Recommendation: How to promote education reform

Education faces two major problems

Frankly speaking, most university classrooms in our country are no different from primary and secondary school classrooms. Notes are taken in class, memorized in exams, and forgotten after the exam. There are big problems with such a teaching method. Therefore, I call on university education, including primary and secondary education, to be based on reading and on intellectual challenges. Only in this way can our classrooms be truly full of vitality and vitality.

I am very happy to have the opportunity to share with you some of my thoughts on education issues over the years. As we all know, there is a famous "Qian Xuesen Question" in the education field: Why can't China cultivate innovative top-notch talents? Today we will continue to talk about this topic.

Mo Yan recently won the Nobel Prize in Literature, and everyone felt proud. However, we have not yet won the Nobel Prize in the scientific field, especially compared with the Jews, we still have a big gap. Someone once joked that the whole world was changed by five Jews: the first Jew was named Moses, the second Jew was named Jesus, the third Jew was named Marx, the fourth Jew was named Einstein, and the fifth Jew was named Flo Ed. We don’t care about the first two, but the last three characters are indeed very important. Marx's views on social issues have indeed changed the world and are an important ideological weapon for us to analyze and study social issues. There is a discipline in the West called "Hauntology", which specializes in studying Marx. It believes that Marx's influence on human society is everywhere at all times. Einstein's theory of relativity has changed people's views on the physical world and time and space. Freud's psychoanalytic theory completely changed people's view of themselves.

The contribution of Jews to the world really makes us feel that a nation’s contribution to the world, especially its contribution to science and thought, is closely related to the creativity of this nation and the profound thinking of this nation. Sex is very closely related.

I gave a speech in Guangzhou a few years ago. Some media said that I was criticizing China’s education. In fact, I was not criticizing, but thinking: Why can’t China cultivate world-class talents? At that time, I proposed several reasons. The first reason was the division of arts and sciences.

"People's Daily" once published a commentary article that said: China does not lack scholars with extraordinary talents, but there are few masters with both scientific spirit and humanistic sentiment. Some people pay too much attention to the fruits of scientific research and ignore the process of growth. Driven by interests, doing scientific research is often prone to quick success, impetuous style, and even fraud. In my opinion, scientists without humanistic feelings will not get far. Therefore, I have written many articles calling for the abolition of the liberal arts and sciences division.

On the surface, it seems that the division of arts and sciences reduces the burden on our students, but the scientific spirit and the humanistic spirit cannot be separated. We can all see the consequences of premature separation: making students Far away from the knowledge that is originally needed, and far away from the humanistic feelings that are originally needed. Most middle school students start studying science in high school and no longer pay attention to humanities, history, geography, or real literature. They focus on technology and test scores, and are gradually drifting away from the greatest ideas of mankind. Those who can't study science then choose liberal arts, and those who take liberal arts become second-class citizens. Think about it, is this true? So I said that our education is a system in which most people study with a small number of people. The courses taught in schools are very difficult and difficult for many people to learn. I often say that education should be tailored to the characteristics of each individual. The main task of the middle school stage is to lay a solid foundation in humanities so that the vast majority of students can learn how to be a good person and allow some people with scientific talents to follow the path of science. For most people, learning should not be a burden, but a happy process. Therefore, I think the separation of humanities and science is a big problem.

The second problem is reading. The decline in reading ability has led to the decline in the overall quality of citizens.

Recently, Renmin University of China Press published a book of mine called "My View on Reading". I mentioned in the book that the history of a person’s spiritual development is the history of reading. Why do you say that? A person's spiritual growth depends on continuous dialogue with the greatest minds of thousands of years and gaining their wisdom. To do this, you must keep reading. Although reading cannot change the length of life, it can change the width of life, enhance the height of life, and increase the thickness of life. Reading can help a person's spirit become more full.

The spiritual realm of a nation depends on its reading level. Many people may say that reading is an individual behavior, what does it have to do with the country and nation? On the surface, reading is an individual behavior, but we know why the Jews are so powerful? One of the main reasons is that the Jews are a nation that regards reading as a religion, with each person reading 65 books per year! And how many are we? 5.14 books, including textbooks and teaching aids. On average, Jews have one library for every 4,500 people, but most of our communities now have no libraries. It can be said that the level of reading power directly affects the future of a country and nation.

I went to Harvard University as a visiting student the year before last and was deeply touched. Classes at Harvard are basically discussion classes. In the previous class, you had to read at least 100 pages of material first, and then discuss the material after reading it. After the discussion, the teacher communicated with the students in class. This kind of teaching is based on dialogue based on a lot of reading.

The teacher himself must also read, otherwise he will not be able to gain a foothold in the classroom. However, many of our teachers do not have this pressure. Frankly speaking, most university classrooms in our country are no different from primary and secondary school classrooms. Take notes in class, memorize them during the exam, and forget them all after the exam. There are big problems with such a teaching method. I once criticized that many of our teachers hold an "old ticket" for education and "repeat yesterday's story" every day, because the lecture notes can be told from 30 years ago to today, and they do not need to update because they have not The pressure to talk to students. A good class must not be a class filled with students, but must be a class of dialogue, discussion and debate. Therefore, I have always called on Chinese university education, including primary and secondary education, to be based on reading and on intellectual challenges, so that our classrooms can be truly full of vitality and vitality.

Management needs to break through regulations

It is not enough to have one set of teaching syllabus in a school, there must be another set of teaching syllabus, which is to help students establish their own reading system . Schools should be encouraged to let a hundred flowers bloom. Only when a hundred flowers bloom can people's creativity be brought into full play.

I have always said that our nation is the smartest, most intelligent, and most diligent nation in the world, but why is there such a big gap between science and technology education and developed countries?

An important reason is management and institutional issues. Specifically, local governments are too tightly controlled, schools are too tightly controlled, administrative departments have too much power, educational resource allocation is unreasonable, educational development is unbalanced, and vitality has not been unleashed. Our country has such a large population and such uneven development, which is rare in the world. I have stayed in Suzhou, Shanghai, and Beijing. To be honest, good schools are comparable to any school in the world, but bad schools are not much better than the worst places in the world. The gap is so huge that if you have to use one method to manage it, it's impossible to do it well if one size fits all. The same education policy will definitely work well in one place but poorly in another place.

Another problem is the lack of autonomy in schools. It is very difficult to reform primary and secondary education now, because the education syllabus prescribed by the state has already filled up the curriculum. If you do not follow the requirements of the syllabus, you will not be able to complete your teaching tasks. If you do it according to its requirements, there will be no room for development at all. Therefore, our teachers often have to do a lot of challenging work. For example, what should you do if you want to encourage students to read more but don’t have time? Can you take a semester's worth of classes in one month and then innovate your own courses? In this way, children will gain much more information and knowledge in the same environment. In my opinion, some repetitive exercises are completely unnecessary, but a lot of reading can provide people with a very broad intellectual background. Therefore, it is not enough for a school to have only one set of teaching syllabus. There must also be another set of teaching syllabus, which is to help students establish their own reading system. The greatest schools in the world are all schools where principals have a high degree of freedom and they all run their own courses. It cannot be said that these principals do whatever they want, but at least they practice education based on their own educational ideas and concepts. Schools should be encouraged to let a hundred flowers bloom. Only when a hundred flowers bloom can people's creativity be brought into full play.

There is also the problem of unreasonable resource allocation. Some of our departments seem to like to add icing on the cake and rarely do anything to provide help when needed. Over the years, many education policies have basically focused on favoring and strengthening good schools, resulting in a growing gap between schools and an increasingly uneven development. And this inequality is not only inequality in hardware investment, but more importantly, inequality in software, teachers, etc. For example, the gap in per capita public education funding for a primary school student between developed and underdeveloped areas can reach 10 to 1! This inequality in education directly leads to a growing gap in learning quality and a growing gap in levels between students. This gap is not only reflected between different regions, but also between schools in the same region. Why is there a problem of school choice in many places, and the popularity of school choice cannot be reduced? Because the gap between schools is too big. Our country is still dominated by public education. The vitality of private education has not been fully exerted. Private capital has not really entered education. The vitality of private education and its important supplementary and stimulating role in public education have not been fully exerted. In most developed countries, higher education is dominated by private schools, and the government can provide institutional guarantees in purchasing services.

The key is to promote fairness

Education reform is actually about two things. The first is the issue of fairness, and the second is the issue of quality. It is necessary to encourage excellent teachers and other excellent educational resources to be tilted toward rural areas, weak schools, and disadvantaged groups to truly achieve educational equity. Only if the allocation of educational resources is more reasonable, we will not have problems such as college entrance examination immigration.

For the current education reform, I make the following suggestions.

First, further clarify the goals of education management system reform. First, we must properly handle the relationship between the government, schools, and the market. Specifically, there are three different modes. For example, Europe pays more attention to the power of schools and academics, the United States pays more attention to the power of the market, and China pays more attention to the power of the government. Each has its own characteristics.

We should learn more from the good experiences of European and American higher education and fully respect the power of academia and the market. Take university mergers as an example. University mergers have their benefits and are of positive significance for optimizing the allocation of educational resources and building world-class universities. However, hasty mergers that do not take into account historical and realistic conditions also have considerable disadvantages. For example, after a merger, the dominant school will influence, change, and penetrate other campus cultures, and some disciplines will be left out or even shrink. There are many examples like this. Including the construction of our university towns, thousands of acres of land are often used to build university towns, far away from the central city, causing students to study in a deserted place, which is actually not conducive to development. We have placed too much emphasis on bigness in the past, thinking that bigness is good. Nowadays, middle schools have more than 10,000 students, and universities can easily have 20,000 to 30,000 students. In fact, once the scale gets too big, it will become difficult to manage. In my opinion, a good education goal should be hierarchical. One is to train hundreds of millions of high-quality workers, the other is to train tens of millions of specialized talents, and the other is to train tens of millions of specialized talents. One is to cultivate a large number of innovative and top-notch talents as the goal. But now we are training these three types of people together, and all education is focused on cultivating innovative and top-notch talents, which is troublesome.

The design of our current labor distribution system is also unreasonable. In the past, we have always criticized that those who make atomic bombs are not as good as those who sell tea eggs. Later, we gradually adjusted, and now it is a bit overkill. In a good social system, people should be equal and the income gap should not be too large. A good system should allow people in every profession to have dignity and be able to work and live decently. We should advocate such an educational concept: whether you are a scientist or a craftsman, you should start from your personal interests, hobbies and potential, rather than how much you can make. If our students choose a major not out of interest and curiosity, but out of learning what is better for finding a job and making more money, this kind of education will actually be unsuccessful and will not go far.

Another issue is educational equity. The report of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China regards providing education that satisfies the people as an important strategic goal. I think it is very well stated. In fact, people's satisfaction and dissatisfaction mainly depend on fairness. Education reform is actually about two things. The first is the issue of fairness, and the second is the issue of quality. Since public education is a government-run system, all school funds should be treated equally. Whether you are in a big city or a small village, the basic rights of all students in education should be the same. Within the framework of public education, teachers should be mobile between schools. Excellent educational resources cannot be concentrated in one place, otherwise it will be difficult to achieve truly high-quality and fair education. Therefore, we must encourage excellent teachers and other excellent educational resources to be tilted toward rural areas, weak schools, and disadvantaged groups to truly achieve educational equity. The fairness I am talking about here has three levels. The first is fairness of opportunities, all children can learn; the second is fairness of the process, all configurations are the same, so that children can learn well; and the last is fairness of results, all children can learn well. . Only if the allocation of educational resources is more reasonable, we will not have problems such as college entrance examination immigration. In the end, the school that suits each child should be chosen based on his personality and talents. There is no good or bad school, the one that suits him best is the best.

The key to promoting educational equity and improving education quality is decentralization. One of the most important ones is to regard adapting measures to local conditions as the basic value and guiding ideology of public education policy. Our current regulations are too rigid, such as the teacher-student ratio. The situation in different places is different, so one size does not apply. The same is true for the ratio of vocational education to general education. We set the ratio of general vocational education to 5:5, but this is not possible in some places. Because this ratio is closely related to the local labor and employment situation. If you go to a vocational school and can't find a job, you might as well go to a regular high school. Another example is the issue of merging schools in rural areas. In the past few years, some schools disappeared overnight, and some village elementary schools disappeared overnight. The village primary school has been the cultural center of the villagers for thousands of years. If it were to be moved away all of a sudden, students would have to travel several miles or even more than ten miles to go to school. The round trip would take an hour or two. After running to school, they would be tired and still interested. Going to school? So one size does not fit all, as one size fits all will cause problems. As the saying goes, decentralization leads to vitality, and autonomy leads to innovation. Nowadays, everyone is talking about strengthening management. It is true that some management needs to be strengthened, but sometimes we also need to think in reverse. Don’t always think about how to strengthen leadership and where the management is not enough. Instead, we should do the opposite and think first. Which ones should not be taken care of. In general, liberating students, liberating teachers, liberating principals, and liberating educational productivity is a general direction.

The voice of liberating education, Mr. Tao Xingzhi called for the liberation of students’ brains, hands, and eyes decades ago, but these calls have still not been fulfilled today. We just don’t feel confident about giving children freedom. The deep-rooted concept is that if children don’t finish their homework, they are just playing. In fact, people's true creativity can be exerted precisely in free time. The more you fill up your child's space, the more limited your child's development will be. I once introduced the results of a foreign study on Weibo. Scientists studied the relationship between children’s homework and their intellectual development. The results were very interesting: children who do more homework are more stupid. This is normal. I don’t need scientific experiments. I know this is the result just from the educator’s intuition.

A large number of repetitive, mechanical, and low-quality exercises will only make a person more stupid. Yet our education does exactly that. On the contrary, if you give your child free space, he will gradually form his own free interests, free orientation, and free development, and his energy can truly be unleashed.

I often say that the differences between people are not as big as we think. Marx said that the difference between a philosopher and a porter is far smaller than the difference between a domestic dog and a hound. Their difference is due to the division of labor. The difference between students is closely related to their degree of freedom. Therefore, I suggest that the government should establish an education management system with relatively independent management, operation and evaluation. The government should change from a paddler to a helmsman, from directly providing services to using a variety of ways and means to meet social needs and expand public services. capabilities and improve the quality of public services. Now, to a certain extent, the government has too much control, which has resulted in excessive concentration of power and arbitrary decision-making. Principals should be selected instead of appointed, and this is already being done. At the same time, it is necessary to establish a supervision system that is independent of the education decision-making and implementation departments. After this kind of system and power is established, education will also be better.

In addition, education should be further opened up, both internally and externally. Of course, some people say that our educational opening up only opens up our own people. So, how can we make our universities more dynamic and attractive? This is a big problem. Nowadays, an increasing proportion of people go abroad to study every year. Moreover, from first-tier cities to second- and third-tier cities, from universities to high schools, from high schools to junior high schools, and even primary schools are beginning to be sent abroad. A very important reason is that they are not satisfied with our education system and do not want their children to suffer, so they simply send their children out. Why does education reform lack momentum now? Because the children of some powerful and wealthy people are no longer in the country. But rational parents are also thinking, is sending their children out the only way? Right? Regardless of family relationships, the growth of children's personalities, and the formation of values, there are indeed problems. If a child is sent abroad for primary school or junior high school, I believe it will be difficult for such a child to come back. Even if he comes back in the future, he will not be accustomed to the local environment. From the perspective of family education, children who grow up without their parents will always have character flaws. At the most critical time in life, there is a difference between the presence and absence of parents. Many children abroad are indeed worrying. That being the case, why don't we open up a little and transform our universities appropriately?

I once thought about whether we could select some universities and let private capital run them? We have the conditions and foundation to do this. Private forces should be encouraged to run some distinctive schools and quality schools instead of turning some well-run private schools into public schools. Now we have some good public schools with very high entry barriers. As a result, they have become schools only for children from rich and powerful families. This is a huge problem. In fact, we can give private schools more space in the system setting, and even provide them with subsidies to encourage private schools to improve their quality and give people more choices.