-American University College of Arts and Sciences (text: Shen Rui)

There are basically three types of universities in the United States in terms of teaching system. Universities (four-year universities and graduate schools, granting bachelor's degrees, master's degrees and doctoral degrees), arts and sciences colleges (four-year universities, granting bachelor's degrees only) and community education colleges (two-year universities, granting diplomas or transferring associate's degrees), as well as business schools, engineering schools, journalism schools, law schools or other "professional" colleges. The most famous American universities in China, such as Harvard University, Yale University, Princeton University and University of California, Berkeley, are all such universities. Although the subject setting and student situation of each university are very different. For example, the University of California at Berkeley has more than 30,000 students, while Princeton University has only about 6,000 students. Universities can be public or private. Generally speaking, the quality of private universities seems to be higher and better than that of public universities, because private universities have a long history, sources of funds and the level of professors. Of course, this is not entirely the case. For example, Berkeley is a public university and is recognized as one of the good schools. However, good schools are not always good. Usually, this kind of good is only good if the postgraduate education in a certain subject is ahead. The research level of a department or major in some ordinary schools may be quite good in the whole country. For example, the professors and academic achievements of China literature in Berkeley are not necessarily better than those of the University of Oregon, although the ranking of the University of Oregon is far behind Berkeley. However, the University of Oregon has five tenured professors majoring in China's language and literature, who are engaged in China literature research from China to Hong Kong and Taiwan from ancient times to the present. Berkeley, on the other hand, is inferior to the University of Oregon in terms of teachers in this professional field. A good friend of mine went to Berkeley and then transferred back. This is the educational situation of graduate students.

A student I know told me that he didn't meet a professor or even his own tutor during his first two years at Berkeley University. University professors are oppressed by their own research pressure, and they really can't afford to teach college students.

In China, this small-scale college of arts and sciences seems to receive little attention. The word university seems a bit out of date in China. It seems that all the universities that used to be called colleges in China have changed their names and transformed into universities. For example, the Central Institute for Nationalities, China Railway Institute and Beijing Institute of Posts and Telecommunications were all near my home. I've called them college since I was a child, and I still often spill the beans. They have long called themselves universities, as if they were just inferior. Of course, this kind of college is different from the liberal arts college in the United States in principle. In liberal arts colleges, Chinese translation is usually in humanities colleges. Not long ago, I saw an article by Xue Yong of Yale University on the website of Century China, introducing the American education system. He also translated it into the College of Adult Arts. His series of articles on educational reform in the United States and China are very enlightening to me. But I think he mistranslated the college of arts and sciences into a written college. The reason for mistranslation is the misunderstanding of the educational concept of liberal arts colleges. I used to be a graduate student in a public university, and later I taught in a private college of arts and sciences. I gradually understand their similarities and differences in my work and realize the significance of different educational concepts to the university system. In fact, after I went to Baodun College of Arts and Sciences where I taught at 200 1, I gradually realized that I had stayed in the United States for so many years and knew nothing about the educational concept of the College of Arts and Sciences. That year, I drove across the American continent, from the west coast to Maine to teach, and I was almost unprepared for the different environments waiting for me. I thought that the experience of teaching in public had prepared me. When I arrived at Bounty Shield College, I realized more and more the differences between universities and colleges in work, and realized how easy it is for us to take things for granted. Perhaps the truth is that we can only understand what our experience makes us understand, and it is difficult for us to understand what is beyond our experience. No wonder one of the main tasks in life is to study thousands of books and take Wan Li Road. Only concrete experience can make abstract experience gain practical significance.

It is this college of arts and sciences that provides the best university education in the United States, and it is also because the people taught in this college are basically professors and there are no graduate students to teach. The teaching staff is very strong, but the school is quite small. The teacher-student ratio is one of the important indicators of a university. Usually, the smaller the teacher-student ratio, the better. For example, the two liberal arts colleges ranked first or second in the United States, in Williams College in Massachusetts, the teacher-student ratio is 1: 9, and there are less than 2,000 students; The teacher-student ratio in Amherst is 1:8, and there are about 1, 600 students. Baodun College ranked fifth at 20 1 1, and the teacher-student ratio ranked tenth at 20 13 was 1: 10, with insufficient students 1600. The teacher-student ratio of the 46th Gettysburg College is about 1: 15, with more than 2,400 students. The general situation of the school can be seen from the teacher-student ratio. Rich teaching staff enable any student to communicate with the best professors. This kind of school emphasizes the communication between teachers and students, and emphasizes that a small class cannot have too many students. The communication and relationship between professors and students are very close. It is this privilege that has benefited students a lot, which led to the middle and upper class children being sent to such schools, because, if tutors used to teach at home in history, professors are teaching many students now, and students are still eating small stoves. As we all know, the rice in a small stove is better, more refined and more cultured than that in a big stove.

I don't study education in China, and I don't know much about education in China. I hope to introduce my familiar educational institutions, educational ideas and concepts, which may inspire those who explore the educational reform in China. China has been calling for educational reform for many years, and it seems that there are new reform plans every year. I visited several universities because of my work, and I saw that the universities are getting bigger and bigger. For example, Zhejiang University, according to the teachers there, the four universities merged into Zhejiang University, just like the Great Leap Forward collective steelmaking. None of the teachers who talk about this reform seems to have a positive attitude towards this giant university. Remember 1999 at the Central University for Nationalities. One day I passed a classroom and couldn't help standing by. It sounds like the teacher is talking about the history of the Revolution of 1911, which is one of the contents of the May 4th literature that I often teach in America. I want to see how universities in China teach and how students learn after years of advocating education reform. I was surprised to find that the teacher stood on the platform and spoke for several minutes in a few minutes. He wrote many blackboard books, and listed the significance of the failure of the Revolution of 1911 on the blackboard. The students all buried themselves in taking notes and dictated the words they had learned from primary school again. I stood there silently waiting for a while, thinking that this is still the same way of education since ancient times, the way of reciting the Analects, the way of teaching how to imitate, and the way of reciting other people's thoughts. Others' is not even thoughts, but rubbish.

Education reform should first be the reform of educational ideas and principles and the reform of educational methods. If the concept of education is still the Great Leap Forward, blindly chasing the beauty of the Premier League, or Gao Daquan or pretending to be empty, the purpose of education is to cultivate people who can't be outrageous in step. I am afraid that the educational reform in China is much more vigorous and has changed little. Leaders who aspire to be world-class universities are afraid of redistributing power in the name of reform, which has little to do with China's education reform. Education in China should first define different educational concepts and establish different types of universities according to our national conditions. If we are eager to turn junior college into a university and engineering university into a comprehensive university, it will be like learning to walk in Handan. People who don't know how to walk forget to learn from others in order to walk better for themselves. It won't take long. Mr. Xu Jilin shouted: "It's time to stop and reflect." I hope someone can hear him.