The learning ability of American children is much worse than that of China children.
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Like most people in China, I received a Chinese education since I was a child. During 16, I studied hard at the cold window and indulged in the topic of the sea. I went to junior high school, senior high school entrance examination and college entrance examination. In order to study abroad, I also took GRE and TOEFL.
Before I came to study in the United States, I also had a honey confidence in China's basic education: "American classmates must be weak."
However, the real situation is completely different from what I imagined. The students in the top universities in America are really amazing!
American students in Stanford seem to have their own unique skills: in addition to good academic performance, they often have a lot of internship and project experience. Some of them have already experienced many entrepreneurial projects at a young age, and the award-winning experiences on LinkedIn's homepage are piling up.
Stanford undergraduates also have a variety of social and sports activities. It is said that many Stanford undergraduates have reached the level of professional athletes.
Besides, I also found that American students are much more active than China students, both in class and after class. They will interrupt the professor to ask their questions at any time, and they will take the initiative to go to the office hours to ask questions from the teaching assistants after class.
Most of my computer courses at Stanford have to be open-ended topics, and many students have reached the level of contributing to top academic conferences. Their projects are usually innovative, bold and interesting. In contrast, most of the projects I do belong to the topic of "making no mistakes".
This year's experience makes me sincerely admire the Excellence of American college students. At the same time, I also have a question in my heart: how to fill the gap between American basic education and higher education?
So I began to pay attention. After some research and in-depth study, I have some answers to this question, hoping to learn from domestic parents.
Unlimited education
American education gives children with learning ability full autonomy. As long as you have the ability, knowledge exploration has no boundaries.
In the United States, the main body of education is public K 12 education, and ordinary students complete 12 years of public study, even if their merits are complete. This is the kind of education that ordinary Americans receive. It is possible that we think that the prejudice of poor basic education in the United States comes from this.
But this is by no means the whole of American education. American education provides enough "extra meals" for students who have the spare capacity to study: they can take advanced courses at any time if they want to learn. Even students in the same grade and class may be studying different courses.
10 grade, high school students can even take some university courses (including calculus, macroeconomics and microeconomics, French literature, Spanish literature, etc. ), and children can go directly to the nearby community college to study. Some Asian high school students who apply for prestigious schools can even provide full marks for 15 university courses.
Public education in the United States already respects children's personality development. In fact, however, many wealthy Americans do not send their children to public schools.
Compared with public schools, elite education in top private schools in the United States is very different: the social practice of public schools may be to volunteer in nursing homes, while a top private school in Silicon Valley has set up an on-campus bank exactly like a regular bank, and all students in the school have set up accounts in the bank. Students buy stocks through "simulated stock market" and start "simulated companies" to make money. ...
In such a private school, every child can delve into his favorite field and constantly expand the boundaries of knowledge. The sky is infinite.
In Silicon Valley, children have all kinds of extracurricular classes and interest classes: football and basketball, horseback riding, archery and boating, speech art, programming games ... But unlike China, there are few classes in Olympiad, and even when it comes to learning, they are interesting experimental classes: Lego projects, robot programming and so on.
In a good middle school in America, the students are also very hard. Phoenix TV once interviewed a pair of twin girls who were in high school in Silicon Valley. At the busiest time, they can only sleep for four hours a day, because they not only have to read books, but also have many "activities".
I took a course "Deep Learning and Computer Vision" last semester. The topic of our group's curriculum design is to use neural network to do automatic coloring of cartoons. In the process of development, we found a good technical paper as a reference. As a result, we found that the author was actually a student of a famous private high school next to Stanford.
I can't help smiling bitterly. I studied hard for 16 years before I crossed the knowledge barrier, which can be regarded as reaching the level of high school students in Silicon Valley. ...
Attach importance to reading and self-study ability
The second characteristic of American education is that it attaches great importance to reading. Although American primary schools have little homework, they have a prescribed amount of reading every day.
American children really start reading when they are wearing diapers. Parents will spend a lot of time reading and telling stories to their children and taking them to the library to choose books to read.
Many Americans keep the habit of reading at any time because they have been trained to read since childhood. I am a white-haired American old man in the Google mainframe. He said that there are thousands of books in his kindle, and he will find a few at random every weekend.
But many residential areas in the United States are equipped with libraries. American books are very expensive, so the library has become the best free education resource for the American people. In contrast, China's books are almost the price of cabbage, but how many people can keep reading habits for life?
In my opinion, a person's self-study ability and reading ability are positively related.
The "internal driving force" of learning comes from children's thirst for new knowledge. The more they read, the stronger their sense of accomplishment and curiosity. It can be said that children who are good at self-study must be good at reading. Because autonomous reading is the best tool for self-study.
Attach importance to sports and teamwork.
Americans pay more attention to sports than I thought. The middle class and elite in the United States are simply "national movements." Rich and well-educated people tend to be healthier.
In American schools, the most popular ones must be not only students with good grades, but also athletes with excellent sports achievements. Student athletes enjoy many privileges, and even other subjects have to make way for school team training.
In our country, the income of physical education teachers is generally lower than that of main course teachers. But in America, the situation is just the opposite. Sports coaches usually earn more than university professors.
Excellent high school students who apply for Ivy League universities in the United States have mastered at least one professional-level sport: football, basketball, dance and so on. When I exercise in the school gym, I am surrounded by strong Americans. Even if I have Asian faces, I can often tell from my accent that they should be Asian Americans.
The reason why the United States closely links education with physical education is that they believe that education is not only about solving problems and reciting, but also involves the cultivation of social ability, social awareness and emotional management ability.
Exercise can help children understand what healthy and healthy competition is and help them cultivate "leader" thinking. In addition, exercise can also make children healthier, more focused and more responsive. Moderate exercise is also beneficial to children's brain development.
Advocate lifelong learning
In America, there is no age limit for studying.
In an article I wrote about my life with Google executives, I mentioned that Michael Bachman, a Google executive, took five master's courses after work. His "self-driven" thirst for knowledge is by no means a case.
At the end of last semester, I saw a circle of friends of students with a master's degree in ee:
When we were in CS 107 programming class, an old woman with white hair joined us. She is an elegant and energetic old man. I really admire her for her hoarse voice when she asks questions in class without turning her head. During the final exam, I found another aunt coming to take the exam together. Before the exam, they gave each other thumbs up to encourage each other. I really felt handsome at that moment! !
This circle of friends has brought me a great shock. When I am white-haired, will I know what else I want to do and try to do it? I really hope so!
In the United States, the concept of lifelong learning has been deeply rooted in people's hearts. 74% of Americans define themselves as "lifelong learners". Among the working people, 63% take courses or training to improve their job skills.
Another striking phenomenon is that the famous online education platforms Coursera and Udacity both originated in the United States. Americans are sparing no effort to break the boundaries of knowledge learning one after another.
How about American education?
After the above analysis, maybe you won't be surprised: "Why do Americans learn math easier than us, but they can still make super awesome things?"
American education believes that everyone is different, and after meeting the requirements of basic education, it is "teaching students in accordance with their aptitude". As long as you are willing to learn and want to learn, you can acquire advanced knowledge in any field anytime and anywhere, regardless of grade or age. Everyone's talent has been greatly respected and released.
The elite in Silicon Valley will also send their children to various "fun" interest classes to fully cultivate their imagination, creativity, leadership, logical thinking and so on.
A good student respected by Americans depends on his academic performance; Second, it depends on "leadership", "contribution to the community" and "desire to change the world"; Third, it depends on athletic ability. Academic performance is not the only criterion for judging students' quality. American schools emphasize the all-round development of students' academic, physical and social qualities.
We used to think that education in the United States is very relaxed, but in fact, good students in the United States are under great academic pressure, but often children enjoy it. To borrow the words of Wu Jun, the author of Tide Peak, "Learning must be very hard, but it should not be very painful".
In my opinion, Chinese and American education have their own strengths. As a student who grew up under the exam-oriented education in China, my problem-solving ability is first-class, but I lack the ability to challenge and innovate. Wouldn't it be perfect for us China students to learn from the advantages of quality education in the United States and combine the advantages of basic education in China?