Good Wednesday everyone, I'm LEO.
Today I write this article to share some of my own experiences as a child, about attending after-school cram classes and tutoring classes. This is also a problem that many students and parents and friends are particularly concerned about.
If you have any other questions you want to ask me, please leave a message in the background, and I will continue to take the time to answer based on my own experience. Without further ado, let's get straight to the point:
This discussion is about an eternal, classic question that I was asked when I was a child: "Classmate Leo, what cram schools and tutoring classes did you attend when you were a child?" Will your parents force you to tutor outside of class? Will you be the main teacher? ”
I'll answer the second half of the question first: Never.
In the case of after-school cram schools/tutoring classes, whether it was kindergarten, elementary school or middle school, I was never forced by my parents. In fact, my busy, energy-strapped parents probably didn't even spend time studying cram school. That is to say, they are the opposite of the "chicken baby parents" represented by Beijing Haidian and Shanghai.
Yes, I am very happy and have never been "chicken" ever. Of course, this is not unrelated to my own "strength" in study habits and grades - simply stating the facts is not boasting. In the previous articles, I mentioned my own learning principles: try my best not to let the knowledge blind spots and weaknesses stay overnight, and eliminate the problems that I don't understand and do wrong as soon as possible. In order to check and fill in the gaps in time, I developed the habit of often asking the teacher for advice and asking questions if I didn't understand. It is precisely because of the teacher's careful answer to questions (grateful to my teachers), I can always do in the face of knowledge difficulties, water to cover, supplemented by efficient preparation, review and other learning methods, so as to learn each subject solidly, the test score for a long time at the top - this complete process, is the virtuous cycle system of learning!
If you can do your homework well and take the exam well in school, why spend money and time to study outside the classroom? So I want to "bitter mouth" again: students and sisters, for your mood, your parents' mood, your whole family's mood, please try to use all the school resources to study well! In particular, we should ask teachers more and ask questions without shame. Remember the words of the senior: If you want to do well in the exam, it is indispensable to hold the teacher's thigh.
Let's answer the first half of the question:
Although I have not attended a subject exam-oriented cram class, I have participated in the interest/ability development class that is not related to on-campus learning, and I have gained a lot from it. Here's how to "demystify" the tutoring classes I attended as a child.
To illustrate: the registration decision is all made by me according to my personal interests, and my parents never make decisions for me, almost always "No problem, son." Well, this class is good, you go to learn! ”
Attitude. Their contribution to this matter was mainly – to help me pay my tuition (thank you Mom and Dad)
01
Five and a half years old: calligraphy class
This was the first experience of my extracurricular interest class in my life. When I was a child, I often went to my grandmother's house on weekends to play, and I was deeply impressed by the handsome calligraphy of the two old people, especially liked my grandmother's xiaokai. As an intellectual woman at the turn of the old and the new era, Grandma can write a beautiful orthographic small letter, and from time to time use a brush to write me vertical letters to express her blessings for the growth of her grandson. Under the influence of my grandmother, I was in kindergarten and also wanted to write Chinese characters that traveled through the clouds, so I had to learn the art of calligraphy class later.
From the practice of copying and copying stroke by stroke, to the completion of hundreds of words of calligraphy works alone, and the award-winning participation in the Jinan Children's Calligraphy Competition, it took me a year. Learning calligraphy is not just about practicing words, but about honing one's mind, especially one's mind and patience. Why did you stop school after a year? Mainly because when I was young, I was very quiet, even a little shy and introverted, and my mother was afraid that I would become more and more quiet the more I practiced- boys, or some lively and flexible "wildness". So after listening to and respecting my opinions, the calligraphy class trip came to an end, but calligraphy has since become a big hobby for me to reduce stress and empty, and to this day I still use hard pens or brushes to post and copy by hand.
02
7 to 8 years old: Abacus mental arithmetic
I owe probably half of my sensitivity to numbers to abacus mental arithmetic training in the first or second grades of elementary school. This is such an awesome learning program and I highly recommend it to kids who are still young (less than 10 years old)!
Learning abacus is interesting. In the 1990s, the sales settlement mode of department stores was still very traditional: one counter after another placed goods, and behind the counter stood the cashier, who almost everyone had an abacus for accounting. When I first started elementary school, I watched the salesmen skillfully control the abacus, and my fingers plucked on it to calculate accurate numbers, and I couldn't help but admire it, and I secretly hoped to get this cool skill. It happened that my elementary school was selecting lower grade students to participate in the abacus mental arithmetic interest class, and when I heard that "learning abacus mental arithmetic can play with abacus", I signed up with joy.
For me, the process of learning abacus mental arithmetic is almost not a little bitter, it is all sweetness, probably because I do like numbers and like abacus. One of the magic points of abacus mental arithmetic is a large number of abacus operation exercises ("plan disk"), so that people gradually build a clear "abacus image" in the brain, and then be competent for fast and accurate mental arithmetic, that is, without the need to hand the plan or paper calculation, directly dial the abacus in the brain to complete the calculation. In order to achieve this goal, I carried out a deep, continuously upgraded training, starting from the most elementary "carry 1" hand plan disk practice, quickly looking at the number of reports, until I was competent for the addition and subtraction of more than five digits and thirty consecutive numbers, and the abacus image became clearer and more solid in my brain, almost equivalent to an accurate implantable calculator! Even now, when I am over thirty years old, I still have in my mind the image of the abacus I built up in the past (only blurred when I was younger), and I can still easily cope with speed calculations within four digits.
Don't think that abacus is outdated. On the contrary, there are many benefits of learning abacus mental arithmetic, such as the improvement of sensitivity to numbers, the forging of concentration, memory, computing, and imagination. All in all, twelve points would recommend.
03
Grades 3 to 6:
The school's "weekend paradise"
After moving from Jinan to Xiamen, abacus mental arithmetic training was suspended, but the new primary school offered more interest classes to choose from, collectively known as "weekend paradise" (because they all took classes on weekends, and the teachers lectured in a fun and relaxed manner, with no homework and exam tasks). From the third grade to the years after graduating from primary school, I have never been "forced" by teachers and parents, and have always signed up for learning according to my personal interests, such as Olympiad classes, oral language classes and biological inquiry classes, and the learning process is also full of joy, not for exams, "not for understanding", only for happy learning, expanding knowledge and horizons.
To digress: In the second semester of the sixth grade, I loved to beat myself chicken blood for a while, hoping to consolidate the "hegemonic" position of the first grade in the primary examination of the primary school, and enter the top five in the city in the merit-based examination of the foreign Chinese school. In order to complete this "great deed", I specially brought back a number of junior high school teaching assistants from the bookstore, and also discussed with my parents that I wanted to apply for a cram school for the first time in the world and study with the older children in the first and second grades of the junior high school.
Guess what my mom's reaction was? Not "old motherly relief and touch", but:
Oh, son, don't you. Not necessarily! This is already good, why put so much pressure on yourself? Hurry to bed after writing your homework, or just play for a while. Eh, don't you want to travel to Dali Lijiang? I saw today that the travel agency organized an in-depth tour line is good, you see, summer vacation to sign up for a group to play?
In the matter of studying and enrolling in classes, my parents are so stress-free, so worry-free, so... Flying.
Learning is important
But blindly go to cram school
Maybe it will only be half the work
The first day of December
Energetic together!
LEO