December 4, 2021
Hello, everyone!
The Forum of Thirty Chinese Educators has chosen "The Great Transformation of China's Education" as the theme for its eighth annual conference, and this is a very good choice of topic. It should be said that the "double reduction" policy is an important opportunity for the great transformation of China's education.
The relevant responsible comrade of the Ministry of Education once said, "Double Reduction" is to realize two reconstruction: one is to reconstruct the model of Chinese basic education, and the other is to reconstruct the good ecology of Chinese basic education. The policy of "double reduction" has been introduced rather hastily, and the "medicine" has been given rather fiercely, mainly in response to the fervent appeals of the society. In recent years, capital frantically expanding in the field of education, resulting in the disorganization of the educational ecosystem, the children's burden of schoolwork is becoming heavier and heavier, and then do not give "strong medicine" is difficult to cure, and do the people satisfied with the education will also have a great distance.
Of course, in the "double-decrease" process does have some problems, I think, these problems are the process of moving forward in the process of the problem, in the process of promoting education reform needs to be constantly improved. The relevant responsible comrades of the Ministry of Education also said that further down the road, in order to go a little farther, go a little more practical, we must minimize the negative effects.
The topic I'm talking about today has some connection to what we should do next, and the title is: what should we actually learn in the age of artificial intelligence?
To this end, I am going to talk about five questions:
First, what to learn and why is it important?
The second is what to learn, and who is in charge?
Third, what are the new features of the AI era?
Fourth, what should we learn in the future?
Fifth, how can we transform our learning?
I. What to learn and why is it important?
As we all know, the practice of education is primarily concerned with two major areas: teaching and learning. Teaching, mainly involves teaching what and how to teach; learning, mainly involves learning what and how to learn? The former refers to the content of the textbook and teaching method; the latter is the content of the curriculum and learning method. From this, derived from who to teach, who to learn; how to teach, how to learn; why teach, why learn a series of questions.
What to teach and what to learn, that is, the problem of curriculum and teaching materials, is the problem of educational content. It is the fundamental and critical issue of education. With the shift in the center of gravity of education from teaching to learning, it all boils down to what to learn. What is learned is very important because the richness of the curriculum determines the richness of life and the excellence of the curriculum determines the excellence of life. In a word, the height of educational content determines the height of life.
Recently I read a book by George Mason University economics professor Brian Mason. Mason University economics professor Brian Kaplan. I recently read a book by Dr. Bryan Kaplan, Professor of Economics at George Mason University - The Case Against Education: Why the Education System is a Waste of Time and Money. It talks about a very interesting High School Survey of Student Engagement in the U.S. 66% of high school students said they were bored in class every day; 17% said they were bored in every class every day; and only 2% said they were bored in class. 2% of students say they are never bored in class. Why is it so boring? 82% of students say the content is uninteresting. 41% say the content has nothing to do with them.
Kaplan's book is a scathing attack on the wastefulness of the U.S. education system, which he argues wastes a lot of time and money. And as an economist, he proves actuarially that the high investment and low output of education in the United States has failed to increase students' productivity or enrich their lives, and that the inflationary devaluation of diplomas has greatly increased the cost of education for all of society.
To this end, Kaplan makes two recommendations: first, reduce the "fat" from the curriculum, that is, greatly reduce the content of the curriculum. The second was to cut tuition subsidies, that is, to reduce the corresponding funding for education. In particular, he suggests that history, social studies, art, music, and foreign language courses should be the first to be cut. By cutting some of these courses, students will be able to work harder in the real classroom, and will be able to strengthen the teaching of reading, writing, and math.
Second, who decides what to learn?
In fact, for quite some time, early human education took place in the home. So, what to learn is basically up to the parents, who let their children learn what they want to learn, and the children learn what they want to learn in life.
After the emergence of the state form, the initial specialization of education began in order to cultivate the talents needed by the ruling class. In order to train the ruling class, they needed to have the six arts of rites, music, archery, imperialism, calligraphy, and mathematics. After the emergence of the imperial examination system, the content of education revolved around the imperial examinations, which were also mainly designed to satisfy the needs of a small number of rulers. At this time, most people had no access to education.
After the industrialization of society, the target of education was expanded, with the emergence of the compulsory education system, education for all, and literacy and numeracy as an important part of education. These literacy and numeracy skills were mainly designed to meet the needs of mechanized production, and more from the point of view of the state, but the whole content was seldom designed for the needs of the individual. Nor is the learner left without the right to decide what he or she wants to learn.
In 1972, UNESCO released the report Learning to Live - World Education Today and Tomorrow, which put forward the concepts of "learning society" and "lifelong education". The concepts of "learning society" and "lifelong education" were put forward. What do these two concepts teach us? That is to say, the content of learning can no longer be learned simply at school, and learning is a lifelong process. This document is known as the "Fur Report", and it has taken us almost half a century to turn the concept of lifelong education mentioned in the report into the practice of lifelong education.
In 1996, UNESCO released the report Education - Where the Wealth Lies, which put forward the four pillars of education: learning to know, learning to do, learning to be, learning to live, and learning to **** together. This put forward a more distinctive transformation of the traditional content of education, emphasizing doing, surviving, and ****ing with life. This report is known as the "Delors Report", the "Four Learning" is a very important change in the field of education, it breaks the knowledge-centered education pattern. In fact, the "four learnings" have not been truly realized in the entire content of education. If the "four learnings" become the content of education, will students still be uninterested? The key is that the education has not put it into practice, UNESCO is only an initiative, there is no direct power of education.
In 2015, UNESCO released the report "Rethinking Education: Toward a Conceptual Shift Toward a "Global ****ing Common Interest", which highlights the humanist, people-centered view of education, emphasizing more humanistic educational content and more concepts of human ****ing common interest.
On November 10, 2021, UNESCO released another very important report, "Re-imagining our Future with ****: A New Social Contract for Education". This report is very profound. It emphasizes two aspects of education in particular, arguing for a new social contract for education based on the consideration of a person's right to lifelong education, and emphasizing the function of education as a public good and a public good. While there are two main points in this report, what is more important is that it emphasizes an ecological view of education that goes beyond traditional humanism, which is a new change in the philosophy of education. In the past, all of our education was human-oriented, believing that human beings are the only and most important existence in this world, whereas this report particularly emphasizes that human beings and ecology are equally important, and that human life is as important as any other life, and how we can pay more attention to the environment and ecology in the process of education, which is a very important direction for education in the future.
Whether or not these appeals and initiatives will become part of the curriculum in each country still needs to be decided by the education administrations of the countries concerned.
3. What are the new features of education in the age of AI?
First, the informatization of society.
We have entered the age of informatization, the information explosion, the geometric progression of human knowledge, new knowledge is constantly emerging. What we learn in school can't keep up with the growth of new knowledge.
Second, the ubiquity of resources.
The ubiquity of educational resources means that school is no longer the only place to acquire knowledge. Knowledge is available to everyone, everywhere, anytime, online and offline. This reasonable legitimacy of learning in school has been greatly challenged. In the United States and Taiwan, the Home Study Act has been introduced, so that all the things that are taught in school can be accessed at home, through the Internet, through a variety of educational means, and the United States now has two to three million children who are learning at home.
Third, career mobility.
The era of one career for a lifetime is over, new careers are emerging, and some industries are leaving the stage of history. In developed countries in the West, there are probably more than ten opportunities to change careers in a person's lifetime on average. In the past, the concept and form of school education as a preparation for a career will also undergo a profound change. Many large foreign companies explicitly do not look at the professional background, but only require students to have good qualities.
Fourth, the empowerment of technology.
In the past, we mainly relied on our own brains to learn. Now the Internet, artificial intelligence, blockchain, big data and other high-tech are empowering education. Musk has already put chips in people's brains. The way people learn and cognition will change very much in the future. Through cognitive outsourcing, human learning ability will also be greatly enhanced. The traditional education method of memorizing and reproducing knowledge as the main goal will also change a lot.
Fifth, the lifelong learning.
In the past, people's education is basically a one-time completion, from kindergarten, elementary school to secondary school, university, such a stereotypical stage of learning, the future of learning is throughout life. The future of learning is throughout life. From continuous learning to interval learning, lifelong learning.
Sixth, the personalization of education.
In traditional education, we have no choice in learning. The content, time and space of education in secondary and elementary school are filled, and students have little room for choice. In the future, there will be an increasing focus on personalization and diversification to meet the distinctive needs of different populations.
Four, what should we learn in the future?
This is a very important question.
Prof. Rosemary Lukin of the United Kingdom, in her book The Future of Intelligent Learning, redefined human intelligence, explaining in detail the seven elements of human intelligence. The first is academic intelligence, which is the intelligence to understand the totality of things and to solve complex problems; the second is social intelligence, which is the intelligence to communicate and cooperate with people; and the third is meta-knowing intelligence, which is the intelligence to understand knowledge, its meaning, and its formation. It is the intelligence of knowing about knowledge, its meaning, and the process of its formation; meta-cognitive intelligence is the intelligence of our own thinking, what we know and what we don't know; meta-subjective intelligence is the intelligence of understanding our own emotions, motivations, and interpersonal relationships; and social intelligence is the intelligence of communicating and interacting with others and cooperating well with others. and motivation, and interpersonal relationships; meta-contextual intelligence, which is our intelligence for grasping the way our body interacts with its surroundings; and perceived self-efficacy, which is our awareness of how we act and our ability to control the way we behave. We have the ability to control the way we behave.
We in the New Education Experiment have also been thinking hard about what aspects of education should be given special attention and be strengthened in the future. We have set up the curriculum system as follows: the life curriculum as the foundation, the truth-seeking intellectual curriculum, the good moral education curriculum, the beauty of the art curriculum as the main trunk, and the special curriculum as the branches and leaves, to construct. Thus there are also the following goals and paths. This is a very important issue. I think there are so many aspects in the future of education should be particularly concerned about, to be strengthened.
First, the new life curriculum, for the "length, width, and height" of life.
We propose to expand the "length, width, and height" of life, which is a very important theme of our new life education. We divide human life into length, width and height. Education exists for the sake of human life. What is the meaning of education when life is gone?
Some time ago, the story of the two middle school students in Henan who saved a man's life in 10 minutes was highly praised. In fact, this is a problem that our education should have addressed. In our life education textbooks, we put all the first aid knowledge a student needs, including self-rescue and other rescue knowledge has been considered. Including the frequent occurrence of suicides among primary and secondary school students as we have learned from the news media nowadays. These are some of the problems brought about by our lack of life education.
Education should first address the issue of life, so that people can live more healthily and meaningfully.
In addition to the length of life, we are at the same time concerned about the width of life, to become a popular person.
In addition to the length of life, we also care about the width of life, to become a popular person. When I just had a conversation with Mr. Cao Dewang, he also put special emphasis on faith and values, which are also the big issues of life. These big issues of life, length, width and height are not given enough attention in our education. Recently, we have built a special life education hall in a new education experimental school in Bao'an, Shenzhen, as a learning center for new life education.
Secondly, the new intellectual program, for the sake of insight in thinking.
To pay special attention to the cultivation of human thinking ability, thinking insight. This is also a very important reason why our new education experiment emphasizes the concept of big science and big humanities education. We have done some thinking about such a framework of the concept of big science and big humanities, and we believe that future education should place special emphasis on the training of thinking skills, and on the scientific spirit, humanistic feelings and thinking methods with math and philosophy at the core.
A few days ago, a good friend of mine told me with great emotion that the CEO of Twitter has changed, and the new Parag is an Indian. The giants of the American Internet, whether it is Apple, Microsoft, twitter, IBM are overwhelmingly controlled by Indians. My friend, who used to work on Wall Street, said that the number of Chinese in Silicon Valley is about the same as the number of Indians. But why do Indians have so many CEOs, while Chinese rarely even see executives. This friend of mine said that she also had a lot of excellent colleagues from India back then, but realistically, she felt that she was not as good as the Indians. The advantage of the Indians is manifested in two aspects: the first is that their logical thinking is very clear, emphasizing the objectivity of thinking, arriving at a point of view, relying on rigorous inference and sufficient arguments, the reliability of the conclusion and the verifiability of the strong. She believes that this is inseparable from the Indian education system, which favors the Western logical deduction way of thinking and emphasizes clear expression. The Chinese education system, on the other hand, favors memorization, training and test-taking. The second reason is that Indians are very supportive, they support each other, complement each other's strengths, and try to work together as much as possible without tearing each other down behind their backs. This is true even in a competitive context like Wall Street. But that's often not the case with our Chinese coworkers. Even though we're all very good at what we do, we don't support each other in front of our bosses, and it's nice not to be in denial.
In our education system, the arts and sciences are divided too early, and we have too much rigidity and too little flexibility in our education, and our ability to think can be very limited. The curriculum of the new science education and the new humanities education should not be so difficult and deep, otherwise, all people can't stand it, and should focus on cultivating the scientific spirit and humanistic feelings, especially on the thinking method and critical thinking. This is a big problem that should be solved in the future.
Third, the new moral education program, for the sustainable development of mankind.
This is an issue that we should particularly emphasize in the new moral education. We have been thinking about how to put moral education into practice for the sake of sustainable human development. Without activities, without practice, without participation, it is difficult to really cultivate a person's moral character. We have a better sense of the rule of law, a better ability to negotiate and communicate, and a better sense of human destiny***similarity through mock courts, mock CPPCCs, and mock UNs, and through the cultivation of educational leadership.
UNESCO's report "Re-imagining Our Future Together: A New Social Contract for Education", released globally during the 41st session of the General Conference, makes it clear that humanity is facing multiple crises: widening social and economic inequalities, climate change, loss of biodiversity, resource use that transcends planetary boundaries, democratic regression, destructive technological automation and violence. Violence is the hallmark of our current historical juncture. And the contradictory trends are leading us to an unsustainable future.
The report sets out two basic principles for a new education compact, the first of which is to ensure the right to quality education throughout life. Education has to be made more inclusive and sustainable across time and space. Second, education should function as a public ****action and a public ****interest. The goal of education as a ****social action is to establish ****similar goals for individuals, groups, nations and humankind to achieve ****similar prosperity, with an emphasis on transcending traditional humanism and on building a new ecosystem. Environmental education and ecological civilization education need to be given high priority.
Fourth, a new arts curriculum, for the creativity of the mind.
The new education experiment puts special emphasis on focusing on the free play of children's nature, on the cultivation of artistic appreciation and artistic sentiment, and on cultivating people with artistic spirit, artistic thinking and sound personality.
Fifth, the characteristic course, in order to individuality.
Education is about making people better versions of themselves. The best education should meet the individual needs of different people as much as possible. But how to implement it? The approach of the New Education Experiment is to promote a distinctive curriculum. While the general featured curriculum is usually an embellishment of education, the featured curriculum introduced by the New Education Experiment hopes to use the features of people and things as an entry point to be carried through the various curricula of life, intellect, moral education, and the arts, and to be able to stimulate the potential of each individual, so that a person can become a better person, and a school, classroom, and family can become better schools, classrooms, and families as well.
In order to promote the implementation of these curricula, we have not only further enriched them with corresponding curricula based on the national teaching materials, but we have also developed new life education readers and new humanities education readers to present the curricula more centrally and explicitly and to provide guidance.
For the sake of individuality. The future curriculum should leave at least 30%-50% space for students to fulfill their individual needs. We know that Beijing's Eleven School offers a lot of courses, but more than 95% of China's schools are impossible to do so, so how to offer such courses? We should utilize social forces. In fact, when we are rectifying the out-of-school training institutions, we should not throw the baby out with the bathtub; their "central kitchens" and their research on subjects can be used by us to meet individual needs. These things can be incorporated into our after-school programs after 3:30 pm, and they can also be chosen by students on their own, and more importantly, the best elites in society and the best curriculum can be used to meet the needs of children. The best education is the one that allows a person to be who he is. Although there are many mouths to feed, it is important to meet the individual needs of each person as much as possible.
V. How can we transform our learning?
I have explored this question in my books The School of the Future and Toward the Learning Center. I have three ideas for changing and transforming what we learn and how we learn.
First, move from schools to learning centers.
This is a transformation of educational space. That is, we can't just learn in school.
Second, from fixed learning to flexible learning.
I think this is an issue worth studying. A few years ago, Mo Yan once proposed to shorten the school system at the National People's Congress and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), and scholars such as Yi Zhongtian and some NPC deputies and CPPCC members have also proposed to shorten the school system. Come to think of it, our formal education learning time is indeed too long, a person has to finish the doctorate almost nearly 30 years old. This period of time, when human creativity is strongest and most vigorous, is actually often wasted. Moreover, we are still not allowed to learn knowledge at the kindergarten stage, and primary and secondary schools are not allowed to go beyond the syllabus. Such a neat and tidy education is actually not in line with the law of education.
The future of education will inevitably be based on flexible learning. When you start learning, what you learn, and when you take a break should be decided by each individual autonomously. Many people may not need 10 years to finish our basic education. Therefore, there is no need to shorten the school year, but to let each person decide his or her own learning time. People start learning when they are born, so why can't they learn in kindergartens? It is only that he should not be tested, not linked to promotion to elementary school, and not put under pressure. Because young children see words as pictures, they can recognize many words in natural activities. In the future, there should not be a one-size-fits-all approach that allows students to choose what they want to learn when they want to learn it.
For many people, I advocate alternating work and study because it is in the workplace that one is most motivated to learn, and in the future, the traditional rigid constraints of career-ready schools will be eliminated.
Third, from the academic society to the learning society.
Dr. Kaplan, in his book The Case Against Education, suggests that many of the problems in education are behind a diploma. Because the diploma has too much gold in it. People get a diploma for the sake of the diploma's gold content, not for the sake of acquiring real ability to get a diploma. Such an evaluation system, such a "curse" is not solved, we are actually difficult to really carry out our learning problems, but also difficult to solve the problem of our entire education. Therefore, I suggest that the symbolism and significance of the diploma is valuable in the past, because when the diploma is still a rare thing there is a certain value, but when everyone has a diploma, it loses its original value.
The future should be a time when curriculum is king. In other words, it's not about where you got your diploma, it's about what you learned. Did you really grow through learning? That's why we're proposing to dynamically record a person's learning experience and growth through a credit bank, so that we can do better, and our education will go back to what it was originally intended to be.
In a nutshell, what to learn is a logical starting point for the whole education, a fundamental and critical issue. We must sort this out before we can address the other issues of education. Our education is in need of further rethinking. Where is the logical starting point for thinking? It is the change in the content of learning. Learning is no longer painful when the content of learning is of interest. The "double reduction" is to reduce the unreasonable burden. In the face of their favorite learning content, students will read books and do experiments all night long. Choosing the right learning content naturally solves the problem of students not wanting to learn and psychological pressure.
In such an era of great change in education, we do need the thinking of change, the spirit of change and the courage to change. Let's work together to come up with ideas and solutions for China's education reform, and promote and encourage primary and secondary schools and private educational institutions to actively explore and create good experiences and methods, and then we will continue to find these wonderful and effective results, and then turn them into government decisions.
Let's work together!