"Child, may you have light in your brave heart in your life" - reading notes guide to share

This text number is 5792 and the estimated reading time is 15 minutes.

The book shared today is "Children, May You Have Light in Your Life of Courage."

The author is Hao Jingfang, visiting scholar at The Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, master's degree in astrophysics and doctor of economics at Tsinghua University, winner of the Hugo Award at the 74th World Science Fiction Congress, and 2018 World Young Leader. Fortune magazine's 2017 under-40 business elite, founder of "Tongxing Academy", and mother of two.

Children have poor self-consciousness, and parents can't control themselves when they don't look at it. Someone else's child will memorize a hundred ancient poems and know fifteen hundred words at the age of five, is my child lagging behind? Procrastinating with homework, refusing to go to kindergarten, retreating when encountering difficulties...

Are these problems that chinese parents generally feel headaches, also bothering you? With the rapid development of society, the children cultivated today will become the main force in building society in twenty years. Therefore, knowing what the world will look like in twenty years, the changes in the workplace, and making responses in advance is an important choice that parents make for their children.

This book provides you with four models of parental thinking innovation, five core abilities for children's growth, and practical methods for family enlightenment, helping you grasp the essence of education through complex phenomena and not take the wrong road.

1

Confusion in education

Many parents will encounter such a situation: children always procrastinate when doing homework, some children are too playful, always want to play first and then write homework, delay until very late; some children are super slow to do homework, parents can not finish without supervision, and it is too tired to accompany them to write homework every day. In all kinds of situations, parents should scold and accompany, but the child is still the same, how to be good?

Many parents will say that every time they encounter these things, they really can't suppress their anger, and what educational methods are left behind when a fire comes up. So here, the author provides parents with a small tool called "Reward for Time".

1. Children's time management

Many times, when we mention reward and punishment, we always feel that it is a particularly simple thing, that is, it is rewarded if you obey, and punished if you do not obey. But many times, we will find that rewards and punishments are not easy to use, for example, this time to punish the child, the next time the child will also commit the same crime, promised to buy toys for the child sometimes does not work. What's going on? The reason is most likely that the incentive is not set up correctly.

So, the author says that rewarding time is a good way to do it. It is to let the child have a certain control over his own time. The faster he can get his homework done, the more he can play for a while. Some parents are prone to problems, the child finishes writing homework, give him more practice, so that the child of course has no motivation to write fast.

Sometimes, the problem for parents is that the goal set for their children is too high at one time. For example, if you have to write all your homework in one go, and you have to write it all right before you can play, your child will feel that there is no end in sight, so it will be more grinding.

What really allows children to exercise time management is to make him feel that time is controllable. I grabbed the time to complete the task and immediately got a few more minutes to play. This kind of effort will have a sense of reward and will motivate children to seize the time more.

Of course, to teach children to do time management, we must first understand, behind a person's time management, what kind of psychological factors are in play?

In fact, what we should let our children do is four words: have a number in mind. In other words, time management is the appearance, and self-awareness is the core. Children are not managing time, but ego. Deeper than time management is self-management.

If you want your child to manage yourself well, you need this child to have two characteristics:

1. Have self-awareness of their own state;

2. Have self-esteem for your own achievements.

Self-awareness is the first layer of "having numbers in your heart": being clear about your current situation. For children, this is very difficult, many children's biggest problem is that you ask him "have you learned", "where did you not learn", "have you completed all your tasks", "what difficulties do you have", he can not answer.

Self-requirement is the second level of "knowing what you want to be": knowing what you want to do. Not every child's self-requirement is to take the first place, some children may be satisfied with the general rank in the class, some children may want to do better in a certain aspect, or simply do not want to fall behind.

With these two qualities, even if the child is not a competitive type, nor is he the first place bully, he can also have the awareness and ability of self-management.

There is a lot of research on this, and the Handbook of Child Psychology tells us:

Children's self-management skills develop from a very young age. Parents use more encouragement and support attitude, children are more likely to obtain self-management ability, excessive control and punishment is very detrimental to the development of children's self-management. In addition, the verbal dialogue between parents and children allows children to generate self-concepts.

Therefore, if you want your child to enhance self-awareness, parents need to have more verbal dialogue with their children and consciously guide their children to think about themselves. Over time, children will take such thinking and expression as their habits.

For example, you can ask your child, "Do you want to read this math book now?" "You weren't happy just now because you thought he was wrong?" "The bricks fell, and you feel frustrated, don't you?"

While enhancing self-awareness, you can also use language to identify your child's achievements and enhance your child's sense of pride. The child has made a piece of the puzzle, and you can say to him, "Wow! You can put this puzzle together! Half a year ago it wouldn't have been! "Oh, did you build it yourself?" It's amazing! "These languages will make children confident in themselves.

There is a very important point in this, that is, to let the child attribute his achievements to himself. That is, the child not only feels that "I am making progress", but also can attribute these advances to "these advances because I have tried to find a way."

With these foundations of self-knowledge, a child will spontaneously generate self-requirements, that is, "I want to do better and better" and "I want to achieve good results." Only this mentality can make a child really do good time management from the heart.

Therefore, behind time management is self-management and self-drive, and behind the child's self-management and self-drive, it is the parents' efforts to see and respect the child's self-development.

2. Communication between parents and children

I don't know if you've ever noticed such details:

Sometimes you want to remind the child of one thing, for example, you should put the things in your hands here, and the result is that the children not only did not listen, but "ah" broke out into a strong emotion, threw down the things in their hands, and refused to cooperate.

And if you carefully distinguish his emotions, you will find that he is not actually confrontation, but more of a grievance. He would exclaim, "That's what I thought," or "I haven't arrived yet...". Adults often do not understand this grievance of children, and will say: "Am I not just reminding you?" "Who did you learn from with such a big temper?" When the child heard it, he cried even more.

In such a scenario, what are the inner emotions that drive the child?

In fact, in this scenario, the child's psychological language is: I can do it well, and I can do it without you saying it. His inner emotion is: You say these reminders as if I can't do it myself, and you don't believe me. The reason why he does not cooperate is because his subconscious feels that if he obeys, he is admitting that he is not doing well.

This involves his self-perception: if it is what he wants to do, then it is a sense of pride in himself; if he does not expect it, and he wants his parents to remind him, it is a sense of shame about himself.

A lot of times we don't notice whether we put the other person in a good role or a bad role when we speak. These two different treatments can lead to completely different results.

When we see children in life doing badly, we often blame them. But ignoring the accusation is to make the other party a "bad role", saying that the other party is not good and how it does not meet the requirements.

For example, "Look, I'm so tired, you're still making a mess of your home!" Or, "You can't do such a simple question, what do you say your brain is doing?" ”

And to make the other person a "bad character", the subconscious is to awaken the other person's sense of guilt, this way of expression is often unconsciously adopted by us. Many times, awakening others' feelings of guilt is a way to make us feel happy.

But the problem is that no one wants to feel like a "bad person." Once they realize that they have been accused by others, a person's subconscious reaction is not "shame and courage", but "defense". Either deny the accusation first; either coldly refuse to respond and avoid the accusation; or the emotion explodes and turns the little things into quarrels.

If this accusatory communication method is not used, is there any other way to communicate?

For example, when you see your child's toys in a mess, you say, "Baby, Mom is very tired after work, if you can help Mom clean up together, thank you so much." Or"Or, "I see that you've made a good effort in these places, and if you do this simple little place well, it's great, it's too much for Mom to worry about." ”

Expressing needs in a way that makes the other person a "good character" and a hero who can help others. Making the other person a "good character" can awaken the other person to feel good about himself, and let the other person see how much he can help himself by doing things.

Be careful not to blame the other person for your troubles, but to directly raise expectations for the future. In this way of communication, the other party will often feel motivated by self and will be willing to do things well.

2

What is general education

General education is the core concept of this book, and in the author's view, general education is the most needed educational supplement in the current era and in the Chinese educational environment. At present, China's education system has done a good job in many aspects. The curriculum system is very solid, very effective, and there is a great emphasis on fairness. But for the goal of becoming a complete, enjoyable person, it seems that there is something soulless missing. For example, the idea of transcendence.

In our education, skills training is really strong. From the first year to the university, we emphasize laying a solid foundation, first no matter why we learn a knowledge, first learn it well. Whether it is a lot of mathematical physics problems, or the diligent recitation of Chinese English, it is to play the spirit of "head hanging beam cone thorn stock", and put all energy on skill improvement.

The clear goal of our study is to improve our grades, and the goal of improving grades is to study, and the goal of study is to find a good job. This system is very effective, so we see that the Competition for Chinese students is very strong, and many people can also find good jobs.

But our education, relatively weak, is the indoctrination of the ideal state. What is the ultimate goal of a person's education? What is the state of learning to achieve? What exactly is the problem we have to solve in education? None of these questions are well answered.

But how did the truly illustrious figures come about? They are all guided by a common core: solving the problems of humanity and the world.

Why should we learn? It is not because of learning that we can gain the ability to enter large companies, but because learning can make us understand the world, solve the world's problems, and become better human beings.

Therefore, the author hopes that he and his parents can expand the existing basic education. Equip our children with the ability to think about big problems, and let questions and thinking guide children's future skills learning.

Our education needs to be supplemented by general education, so that children can have the educational guidance to think bigger and think deeper. Let them become learners with a soul.

But this is difficult to do in school. Why? Because no matter how reformed, school education has two goals at the same time: training and selection.

1. Educational objectives

In fact, the first goal of all the new educational propositions in the education system is to cultivate. Starting from human ideals, we talk about what kind of abilities and personalities we expect our children to acquire. The goal of cultivating children is to take the world as the stage and the goal of life.

The education system, however, tends to be more burdened with the function of selection. Selection is actually a kind of resource allocation, to select as the first goal of the education system, the core design idea is a clear and recognizable selection criteria, usually that is, quantitative criteria.

Things like teamwork, leadership and big picture, happiness and interest, are difficult to consider in the selection. And in order to put an end to favoritism, it is best to have clear numerical standards; and in order to obtain numerical standards, it is best to have questions with standard answers.

Education aimed at nurturing will expect each child to achieve a suitable spiritual growth. Education aimed at selection must be more likely to use operable means to select the top-ranked children. These two goals are fundamentally different, but they are all taken into account by schools, which is also the internal reason why education reform is difficult to implement.

But that's not how the real world works. The success of the selection system lies in precise compliance with the set standards. The way to success in the real world lies in finding your own way in a world where there is no right answer.

In the real world, when we choose to enter a company, we have to understand not only what questions the company interviews, but also what our personality and preferences are, which is suitable for the business that is not suitable for the enterprise.

In the enterprise, when we do the project, we not only have to fill in all the project forms, but more importantly, we coordinate the division of labor of the team, coordinate the resources of all parties, coordinate the relationship between the upper and lower levels, and finally achieve the goals of the project.

What are these key manifestations in real life and work? It is the ability to understand oneself, the ability to coordinate others, the ability to create freshness, the ability to perceive the world, the ability to think critically, and the ability to lead the team and grasp the overall situation.

Where should this supplementary education to cultivate a person's long-term ability and comprehensive quality be found? It is by general education.

2. Top-level frame

General education can establish a top-level knowledge framework for children, and the top-level knowledge framework has far-reaching significance for children's life.

Many adults enter the workplace and realize that they lack a knowledge system and thinking framework, which greatly limits their development. In fact, what determines the height that a person can ultimately reach is the level of his knowledge system and thinking framework.

Generally speaking, a person's thinking framework can be divided into cross-domain ability, top-level overall view, and in-depth thinking about the essential reasons. The difference between people's top-level thinking frameworks is related to years of knowledge accumulation and insight, and also related to a person's learning environment, which is the most subtle impact and the most difficult to change in the short term.

3. Interdisciplinary underlying thinking

General education can cultivate a person's interdisciplinary underlying thinking. What are the basic underlying thinking skills? For children in the enlightenment stage, simply put, there are probably these:

Comprehension ability: can understand what others are saying, can understand the meaning of the context, and can understand the expression of knowledge.

Abstract ability: can move from figurative life to abstract concepts, and can discuss abstract concepts.

Logical ability: can deduce, can think about cause and effect, judge points of view, and can carry out logical reasoning.

Associative ability: can think of another thing from one thing, give one example and three things, and do things with half the effort.

Expressive ability: be able to explain their own meaning clearly, be able to describe things clearly, and have their own opinions.

Problem-solving ability: Can think from multiple angles on the problem, through independent attempts, to find a solution.

These thinking abilities are the most important things to cultivate in general education. Children will be familiar with logical reasoning and rational thinking from scientific learning. Abstract ability and reasoning ability are of great help to a person in any field of work.

Children will also understand deep emotional and social relationships from humanistic learning; from artistic learning, enhance the perception of beauty and free imagination. The study of humanities and arts allows children to feel keenly, imagine boldly, and better understand people's hearts and emotions.

4. Learn the classics

General education is very strong in studying and learning classics, and this is very conducive to establishing a holistic perspective and a coherent thinking. The vast majority of general education systems emphasize classical learning.

The most important thing for general education is to integrate human civilization and let students see the context of the development of the overall civilization. Classical learning is the way of thinking that can best connect the essence of human civilization.

Therefore, general education is to cultivate a complete person with an independent thinking spirit. It teaches people a wide range of people, runs the perspective of human civilization through various disciplines, so that children can look at the ancient and modern China and foreign countries, and have the world in mind; it emphasizes multidisciplinary synthesis, believing that scientific rationality, humanistic emotion, and artistic imagination are all qualities that a complete person should have; it also emphasizes classical education, believing that the classics of the master can best represent the essence of human wisdom, and can allow people to obtain the dual cultivation of emotion and intelligence.

5. Cultivate children's scientific thinking

General education is a complete set of educational values. Under the values of general education, we can acquire specific ways of thinking in various disciplines. So how can parents guide their children to learn mathematical science? Traditional science learning is to tell the child a formula and then let the child practice how to apply it.

For example, tell the child the pressure formula, and then constantly change the parameters to calculate the result. But such teaching is boring and uncreative, and the child does not know the meaning of learning this knowledge, nor does he know how to explore new knowledge.

According to the general education method, each knowledge is a key, the most important thing is to set up a suitable lock, so that children with curiosity and the spirit of exploration, their own exploration of how to open the lock, and finally get the key to knowledge.

If you talk about pressure in the way of general education, you will ask the child: "Why can't the hammer break a piece of cloth, but the tip of the needle can break a piece of cloth?" Then compare the difference between the hammer and the tip of the needle, let the child discuss the truth here, guess and verify, and finally find the pressure.

What we let our children get should be the ability to unlock the lock. The development of mankind is to discover one new lock after another, unlock each new lock through ingenuity, and each unlocking process pushes human civilization to a new height. The ability to solve problems is the ability we need to let children exercise through education.