Pan Jiangxue: Finding certainty in a stormy world

On the basis of having the energy of love, we need to have a certain ability to think critically, maintain and make good use of our curiosity, and it must be noted that our education today is extremely lacking in cultivating children's curiosity and stimulating the ability to think critically.

Pan Jiangxue is the founder of Shanghai Adream Public Welfare Foundation

Hello everyone!

From my point of view, I have always believed that the earth never needs to be saved, and it is precisely human beings themselves who need to be saved.

Are our living conditions worse today, for example, 100 years ago? Are we worse today than we were 50 years ago? No. We're actually a lot better off than we've been before. Why do we feel as if we are more vulnerable and helpless? Is it that we don't have enough knowledge, we don't have enough technology? We don't have enough to eat, we don't have enough clothes? No. On the one hand, there is a lot of external uncertainty that is projected into our hearts today, and most people do not have a strong and stable community to support you in the face of this uncertainty. On the other hand, our lack of happiness is often due to the fact that we have more and give less, and we feel powerless because we think more and do less.

From the perspective of true love dreams, I would like to talk about two points: "Finding Certainty in a Stormy World" and "The Realist's Course of Action".

1. Climate is the environment necessary for our survival and development, and we need to respond to the uncertainty of the world with a posture of "love, truth-seeking, and dream-chasing".

1. Long-term variables are beyond human control

It includes climate change in nature, as well as various long-term variables that affect our well-being in human society, and these large variables are ultimately beyond our control. People can't win the day, and the general climate, trends, and long-term variables cannot be reversed by our own actions.

2. Make every effort and accept any outcome

I think the storm is there, and when we face the storm in our hearts, sometimes we face it positively, prepare in advance, and meet it calmly. I watched a movie "The Day After Tomorrow", and there is a picture in the movie that is very shocking, the huge waves are rising, and a husband and wife stand in front of the monstrous waves, calmly joining hands to meet the huge waves. But there are still some people who are very nervous before the storm comes, and they will hurt themselves or each other.

I once watched a film that I really wanted to share with you. In 2021, there is a great movie called "Finch", which is about climate change, the disasters faced by mankind, the earth has become uninhabitable for humans, and humans have a brutal struggle for the rest of the food, and to some extent, hunger turns people into murderers and cowards. What we need to learn is a state of mind, a kind Xi of mentality and ability that we as a human being can face and accept the environment calmly, that is, we have to do our best to get some results, but when the results come out, whether it is good or bad, we can truly accept the results. I think that's a very important capability.

From the standpoint of educators, looking at this storm from the perspective of education, on the one hand, we need to see the storm coming earlier through the Xi of knowledge and the improvement of cognition. On the other hand, we need to develop the last and most important ability, which is often the one we lack the most, that is, what do we do when we see that the unchangeable is coming, and what kind of mentality do we use to meet something that is destined to come?

2. The action of true love dreams

Over the past 15 years, True Love Dream has been focusing on literacy education: starting from the renovation of an ordinary classroom, creating a multimedia literacy education classroom integrating books and computers - Dream Center, and under the professional guidance of the Curriculum Research Institute of East China Normal University, 38 literacy education courses have been created and entered into the school's official curriculum.

Our core creed has three sentences, love, truth-seeking, dream-chasing, love comes first, and we ultimately have the ability to act because we feel that the world is generally loving. Only with love will we seek truth and pursue dreams.

So why should we have love, truth-seeking, and dream-chasing, and hope that it will become the spiritual background of the future Chinese?

These ideas are our values, and in the end it will shape the image of our graduates, and it will fundamentally help today's children, future Chinese citizens, to cope with the uncertainty of this world, whether our children can survive the storm, whether they can save the earth, I think we should start from the most basic ability and literacy, from the improvement of basic education today.

1. In terms of concept, we should allow everyone to make mistakes, and then learn Xi mistakes.

So I think that the so-called uncertainty in the storm, the so-called education to empower children to save the future of the earth, you have to allow everyone to make mistakes in the concept, and then learn Xi mistakes. At present, the social environment surrounding education is too competitive and isolated, resulting in a relatively closed self-space.

2. Maintain an independent and sober cognition and Xi attitude.

On the basis of having the energy of love, we need to have a certain ability to think critically, maintain and make good use of our curiosity, and it must be noted that our education today is extremely lacking in cultivating children's curiosity and stimulating the ability to think critically.

3. Facing great uncertainty, no one alone can cope with it.

It requires more people to connect together, form a consensus, learn to negotiate and compromise, truly hear each other's voices, truly understand and tolerate each other, and then produce tolerance and compromise, and solve problems with diversity, tolerance, innovation, and compromise, which are the ultimate ways of human interaction.

Third, the world is worth it, and people who are kind and active are still the mainstream of this world

True Love Dream is now almost 16 years old, from the first five years, to promote the education of love and create a "community of love", to the middle five years, from PPPSS to create a "professional community", to the last five years, from the distant mountains to the side, to create a "community of improvement", from the blue dream for children, to the golden dream for the all-age community, to the launch of the "Dream Project" with the Ministry of Education, is to bring certainty to ourselves and our ecological partners.

We say that the world is worth it, that there is love between people, that we are born in love, and we must firmly believe this, otherwise this world will be a very indifferent world that eats the law of evolution and eventually perishes. China is big and complex, and every NGO is small and fragile, but a social consensus on climate change has emerged. I believe that with good mission guidance, methods and confidence, good and positive people are still the mainstream of this world.

That's all for my sharing, thank you!

(The theme of the 6th World Education Frontiers Forum is "Climate, Education, and Xi: Turning the Tide, Starting with Me.") The forum was hosted by the China Education 30 Forum, co-organized by the Centre for Education Policy Studies of the University of Hong Kong, and co-organized by the Tin Ka Ping Foundation, the Centre for Hong Kong and Macao Studies of South China Normal University, the National and Regional Research Base of Universities of the Ministry of Education, and the School of Education of Guangzhou University. Thirty-seven experts and scholars from Chinese mainland, Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, the United States, Japan, Malaysia and other countries introduced their latest research results and effective practical explorations in climate change education around the theme of the forum. Link: How can education turn the tide in response to global "climate breakdown"? The 6th World Education Frontiers Forum was successfully held It is to focus on China's future