Our goal is to make children become lifelong learners, always curious about unknown problems, and at the same time have great enthusiasm for what they like, which is big enough to support him to overcome all kinds of difficulties encountered in the pursuit process.
With these two qualities, children's education will be successful. It doesn't matter what university he went to or how many points he got. Curiosity and enthusiasm are the source of children's happiness all their lives.
Why is scientific enlightenment so important to children?
Science is not math and physics!
In the eyes of most people, science is mathematics and physics, which are some very complicated equations and difficult concepts to understand. This is actually a very big misunderstanding-turning science into a discipline.
In other words, we only pay attention to specific knowledge in disciplines, such as physics, chemistry, biology and even mathematics. As for what science itself is, we have never really been educated.
Science originates from human's heartfelt curiosity about nature. The basic model of scientific cognition was not established until Newton's time. Before that, people tried to explain the world with myths, religions and so on. Because of this curiosity of human beings, before developing science, they constantly want to explore and understand what is happening in this world and whether it has laws to follow.
Therefore, I hope that children's curiosity can be protected, so that they can always maintain the innate motivation to explore the unknown, and children can continue to feel the charm of science.
Science is just one of the ways to know the world. Now there is a misunderstanding-equating science with correctness. From the perspective of social development, the value of science lies in that it is one of our existing cognitive ways that has been proved reasonable by practice, which brings us a lot of convenience in life and is worth teaching children.
However, there are many things in the world that cannot be explained by science. Many fields are unscientific and have high value. When educating children, we should have a diversified attitude.
What does it mean that science can be falsified? It is often said that science is falsifiable and repeatable. Can "falsifiability" Prove Science Wrong? The answer is no, falsifiability is the pointer of a scientific theory, and a condition can be absolutely assumed. If this condition does not hold, then this theory is wrong. If a theory has such conditions, we think it can be treated in a scientific way. Repeatability means that scientific theories are repeatable in different time and space under the same premise.
Based on these two characteristics of science, we can apply scientific laws to make tools, develop technology and speculate on the future.
What is the scientific way to understand the world? American national science education standards clearly point out that scientific cognitive style has three elements:
Keywords factual basis, logical relationship, critical thinking,
Which is critical thinking.
Factual basis means that all scientific conclusions should be based on tangible factual evidence, especially quantitative digital basis. In the field of science, a theory must be supported by facts. Not only students of mathematics and science, but also modern disciplines such as psychology, economics and linguistics prove their theories by obtaining data through experiments.
Logical relationship is a bridge between factual basis and scientific conclusion. Simply put, you can understand it as causality. In other words, can this fact support your conclusion?
Strict logical thinking can not only help people make achievements in science, but also avoid many problems in daily life. Under the premise that school education has not been paid enough attention, it will be of great help if parents can help cultivate children's logical reasoning ability.
The third element of scientific thinking is critical thinking-critical thinking. Critical thinking is a very neutral word, and its core is objective skepticism.
It is precisely because people constantly think critically and independently about whether facts support theories and whether logic is reasonable. With the discovery of new facts, they will verify previous theories, see if they will confirm or overturn previous conclusions, and see if there are hidden assumptions in the conclusions (any scientific conclusion has certain premise assumptions and scope of application, which we must pay attention to), and gradually establish the magnificent science building we see today.
Observing facts-deducing conclusions with logic-critically looking at conclusions and adjusting them-looking for new facts, this cycle constitutes a complete scientific thinking system.
People are gregarious animals, and their nature tends to cooperate and listen to others, so the scientific way of thinking that goes against our nature needs to be learned through deliberate practice. Scientific thinking is much more important than scientific knowledge itself, and it is also the focus of parents' scientific enlightenment.
What is the ideal science education?
Why is science education important?
First, the era of children's life will be the era of information explosion, and the ability to distinguish is indispensable. What is valuable to you, what is a rumor, and the ability to see through it at a glance will be the basic skill of children's survival.
Second, human knowledge has accumulated to the present level, and it is still accelerating, which means that the future knowledge must be in a sealed black box state. For example, mobile phones, few people understand its software and hardware principles, can use. I think the knowledge in the future is the same. Specific knowledge is not so important, only thinking is valuable, and thinking ability can ensure that children have the corresponding ability to do it when they need to understand a certain principle and expand the boundaries of human knowledge.
Third, the scientific way of thinking is the essence of human culture. The development of science and technology essentially comes from scientific thinking, which is perhaps the most successful way for human beings to understand the world at present, and we have the responsibility to let our children inherit it.
My ideal science education will be a pyramid. The bottom and core is to cultivate children's character, including curiosity, enthusiasm, fun, courage to try and think independently. Let children realize that learning is interesting, and how to have the courage to stick to it when they know that there are many difficulties is also very much in need of parents' help.
Based on this character, the contents of methodology, including logic, critical thinking, problem-solving methods, etc., are the most superficial contents in the knowledge taught in most schools now. Methodology and character are what we need to pay more attention to in education.
Trilogy of family science enlightenment:
Read books, do experiments and learn to ask questions.
popular science books
The focus of popular science reading is to let children discover unobserved facts, such as how the subway started, there are animals underground, and birds don't all live in trees. The second point is to connect with real life, let children have a sense of participation, take the initiative to connect the phenomena encountered in life with books, and let them realize that books are not an independent world. Finally, parents should not aim at acquiring knowledge.
Because it is easy for parents to fall into a psychological expectation, that is, I have read a lot of books to my child, and he should know a lot of knowledge and be able to compare with other children. However, parents should pay attention to controlling this mentality and cultivating scientific thinking ability is the core goal.
experiment
Doing experiments is not as complicated as you think, and you don't need professional experimental equipment. The essence of experiment is to "try" when you don't know the answer.
For example, when a child goes to the kitchen and sees what is in the seasoning jar, instead of telling him that the salt is sweet and sour, he directly lets him taste it with a spoon. When doing experiments, we should keep in mind the three elements of science: factual basis, logical relationship and critical thinking.
Experiments come from life. For example, is there a relationship between the number of times rickshaws are pulled back and the distance they run?
Specific experimental process:
Assumption: if the pull-back car is pulled back many times, it will run far;
Experimental tools: timer on mobile phone;
Experimental steps: Pull 1.2.3 times respectively, and record the rotation time of the wheel.
Three elements:
Fact: Use a watch to record real-time time.
Logical relationship: the wheel turns for a long time, so it runs far. Is it because the wheel rotates for a long time because it is pulled many times?
Critical thinking: this car is like this, what about other cars?
Learn to ask questions
Questioning is a core method to train children's thinking ability. Thinking is the process of thinking, and it is a good way to think by answering questions. Children will have many questions after they are 3 or 4 years old. Most parents will answer questions directly, but they are still very upset if they can't answer them. A better way is to affirm the child's problem first, then break it down into small problems and ask. Children think for themselves with the questions they ask, and achieve the purpose of thinking training step by step. The problem is caused by three elements of science.
Here is an example.
Dry ice and ice in the refrigerator.
Q: Both are ice. What's the difference between the two (seeking truth).
Child: Dry ice will smoke.
Q: Are all smoking things hot (from a critical point of view)?
Child (touch), A: Not hot, subverting the child's basic cognition, and the child began to be interested.
Is that ice hot?
A: The ice is very cold.
Q: (Logic interjects) The food on the table is smoking. Is it hot because of smoking?
Children will realize that there is something wrong with the causal logic of heat because of smoking. But adults should not directly tell their children that they smoke because of the hot weather, nor should they say anything other than their life experience.
Q: What's the difference?
A: Dry ice has long white hairs. Squeeze it and melt it.
A: Like snow.
Q: Why is there no white hair on the ice in the refrigerator?
The child can't answer and can't explain.
Just to impress the children.
Finally, to sum up, Q: Are these two pieces of ice the same?
A: No, dry ice is magic ice.
This round of questions is over. After long-term communication, children will certainly be able to ask their own questions and experience the fun of thinking.
Summarize the starting point of the question.
Ask the truth: What do you see? What did you find? Compare the differences.
Question: What is the reason for this situation? Will the occurrence of A necessarily lead to the occurrence of B? Is there anything else that will lead to B?
Q Possibility: Yes. What else could it be?
psychology
The mentality needs to be calm, and three points of education and seven points of waiting. Children don't process information in the same way as we do, so adults don't have to worry. Maybe there was no reaction at that time, but it will be exciting later. As long as we continue to use the scientific way of thinking to guide and not entangle the results, it will gradually have a positive effect. We sow the seeds of scientific thinking and follow the law of children's cognitive development, which will certainly make children feel the beauty of the flower of science.