Recently, an article in China, "Ministry of Education, please don't burden my children", was screened. This article reflects the resistance of many parents in China to the burden reduction of the Ministry of Education. At the same time, some NPC representatives said that children are doing homework every day and have no time to play.
Because I know the basic education of China and America fairly well, I found a funny situation, that is, China and America seem to have taken the wrong script.
Views of China Ministry of Education on Teaching Time
Today, China Education News published an article in response to an article against reducing the burden:
The article says:
In such a new orientation of educational function, which needs to highlight the public welfare of education, show that education promotes people's all-round development and lays the foundation for everyone's happy life, the problem of "excessive schoolwork burden", which is considered to hinder the development of education in China, has become a major obstacle to the happy experience of every child, the happy life of every family and the happiness of every school teacher. First of all, systematic management is needed.
From the perspective of the Ministry of Education, reducing the burden is an unshakable and important task that affects happiness and must be done.
Views of some American schools on teaching time
In the United States, CNN published a study on 20 10, saying that students can benefit from longer teaching time.
This is a large-scale research report on the KIPP (knowledge is power plan) project.
Blacker and more humorous, in this article, as a positive example. . . China, they want to learn from China.
"For example, in China, their schools provide an average of 300 hours more teaching time than American schools, 4 1 day more per academic year. In other words, our students will eventually compete with China students who study thousands of hours more than us. "
For more information about KIPP, I introduced "American Education Reform Watch (1)" in my series "Why Can't I Have a Poor Family in America". 》
About the teaching time of KIPP:
What makes KIPP different is the time students spend at school. The normal school time is from 7:30 am to 5 pm, plus extra weeks in summer. Some schools even offer Saturday classes. This is 600 hours more than the children in traditional public middle schools in a year. KIPP spokesman Steve Mancini said that extra time "allows us to turn' or' into' and'" because teachers generally complain that they don't have time to teach courses and meet students' personal needs. The extra time also allows teachers to have more plans and cooperation.
KIPP usually has classes from 7:30 a.m. to 5: 00 p.m. every day, with a few more weeks in the summer vacation. Some schools will have classes on Saturday. (Every region is different)
This is the calendar of KIPP 20 17~20 18 in Houston, USA.
The teaching time is from 7: 25 am to 4: 00 pm15, and from Friday to 3:00 pm.
The effect of KIPP school is very good, no matter the graduation rate of high school, the rate of college entrance examination and the graduation rate of college are far higher than those of ordinary high schools.
Former U.S. President Bill barack obama also publicly asked to consider increasing school hours.
Obama's original text is:
I know that extending the teaching time and school year is not a very popular idea. At least my two daughters don't, my family doesn't, and maybe your family doesn't either. But facing the challenge of the new century, we need more teaching time. If Korea can do it, I think we can do it in the United States!
From Selected Works of Obama, Volume V, Obama's Speech at the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.
However, because the strength of the American teachers' union was too strong, it rebounded badly. In the end, the matter went away. At present, the extension of teaching hours is only implemented in some charter schools.
China, envious of the happy education in the United States, wants to reduce the burden again. The United States envies China's excellent academic performance and wants to extend the teaching time and school year. And they all take each other as positive examples.
How to reduce the burden?
Looking back, we really have so many knowledge points in primary and junior high schools. Is it so difficult? Not necessarily. Now many parents and children complain that there are endless classes and homework, and some parents have to sign up for various cram schools on weekends. Parents and children are miserable, and their academic performance is standing still.
I wonder if anyone has ever thought about how much of these homework and homework are necessary, and how much is just a waste of time and busyness for the sake of busyness?
Let me talk about my personal experience first. When we were in junior high school, we were lucky enough to meet a special math teacher. It is no exaggeration to say that this teacher has influenced my life, from learning methods to outlook on life.
First of all, the teaching achievement: there are 57 students in our class, with a perfect score of 100 in mathematics, and an average score of 98 in our class. Our class is ranked first in mathematics in the city on average, and it will be in the forefront of the city in the next two years.
Study intensity:
We are all easy to learn. We have never done extra exercise books for three years (we did two sets of simulation questions before the middle school entrance examination).
Teaching skills:
You need to preview before class and go to class with questions. You must listen carefully in class and don't take notes. After class, carefully do the workbook that matches the teaching materials and make the wrong set of questions.
Simple, right? But the point is that all the questions in the exercise book should be done step by step, and the result is correct. And he will carefully check every student's homework. If he makes a mistake, he must correct it and give it to the teacher for examination. Homework that day, review that day. No matter how many times it is revised, it must be corrected correctly to count. My record was revised five times for a question, and finally I was embarrassed. How is it so similar to code review? )
This method, on the one hand, cultivates students' self-study ability. On the other hand, the number of exercises is reduced, but every question is made clear. The wrong problem set is aimed at the blind spot of one's own knowledge system. We never feel that we have too much homework to finish.
Later, some teachers you met asked you to do a set of papers one after another, and the papers in Xicheng District, Haidian District and Chaoyang District were piled up. But you will find that 80% of the questions or knowledge points in a set of papers have been done, and it is a complete waste of time to do it again after learning. And when you encounter a complicated problem, if you are not determined to do it right no matter how many times you revise it, you will still be wrong, wrong and wrong again next time.
So I will see that some people are very busy, making one set of papers after another, changing one exercise book after another, and staying up until midnight every night, but the final results are still not good.
So the real burden reduction is to study how to improve teaching methods and contents, rather than simply cutting teaching time and pushing students out of school.
Simply cutting teaching time only pushes the problem to the society, and you don't understand or understand it. Social teaching institutions are profitable. They will teach you routines, chickens and rabbits, and solve problems. But few people will systematically teach you how to learn correctly and efficiently. If you can handle it yourself, aren't they cutting off their own money and digging their own graves? !
In addition, the math teacher told us:
I won't tear off the answers at the back of the exercise book, but I know there are mistakes in the answers to the exercise questions. I correct my homework according to the steps. If I find that someone copied the answer directly, once I find out, I will get 0 points directly in the final math.
As a result, everyone is afraid to copy homework and answers, and they will do the process carefully every time they do a question. If we find that the answer is wrong, we will check it again. If it is still wrong, we will doubt whether there is a problem with the answer. ! If you are not sure, let's discuss it together. After a semester, we did find several exercises with wrong answers.
This method has formed the habit that we dare to doubt authority. No matter who gives the standard answer, you should first calculate it yourself to see if there is any problem with the answer. The side effect is that several of our classmates became thorns in high school, and they dare to doubt what the teacher said!
summary
Back to the problem of reducing the burden, I think the advanced teaching, crowd tactics and routine teaching in China are all problematic, and this burden should really be reduced!
However, reducing school hours is not necessarily a good idea. To really reduce the burden, it is necessary to improve the teaching methods and curriculum system.