Text/Red Dust Guest
An ordinary village doctor with six elite children.
The eldest son, "Cai Tiantian", graduated from Cornell University in the United States with a doctorate, the youngest tenured professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and won the "Nobel Prize" in world statistics in 2008 - "President Copps Award";
The second son, "Cai Tianwu", was admitted to the junior class of the University of Science and Technology of China at the age of 14, was admitted to the CASPEA doctoral program sponsored by Nobel Laureate Li Zhengdao at the age of 19, and obtained a doctorate degree from the University of Rochester at the age of 25;
The third son, "Cai Tiansi", graduated from beijing foreign Chinese College, and was admitted as a doctoral student at St. John's University in the United States;
The fourth son, "Cai Tianrun", graduated from West China Medical University, was admitted as a doctoral student by Arkansas State University in the United States; the fifth son, "Cai Tianjun", master of the University of Science and Technology of China;
The sixth daughter, "Cai Tianxi", entered the junior class of the University of Science and Technology of China at the age of 14, became a doctoral student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at the age of 18, received a doctorate from Harvard University at the age of 22, became the youngest associate professor at Harvard University at the age of 28, and became a tenured professor at Harvard University in his 30s.
He was known as a talent "magician", and countless parents asked him for advice on "parenting dafa", and he just smiled lightly: "I just run the role of father as a career." ”
And his parenting sutra has only 24 words: early education education, ambition from an early age, cultivating self-study, learning to be a person first, happy education, love and more communication.
First, the road to study that does not work
This ordinary village doctor, called "Cai Xiaowan", was born in 1941 in Zhejiang Province in a well-to-do scholarly mendi, and his father was a famous local doctor.
Influenced by family culture since childhood, Cai Xiaowan likes to read very much, especially has a great interest in physics, and with his excellent grades, he was admitted to a key high school.
At that time, it was the "Anti-Rightist Movement", Cai Xiaowan's father was a forensic doctor of the Kuomintang, and because of the unqualified political trial, Cai Xiaowan was expelled from the school.
But this did not stop Cai Xiaowan's pace of study, he spent a year to complete all the courses of high school, took the college entrance examination alone, but once again because of the unqualified political examination and interrupted the way to study.
Cai Xiaowan went to a primary school as a primary school teacher, because of his outstanding performance in the school, he was rated as an "advanced youth", in the case of the school's recommendation and full scores in three subjects, he stepped into the university again, and was admitted to the Physics Department of Hangzhou University, Cai Xiaowan finally realized his dream, but unexpectedly struck again.
Cai Xiaowan's father unfortunately died, and the burden of supporting the family fell on Cai Xiaowan, and Cai Xiaowan had no choice but to withdraw from school to support his family.
Not long after, Cai Xiaowan became a family, and the moment he learned that his wife was pregnant, the factor of studying in Cai Xiaowan's heart was awakened again, and the dream of studying that he could not complete in his life would be "inherited" by the child.
Cai Xiaowan officially renamed himself "Cai Xiaowan", which means that "he will realize his wishes in his old age, smile the best and happiest", and at that moment he took his father as his profession.
Cai Xiaowan took over his father's mantle, became a village doctor, and conceived five sons and a daughter with his wife, because he was deeply influenced by Confucian culture, he named himself "Kong Lao'er", and named his children Mencius, Sun Tzu, Xunzi, Runzi, Zengzi and Xizi.
Second, early education, self-study
After the birth of the child, Cai Xiaowan began to study his own parenting methods, in that era when the "reading useless theory" was popular, Cai Xiaowan firmly believed that "reading is useful", and also deeply understood the importance of early education, he said: "Reading should be early!" ”
In his view, one to four years old is the strongest time for children to learn, children at that stage are full of curiosity about the world, but also willing to accept new and interesting things, as long as the use of children's interests, guide children, you can let children learn a lot of useful knowledge while having fun.
In Cai Xiaowan's view: "Genius is neither genetic nor hardworking, but the result of a good education in the early days." Early education can dig deeper into the child's genetic genes, and will also make the acquired diligence more effective. ”
Cai Xiaowan's family broadcast English and Japanese to the children every morning, and when they grew up, every household hung a fashionable poster, but Cai Xiaowan's home hung portraits of Newton, Albert Einstein and Marie Curie.
When children are learning languages, we always habitually teach children to listen to children's songs, learn Chinese characters, and memorize ancient poems, and the first thing we learn is our own name, and we will learn numbers and calculations after going to school.
But in Cai Xiaowan's view, early education in mathematics is more important than literacy: "Mathematics can open the door of children's wisdom more than memorizing poems." ”
When the eldest son is still in the swaddling, Cai Xiaowan will break his finger to the child for digital enlightenment, he extends a few fingers, the child will nod his head a few times, after learning the number, he will point the child's chin with his hand, and then let the child say a few clicks, and will also grab the child's hand and teach the child to count.
In this way, when the eldest son can speak at eight months, he can count from one to five, and when he is more than one year old, he can recognize numbers within ten, and he has learned four-digit operations before going to school.
He called this a "victory in time", because of the first step of contact with knowledge, Cai Xiaowan also hopes that children can enroll in school early, normal children are seven years old, or even eight years old to enter school, but Cai Xiaowan wants her children to enter the school before the age of six.
In ancient times, there were three moves of Meng Mother, and now there is Cai Xiaowan moving, in order to allow children to enroll in school early, Cai Xiaowan frequently moved.
Formal schools are not allowed to enroll in advance, and Cai Xiaowan can only move to a remote private school, but in such a school, the educational environment of the teacher force is not good.
After the children successfully enrolled in school and had a school registration, Cai Xiaojie moved again and moved to a school with a strong educational environment for teachers.
However, early enrollment is only the first step, under the guidance of Cai Xiaowan, children can easily surpass their peers, always ranked at the top of the school, at this time he will encourage children to skip, in order to skip, Cai Xiaowan has moved many times.
After the children enter school, the learning progress is not the same, the teaching materials of each school are different, when the children are troubled, Cai Xiaowan once again guides the children, telling them the importance of "self-study": "Self-study is essentially to cultivate the ability to think, the important thing is to learn how to learn by yourself." ”
The most important thing in a person's life is the ability to "self-study", learning is a lifelong thing, you can't wait for others to teach you, you have to take the initiative to learn.
In addition to active learning, there are also methods of learning, he told children to learn to know how to "grasp the key points", you can learn important and main knowledge first, and those that are secondary can be put aside first.
At first, the children did not understand which is important knowledge and which are secondary knowledge, Cai Xiaowan first helped the children to "grasp the key points", and then let the children learn to grasp the key points on their own.
Cai Xiaowan has six children, each child's learning progress, learning knowledge is different, to know the focus of each subject, he must be clear about the children's teaching materials and learning outline, such a workload is undoubtedly huge.
Cai Xiao worked tirelessly, and after finding the key points, he also summarized them into methods and handed them to the children, so that they could learn to grasp the key points on their own and think independently on their own.
This method of learning has greatly benefited children, and they still maintain efficient independent learning ability during their college years.
In addition, he collects learning materials from all over the country and hand-copies the material examination papers for the children, which are piled up in the cabinets of the home.
Third, aspire and be a person
Although early education is important, for a child, ambition is the most important "from an early age" is another "core" of Cai Xiao's late parenting.
With a goal, there will be a direction of progress, no matter how good education, if there is no goal, just like the ship without a lighthouse, losing direction can only be in the sea, can not go far.
When Cai Xiaowan was a child, his grandmother taught him such a song: "Thirty-three days outside the sky, the white clouds are out of the gods." Immortals were originally done by mortals, but they were afraid that mortals would not be strong. ”
Immortals are originally made by mortals, the prince will have a kind of Xiangning, Cai Xiaowan made an ambition to revitalize the family when he was young, and after studying alone without results, he once again resolved to cultivate children and revitalize the family.
Cai Xiaowan not only posted portraits of famous scientists at home, but also taught children the stories of scientists, such stories, so that the 5-year-old daughter became interested in science, she said: "I want to be China's Marie Curie!" ”
Cai Xiaowan borrowed words from Homer's Epic to inspire her: "Don't live up to your clever beauty, you must shake your spirit and leave a good name in qingshi." She later became a Ph.D. at MIT and Harvard.
The best education is to teach by example, Cai Xiaowan's family often gathers together, reads and learns together, when the children are young, Cai Xiaowan and his wife will explain the content of books to the children, and when they grow up, the children will independently read ancient and modern Chinese and foreign books.
Even Cai Xiaowan and his wife, who hardly watch TV and read with the children together, creating a strong learning atmosphere.
Reading is throughout the children's lives, but Cai Xiaowan does not want children to become nerds who can only read, the old saying is "reading thousands of books and traveling thousands of miles".
Even if Cai Xiaowan's family of eight lives in poverty, he will still take his children out to see the world.
Cai Xiaowan's home has two floors, the first floor is where he sees a doctor and practices medicine, and the second floor is the place where six children and their couple live and study.
Cai Xiaowan took the children to travel across the country, Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Dalian, Shenyang, Harbin, the economy has not become a restriction for children to see the world, Cai Xiaowan's footsteps are all over the motherland, the children's vision has been improved, the vision has become more open, with these experiences, the children's ambitions will be more lofty.
Fourth, happy education
Bing Xin once said, "A good family is the root of all happiness and strength." ”
Many parents initially believe in the "education of love", to use love to influence and educate children, but when encountering "bear children" in trouble, when adolescent rebellion, always can't help but be hysterical, so how does Cai Xiaowan deal with these situations?
"Getting up early" is a headache for every parent, urging their children to get up for breakfast and rush to work. Cai Xiaowan's way of telling the children to get up is very special, every morning at six o'clock, Cai Xiao will pull the erhu downstairs, and the children will understand when they hear the sound of the erhu: it is time to get up.
After the children got up, Cai Xiaowan broadcast foreign languages to the children, and gradually, the children developed the habit of getting up early and became interested in foreign languages.
Cultivating habits is more effective than teaching, Cai Xiaowan adopts a clever way, as if the spring rain is as silent as the wet, some people will ask, if the child still does not get up, does not act according to your ideas, then what to do?
For a while, martial arts films such as "Shaolin Temple" and "Huo Yuanjia" were popular in the country, and the fourth son, who had always been studious, did not want to learn, and only wanted to go to the Shaolin Temple every day to practice martial arts. When the average parent encounters it, he will definitely have a meal of "bamboo shoot fried meat shreds", so that he will never want to go to the Shaolin Temple again.
Cai Xiaowan was very respectful of the child's wishes, knowing that he was only three minutes of heat, but he did not impose his own ideas on his son, he confirmed to his son whether he really wanted to go to the Shaolin Temple to practice martial arts, telling him: "People are responsible for their own actions." ”
The fourth son just wanted to go to the Shaolin Temple, that is, he wanted to learn martial arts, and he said to his son: "If you want to learn martial arts, write a letter of guarantee, guarantee that you will learn martial arts in this life, never read again, and you must become a master." ”
After getting the assurance, he sent his son to the Shaolin Temple, at first, the fourth son stayed in the Shaolin Temple very happy, gradually, the pain of practicing martial arts began to torment him, and after two months, he asked Cai Xiaowan for help, not wanting to practice martial arts anymore and wanting to go back to study.
Cai Xiaowan refused his request, saying: "Everyone is responsible for their own actions, not if you want to go, if you want to go back, you can go back, and insist on studying this semester." ”
A semester later, the fourth son returned from the Shaolin Temple, and he studied extra hard and was admitted to a key university in one fell swoop.
Fifth, love and communication
Some people will ask, living in such a family, every day is not very tired to study, Cai Xiaowan does not approve of children learning like nerds, he has created a loving environment for children.
Cai Xiao's evening home is relatively simple, children have more rooms, in order to have more room for activities, he specially made a large bed for children, four children sleep on it at night, turned over during the day, is a large table, you can write homework, read books, you can also play table tennis.
In addition, Cai Xiaowan also specially bought a bicycle for children to relax and entertain after class, not only to play table tennis, but also to ride a bicycle and listen to songs to relax.
In addition to learning entertainment, Cai Xiaowan also did his best to cultivate children, he designed a lot of small games for children, used to develop intelligence, the winner can deposit a sum of money in the "personal passbook", with more and more money on the passbook, the children's sense of achievement is getting stronger and stronger, and the intelligence has also been improved.
Cai Xiaowan's approach inspired the second son, who imitated his father to establish his own "bank and passbook" for other siblings.
After graduating from his second son's doctorate, he had his own set of economic physics theories and methods of capital operation, and was later hired as a vice president by the American financial company Goldman Sachs.
The "Book of Fu Lei's Family" wrote: "Writing to you at length is not empty nagging, not inexplicable nonsense, but has several functions. Cai Xiaowan's education showed the role of communication.
The youngest daughter Cai Tianxi has been gifted since she was a child, and the 11-year-old child of the same age is still in elementary school, she is in high school, because of the serious jump and young age, Cai Tianxi is often bullied by her classmates at school, she wrote to her father to talk.
Cai Xiaowan encouraged her daughter: "The classmates who bully you now are not necessarily bad classmates, but may also be your good friends in the future; if this classmate is really a "bad" classmate, you should not be afraid, bad people will not have good results."
Remember Alexander's famous saying: 'All my life's achievements have been made for me by my enemies, and my friends have not helped me to build any cause.' ”
With the encouragement of his father, Cai Tianxi created his own achievements
Cai Xiaowan's 24 words "Parenting Classic" are: early education education, ambition from an early age, cultivation of self-study, first learning to be a person, happy education, love and more communication.
After the children became a family, they also followed their father's education method, and Cai Xiaowan wrote his own education method into a book and shared his own method, while he emphasized:
"The concept of education that everyone is satisfied with is the most dangerous, and it can only cultivate ordinary children who are stable and stable."
There is no constant "recipe" for family education, the individual children are very different, and the education methods are different.
Only when parents think hard and use sweat to water, can they find a suitable family education for their children in the experience of many others.
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