Taken in Wisconsin
On the way to study in America, many friends paid close attention to me. Many friends asked, "Andy, why do you look so haggard in the photo?" Thank you for your concern. This trip is very tight, with 14 hours during the day and nearly 100 work emails at night. I sleep less than 5 hours a day and have jet lag, which is also a challenge to my limit. But I feel very happy. My experience is unique among my peers. I studied in Harvard and Tsinghua, taught in American middle schools, returned to China to work, managed the largest overseas study service company in China, and conducted in-depth investigation and research in nearly 200 universities in more than 80 countries. This vision and information give me a full and thorough contrast.
America can't be glimpsed. If you go deep into the United States, you can find the American spirit and think about why this country leads the world in many ways. Taking education as an example, I visited more than 200 high-quality universities and middle schools, and deeply felt that American education is relatively far away from business, and the tradition of hands-on education is preserved. For example, Harvard University, no matter how rich and powerful you are, just doesn't expand its enrollment, that is, it adheres to the admission tradition of nearly 400 years. Such a school guarantees the quality of education and the brand of the school; For example, many middle schools I have been to are not in a hurry. For hundreds of years, they seem to be manual workshops, and every student produced can get a high-quality experience. I have had in-depth conversations with many American teachers and principals. They are passionate about education and can even name all their classmates (of course, compared with China middle schools, private middle schools in the United States are smaller, with more than 100 students in one grade, which can ensure that students get the fullest attention); American education ensures the growth and cultivation of children's questioning ability and critical spirit. Because of this spirit, Jobs created Apple, Hollywood created dreams, and Google and facebook broke the distance between the world.
Quality education is a manual tradition, just like Hermes is still valuable once it is mass-produced on the assembly line.
American high school classroom
On the other hand, in China, we hurried away from many precious things in the essence of education. Our basic education classroom is still so crowded, and the unprincipled expansion of universities has made many educators bow to the powerful and even flatter them, losing the independent spirit of education. The whole society lacks beliefs and values, and is full of false slogans and lies. Driven by capital, educational enterprises are gradually moving away from the educational spirit, and the pursuit of interests has become the dominant value. In the balance between educational attribute and commercial attribute, commercial attribute has the upper hand easily.
When I returned to China in 2008, many people asked me for advice on studying abroad. It was "reading" at that time. Five years later, in 20 13 years, the air pollution became more and more serious, the house price rose abnormally, public education seemed to stagnate, and more people asked me for advice on studying abroad. At this time, "learning" becomes "survival". On the one hand, I wish China's outstanding talents go overseas. Why do more and more parents send their children abroad like refugees, even at the expense of being separated from their families?
If there is a trend of talent shortage, our national competitiveness will become weaker and weaker.
Born in this land, I deeply love this land, but why, love has become helpless and heavy.