Academician Zhu Bangfen: The competition for admission to "super high schools" in the junior high school entrance exam is more intense than that in the college entrance exam. We should be wary of judging the quality of high schools by the "Tsinghua and Peking University admission rate"
2024-08-07
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"Basic science and original innovation are increasingly valued, but without a diversified view of talent, it will be difficult to solve the problems of cultivating top talents and the heavy burden on primary and secondary school students." Recently, Zhu Bangfen, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a professor at the Department of Physics at Tsinghua University, stated frankly at the academic seminar on "The Integrated Development of Physics and Mathematics in Middle Schools" that at present, there are two major problems in education that are worrying: First, although my country's scientific and technological talent cultivation has made significant progress in the past 20 years, there is still a lack of recognized world-class masters; the other problem is that primary and secondary school students generally have a heavy academic burden, and "involution" is becoming more and more serious and earlier.These two seemingly unrelated issues are actually intertwined. Behind them is the "monolithic" talent view brought about by the quick-success education view. After the academic seminar, Zhu Bangfen accepted an exclusive interview with our reporter.
The one-size-fits-all selection and evaluation policy increases students’ academic and psychological burdens
Basic education is one of the core competitiveness of a country, especially high school education, which determines the basic quality of the people. Zhu Bangfen said frankly that in recent years, the admission rate of first-class universities, especially Tsinghua University and Peking University, has been used as a baton, and the "one-size-fits-all" selection and evaluation model has generally increased the academic and psychological burden of middle school students. For example, many parents now choose schools for their children, including many local education administrative departments. When judging the quality of middle schools, the standard is "how many students can be admitted to Tsinghua University and Peking University in this year's college entrance examination." Such a single evaluation standard has turned high school education into a "tool" for entering famous schools.
Moreover, the gap in grades between different universities, and the differences in employment and treatment of graduates, are not very reasonable. Under such circumstances, many parents and candidates are more obsessed with the value of "making the most of every point" when filling out their applications after the college entrance examination results are released. "This seems fair on the surface, but in reality it is the marketization and commercialization of the exam, which runs counter to the goal of education," said Zhu Bangfen.
He further pointed out that what is even more frightening is that the competition to enter a "super high school" through the junior high school entrance examination is no less fierce than the college entrance examination in some areas. Since the difficulty of the junior high school entrance examination is relatively low, these immature teenagers may have adverse effects on their long-term growth whether they experience "involution" in order to pass the junior high school entrance examination and enter a "super high school" or face "involution" after entering a "super high school".
On the other hand, Zhu Bangfen also noticed that under various projects such as "cultivating top talents", there is no good connection between universities and middle schools, and the competition has been advanced, which has brought great pressure to outstanding students. "These problems must attract the attention of teachers from first-class universities and first-class middle schools."
Only with an eclectic view of talent can we truly cultivate talents
In Zhu Bangfen's view, the whole society needs to build a diversified view of talent, break the "one-size-fits-all" teaching and the "unified" student evaluation standards and development paths, so as to resolve the "involution" anxiety of students and parents and create a better atmosphere for cultivating top talents.
The so-called diversified talent concept is not only that the whole society should truly understand, recognize and implement "every profession has its top talents", but also that the whole society should understand the diversity of talents. Take innovative talents for example, there are different types of talents engaged in original innovation, integrated innovation, introduction, digestion, absorption and re-innovation. At the same time, the scope of talents is very wide, including not only innovative talents, but also talents in management, marketing, art, and other fields, as well as skilled craftsmen, etc. He repeatedly emphasized: "Only by having an eclectic talent concept can we truly cultivate talents."
For example, ASML, a giant in photolithography, was originally a small company that was on the verge of bankruptcy many times. Later, ASML cooperated with TSMC and applied the immersion technology proposed by TSMC's Chinese-Vietnamese scientist Lin Benjian to photolithography. "In this application, water is used instead of air as the medium, so that the refractive index of light in water is 1.4, which increases the resolution of immersion photolithography by 1.4 times. This is common sense that everyone who has studied high school physics knows, that is, the refractive index of light in water increases. ASML innovatively applied this common sense and became an industry giant. It can be seen that not only those who discover the characteristics of light are talented, but also those who innovatively apply this existing knowledge and develop new technologies are innovative talents, and of course those who make technology land are also talents." Zhu Bangfen said.
To eliminate the negative impact of the quick success and instant benefit education, it is necessary to further develop general education. Zhu Bangfen said that compared with "learning", "being a person" is the first priority. Through general education, students' ideal pursuits, vision, critical thinking and innovative entrepreneurial abilities can be cultivated, while students' sense of integrity can be cultivated. Through the education of the core knowledge of human civilization, students can be helped to transcend cultural backgrounds and observe and think about problems from a global perspective. Of course, it is also important to cultivate students' self-confidence, curiosity and imagination, so that they can develop individually and grow in a diversified way.
Zhu Bangfen believes that high-quality general education will greatly benefit the cultivation of "high-quality students" and will also be conducive to the long-term development of top talents.
Implementing teaching in accordance with students’ aptitude is not about “feeding” good students with more knowledge
To cultivate top talents and resolve the anxiety of educational involution, we also need to truly implement teaching students in accordance with their aptitude.
“The so-called teaching students in accordance with their aptitude is not what is traditionally said, that is, teaching good students earlier, teaching them more content, and feeding them more. From the perspective of imparting knowledge, this may be correct, but from the perspective of cultivating talents, it is not.” Zhu Bangfen highly praised the educational philosophy of Ye Qisun, the founder of modern physics in China, especially the two points of "only teaching students basic knowledge" and "requiring every student to have the ability to conduct research independently."
These two educational concepts actually mean that the autonomy of learning should be transferred from teachers to students. Zhu Bangfen emphasized: "Instead of asking teachers to teach students more, teach more deeply, and teach earlier, it is better for teachers to teach basic knowledge well and inspire students in need to learn more, learn more deeply, and learn earlier." Moreover, this educational model should be used not only in middle schools, but also in universities.
Nobel Prize winner and well-known physicist Yang Zhenning is a vivid example. During the lecture, Zhu Bangfen showed Yang Zhenning's undergraduate transcript, which densely recorded the courses he took at the time. As a student who took the college entrance examination in his second year of high school, Yang Zhenning's college entrance examination results were not "amazing", but during his undergraduate studies, he independently studied many graduate courses according to his own interests, and his grades were very good.
Zhu Bangfen also emphasized that the diversity of talents also corresponds to the diversity of educational methods. "The number of absolute geniuses is very limited, and we should give more outstanding students space to fully understand themselves and let them explore a path of self-development."
Author: Jiang Peng and Zhang Feiya
Text: Jiang Peng, Zhang Feiya Photos: provided by the interviewee Editor: Zhang Feiya Editor-in-chief: Fan Liping
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