<一>
I have read an article before that says that advanced imagination needs the support of knowledge. Those who think that imagination is a wild, untethered free imagination are in fact only low-level imaginations at best.
The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter require the author to have a fairly deep study of European mythology. Magic and wizarding are rooted in the cultural environment of Europe.
The encyclopedia of traditional Chinese culture in "Dream of the Red Chamber" can only break ground in such a cultural environment.
This shows that imagination not only needs the support of knowledge, but also needs to be generated in a specific cultural environment.
<二>
As an educator, I would like to talk about imagination from the perspective of early education.
Part of the argument in sparking children's imaginations is to complain about our domestic education system. There are some parents who feel that Western education methods are more protective of children's imaginations.
"Look at the children in Europe and the United States, they didn't learn so many things when they were young, and as a result, they can achieve more when they grow up." Germany's population of 70 to 80 million won so many Nobel Prizes! ”
Good things we naturally have to learn. But first, we must see the logic behind it. To say that European and American children have a greater chance of academic achievements and become top scientists because they have little knowledge at an early age, their ideas are not imprisoned, and their imagination and creativity are not destroyed.
I just want to ask that early education and inner volume have become popular in the last ten or twenty years. Before that, Chinese parents had neither the energy nor the financial resources to do early education, and the imagination and creativity of children twenty years ago had not been destroyed, right? How many Nobel Prizes were awarded at that time?
There are fewer Europeans and Americans, and children generally live separately from their parents when they grow up. After starting a family, you may have several children, most of them are brought by themselves after the birth of the child, and one spouse will give up work full-time with the child in the early years.
In these precious years, although Western children do not learn knowledge in the form of enrolling in classes, it is not that they do not learn. They know no less about encyclopedic knowledge and natural knowledge than Chinese children.
In life, the ability to take care of themselves, resist setbacks, and solve problems may be better. This stems from different living environments and educational systems.
Moreover, it is not that people do not read. Many picture books and graded reading materials are not our originals, and they are popular in Europe and the United States. Statistics say that German children have an average of 45 minutes to 1 hour of parent-child reading practice every day. European and American children are much the same in this regard. How many Chinese families can reach their reading volume? This is the difference in the home environment.
The content of primary and secondary school children in Europe and the United States, the content of the test and the standard of the test are also very different from us. The educational environment is very different.
Some people say, we just have to learn from them, don't we? Hard. Because the middle school entrance examination and the college entrance examination cannot be copied.
No matter how to criticize our education, parents are under pressure, resulting in parents' papers, and our middle school entrance examination and college entrance examination are also relatively fair in education. There are many people and limited educational resources, so what is a fairer way to compete without this kind of competition?
Some parents say, "I want to learn the way European and American parents educate their children." Of course, it's your freedom. However, if you want to participate in the middle school entrance examination and the college entrance examination in the later stage, you are not free to educate your children.
It is more likely that the child has enough freedom in the early stages, but does not develop enough self-discipline; Enjoy a lot of rights, but do not cultivate a sense of responsibility; Outsiders do not empathize, do not know how to be grateful to parents. As a result, the early years were free, and the parents had to pay off their debts later.
The way you learn and take the test after school, your child still has to adapt! Unless you don't go to school in China, you don't have to undergo multiple baptisms of screening.
There really isn't a worldwide education system that is ideal. Education was born in a specific environment, but also so that people can better survive in the future environment.
<三>
Or back to the child's imagination problem.
There is a saying that early childhood should be free to play, should not teach too much knowledge, especially not to do memorization and memorization. What's the use of learning those things? Don't you have to teach it in the future?
Further exclusion is related to imagination. Early literacy may solidify a child's thinking patterns and limit a child's freedom of imagination.
Not to mention the extensive educational research I have done (many celebrities and great people from the Republic of China to the liberation of the Republic of China are well-off and literate and read very early; In recent years, many provinces and cities have also had very good and early enlightenment education)
I would like to give you an idea on this issue:
Suppose there are two six-year-old children, A and B, and A's parents are laissez-faire and have not taught A literacy; B Because his parents were early, he could read at the age of six and had already read a lot of books.
We gave the two children a word – "the sun". What can they think of when they are free to use their imagination within a limited range?
A child thinks that the sun comes out during the day, is round, will glow and heat, and only comes out on sunny days, probably that's all;
In addition to thinking of the content of A, children B may also think of some ancient poems: purple smoke from the incense burner in the sunshine (natural beauty); Hoe day at noon (hard work);
B may also think of some mythological stories and idioms: the father of the boast day by day, the descendants shooting the sun, stealing the sky to change the day, sunset and so on;
If you read widely enough and are exposed to some encyclopedic knowledge, B may also associate with sunshine plants to grow (tube photosynthesis); Sunlight can also be stored to generate electricity (renewable energy photovoltaics); Leonardo da Vinci used the sunlight to focus together as a weapon to burn enemy ships at sea (physical focusing was used for military purposes).
Their respective imaginations can be reflected in their interaction with teachers and their affinity for the subject after school.
In fact, I have seen children like A and B with my own eyes. The different states of children after school, as well as the frankness of parents, you can also imagine.
Because many parents' so-called calm and self-assertive opinions can only be done before their children go to school. Haven't you heard of it? After going to school, famous university professors took their children around to tutoring classes.
From two obvious cases, I would like to say that without knowledge, let you imagine it casually, in fact, you can't think of anything. For all imagination is based on knowledge and experience.
Without the cultural foundations of Western theology and magic, would you have been able to write Harry Potter?
Conversely, can Westerners imagine the cultural connotations of "Dream of the Red Chamber" like Chinese? If Cao Xueqin did not have the experience of being born into a desolate evening scene, and without the early literary edification and cultivation, could she write such a protracted masterpiece as "Dream of the Red Chamber"?
Even if Jia Baoyu did not like to read the books of the sages, he only liked to hang out with his sisters and sisters all day long, but under the influence of the sisters' literature and aesthetics, what he wrote was not bad.
Therefore, imagination needs to accumulate precipitation, need to combine innovation, and need to be self-consistent with the environment, otherwise it is just a low-level fantasy, without "force" and worthless.
Behind the advocacy of "free imagination worship" is "epiphany worship". This kind of thinking holds that ordinary people are bound by their own knowledge, and once they break out of this bondage, they can make major breakthroughs. This kind of thinking is actually a vulgar interpretation of literary creation and scientific discovery.
Einstein's theory of relativity was not a utopia of ordinary people, but was built on the environmental circle of his physicists. He is actually more imaginative than the "imaginer".
A theoretical physicist may have countless weird ideas every day, and the real difficulty is not to produce "weird" ideas, but to produce "right" thoughts.
The same is true of early education. You can be exposed to a variety of points of view, the key is to think for yourself, to identify, and find the "right" idea in the current educational environment.
<四>
In the field of early education, some people will think that accepting knowledge too early is a kind of shackles, and this "free imagination worship" is reflected in the attitude of parents to early education, that is, advocating freedom, biased against learning knowledge and repetitive training, or thinking that literacy and reading are not so urgent.
Further, it is to question the child's early literacy and early reading, believing that early acceptance of knowledge will solidify the child's thinking and limit the child's imagination.
This kind of thinking is the most marketable in the minds of both types of parents.
One is that their early academic performance was average, but later they worked hard to get into a good university or even a higher degree.
Such parents are somewhat conceited, feeling that the early performance is not decisive, and the strength of the key moment is more important. Isn't the path you've traveled before a success? There's no need to be in such a hurry.
This kind of conceit actually does not consider the huge difference between the current educational environment and the past, nor is it willing to understand the educational research results such as the "imprinting effect and the critical period of children's ability development", and the dividends brought about by good development;
With the in-depth study of brain science and the development of educational psychology to this day, the important role of 0-6 years old on the road to education has long been self-evident.
Wei Kunlin, professor and doctoral supervisor of the Academy of Psychology and Cognitive Sciences of Peking University, said at an education forum in 2020: "If you feel that education is unfair and you study too much, then the best way to avoid this injustice and inner volume is to believe in brain science and make good use of the early years." “
The other kind of parents do not necessarily have their own ideas, may be easily swayed by some sensational views, plus they do not want to invest time and energy in educating their children, just to find reasons for their behavior.
You see, there is an article that says that learning may have side effects, more is better than less, why be so thankless?
This awareness is even shallower. Thinking that learning is passively cramming and accepting knowledge, is it against the law of growth to do it now? They don't know that the biggest advantage of parents doing enlightenment education is that they can guide, inspire, and teach game middle school in life, and they have great initiative.
Another thing they did not realize was that many children did not learn English well in those few hours of school, nor did they love to read. Cao Xueqin's poetic family, who did not go to school, was still very high in literature. Why an ordinary family, there is no edification in the early days, after going to school, you want your children to excel!
In fact, some subjects, such as Chinese and English, are not very difficult, but it takes effort, just like running a marathon.
If everyone had to run a marathon, they had to run it. How much do you think you can do in 3 hours? Or is it more than enough to stick to in 6 hours?
<五>
During the Mid-Autumn Festival, some of our parents spend the festival with their children at home, telling the myths and legends of Chang'e running to the moon, Wu Gang cutting down trees, and jade rabbits pounding medicine, and also letting children recite ancient poems about the moon.
Parents also discuss astronomical knowledge with their children about the solar system, the Milky Way, Hawking, distance, light years, and the celestial palace. The children are very happy,
We should encourage this kind of family celebration with themes. From literature to astronomy, from mythology to science, the moon of the Mid-Autumn Festival is a bond. This is a model of teaching and playing in life.
Because of such activities, the moon will be more mysterious, romantic and close in the hearts of children, and it will also arouse such a yearning and dream.
Chang'e Running Moon is not only a myth, but also a reality. Chang'e flew to the moon, and Luna landed on the moon.
The Heavenly Palace is no longer the place where the Jade Emperor and the gods and immortals live, but the place where scientists do research, and we can also dig up the soil to study the Guanghan Palace.
Parents and friends, what is your child's imagination about the moon?
For example, to understand what is the main composition of the soil on the moon? What common chemical elements does your child know? Why does the moon glow? Why is there a lack of clouds and clouds? How far away is the moon from us? How long does it take for a normal plane to get to the moon?
We can have a lot of imagination, but not fantasy, and the above questions are related to astronomy, physics, chemistry and other sciences.
Imagination begins with literature and ends with philosophy. I recommend that children read early, fall in love with reading, and their imagination will not be bad.