Let children learn more "uselessness"

Music celebrity Gao once said: Someone asked me if I would like my children to learn piano? I don't have to learn the piano, but I must learn more and do more useless things. The most important difference between people and animals is that everything animals do is useful (for survival and reproduction), while people have to do many useless things, such as playing chess, painting and calligraphy, such as falling in love and waiting. If a child can only take classes that are useful for further study and go to college to do things that are useful for employment, isn't it a waste to be born a man?

As a father, Gao said that the most practical education is to let children know how to look at things in an unsuccessful life.

A high parenting experience is to "let children learn more useless things."

60% parents think that children should learn book knowledge.

According to a survey of 830 parents of primary and middle school students in xinji city, Wujiang and Changshu, 60% parents think that their children should learn books such as mathematics, Chinese and foreign languages. When attending primary and secondary schools, children should learn something useful for further studies and exams; Children should learn something useful for employment after they go to college. The reason is that children have limited energy, self-control and control, and they can't finish what they have learned. How can they have time to study things they don't need at present?

The remaining 40% parents agree that children can learn something "useless". In their view, any content that is beneficial to children's physical and mental health, can enrich their own interests and improve their overall quality should be learned, although it has nothing to do with the study of book knowledge and further studies.

However, when these same parents were asked to choose "useless" ways to recognize their children's learning, 58.07% of them chose "flexible-see if their children have time outside of study"; 38.94% of parents chose "moral support-just talking". Only 16 parents chose "Strong Support".

As parents, should children learn something "useless"? In fact, society has given the answer.

The "tenth phenomenon" deserves reflection.

A widely circulated example is that Steven Chu, a former US Secretary of Energy, often spends a lot of time in school, and his grades have been hovering around ten, while his brother Steven Chu has always maintained the first place in his class. But after work, Chu's brother was an associate professor when he was a professor, and he was a full professor when he won the Nobel Prize.

In China, Wu Zhou, a teacher of Tianchang Primary School in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, has long called this phenomenon "the tenth phenomenon": after entering junior high school, senior high school, university and even work, a considerable number of top students in primary schools will "fade out" from the excellent ranks, and many students ranked tenth will unexpectedly stand out from the ranks and perform well in their future studies and work.

In the view of Liu Daoyu, the old president of Wu Da University, whose responsibility is to cultivate outstanding talents, over-developing students' ability to learn textbook knowledge will inevitably inhibit their ability development in other aspects. It takes too much energy for children to stay at the top.

Zhu Qingshi, the first president of south university of science and technology of china, China, strongly agrees with Liu Daoyu's point of view. He said that Bobby Chen, a master of mathematics, wrote an inscription for the junior class of the Chinese University of Science and Technology: Don't take the exam 100. Zhu Qingshi explained that students with original ecology can generally get a score of 70-80, and a score of 100 requires several times of efforts, and they must be very skilled to make no mistakes. To get this score of 100, a lot of time and resources need to be wasted, which is equivalent to applying 10 times of chemical fertilizer to the land. Finally, students' creativity was obliterated.

Education must first understand what children need to grow up.

What do you think children should learn? What is useful? What is useless? It depends on each parent's educational philosophy of cultivating their children. It determines the parents' expectations of their children and the way they raise them. What kind of thoughts will produce what kind of actions. If parents think that children's interests are very important, they will try their best to create favorable conditions for their children even if the conditions are not good.

Today, the consideration of economy has become the basic basis for many parents to study, enter a higher school and study abroad for their children, which makes many parents put almost all their children's future on the pursuit of so-called good grades and good majors, and naturally have no time to take care of the understanding and exploration of those useless things.

If education is people-oriented, then we must first understand what children need to grow up. For children, everything that is conducive to their healthy growth is "useful". Children's nature is play, dream, curiosity and exploration, so everything related to play, dream, curiosity and exploration should be "useful".

However, now many parents don't even give their children a little time and space, but fill their children's time with homework and various classes every day. Children can only get up and learn to sleep, so tired that they have no ability to dream. Without freedom, there is no thought, and without exploration, there is no sense of accomplishment. Such a grown-up child is naturally hard to be happy when he meets an unsuccessful life.

What was "useless" at first will become "useful" in the future.

Li Zhen, the principal of Beijing Yizhuang Experimental Primary School, exists in the first volume of Contemporary Educator magazine, 20 13, and quoted three examples that still make him feel deeply:

In the 1970s, a little girl in South Korea had a whim one day and said to her father, I want to learn Chinese. Dad asked why? The girl replied: it feels fun! Dad is open-minded: learn to play. So, the girl looked around for someone to learn Chinese. Neighbors say: China is too poor to have diplomatic relations with South Korea. What's the use of learning Chinese? Such parents are too irresponsible to their children!

Today, China has become the second largest economy in the world. At that time, the little girl was a good wife and mother, a full-time wife, and raised three children at home. The financial crisis broke out, and one day her husband suddenly lost his job. Being a wife kept me awake all night, and suddenly I remembered my skill: I can speak Chinese! I immediately applied for a job and soon received interview notices from five companies. Soon, she took her family to work in a Korean company in Shanghai.

In fact, not only this Korean girl, Bill Gates became the richest man in the United States for 15 years in a row, which also made his parents hurt their brains at school. And Darwin, who used to be an idle child when he was a child. He observes ant nests, catches butterflies and studies bedbugs, but he just doesn't want to learn. My father was furious and thought that he "can't do anything useful except shoot birds, keep dogs and catch mice, and will lose the face of the whole family in the future." However, it is from these "useless" things of "shooting birds, keeping dogs and catching mice" that Darwin achieved great things and changed human understanding of the evolution of life.

It is not difficult to think that the education around us is completely away from the "uselessness". Every class, every assignment, and every instruction from teachers and parents almost all point to one goal: let children learn "useful" things! What is something useful? Things that can help you get into colleges and universities in the future, and things that can help you find high-paying jobs ... So, our children have been overwhelmed by all kinds of homework and training since primary school, and they are trying to be "useful" in one breath and every word and deed. Poor children in China may be the busiest group of teenagers in the world.

Therefore, Li Zhencun pointed out that a child who has never enjoyed freedom and leisure since he was a child, how can he expect them to produce any thoughts, wisdom and personality when he grows up? The stricter children are managed from childhood, the less hobbies they have when they grow up, and the worse their autonomy. People who grow up like this can hardly have a happy life.