Japan's scientific research environment, evaluation mechanism and funding guarantee have contributed a lot to winning so many Nobel Prizes. However, Shuji Nakamura (winner of the 214 Nobel Prize in Physics) expressed concern about the current situation of Japanese education and the whole East Asian education system.
Shuji Nakamura believes that the education system in Asia is a waste of time, and young people should learn different things. The modern Prussian education system in East Asian countries hinders students from further exploration and is harmful to their ability of independent thinking.
Shuji Nakamura, who won the 214 Nobel Prize in Physics for developing blue LED, criticized the Japanese patent system and the entire East Asian education system. He criticized the Japanese education system, saying that the college entrance examination system is very bad, as are China and South Korea. The educational goal of all high school students is to be admitted to famous universities. He thinks that the education system in Asia is a waste of time, and young people should learn different things.
Shuji Nakamura is an atypical Japanese scientist:
He was born in an ordinary fisherman's family, and his examination ability was average, so he went to Tokushima University, a third-rate university in Japan;
He has very strong hands-on ability: he adjusts instruments in the morning and does experiments in the afternoon.
Self-study ability is very strong: Nakamura has a deep understanding of physics, but he learned it entirely by himself. He didn't even have a physics department at Tokushima University.
People like Shuji Nakamura, the winner of the 214 Nobel Prize in Physics
have been suppressed in Japan, and his criticism of the Japanese education system is well-founded.
1. Education in East Asia: Inefficient, and everyone suffers from it
The education system in East Asia is relatively unique, and it is often appreciated by outsiders and criticized by insiders. Japan's education system is relatively loose among the three East Asian countries, not to mention some countries, and teachers, students and parents all suffer greatly.
As for South Korea, it is also famous for its extreme test-taking and academic credentials. Seoul National University, KoreaUniversity and Yonsei University are collectively referred to as "SKY", and 7% of the presidents of the largest enterprises in South Korea are graduates from these three universities, and 8% of the civil servants in the judiciary come from these three universities.
Almost all Korean children go to cram schools. In 29, the total profit of cram schools in Korea was about 7.3 billion US dollars, which was more than that of Samsung Electronics. The huge education expenditure was the biggest reason why Koreans were afraid to have more children. In 212, the OECD conducted the "International Student Assessment Program", and Korean students ranked first among all member countries in math and reading projects. However, this achievement was achieved at a rather low efficiency. Some critics said: "These children have achieved this result by doubling their efforts and spending ..."
why is there such an education system in east Asia? I think it's because of the Prussian gene that East Asian countries have in the modern education system, plus the tradition of Confucianism and imperial examination in East Asia. For some countries, it can be said that the practical and rapid guidance and ideological indoctrination function of Soviet-style education have been added.
Second, East Asian education has the "Prussian gene" of conformity
Before the 19th century, education was actually an apprenticeship system similar to handicraft industry, whether it was a private school in the East or a tutor in the West. However, with the increase of subjects and the demand for the working population with basic education, the so-called K-12 (that is, our ordinary primary and secondary schools in Asia) education system has emerged.
The standard education model in modern countries is a few basic elements that we have taken for granted:
Entering the teaching building at seven or eight o'clock in the morning;
During the 4-6-minute course, the teacher is responsible for speaking and the students are responsible for listening.
There are lunches and physical education class time interspersed between classes;
after school, students go home to do their homework.
under the restraint of standardized curriculum, the original vast and beautiful field of human thought has been artificially cut into pieces that are easy to manage, and it is called "discipline". Similarly, the original concepts of flowing, integration and mastery are divided into individual "curriculum units".
This model was first implemented by Prussians in the 18th century. It was they who first invented our present classroom teaching mode. The original intention of the Prussians is not to educate students who can think independently, but to churn out a large number of loyal and manageable citizens. The values they learned at school make them obey the authority including parents, teachers and churches, and of course, ultimately obey the king.
Of course, the Prussian education system was innovative in many aspects at that time. Such an education system has turned tens of thousands of people into the middle class and provided a vital motive force for Germany to become an industrial power. Based on the technical level at that time, the most economical way to achieve the goal of education for all in Prussia is probably to adopt the Prussian education system.
However, this system hinders students from further exploration, which is harmful to their independent thinking ability. However, in the 19th century, a high level of creative logical thinking ability may not be as important as obeying orders in thought and mastering basic skills in action.
in the first half of the 19th century, the United States basically copied the education system of Prussia, just like in Prussia, which can greatly promote the construction of the middle class and enable them to get a job in the booming industrial field. In addition to the United States, this system was imitated by other European countries in the 19th century and extended to other countries outside Europe and America.
However, today's economic situation no longer requires a submissive and disciplined working class. On the contrary, it requires more and more workers' reading ability, mathematical literacy and humanistic background.
Today's society needs lifelong learners who are creative, curious and self-guided, and they need the ability to put forward novel ideas and put them into practice. Unfortunately, the goal of Prussian education is just the opposite of this social demand. Today's education completely ignores the extraordinary diversity and nuances between people, which make people different in intelligence, imagination and talent.
Third, besides the Prussian gene, the education in East Asia is also deeply influenced by the Confucian tradition and the imperial examination system
When the three East Asian countries began to introduce this modern education system in order to catch up with the western powers at the end of the 19th century, they inevitably made a subconscious distortion and emphasis on this system due to their own Confucian tradition and imperial examination system.
1. Confusion between college entrance examination and imperial examination system
East Asian countries always mix college entrance examination with their long-standing imperial examination tradition. There was no great demand for creativity in ancient society, so the imperial examination was a good system, which completed the selection of social managers with minimal conflict and the establishment of a criterion of replacing the gate with intelligence.
If we want to simulate the imperial examination, the current counterpart should be the civil service examination or the entrance examination for some big companies. Because these exams, like the imperial examinations, need to select well-trained adults who can engage in certain jobs immediately.
The goal of the college entrance examination is to select those who are flexible and ambitious for further education. Such people should be like liquid glass taken out of a melting furnace, which can be rotated and elongated and extremely flexible. The people who get the imperial examination will be like glazed porcelain out of the kiln and can be used immediately, but if you make any changes, it will either break or scratch.
Besides, examination is a very limited tool. It is well known that the ancient imperial examinations left out talents, but in modern times, no matter what kind of examinations, what can test candidates' interest, ambition, imagination and practical operation ability? Even the most objective and measurable math exam will lose a lot of things.
Salman Khan, founder of Khan Academy, cited algebra as an example. When studying algebra, most students only focus on getting high marks in the exam, and the content of the exam is only the most important part of each unit. Candidates only remember a lot of x and y, and they can get their values by substituting x and y into rote formulas. X and y in the exam do not reflect the power and importance of algebra. The importance and charm of algebra lies in that all these X and Y represent infinite phenomena and opinions.
The equation used in calculating the production cost of listed companies can also be used to calculate the momentum of objects in space; The same equation can be used not only to calculate the best path of parabola, but also to determine the most suitable price for new products.
The method of calculating the prevalence rate of hereditary diseases can also be used in football games to judge whether an attack should be launched in the fourth quarter. In the exam, most students don't regard algebra as a simple, convenient and versatile tool to explore the world, but rather as an obstacle to be overcome urgently.
Therefore, although the examination is very important, the society must be able to recognize the great limitations of the examination and weaken its position in the selection of materials.
The education system in the United States restrains students from wasting too much energy on exams by means of double insurance: First, the SAT score is only one of the factors considered in admission, and it is unwise to pay too much attention to the SAT; Second, the SAT has six opportunities to apply for the exam every year.
The education systems in Taiwan Province and China encourage students to waste their youth in a double way: first, the score of the entrance examination is the decisive factor for admission or not; Second, the joint entrance examination is held once a year.
2. East Asian countries pay too much attention to review
The Comparative Study Report on the Rights and Interests of Senior High School Students in China, Japan, South Korea and the United States released in p>29 shows that 78.3% of ordinary senior high school students in China spend more than 8 hours in school every day (excluding weekends and holidays), while 57.2% in South Korea, while this situation hardly exists in Japan and the United States. Students in China spend the longest time studying every day. There is not much difference in what students learn from different countries, so what does it mean if the study time is too long? It means that the proportion of review time is too large. This is the biggest means to stifle students' imagination and creativity.
when it comes to the importance of review, people often quote "learning while learning", and this "learning" is review. However, there is a huge difference between the Confucius era and today's society, which is the content of learning. The main content of learning in Confucius era is "ceremony", and the actor can only achieve the effect by repeated drills.
However, human social life has evolved into modern times, and the main content of learning has changed from "courtesy" to cognition. Cognition is expanding and changing, and its essence is to create or learn new things. If education over-strengthens review, innovative talents will not be produced.
Moreover, as Paul GlaxoSmithKline said, "Even the knowledge learned in the best high schools is insignificant compared with that in universities. "Take the liberal arts as an example. How do the knowledge in the history textbooks that need to be read repeatedly in high schools compare with those required by any university history department? As for mathematics, even middle school mathematics is well mastered, but calculus, which appeared in the seventeenth century, has not been learned yet.
What's more, with the explosion of knowledge, all mathematical knowledge can be crammed into 1, books in 19, and by 2, 1 thousands of books will be needed (Devlin's Maths Still Chatting). It can be seen that it is an inefficient learning method to spend the most energetic years in one's life repeatedly learning such limited knowledge.
There is a popular 1,-hour theory in recent years, which seems to be a theoretical support for repeated practice. However, this kind of discussion mostly focuses on activities with low cognitive complexity, such as chess, piano, basketball, taxi driving and spelling. However, it is difficult to find enough evidence for activities with high cognitive complexity, such as creation and management. In fact, this can be used to explain why the training of piano and violin skills has declined in the west, but it has flourished in East Asian countries.
This kind of skill, which has become a great success since the 19th century, is characterized by a relatively fixed difficulty training ladder and a limited total knowledge, so it only needs more practice, and the progress of learning can be measured by the difficulty of tracks or the level of examination. This just fits in with the preferred learning method in East Asia.
Therefore, most parents of piano children in East Asian countries have neither musical hobbies nor background knowledge of classical music, but they let their children spend a lot of time practicing. The internal starting point is just like the fool in the famous joke who only looks for the key under the street lamp because the street lamp is bright.
3. The influence of egalitarianism and lack of mentality
Many excuses for the entrance exam are that although it is not satisfactory, it is the fairest. This is the influence of the Confucian tradition of "not suffering from widowhood but suffering from inequality". There is nothing wrong with fairness, but it would be sad if different types of talent development channels were suppressed across the board for fairness. With such a large population base in East Asian countries, the opportunity cost of this kind of talent waste is too high to estimate.
give an example of other countries. There is a comparison in European academic circles, such as Britain and Germany, which are regarded as countries that dominate classical learning, but the talents in Britain are much better. The reason is that the education system in Britain is not fair enough. There are some middle schools in Britain that have a very high possibility of getting into a good university because of traditional reasons, so that students in them can immerse themselves in huge classical academics very early.
On the other hand, Germany is more fair, and all students have to pass the examination when they go to college, so students have to spend more energy on general preparation subjects. As a result, this superficial unfairness in Britain may produce high-quality talents.
it's like Peter? The commercial example cited in Thiel's "From to 1" seems to be fair on the surface. In fact, the profits of enterprises participating in such competition will become as thin as the blade, and they can only take care of immediate interests and cannot make long-term plans for the future.
Monopoly enterprises like Google, because they don't have to compete with other enterprises, can care about their products and make various long-term plans with greater autonomy. Therefore, if students are under the competitive pressure of exams for a long time, it is naturally impossible to have a long-term self-growth plan, but they can only concentrate on the exams that will determine their life path.
On the other hand, it is not unreasonable for East Asian countries to compete for the limited high-quality educational resources from kindergarten to university. But why is the competition in this region so fierce? That may be due to the scarcity mentality caused by long-term material shortage.
last year's popular economics of scarcity: why are you always catching up with Deadline? Why do you always feel that time and money are not enough? It is pointed out that when people are in a state of scarcity (material or time), scarcity will capture the brain, and the capture of people's attention will not only affect the speed of what we see, but also affect our understanding of the world around us. And when we are extremely focused on solving the current problem, there is no