The full name of Olympic Mathematics is "International Olympic Mathematics Competition for Middle School Students", which is a discipline competition for middle school students that started 20 years ago. As we all know, 20 years ago, China's international status and prestige could never be compared with today's, and the degree of open communication was also low. Understandably, the national education administrative department attaches great importance to the international activity of the international Olympic discipline competition for middle school students. According to what I have heard and heard for many years, middle school students in China are particularly "up to expectations", especially a middle school in Hubei, which is famous for its teaching materials for the college entrance examination. In the field of mathematics and physics, where competition knowledge is based on theory, the competition among the players is more intense, and they win gold medals almost every year, but their chemistry is not good and they need strong hands-on ability. After several years of hard work, they also performed well. These achievements have indeed played a positive role in enhancing national self-confidence, improving middle school students' learning interest and motivation, and also showed the strength of China's basic education to the world.
Of course, the society also gave honor and preferential treatment to these winners. In recent years, some enterprises have asked them to be product spokesmen and earn huge advertising revenue. The whole society "respects knowledge and talents" and cheers for the competition with various purposes. Such huge preferential conditions and honors have also inspired the enthusiasm of the majority of students to learn mathematics and physics. Needless to say, I also took part in the math contest as a contestant. The moment of winning the prize is vivid and fresh in my memory. This activity has really played a positive role in promoting international exchanges, improving learning enthusiasm and selecting outstanding talents in disciplines. But there is an old saying: "If there is something good in the world, the next one will be good". After 20 years' development, Olympic mathematics has developed vigorously throughout the country. Even primary school students joined in, and the "Primary School Olympiad" came into being, and the counseling materials were actually subdivided into primary school grades. Anyone with a little common sense in teaching should know what the requirements of "Mathematics Teaching Outline for Primary School Students" are. To add fuel to the fire, the enrollment of schools with good educational resources in various cities also takes the results of Olympic Mathematics as an important evaluation standard, so good results will mean a large amount of school selection fees and recognition from society, teachers and families. Under the current educational situation in China, due to the great differences in educational strength among schools, the problem of students choosing schools and schools choosing schools is outstanding, which may be difficult to solve at once. As an objective and acceptable standard for evaluating students' merits, the results of Olympic Mathematics will attract more and more attention from all sides.
It is the above-mentioned "essential" reasons that determine that the Olympic fever cannot be reduced in the near future. It can be said that the great reasons for the Olympic fever are the enthusiasm of the coal body to come up with news, the inaction of the education department for utilitarian purposes, the parents' eagerness to succeed, their ignorance of the laws of education, and their misunderstanding of how children can be regarded as talents, which are several comprehensive results. However, can Olympic Games itself train real scientists, and how much benefit will it have to the establishment of students' knowledge structure?
Here, I have more than I can chew to express my views on mathematics. Mathematics gives ordinary people the impression that it is boring, abstract and difficult to understand. However, if you make an in-depth study of mathematics, have some understanding of modern mathematics and a little understanding of the history of mathematics, you will have a correct understanding of mathematics. First of all, I emphasize that all mathematical knowledge comes from life practice, which is an abstraction and summary of the problems encountered in life, the problems raised in the development of other disciplines and the solutions given by predecessors. It can be said that mathematics is inseparable from other disciplines. Without life and other disciplines, mathematical research will eventually become a tree without roots, passive water and lose its value of existence. If you know something about Socrates, Newton, Leibniz, Marx, Hegel and other ancient philosophers and scientists, you will find that they are also mathematicians.
Looking back at the history of mathematics, the development of mathematics can be divided into three stages. The first stage was16th century before the Western Renaissance and the Industrial Revolution, and it was called classical mathematics. Everything I learned before high school is within this range. The second stage is after the Renaissance, with the arrival of mechanized society, the foundation of modern mathematics research-calculus appeared. Anyone who has studied advanced mathematics knows that in the social environment before the industrial society, the feudal economy was relatively closed, and there was no social demand, so it was difficult to have an environment in which calculus thought was generated. It can be seen that the development of mathematics develops with the progress of social economy. A pure mathematician can hardly make mathematics develop and make a qualitative leap without the supplement and assistance of other social knowledge and related disciplines. It can be said that mathematical research is by no means like the Olympic Games to solve the problems raised under the framework of inherent knowledge, but also needs an innovative spirit of asking and solving problems. This is just the opposite of the thinking mode of the Olympic mathematics competition. In the third stage, the rise of modern mathematics is due to many factors such as the research of electromagnetism, thermodynamics and information technology, the development of industry and the outbreak of world war at the end of 19. At the same time, the center of mathematical research has slowly shifted from Europe to the United States, which has gradually become a world power. Without the complementarity of other disciplines, isolated research can only lead mathematics astray or be worthless.
Let's see what our olympiad really contains. According to the mathematician's inference, the questioner of the China Olympic Mathematics Competition is by no means a first-class mathematician. Because the topics don't involve the content of modern mathematics, that is, calculus, they are all classical mathematics topics. I guess arrogantly that these people who have racked their brains may not even have basic modern mathematical ideas. Some teachers who tutor Olympic Mathematics have not received systematic higher mathematics education, otherwise, they will never spare no effort to lead children around in the corner of the problem, consuming their beautiful childhood and youth, making their knowledge too narrow and mathematics too modular. Because children's healthy growth needs a variety of knowledge reserves, and the energy and time to accept new knowledge are limited. Innovative thinking, cooperative consciousness, courage to challenge authority, correct handling of interpersonal relationships around, life orientation and adolescence are still important for the establishment of these characters. These excellent qualities are more important for children's healthy development. These qualities are by no means reflected by a single Olympic math score, nor can they be given by a single Olympic math training. Most Olympic mathematics learners are not interested in mathematics itself, but only solve problems for the sake of solving problems, so that they can get into a good school in order to get good grades.
At the same time, the content of the Olympic Mathematics also seriously violates the law of popularizing mathematics education. As far as I know, elementary school olympiad needs junior high school knowledge to solve, junior high school needs senior high school knowledge to solve, and senior high school needs college knowledge, which is more convenient. The general rule is that the solution given by the Olympic number is quite complicated, but it is quite simple to solve an advanced problem with low-level knowledge and solve the same problem with high-level knowledge. However, the teacher of Olympic Mathematics is "disdainful" because it doesn't look complicated enough to exercise people's thinking. They don't know that the development direction of mathematics is to solve complex problems with relatively simple methods. ) Give a simple example. If you use the knowledge of middle school, you can set more unknowns and simultaneous equations, which is quite simple to solve, while the method of Olympic mathematics is to try not to set or reduce unknowns, and the difficulty can be imagined by yourself. Little did I know that this would stifle pupils' interest in learning new knowledge. But interest is a necessary condition for learning mathematics. To make an inappropriate metaphor, solving the olympiad is like digging a ditch on the ground. People can dig by hand, and it is more convenient to dig with a shovel. If you use an excavator, digging ditches is a pleasure for people. These three stages are like primary school students, middle school students and college students solving the same Olympic math problem. It is true that digging ditches with bare hands has exercised students' perseverance and toughness, and digging deep ditches with bare hands is also a miracle and worthy of praise. But I wonder how students will feel if they know that excavators can be used to dig ditches instead of just their hands. There is no comparability between hands and excavators. Good results in Olympic Mathematics never mean that you have the ability and interest to learn mathematics.
Let's take a look at the attitude of the masters towards the Olympic Mathematics. In recent years, when Professor China, a representative figure of mathematics research level, was walking in Nankai University in his later years, students often came to ask questions about Olympiad. Professor Chen's answer was: I can't do it. I think it is by no means impossible, but disdainful. The other is Qiu Chengtong, an academician of the American Academy of Sciences. He is the only Chinese in the world who has won the Fields Medal, the highest prize in mathematics. He is also worried about the high investment and concern of the whole society for the Olympic Games. For example, he doesn't have the correct research methods and ideas when doing mathematical research himself, and he still needs to spend a lot of energy to change students' habits. Another extreme example, a young math "genius",/kloc-went to college at the age of 0/2, got a doctorate at the age of 20, and later worked as a postdoctoral fellow with Qiu Chengtong. Because he is a genius, no one has been with him since he was a child, and he has no friends of his own. In less than two years, he went crazy. I became a doctor at the age of 20, studied with him for a while, but committed suicide. This can't say that there is no problem with our education. There are also Olympic math competitions abroad, but unlike in China, participants only discuss with each other during the holidays because of their interest. Moreover, the score of Olympic Mathematics is by no means a certificate to enter the first-class universities in the United States, and the third-rate universities in the United States attach importance to this score. A few days ago, I also read an article saying: Fan, vice mayor of Beijing, commented on the Olympic Games on the radio: The Olympic Games is a boring competition, which is simply ruining the children's future. ...
I think, in order to find out whether the advantages of the Olympic Mathematical Contest outweigh the disadvantages or the disadvantages outweigh the advantages for children's lifelong development and the future of the nation, we must listen to the opinions of all parties, especially those who have made achievements in mathematical research and senior educators. Personally, I'm afraid that the current situation that the whole society pays attention to the Olympic Mathematics and makes it overheated will do more harm than good.