Dabashan people
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Not long ago, Liu Ping, a doctor of education studying in the United States, made a comparison between Chinese and American education, and got the evaluation that "the primary education in the United States is not as good as that in China" and "the basic skills of primary education in China are solid" (see "Chinese and American education in the eyes of a doctor studying in the United States" posted in Education and Academic on May 28, 2006+0). I think her views are very one-sided. As a doctor of education, if her views are widely spread, it will mislead many people, even the whole education circle. I studied science and engineering in China (undergraduate and master) and North America (doctor), and my children have studied in North America for nearly ten years. I want to talk about my feelings and opinions for the reference of educators or interested friends. It's not convenient to write because time is in a hurry. Only a few key points are discussed here and illustrated with examples.
Example 1: Although the content of primary education (primary and junior high schools) in the West is less and the pace is slower than that in China, most of the foreigners I have come into contact with in schools and companies in North America for more than ten years are excellent in business, and the proportion of mediocre people is less than that of university graduates in China, and they are generally professional. Their performance can't make me imagine that their basic skills are not solid at all. I really don't see the difference between the 1000 math problems they did in middle school and the 5000 math problems we did. The statement that "advanced technology in the west depends on immigration" is too exaggerated and arrogant. This kind of evaluation can only be circulated among China people, and it is impossible to be recognized by the mainstream western media.
After the Cultural Revolution, it was recognized that students in grades 77 and 78 were the best. This kind of Excellence is not only manifested in learning, but also in all aspects of comprehensive quality. But it is these two levels of students who spent their primary and secondary school stages in the Cultural Revolution. Most of the time, I suspended classes and rebelled. I studied all kinds of knowledge consciously or unconsciously in the "social university", and I didn't take any classes at all, let alone receive any strict science education. Many people cram for college entrance examinations a few months before the college entrance examination.
Example 3: I was admitted to a senior high school in Sichuan in 72 years (15 years old) when the revisionist education line revived. It took us only a few months to complete all the courses in the last three years of primary school and junior high school, and it was clear at a glance.
Have you found that many people get good grades in elementary and junior high schools, but they collapse as soon as they get to high school? Such people generally have no hope of being admitted to the university. Those who have average grades in elementary and junior high schools but average grades in high schools are generally expected to enter universities.
These examples just illustrate the best mode for human beings to acquire knowledge and the natural law of human intelligence development, that is:
First, the efficiency of human acquisition of knowledge has a great relationship with their interest in this knowledge. Humans are naturally curious. The function of education is how to induce, stimulate and guide this curiosity. Cramming and problem-solving education are the natural enemies of this curiosity (except for necessary rote learning). But also easily lead to people's weariness of learning and other negative effects on personal behavior.
Second, children before 15 years old (about) are not suitable for heavy learning burden because of immature brain development and limited understanding and acceptance, and learning is also half the effort. During this period, children should be allowed to fully feel life and accumulate natural knowledge with their natural curiosity and imagination wings in a relaxed environment. The age of 15 to 25 is the peak period of human understanding and acceptance, and it is an appropriate stage to strengthen school learning. 15 years old is a process of perceptual quantitative accumulation, and 15 years old to 25 years old is a qualitative change process of transforming previous accumulation into rational knowledge. The learning efficiency in the later period can be several times or even dozens of times that in the earlier period.
I want to spend more time here to talk about the importance of decompression before students 15 years old. Although before 15 years old, people's brains are not mature enough for high-intensity school education, but from birth to 15 years old, it is a natural and important stage for people to know society, observe nature and know the world. During this period, many external events are the first time for children, and they all feel very novel, which will make children have a million whys in Qian Qian's mind. These vague, unfamiliar and elementary philosophical propositions will haunt children's minds all day, generating a strong impulse to find explanations, and unconsciously forming a heavy ideological accumulation and rich imagination. This is what we often call the process of quantitative change accumulation. To put it bluntly, only in a relaxed environment can Newton calmly lie under the big tree and think, "Why did the apple fall instead of going up?" Waters can stare at the stove and wonder, "Why does the lid move?" Einstein can have leisure time to ponder "why does the compass always face north?" . It is hard for us to imagine that these natural cognitive processes of human beings to the objective world can occur frequently or universally in the learning environment of "overload", "extreme sports" and students' daily fatigue. The accumulation and imagination of these thoughts will release powerful learning efficiency under the guidance of appropriate education when 15 years old, that is, the process of qualitative change. Moreover, being diligent in thinking and imaginative is the most important quality of any creative scientist. In fact, any groundbreaking scientific discovery and technological progress is a reinterpretation of a philosophical proposition at an unprecedented height. And human civilization and science are advancing in such constant propositions and explanations.
On the other hand, our education system and methods unconsciously destroyed this relaxed environment in a large area of 9.6 million square kilometers, forcing students to immerse themselves in deep problems from primary school until they graduate from high school, thus stifling the most important process of children's natural and mental development. After they entered the university, due to long-term overload study, they were exhausted physically and mentally, their interest in learning declined, and they spent a lot of time on romance and playing mahjong, which completely violated the laws of nature. Can we still expect our education to train scientists at the forefront of the world's science? Can our primary education be said to be "quite good"?
I'm not saying that high-pressure primary education also deprives and squeezes the space for teenagers' emotional education, aesthetic education, art education and sociology education (not political lessons), on the other hand, it brings important negative effects (for example, unfolding is another big topic). These educations are the basic elements of shaping perfect personality. It is difficult for a person with an imperfect personality to achieve anything.
Western education basically takes care of these natural laws. There is basically no student pressure before junior high school (15 years old). Students study easily. We should not only have a carefree childhood, but also let all kinds of interests grow freely and ideas develop freely. Let students have a very sound psychological and physical development. However, after 15, as soon as I entered the third year of high school, my study soon became strict, and my study burden and pressure increased obviously. This state will continue to strengthen until graduation from college. As a result, by the time I graduated from college, I had learned more than college students in China. In other words, the intensity of study in school is in step with people's understanding ability and intellectual development. This is worth learning from the education circles in China.
In fact, this kind of education in the west is similar to that in grades 77 and 78. Of course, grades 77 and 78 are wrong, and blind cats meet dead mice. Everyone who specializes in pedagogy should carefully analyze this phenomenon, talk to people who study science and engineering, and don't apply your experience in pedagogy (liberal arts) to science and engineering. China people often infer and even implement some important and basic educational principles for granted. For example, some people in China have industrialized early education. But the stupidest thing is that key universities come forward to run "juvenile classes" and so on. Cultivating people is not raising chickens. Besides, as we all know, the taste of foreign chickens, which are rapidly improved by hormones, is much worse than that of native chickens naturally grown in front of the village. Although it is very common for children to receive higher mathematics education outside school, I flatly refuse, because I know that such a result is disastrous for children, which is tantamount to adding fuel to the fire. I think it is the best choice for children to follow the school syllabus.
I think whether to follow the natural laws of education is the fundamental difference between Chinese and western education, and it is also the deepest, most substantial and most difficult key issue in the current educational methods in China. In fact, there is nothing wonderful about western education, but it is more subject to objective laws. China's education system ignores this objective law, that is, there are subjective decision-making mistakes and realistic helplessness (too many people and too few schools). The reality will not change for a while, but people can at least have a correct guiding ideology in subjective decision-making, so as to effectively reduce the degree of deviation and determine the correct development direction in the future. Don't indulge in the mirage that "China's primary education is great", tilt the steering wheel of the education sector in China, and go further and further in the wrong direction, misleading hundreds of millions of children in China.
Of course, some characteristics of western education in subject setting, textbook compilation and selection are also other factors for the success of western education. Limited by time and space, I won't say much here.
In a word, science is about nature. The best way is to study science in a way that conforms to the laws of nature. Turning science into a fascinating and mysterious "craft", forcibly violating the laws of nature in education, and using the method of "learning craft" to carry out science education will not have the best educational effect. Many "skilled craftsmen" can be trained to catch up with western science and technology, but in order for China to lead the world in science, there must be several world-class scientists with the ability of scientific initiative, and the latter is the highest realm that China's educational circles have dreamed of for generations.
Of course, I only talk about education here. This by no means means that I think everything in the west is good.
Differences between Chinese and Western Education in the Eyes of a Cambridge Girl
Jiang, 19 years old, a middle school student affiliated to Shanghai International Studies University. In her sophomore year, she transferred to Luoting Girls' Middle School in England to study A-level. Not long ago, the girl who had been in Britain for two years received the admission notice from Cambridge University.
"Compared with my study experience in middle schools in China and Britain, what I feel most is that when I go abroad, I no longer think that what the teacher said must be right. I will think rationally and positively about what the teacher taught me, really think positively, take the initiative to express my understanding, and even say' no' to the teacher. " Regarding the differences between Chinese and western secondary education, Jiang Xiaoyun said.
"In China, asking questions is silly."
Jiang introduced that in English class, teachers usually adopt the methods of group discussion and case analysis, and teachers attach great importance to students' participation in teaching in order to mobilize students' learning enthusiasm to the maximum extent. Saying "no" to teachers is also common in British middle schools. On the one hand, because the teachers there never criticize any student's point of view, students never have to worry about being scolded by their teachers or teased by their classmates because the questions are "stupid". On the other hand, the teacher will keep asking, "Do you understand?" Until the students ask questions. Therefore, the students are very active in speaking, talking about their own views on the problem, and even overthrowing the teacher's point of view. "In Britain, no one will think that what the teacher said must be correct. But in China, I rarely take the initiative to ask questions, because the environment is like this, asking questions will make people feel stupid. " Jiang Xiaoyun said.
Very different from domestic education, in Britain, if students think that the homework assigned by teachers is too heavy, they can make suggestions to their tutors (equivalent to the head teacher in China) and schools. After investigation, if it is really difficult to finish, teachers need to reduce the students' homework burden. In schools in China, it is the students' "duty" to finish the homework assigned by teachers on time and in quantity, and there is no room for bargaining.
"Domestic middle school teaching is like drilling a well, while foreign teaching is like paving sand."
"The solid foundation of mathematics in China has made it easy for me to study abroad." Jiang doesn't think domestic teaching is useless. She said that I didn't know how solid our domestic science education was until I went abroad. Domestic education attaches great importance to cultivating students' scientific thinking. It is difficult to study the contents of science in depth, mainly to cultivate students' rigorous thinking and learn to find the necessary conditions for drawing inevitable conclusions. This ability gives China students a great advantage in studying abroad.
On the other hand, this "professional" teaching makes the knowledge of China students form a narrow and profound state. Teaching in China is like drilling. The hole is very small and it is drilled deeply. Teaching in England is like spreading sand, which is very wide and spread layer by layer. Jiang said to him, let's take mathematics as an example. Calculus is included in the mathematics curriculum of British middle schools, but it is only an introductory subject and will not be studied in depth. It is easier for students to accept and understand. Real research needs further research in universities. Curriculum choices in British high schools are also flexible. Each student can choose courses according to his own interests, and the whole senior three is not divided into classes. Take Jiang himself. According to the regulations of the school, students in her grade only need to take three courses. Because she likes math, she chose four courses: math, math (advanced course), physics and business.
"after-school life can't be lost"
To the reporter's surprise, Jiang's extracurricular life is extremely rich, including tennis, speeches and dramas, chorus, "young entrepreneurs" and community service. When the reporter asked if so many extracurricular activities would affect normal study, Xiao Jiang's answer was: "You can't lose your extracurricular life, and the combination of work and rest is efficient."
In Luo Ting Girls' School, the school provides students with a "young entrepreneur" organization, which provides students with a channel to buy raw materials, so that students can produce their own products and then sell them themselves. Jiang Xiaoyun feels that he has gained a lot in this process. Jiang usually has 6 to 8 class hours every day, each class lasts for 35 minutes, and the homework for each class does not exceed 9 hours per week. The rest of the time can be freely controlled, generally just doing some extracurricular reading, and then colorful after-school life.
Jiang Xiaoyun gave the reporter an example. "For example, I want to write a paper today. If you go out to play tennis for an hour when you are particularly tired in class, your spirit will be very relaxed. When I come back, I may be full of enthusiasm. The original paper written in two hours was completed in one hour, and the quality of the paper written was also very high. " In China, students mainly sit in the classroom for several hours a day, and their spirit is very tired, and their ability to accept knowledge will definitely decline. It is better to combine work and rest to adjust. This learning mode is actually the concept of "big learning" advocated by British middle schools, which means that a student's learning includes various areas, not limited to liberal arts courses, but also communication, organization, art and sports, which is conducive to the all-round development of students.
Jiang suggested that due to the limitation of funds, school size, school running mode and college entrance examination, it is impossible for domestic schools to have their own tennis courts, to provide organizations like "young entrepreneurs" for students like British schools, and to provide students with after-school life like skiing. However, our school can organize choirs and conditional projects such as speeches and dramas to enrich students' learning as much as possible and achieve the effect of "great learning".
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