以下有一位讀者分享的很棒：誰可以幫幫忙全文翻譯一下？我感冒中.....有點懶惰。
An-Yi,
I moved to the United States after completing my high school in Taiwan. 沒做過實驗就先考試 - yes, that was the norm when I was in the Taiwanese school system 13 years ago. Things haven't changed, I guess.
I've always enjoyed learning science, and majored in physics in college in the US. Very quickly, I realized that while the Taiwanese education crammed in many facts and knowledge in my brain, its lack of scientific and critical thinking skills makes me far behind my American peers who were taught to think like a real scientists. Just like you said, "我想難怪我們的孩子雖然小時候數學成績全球名列前茅，但就算下輩子也教不出諾貝爾獎得主."
Now, I am a high school physics teacher in California. The education trend in the US has been focused on hands-on inquiries and developing the skills 發現問題、搜集資料、提出假設、實驗論證、研究結果. I sincerely hope that one day, the parents and teachers in Taiwan could make the mindset shift and start emphasize on the things that really matter.
An-Yi, I want to share some video/articles with you. As a teacher, I'm always thinking and exploring what our education can be to prepare our children. You may find them interesting:
An article talking about why Google doesn't care about hiring graduates from top colleges (collaboration skills and humility are more important than IQ, Google says):
http://qz.com/…/why-google-doesnt-care-about-hiring-top-co…/
Another article from Google talking about what they look for in their employees - essentially, they want someone who is intellectually curious (and has a the capacity to learn and grow) and a team player, instead of someone who knows a lot of facts: http://www.nytimes.com/…/friedman-how-to-get-a-job-at-googl…
Here is a TED talk from Angela Duckworth, a UPenn researcher who finds that the long term success depends not on IQ or GPA, but on grit and persistence:
http://www.ted.com/…/angela_lee_duckworth_the_key_to_succes…
And finally, a TED talk from a young boy who wonders why our school does not teach us to be happy: http://blogs.kqed.org/…/hacking-school-one-teenagers-path…/…
I don't think the American school system is perfect, either. I think both the Taiwanese and American schools could put more emphasis on teaching children the non-cognitive skills (persistence, risk-taking, problem solving, etc.), self-regulation skills (stress/time management, mindfulness meditation, yoga, etc.), and providing the opportunity for children to discover their passions (how many college graduates in Taiwan have no idea what they want to do?) - things that I think matter so much more than memorizing more equations.
Sorry this turns out to be such a long post - education is a topic I'm really passionate about (sometimes I wish I was teaching in Taiwan and bringing all these ideas to start my own school there!). I would continue following your blog on the education experiment. Thanks for sharing this!
Tanya
