Two students who are studying art and preparing to go to university came to my office to chat, and once took a month's philosophy class on their behalf, and they still remember the vivid cases and concise system I brought to them in the philosophy class. In fact, they are all children who love to learn Xi, but the heavy burden of schoolwork makes them choose to resist and escape, and the art examination has become a way for them to resist and escape from the overly harsh and harsh schoolwork burden of cultural subjects. In fact, the competition in the art examination is also unprecedentedly fierce, the number of applicants is large, and the admission ratio is small, which is no less than the college entrance examination for ordinary arts and sciences, and this road is also difficult and tortuous. They need to put more effort into it. The scale of the art examination army is getting bigger and bigger, and it is worth reflecting on what kind of problems have arisen in our basic education.
From the perspective of educational concepts, our primary and secondary education is designed for "examination", not for "people". It's terrifying. Children read too many books during their physical development, and these books are basically teaching materials for exams, without the slightest interest, and the initiative is completely lacking, and children have to go through the process of learning Xi painfully under compulsion and coercion.
Looking at primary and secondary education as a whole, not only children have become examination machines, but also teachers engaged in education have become examination machines. Nowadays, middle school teachers use scores to design a good future for each student, such as what kind of students should improve themselves, how many points are needed for each subject, how many points can be scored, which courses have to be made up, which classes are less or not needed, how much time is needed to make up for these scores, how much money is needed to make up for these classes, and so on. On primary and secondary school campuses, students are turned into exam machines just like teachers. In view of the fact that parents are generally proficient in this way, especially the vast number of examination training institutions for the purpose of profit in society, the whole society has also become an examination machine to a certain extent. During this period, an article on the use of the "theater effect" to reflect on basic education swept the Internet, and the excessive Xi in basic education has long become a major social disease and a problem that the people generally hate, but cannot get rid of. However, the sad thing is that after working hard to get into the university, when it is necessary to carry out in-depth professional Xi, students are generally reluctant to study. I have to study hard when I shouldn't be reading and shouldn't read too many books, and when I'm an adult, I don't want to read when I should be studying hard. This kind of professional learning is related to Xi children's lifelong career development and life happiness. So, what should change in education? How should education move forward?
Some netizens left a message: Now there is a view circulating on the Internet: it is a very hard thing to call learning Xi, Teacher Liu, do you agree with this view? I don't agree with it, I always think that the learning Xi in primary and secondary schools should make students feel the joy of learning Xi, not hard work. If students feel that learning Xi is very hard, how can they be willing to learn Xi and like to learn Xi? Although the process of learning Xi is very hard, it is a hard thing to be guided in this way, so that students can accept and recognize Xi without resistance? Is it good or not?
I replied: The question of whether learning Xi is painful or happy, like the philosophical proposition of whether human nature is good or evil, is a difficult question of the opinions of the benevolent and the wise, and it is impossible to obtain unanimous agreement. But for education, whether human nature itself is good or evil is not the most important thing, the key is that education must believe that human nature can be upward to good. Whether learning Xi should be happy or not, my interpretation and practice insist that if learning Xi is happy, education should discover this happiness; If learning Xi is painful, education should change that experience and guide students to learn Xi happily. Education must be directed towards happiness, so as to reflect the value of education and serve the yearning and pursuit of a better and happier life for human beings.
According to Xunzi Zidao, Zilu asked Confucius: "Gentlemen are also worried? Confucius said: "A gentleman, if he has not obtained it, he will be happy; I have already obtained it, and I am happy to cure it. It is to have lifelong happiness and no worries for a day. The villain, if he doesn't get it, he can't worry; I have gained it, but I am afraid of losing it. It is to have lifelong worries and no day's joy. "In life, there will be pursuits, and the trouble of not being able to get it. Gentlemen and villains are the same. When a gentleman fails to pursue an ideal, he often feels happy because he has an ideal in his heart; And when the dream comes true, I am happy that my ideal has been realized and satisfied. So in the end, the gentleman is always happy, without a day of trouble. And the villain is different. When the villain does not realize his dream, he is worried that he will not get it, and since he has obtained it, he is worried that he will lose the achievements he has obtained, and suffer from gains and losses, so he spends every day in troubles and sorrows, and there is no day of happiness. Happiness is a very rare state of life. Therefore, at the beginning of the Analects, Confucius pointed out that "learning and Xi it is not a pleasure." The Analects contains many passages about happiness, revealing that the Confucian masters believed that education was based on a culture of "happiness." Mencius once said, "A gentleman has three pleasures, but the king does not exist with the world." Both parents exist, brothers have no reason, and they are happy; Look up to the sky, bow down to people, and be happy; Get the world's talents and educate them, and the three music are also. "There are three kinds of happiness in a gentleman, and even those who are the masters of the world may not be able to have this kind of happiness. Both parents are still alive and there is harmony between brothers, which is the first kind of happiness. Being worthy of heaven and earth and worthy of all people is the second kind of happiness. Getting the best people in the world and educating them, so that they grow up to be better than the blue, is the third kind of happiness. These ideas about happiness in Confucianism are very worthy of our education today, and they should be carried forward.
The students I once taught left a message: We still don't have so much pressure when we study, and I am very anxious when I see that there are so many essays in junior high school that I can't even guarantee sleep time.
Another student also became a teacher's message: We didn't feel that studying was hard at that time, because there was more hard farm work waiting for us at home. The lesser of two powers. So, we tried our best to study, hoping to jump out of the "farm gate" and get away from the dirty, messy and tired rural life. For homework, I don't take it seriously, and I even wish that my homework would be better. In this way, you can escape from those annoying farm jobs in a bright light. Now, children can't "choose the lesser of two powers", so they feel that reading is hard and hates homework. Their current state is: when they are up and down in the sea of questions, parents are playing with mobile phones, playing games, watching TV, and building the "Great Wall"...In this way, they feel that they are the most pitiful people.