■ Liu Changming

After the college entrance examination in 2003, Mr. Xu Zhi from Beijing No.4 Middle School compiled a book about the growing feelings of more than a dozen children, entitled "From Beijing No.4 Middle School to Peking University Tsinghua-Opening the" Black Box "of the College Entrance Examination". The content of the book is the real feelings of children growing up in No.4 Middle School, which attracts many readers, especially students at school, because they are the author's peers. The book Colorful Road to College Entrance Examination by Beijing No.4 Middle School, a century-old prestigious school, can be said to be a sequel to the previous book.

Everyone is eager for success and happiness, and every parent wants their children to be successful and happy, but what is success and happiness? This philosophical question has been attracting and puzzling the world for thousands of years.

Before and after the college entrance examination, high-end hotels in many places put up signs, booking celebration banquets, champion banquets, teacher-thanking banquets and so on. , dazzling. This seems to give the world a clear hint: as long as you step into an institution of higher learning, you will get success and happiness; If you are admitted to a famous university, you will become a "successful boy" or a "successful girl". Because of this, a large number of books summarizing the experience of the college entrance examination or guessing questions are placed in bookstores or book stands every year, such as "The Book of Champion", "The Secret Book of Champion", "The Examination Paper of Champion" and "The Road to Champion". The whole world rushed to buy it. Parents and teachers hope that the next generation or students will not take the detours they have gone through, the bumps they have gone through and the success. So they take pains to give their children this or that advice. They believe that as long as children don't make the mistakes made by adults and don't take the detours taken by adults, they can avoid failure, have a good trip and succeed at their fingertips.

However, many people think wrong.

No matter how the society progresses, everyone's personal life can't be all right and perfect. Children may have avoided the detours taken by adults, but today they are faced with more forks in the road that their elders have not taken. People who have been there. Including parents and teachers, when looking back on the past, they are often surprised to find that their detours, mistakes, bumps and things they don't want to happen and see are almost the same for their descendants or students. The children seem to be repeating the flawed life of the previous generation. In fact, success and failure, prosperity and frustration are all indispensable nutrients for human development. After all, philosophy of life is not taught by teachers and parents. Children are willing to experience, feel, taste success and failure, and bear the pain caused by setbacks. This is the law of growth.

So, what is the role of school education?

First of all, school education is a way and means for human beings to inherit the achievements of civilization. Therefore, the important task of the school is to let students master the knowledge they should master. The effect of mastering knowledge should be tested by examination. Although today's examination methods are far from complete, they are essential. However, the role of school education is more than that. School education should make teenagers learn to better integrate into groups and society; Let young people get the motivation, enthusiasm and necessary foundation for lifelong learning and development; Let teenagers learn to choose among complicated things and have correct value judgment ability; It is necessary to provide possibilities and conditions for the diversified development of teenagers, so that they have independent and sound personalities and distinctive and healthy personalities; Let teenagers have good humanity, kind heart and elegant manners; Teenagers should learn to clearly and objectively understand their own value and their due position in society, and form the habit of self-reflection from time to time, learn to adjust themselves and make themselves constantly perfect; Teenagers should gradually understand their responsibilities, including their responsibilities to themselves, their families, society, mankind and future generations. In short, school education should help to continuously improve people's quality of life and make today's teenagers more civilized, more scientific, happier and happier in their future lives. School education doesn't mean just letting students recite a few textbooks.

As the author of this book, dozens of children grew up in such an environment. Their college entrance examination results are different and their destinations are different. According to the prevailing social standards, some are successful and some may not be very successful. But their similarity lies in that during the three-year study, they fully appreciate life and know themselves, which is an important preparation for their future life. One more thing, we can see from their narratives that their hearts are full, full of sunshine, full of hope and confidence. They have the ability and preparation to face the future life.

These children talk about their experiences and understandings from various aspects, and they have a sense of contending. They talked in their favorite or professional fields, showing rich experience and in-depth thinking. Some children talk about learning methods, revealing the initiative and autonomy of learning between the lines, indicating that they have mastered the learning activity itself. In some ways, they can ignore or even surpass the college entrance examination, which is very rare. These children show readers their rich mental journey in the past three years, which is a valuable reference for the society, especially for their peers. What they sublimate from life may be more attractive to readers and thought-provoking, and its social value may be reflected in those aspects.