2. What kind of education do we need?

3. Do we have the responsibility to face the current educational situation and social crisis?

Hong Lan is the most famous educator and brain scientist in Taiwan Province in recent twenty years. Ph.D. in experimental psychology, University of California, USA, and received postdoctoral training in neurology at Yale University. He is currently the director of the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience of Central University of Taiwan Province Province, the professor of the Institute of Neuroscience of Yangming University and the director of the Cognitive Neuropsychology Laboratory.

Yin Jianli, an education expert, is the author of the best-selling book A Good Mother Is Better than a Good Teacher, which has sold more than 4 million copies. In 20 10, he won the ninth place in the rich list of writers with a royalty income of 4.48 million yuan.

Our reporter Zheng Xu.

For parents, most of the concerns are similar: "How can I increase my children's intelligence?" "Is the memory training class effective?" "Is there a place to measure IQ?" ..... All kinds of intellectual development classes, early education classes and math English training classes are very popular, and parents are eager for them. As long as the class promotes "intellectual development" or "don't let children lose at the starting line", parents are not afraid of not paying.

1October 22nd, 165438+ Good boy: three points are predestined, and seven points are held by education. The authors are Yin Jianli, an educator who created 4 million sales myths with a book "A Good Mother is Better than a Good Teacher", and Hong Lan, a famous educator and brain scientist in Taiwan Province. This is a new book to help parents break the myth of education and analyze the law of children's growth from the perspective of brain development. The reporter talked with two experts and my bosom sister Lu Qin who attended the press conference, and listened to their scientific answers for parents.

Three points are destiny takes a hand, and seven points depend on education.

Reporter: Since you published A Good Mother Is Better than a Good Teacher, this book has been at the top of the list of books for four years in a row and has become a best seller of family education in Chinese mainland. "Good Mom" and Yin Jianli have become an interrelated brand. Excuse me, how was the title of this book determined? What do you mean, "three points are destiny takes a hand, seven points depend on education"?

Yin Jianli: The title of Good Boy: Three Points Destined by Heaven, Seven Points Depended on Education was decided by Professor Hong Lan and the editor of the publishing house after more than one hundred thoughts. The title of this book refines the ideological basis of this book: "Three Minutes Destined for Heaven" emphasizes that parents should pay attention to the differences of their children, and it is this difference that provides a platform and foundation for the acquired educational function, and every child's personality must be respected; "Seven points depend on education" shows that although education is not omnipotent, education can have a decisive impact on children's life. Parents can make great achievements by grasping these seven points.

Lu Qin (bosom sister): Professor Hong Lan is not only an educator, but also a scientist. She is the most famous educator in Taiwan Province Province in recent twenty years, the first director of Taiwan Province Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, and a famous brain scientist. We all want to train our children well, but we lack science in educating children, and education needs science. In this book, we can see the scientific truth that parents urgently need. Don't let the children lose at the starting line. This is a sentence recognized by many parents, but it violates science. Life is a long run, not a sprint, and you can't ruin your child's future because of short-term trends. This book is very scientific and operable.

There is no such thing as "losing at the starting line" in neurology.

Reporter: Now, all kinds of children's intelligence development classes, early education classes and math English training classes are very popular, and parents are eager for them. As long as these children's education training classes in society advertise "Don't let children lose at the starting line", they are not afraid that parents will not pay. Is this science?

Hong Lan: Now, parents are very anxious. They generally think that the earlier you study, the better. Especially when I see other children "walking ahead", I am afraid that my children will start late and lose their lives.

In fact, there is no such thing as "losing at the starting line" in neurology, and experiments have found the neural mechanism of lifelong learning.

When I was studying, there was an important biological dogma that neurons in the brain would not regenerate after death. This is the root of the misunderstanding of letting children catch up early and not catch up late. However, in the late 1970s, comparative psychologists who studied birds found that the singing neurons of male birds shrank after the end of the autumn breeding season, but grew new neurons in the following spring.

1998, Swedish doctor Eriksson saw the dentate gyrus neurons in the hippocampus shining under the microscope, indicating that the patient was born after being injected with radioactive water BrdU (a kind of protein, which is needed to grow new neurons), indicating that nerve cells in the human brain are regenerating, and the original dogma was overturned.

Although we don't know how many new cells are born in the hippocampus of human brain every day, we know from the experiments of adult mice that 5000- 10000 new cells are born every day, so we don't have to worry about "old dogs can't learn new tricks", we can learn them all our lives. It is very important that if this adult mouse tries hard to learn new things, the life span of newborn neurons in its brain will be longer and more cells will be left behind. Therefore, the more homework you need to think about, the more new cells you can produce; The more new neurons remain in the brain, the better their academic performance. It is completely wrong to think that a person's brain is stereotyped and unchangeable after puberty. The plasticity of the brain is lifelong, and people constantly reshape his brain because of new experiences in his life. Therefore, parents and friends don't need to let their children compete at the starting line. Life is like a marathon, you will win at the starting line sooner or later.

"Right brain development" is a fallacy

Reporter: In preschool class, there is a so-called "right brain development" class, and the concept of "right brain development" seems to have been widely recognized, that is, the left brain commands the right limb and the right brain commands the left limb. Conversely, physical activity on the left drives the right brain, while physical activity on the right drives the left brain. Is there any scientific reason for this?

Hong Lan: There has always been a saying. Then it is deduced that the right brain will be underdeveloped because people usually use less left hand. But in fact, a large number of experimental scientific examples at home and abroad show that children's brains develop synchronously, and there is no evidence that the right brain starts first and then drives the left brain. The left hand can only exercise the left brain, not the right brain.

The plasticity of the brain is greater than we think: even if a child has a brain injury as a child, a normal brain usually takes over the function of the injured brain; Even if you are injured in adulthood, rehabilitation still has a considerable effect.

Anatomically, the left half of the eyes projects the right visual field, and the right visual field projects to the left brain; The right half of both eyes projects the left visual field, and the left visual field reaches the right brain. Not the right eye to the left brain, but the left eye to the right brain. Therefore, it is totally nonsense for children to cover one eye to enlighten the other brain. But until now, some people have asked children to write with their left hand and cover their right eye to enlighten the right brain. They don't know that the brain is a cooperative brain. As long as the middle bridge, the corpus callosum, is not cut off, the communication of information is fast and smooth.

Do we still have 90% development potential?

Reporter: In all kinds of educational advertisements, there are slogans such as "The human brain only uses 10%, and the remaining 90% remains to be developed". Is that true in science?

Hong Lan: Someone has found the source of this sentence. It turned out that this was an advertisement for a booth at the American World Expo in the early 20th century, not a scientific argument. So like snowballing, parents were cheated and sent their children to various training classes all day, but no one stopped to ask, "Where is the evidence of this statement?"

It is very simple to refute this fallacy now, because the research and technology of brain imaging have developed to such an extent that you can directly see the working conditions of this person's brain while thinking, remembering, speaking and listening to music. Experiments show that when a blind person touches Braille, his visual cortex is called by touch. If a normal person is blindfolded for 5 days, his visual cortex will begin to change to do things like hearing and touch. So, how can the brain make the other 90% do nothing?

The human brain weighs about three pounds, accounting for 2% of our weight, but it consumes 20% of our energy. When it uses 10 times the energy, it can't just work 10% and leave the other 90% idle.

The nerves of the brain are "used in and discarded", and the commonly used blocks will increase accordingly, and the places that have not been used for a long time will be used for other purposes. Most importantly, the brain is not a place to support redundant personnel. So there is absolutely no such thing as "only using 10% brain".

Dan Niston, an American psychologist, once wrote an article criticizing this fallacy. He said: "Those who tell you that your brain is only 65,438+00% are actually only using 65,438+00% of your own brain!"