and source of science and even human progress.
If apples must be painted like apples, there will never be Picasso; If the sky belonged only to birds, the Wright brothers would never dream of making airplanes. China's educational culture lacks the gene of scientific and technological innovation.
When the spirit of scientific innovation in the West has trained generations of scientific masters, and when the modern civilization in the West has continuously extended the strength of human beings, China can only seek comfort and escape from myths and legends. But Nu Wa can't fill the hole in the ozone layer, and Chang 'e can't bring back rare minerals for China people. When we finally face the reality, we find that non-subversive changes can't help children break the deep-rooted inertia. Taking the old road will eventually prove to be a dead end.
Einstein once said, "Imagination is more important than knowledge".
Why is America's less than 300-year history more prosperous than our 5,000-year civilization? Why can't thousands of universities, millions of scholars and millions of college students produce a Nobel Prize winner?
Because of education! Western education, represented by the United States, pays attention to imagination and creativity, cultivates individuality and trains 300 million people into 300 million people.
And our education is just to train 10 billion people into one person: unified system, unified syllabus, unified teaching materials, unified propositions, unified exams, unified answers, as if everything is to manufacture standard parts. We advocate a high degree of consistency with teachers. There is only one standard answer and only one behavior pattern. Just like making bricks in a kiln, they are all made of the same mold. Where can there be imagination and creativity?