Qian Wenzhong's speech on attacking "happy education" has targeted many parents [Weibo] Your heart. It is true that Chinese children have many problems in words, deeds and education, but is it really the reason why education itself "doesn't make children suffer" when it comes to "learning poorly"? In this regard, Nanqiao put forward a quite different opinion from Mr. Qian Wenzhong, who believed that the "forced education" that allowed children to bear hardships was actually a conservative education method that was divorced from the children themselves and the reality. (Wen/Nanqiao)
Mr. Qian Wenzhong once asked in an article entitled "Education, please don't give in to children in the name of love": "Why education is happy? I really can't figure out how education must be happy. There must be pain in education, which is self-evident."
This article's attack on "happy education" has aroused the resonance of many parents, so it is widely spread on the Internet. This is actually a concept that we concoct ourselves. Whether we support or oppose it, the result will not be very good.
When attacking this rough concept, Mr. Qian made the same mistake as many parents: his thinking was relatively dualistic, either this or that, and lacked due refinement. It is also because of this reason that he "really can't figure it out".
At least in the United States, there is no concept of "happiness education", nor is there an inevitable contradiction between "happiness" and "hardship". The concept often mentioned by the educational circles is "motivation" (also called student engagement). Encouraged education is very different from "happy education".
Educator John Keller believes that motivational education should include the following four elements: attention, relevance, confidence, and satisfaction, Relevance,Confidence,Satisfaction)。
For example, "relevance" means that education is related to students' own needs or social needs, and students do not feel that what they have learned is irrelevant. If learners feel that learning will benefit them in the future, they should learn even if it is challenging.
In other words, "bear hardships", or "accept challenges", can make people feel deeply happy at the same time. This kind of pleasure is not the joy and excitement of beating the chicken's blood, but the challenge that learners get commensurate with their intelligence. They have grown and changed. There is no inevitable contradiction between pleasure and challenge.
If we attach importance to motivation, teachers have the obligation to create educational conditions and stimulate learners' interest and passion, which includes correcting students' behavior and providing appropriate feedback.
From the standpoint of confidence and satisfaction, teaching design should be gradual, so that it is not difficult at the beginning to make learners lose their confidence in learning, or lack challenges from beginning to end, and the whole education process is boring and boring, without deep satisfaction. This is not a question of happiness, but of unscientific teaching methods.
What inspires attention is the students' psychological laws and the corresponding teaching design. Once we pay attention to the inner motivation of students, education will naturally be connected with neuroscience, psychology, teaching methods and other disciplines in all directions, which will make pedagogy become versatile, like a pool of living water. Paying attention to students' minds and hearts will also make teaching practice full of creativity and breakthrough.
It is often misunderstood that foreign education (including Finland, the United States, etc.) is easy, simple, giggling, hello and good, no homework, it is called happiness education. This is also incorrect. In 1987, one of the "Seven Principles of Undergraduate Education" proposed by American educators Chickering and Gamson was to "define high standards". Students themselves do not want to be promoted in their studies.
But excellent educators must be in pursuit of boiling frogs in warm water, using efficient teaching design, according to the development stage and personal characteristics, unknowingly let students learn and constantly improve. It is the king's way to let students learn.
When students are found to be "hungry", there will be various kinds of gifted education and intensive classes to improve the challenges. When students have obstacles and learning difficulties, teaching with special needs enables everyone to develop.
These specific practices are not difficult to implement. The difficulty is whether the educational community can recognize the importance of individuals, recognize the differences between individuals, and recognize that people have insufficient understanding of students' hearts. With these understandings, the educational community will naturally seek solutions.
The starting point of educational reform should be a discourse revolution. Many times, people are discussing the wrong topic. Whether or not to "happy education" has become a strange circle of discourse in the educational world, where everyone is wandering around and queuing unnecessarily.
In the understanding of many parents, education is not happiness but suffering. The hard and forced education (I call it hard and forced education) that is sought after by them is nothing more than that the educators do not pay attention to the students' hearts, stick to their habits, and do nothing but do nothing. This is lazy and irresponsible.
In my opinion, not putting people first, not paying attention to the students' hearts, and only asking for compulsion and strong push are all actions of weak thinking and blind conservatism. Here, we can borrow Mr. Qian's sentence pattern: we cannot yield to parents who have been brainwashed by inefficient traditional education and even suffered from Stockholm syndrome. Please also ask the education sector to give in to the old ways again in the name of love.
(Statement: This article only represents the author's view, not Sina.com's position.)
