The article was from Han Dad in the United States and was deleted from infringement.
Last Wednesday, I did a live broadcast with Mr. Wu Jun.
A graduate of Tsinghua University and Johns Hopkins University, Dr. Wu Jun is a well-known computer scientist at Google and has served as vice president of Google and Tencent.
What Mr. Wu Jun knows more about us is another identity, that is, a famous popular science writer.
He has written many best-selling books, such as "The Top of the Wave", "The Road to University", "The Beauty of Mathematics" and so on, all of which are masterpieces by Mr. Wu.
Recommended Books. The three-step "Mathematics Lesson, Science Lesson and History of Science and Technology for Children" that we recommended earlier is also Mr. Wu's masterpiece.
Mr. Wu's two daughters are also particularly outstanding, one is studying at MIT and the other is studying at Johns Hopkins University.
The conversation with Mr. Wu that day was really rewarding, especially his experience in teaching children was also an eye-opener for me.
Because the live broadcast was at 12 noon that day, many readers couldn't listen to it because of work, so when I talked to Mr. Wu Jun that day, I listened and took notes at the same time.
You see, here's what I took at the time
Today, I summarize this insight, on the one hand, to digest and review myself, and on the other hand, to share this insight with you!
During the interview that day, I asked Mr. Wu Jun a question, which was actually a question that bothered me when I first went to Silicon Valley.
Because Silicon Valley has given birth to many technology giants, such as Google, which opened the search engine, Apple, which pioneered smartphones, HP, which started personal computers, and OpenAI, the artificial intelligence giant that is now in full swing and invented ChatGPT and Sora.
I've always wondered :
We Chinese are very smart and diligent, and our mathematical, physical and chemical achievements are very good, but why are many great inventions and innovations born in Silicon Valley?
The Fourth Industrial Revolution will be led by AI, so what improvements do we need to make in education to meet the needs of this future?
Mr. Wu thought about it for a while and gave me a four-word answer, a total of two words:
The first word is "strategic" and the second is "tactical"!
Let's start with the "strategic" level.
One of his words that stood out to me was that he said:
No matter what industry, as long as the child can achieve the top 10%, then his future will be very promising! In other words, as long as you do anything, you have to do it to the extreme! ”
He told me a story about a gardener.
He hired a gardener in his house, and the gardener was very skilled and conscientious, and kept the yard clean and beautiful. Therefore, many people wanted to ask him to clean the yard.
Mr. Wu asked me, "Do you know how many apartments that the master bought in Silicon Valley?" ”
You must know that the housing prices in Silicon Valley are about the same level as those in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, and those engineers who have received higher education have exhausted their life savings if they can buy a house.
I don't think the income of a gardener is too high, and it must be difficult to buy a house in Silicon Valley! Not to mention how many suites there are?
Mr. Wu's question made me incredible!
As a result, Mr. Wu told me the answer, and he said - "four sets"!
The blue-collar master actually bought four houses in Silicon Valley!
This story tells us a truth:
It is very important to nurture children and discover their interests, which can be learning or something other than learning.
But no matter what kind of activities he is involved in or what kind of industry he is engaged in, the child must strive to be the best, and be in the top 10% of the industry, then he will definitely be able to make some achievements.
Just like the gardener, he may not have much talent for learning, but he loves flowers and plants.
So he simply learned his craft well, trimmed the flowers and plants beautifully, and cleaned the lawn neatly.
In the end, looking back, his income level is higher than that of many highly educated white-collar workers!
Therefore, in cultivating children's "Tao", let children find their interests and achieve the ultimate, which is the competitiveness that accompanies children throughout their lives.
The top is "strategic", and then the "tactical" level.
That is: how do we do it?
How to get children to learn to get good grades?
How can children stay competitive in the future AI era?
Teacher Wu said four words:Rebellious and inclusive.
That is, children must have a rebellious spirit in learning, and they need to learn to question, and parents and teachers must also tolerate this questioning.
Why is it written like this in the books?
Why do teachers teach like this?
Is there a better way?
I feel this very deeply.
I remember that when I was teaching Hanhan Singapore Mathematics before, there was such a problem in the textbook, and the children were asked to use graphs to represent the following mathematical expression.
Here's how the textbook teaches:
The teacher draws a rectangle with a length and width of 15 and 12 respectively, so isn't the area of the rectangle the multiplicative expression?
But that's not all, the graphical calculation of Singapore mathematics next made my eyes light up.
The teacher divides the rectangle horizontally into two parts, the red block on the top is a multiplication, and the yellow block on the bottom is also a multiplication.
In this way, the original expression becomes an addition like the following, and the calculation is much easier.
This is not the end of the talk, and then the teacher cut the rectangle vertically, and the original multiplication has become two parts: red on the left and yellow on the right.
In this way, the original expression becomes an addition like the following, and the calculation is much easier.
This method of Singapore Mathematics is already perfect, and it is represented graphically, which reduces the difficulty of calculation.
I thought that this was the end of the story, but I didn't expect Hanhan to express a different opinion.
He asked me, "Why do you have to divide the figure and use addition?" ”
I was stunned by his question, and I asked him, "So do you have any other way?" ”
The son didn't speak, he took out his pen and drew another yellow rectangle next to the previous rectangle, so that a new large rectangle was formed.
And the side length of this new large rectangle is 20, then the previous arithmetic can be expressed by subtraction.
Hey, my son's method made my eyes light up.
The teacher's previous method was to divide the figure and then use the addition method to calculate.
However, Hanhan's method is to add graphs and use subtraction to calculate.
Although from the perspective of calculation effect, my son's subtractive calculation method is not faster than the original addition, but his "rebellious" way of thinking makes me very happy.
When I think back to the technology innovation companies I saw in Silicon Valley, why many technologies that change humanity were born in Silicon Valley, it is because the education here encourages children to question and "rebel".
Therefore, I especially hope that my children can have such "rebellion".
From the current point of view, this kind of "rebellion" can help children learn to draw inferences from one another and understand knowledge more deeply.
In the long run, this kind of "rebellion" can make the child's mind more open, and there may be more ideas and creativity in the future.
These were the biggest realizations I had when I had a conversation with Mr. Wu Jun that day.
Strategically:
It doesn't matter whether the child is talented or not, the key is to let the child find his own interest direction and do the ultimate in that aspect.
Tactically speaking:
Children need to be encouraged to be rebellious, allowed to make mistakes, and tolerant of their different opinions and voices.
As long as you do these two things well, even in the future AI era, children will probably be fine!
These are the things I learned from Mr. Wu Jun, and I hope to share this experience with you!