Children need not only bread to grow up, but also stories, books, culture and other nourishment. The average family is limited by the energy of the parent and the accumulation of family knowledge and culture, and often can only simply give children stories or books, and the guidance and common growth in the deep cultural sense often become a short board.
Based on this reality, some thinking misunderstandings have formed, such as invisibly dwarfing children, thinking that children read villain books, adults reading adult books, should go their own way, or presuppose that some knowledge content is incomprehensible to children, and some abilities are difficult for children to achieve.
In fact, through daily edification and quality communication, children will understand and even understand some incredible knowledge. Teacher Wu, who does Chinese cultural family enlightenment education in Wuhan, is the father of a seven-year-old girl. As an independent education practitioner, he and his lover have developed enlightenment courses together and done a lot of exploration of family cultural enlightenment.
Because of the needs of work and life, it is the daily routine of Teacher Wu's family to sit around three tables and study, discuss and communicate together. In this environment, his daughter Mustang grew into a quirky, obsessed with reading, and often surprising children. The picture shows Teacher Wu's daughter Xiao Mustang visiting the museum.
Teacher Wu's work and child-rearing life have made us have great curiosity, but also a lot of questions about children's reading and cultural enlightenment, recently, "To Children" interviewed Teacher Wu, asked him to talk about reading and cultural enlightenment from the perspective of a child's cultural education practitioner. Today, Movable Type Jun shares the full text of the interview with book friends.
Reading and cultural enlightenment, take the child to climb a few mountains
—
Teacher Wu
Focus on children's cultural education, Chinese culture and family enlightenment education, museum and outdoor humanistic theme research.
▍Q: I see you said, "Language education at this stage cannot be equated with culture, but with the advancement of educational reform, cultural inheritance and the centripetal force it brings have been emphasized as never before, and children with cultural vision will get a strong thrust at least in future language learning". Do you have such a thought, is there a certain relationship with the birth and growth of your daughter?
▍ Teacher Wu: Cultural education has its own logic, and I will not equate language and culture. However, abundant cultural literacy is certainly of great help to language learning, this understanding occurs in my past teaching experience - the division of the subject makes children's thinking and emotions become very fragmented, especially in the senior grade, but human wisdom is a circle of integration, in dealing with problems, the openness and activity of thinking is very important, and cultural enlightenment can make children maintain curiosity and sensitivity, and the future learning thrust is only naturally generated in this process, it is not our ultimate goal.
The biggest change for me from the birth of my daughter was that family life became extremely important, before that, culture was an interest for me, and then it was a responsibility. Family life is the ecological environment of cultural inheritance, and in the middle of parent-child communication, cultural identity and cultural vision almost determine the quality of dialogue - which is beyond the scope of subject learning.
▍Q: I noticed that your Chinese culture enlightenment course is more focused on the two parts of humanities and arts, why is it designed this way?
▍Teacher Wu: This is related to personal preferences, of course, we do not exclude the content of popular science museums and other aspects, and we will also be eclectic. There are also two main reasons for the actual situation of enlightenment:
First, the current regular school education in the humanities and arts is not enough, I myself also do voluntary lectures in the museum, which I deeply understand. Children lack the ability to discover the eyes, feel and the ability to share and communicate with others in life, which can be supplemented by humanistic and artistic accomplishment;
Second, children are more adept at intuitive perception in the early stage of growth, the content of humanities and arts is more acceptable, and in the process of growing up, when the need for rational thinking becomes more and more urgent, the cultivation of humanities and arts will also become the background of happiness in life. We are not asking everyone to become experts in the humanities and arts, but the humanities and arts can add a lot to everyone's life.
By the way, our audience is not only children, many parents also like our curriculum, humanities and arts is a knowledge blind spot for many parents, and they also enjoy the process of opening this door. Returning to the family, they and their children have invisibly added common topics, and emotions and words have many soft and beautiful components.
▍Q: In the development of Chinese culture enlightenment courses, it seems that you have selected a lot of articles in the "For Children" series of books, can you say that you used this set of books to develop the original intention of the Chinese culture enlightenment curriculum? What are the specific feelings in the specific use?
▍ Teacher Wu: The Chinese culture enlightenment course was officially started in 2018, to be honest, there was no reference to the "To Children" series at the beginning of the curriculum design. Mr. Kitajima is a poet I like very much, and I have read most of his works. The year after my daughter was born, I bought his edited Poems for Children, and I didn't expect to publish a series of books that made me happy for the children from the bottom of my heart.
Our course was initially targeted primarily at preschoolers, not because of the simplicity of the content, but because preschoolers have more time to spend with their children. In the text enlightenment part, I used the "Kingdom of Chinese Characters" of the People's Literature Publishing House at that time, and Mr. He Daqi's "All Chinese Characters", these two works can be said to be popular and professional, especially "The Kingdom of Chinese Characters", the research perspective is diverse, it can also be said that it has a large cultural view, involving folklore, history, archaeology, etc., very interesting.
These two books are mainly recommended for our adults to read, and I will also use them for children in the middle and upper grades of elementary school every day. Poetry enlightenment can be said to be the root of the cultural enlightenment curriculum, and calligraphy and painting are all associated with it. My grandfather is the same generation as Mr. Ye Jiaying, more than ninety years old, and still insists on reading poetry and copying poems and composing poems. Probably influenced by his old man,I have a deep affection for poetry and calligraphy. Mr. Ye, Mr. Ye's teacher Mr. Gu Sui, Sinologist Gao Juhan and others have studied poetry, which has greatly improved my poetry cultivation, and children will also benefit from such inheritance and learning.
The "To The Kids" series has been published so far, and there are about 20 books out, and I very much agree with the system structure of this series, and the selected articles have surprised me in terms of vision and content. So when I do reading lessons for the children in the middle and upper grades of elementary school, some of them I will do intensive reading for the children, especially prose and ancient texts.
Little Mustang read the notes taken in the Ancient Texts for Children
Judging from the use of the situation, this set of books is difficult, and even some articles are put into high school intensive reading, I give the middle and senior grades of primary school to use, but also selected to suit their cognitive and comprehension level of the articles. Taking children to read these works is hoping that while learning the texts in school, children can be exposed to more high-quality literary works, supplement their reading horizons, and enhance their ability to taste and read high-quality languages.
These works do not have to wait until junior high school or high school to read, and I think it is no problem to contact them at the primary school level, but the selection of articles needs to take into account their reading foundation and age cognition.
▍Q: Compared with serious cultural books, the average child will be more inclined to read some more interesting storybooks and comic books, how do you think about this phenomenon, and have you encountered this situation? Will there be any intention to interfere and guide? What are some proven ways to improve?
▍Teacher Wu: The reading mentioned here should refer to the child's self-selected independent reading. I think this kind of reading should be interesting, interesting in order to let children continue to read, and continuous reading helps children to read independently. Having a continuous and independent reading habit can lay a good foundation for children's literacy skills. It is normal for children to enjoy interesting stories and comics for daily self-selected reading. But this fun does not mean that these books are superficial and entertaining, no matter what type of books, there are excellent works for children to read, excellent stories never lack depth and interest, these excellent child creators are very responsible, they know how to give children a good appetite. When parents equip their children with reading books, the types are as rich as possible, so that the content and text types that the children are exposed to can be satisfied, and the children can avoid being too addicted to a certain type of situation.
If parents are worried about improper book selection, parents can discuss with their children or find some more quality books to read together. Children's reading is generally composed of two parts: free reading and designated reading, but designated reading is more difficult to implement, even if it is a very classic and interesting book, it is homework and a burden for children. In this case, I generally recommend that parents first accompany their children to read together, our family is doing this, children are not interested in books, we will take the initiative to read to her, after reading a few nights, she will ask herself to read. Therefore, if there is a problem, do not simply throw it to the child to solve it by himself. For example, "Chinese Character Kingdom for Children", "Science Fiction for Children", "Animal Fables for Children", etc., take the child to climb a few mountains, and the child will be more confident when reading some "serious" content.
▍Q: In my own experience, in the process of transitioning from picture books to text books, children will have a stage of very rejecting text books and rejecting independent reading. Is there any way to help your child make a smoother transition?
▍Teacher Wu: This problem involves two problems, one is to exclude written books, and the other is to exclude oneself from reading. My daughter's Reading in Chinese and English is relatively smooth from parent-child reading to independent reading. Before the first grade of primary school, she was able to read chapters in Both Chinese and English on her own. Share our approach on these two issues.
Reading text books, do not need to wait for primary school to start, preschool daily parent-child reading, you can add some text books, such as Chinese folk tales, fables, mythological stories and so on. These shorter text stories can be read to children when they are resting, and children can read without staring at the book, because there are no pictures. In this way, picture books are paired with text books, and in children's cognition, they recognize that such books exist in their reading life.
The second problem is the exclusion of independent reading. The problem is largely that the child does not build self-confidence and is afraid of difficulties. The reasons are poor reading habits, insufficient accumulation of Chinese characters, and parents are not accompanied and guided enough. In particular, it should be emphasized that recognizing words does not mean that children can read independently, and reading habits are the premise. Of course, there are also some children who do not need parents to accompany them to recognize words, accompanied by finger reading exercises to achieve independent reading, but such children's parent-child reading is better, in the parent-child reading, children can naturally learn some Chinese characters.
For children who cannot learn Chinese characters naturally, they need to be deliberately guided by parents. Children can accumulate Chinese characters at the age of four, daily parent-child co-reading can refer to reading titles, authors, outdoor advertising words, and even subway station signs, poetry reading, etc., a few hundred words a year is very easy. Generally speaking, children with 800 to 1000 Chinese characters accumulated, they can read many children's works relatively smoothly.
With the above preparations, there are also many children who are reluctant to read by themselves, and still strongly require parents to read to them, we need to accompany children to overcome the fear of difficulties, sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, and gradually can read a picture book, long stories, etc. This process can help children build independent reading confidence very well, and they will also feel the love and help given to them by their parents, which is also very important for their children's growth. My daughter has been reading on her own for over two years, but we still try to set aside time every day to read with her before going to bed, because we both enjoy this wonderful time.
▍Q: I have seen you use Vygotsky's "recent development zone" and the resulting "eagle frame" theory to explain the "Three Sus" and "Three Kings" in Chinese history, as well as the phenomenon of family talents such as Liang Qichao's One Door And Nine Jies. In the process of Bronco's growth, did your work invisibly build an "eagle frame" for her growth?
Zone of proximal: The concept of children's educational development proposed by the former Soviet educator Vygotsky. He believes that there are two levels of student development: one is the student's current level, which refers to the level of problem solving that can be achieved when independent activity; the other is the student's possible level of development, that is, the potential obtained through teaching. The difference between the two is the recent development zone.
*Scaffolding Instruction, also known as Scaffolding Instruction or Instructional Scaffolding, refers to a teaching method in which students learn a new concept or technique by providing sufficient support to improve their learning ability.
▍Teacher Wu: In the process of cultural enlightenment, parents are best able to be their children's classmates, friends, and even close friends, rather than the unquestionable authority at home. Starting from the Eagle Frame Theory, parents are equivalent to collaborators with stronger learning ability, sharing knowledge and skills in the process of cooperation, as well as ways to reflect and solve problems, and if this process continues, children can continue to enter the recent development zone.
Speaking of my own family, our work has indeed expanded the horizons of our children, and her conversation often surprises the friends around her. However, eagle frames are not always present, because we do not always maintain a cooperative discussion relationship with our children at work, so we can only explore a small part of the scope of her interest. This also reaffirms the rationality of the eagle frame theory – partnership (rather than direct indoctrination of professors) is the basis of scaffolding teaching.
▍Q: Combined with your experience, please give some advice to ordinary parents within the scope of Chinese cultural enlightenment.
▍ Teacher Wu: brush less mobile phones, read more cultural books, communicate with children more, and take children to various cultural places.
Teacher Wu took the children to do research on the old architecture of Hankou
The little mustang works as a little docent in the museum
Teacher Wu gave a lecture at the art museum
Related books
END
Print Culture
Achieve living thoughts