Not long ago, I happened to see the contrast between the speeches of the two principals, and after listening to their inspiring speeches, I couldn't help but think. What is the purpose of our education? What kind of people are we cultivating through education? Who is our education for cultivating people? With these questions in mind, let's take a look at the speeches of these two principals, and I will excerpt a little from them, so that you can also think about it for yourself.
The first to appear was Lin Jianhua, the former president of Peking University: Last year, two teachers from Peking University were elected academicians of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one was elected to the American Academy of Engineering, and one was elected as a corresponding member of France. In the past few decades, Peking University has developed rapidly and made great achievements, and we should all be proud of our past achievements, and Peking University should become a world-class university.
The second appearance is Wang Shuguo, the former president of Xi'an Jiaotong University: The real value of the school lies in whether your school has really made your due contribution to the progress of this society, the progress of the country and the progress of some fields. If we say that our Chinese universities have not come up with our solutions or solved problems in some key areas in China, we have not solved these problems, and we do not have the face to say that we are world-class universities. A truly first-class university is the respect that the society respects you, and when you make outstanding contributions to the society, the society says, you are really a first-class university.
The above content is an excerpt from the speeches of the two presidents, and we can also see that in the eyes of the president of Peking University, Chinese teachers have been recognized by universities around the world, which is a good thing and something to be proud of. For this, there is nothing to blame, and it is also the goal that many educators want to pursue. However, in the eyes of President Wang of Xi'an Jiaotong University, if a university is not able to solve its own country's problems and contribute to its own country, such a university has no meaning in existing. I don't know what you think of the remarks of the two principals, but it seems to me that the two principals have explained to us very well what the goal of education is, what kind of people are to be cultivated, and for whom people are to be trained.
First, what is the goal of education?
In fact, in my opinion, the goal of education is nothing more than to discover and cultivate talents. The former is actually the task of society, while the latter is the task of the school. Only with a solid social security and a fair educational environment can we discover some real talents, make some outstanding talents stand out, let them show their talents, and make great contributions. Only good teacher resources and correct values can enable these people to embark on the right path to success, enable them to grow up healthily, and achieve the ultimate goal of education: that is, to solve some national-level and even world-class problems.
Second, what kind of people is education supposed to cultivate?
Generally speaking, education should cultivate talents with all-round development of morality, intelligence, physical fitness, aesthetics, and labor. With the continuous development of society, people's requirements for education are getting higher and higher. Moral character is the most fundamental quality of a person, which includes moral character, personality quality, behavioral quality and other aspects. A person with good moral character is not only able to face the challenges of life correctly, but also to make the right moral choices and make positive contributions to society and others. Education should also cultivate students' self-directed learning ability, including curiosity, inquiry, innovation ability, and self-learning ability. Only people with good learning quality can take the initiative to learn new knowledge, continuously improve their learning ability, and continue to innovate without lagging behind the times. In addition, education should also cultivate students' good thinking ability and social practice ability, not to become nerds, but also to cultivate the ability to innovate, only in this way can we continue to promote the development of the times on the basis of predecessors.
Third, for whom is education to train people?
Every year, the state invests a huge amount of money to set up education and develop and expand education, on the one hand, for the development of the country and the progress of the nation, and on the other hand, it is also for the sake of being able to better show the demeanor of the Chinese nation. Whether it is China or foreign countries, investing these large amounts of money has its own purpose, and any country's investment in education is essentially to be able to train its own people to be stronger, so as to serve its own country. There has never been a country that has been so generous as to invest heavily every year to train some talent for the world for free. It is precisely for this reason that China's education should first and foremost cultivate a group of people who are loyal to the motherland, the Chinese nation, and the people. If we spend a lot of time and energy, and spend a lot of money and policies, but in the end we produce a large number of talented people for other countries, then it fully shows that our education has failed and there is a serious problem of orientation.
On this basis, let's take a look at the speeches of the two principals above, and many of you may be touched. Yes, as the top universities in the mainland, some universities have cultivated some high-end talents, and these talents have even made world-renowned contributions. But let's not forget that no matter how great their contribution is, if it is harmful to the motherland, the nation, and the people, it is better to have no such contribution at all. For example, Lin Ye, a high-achieving student at Tsinghua University, relied on his own ingenuity to help the United States manufacture militia missiles to deal with China; another example is the chief designer of the American F-14 fighter: Lu Heshen, who also used the fighters they designed to bring great disasters to the Chinese. In addition, international students from colleges and universities who have made great contributions to the United States and the West in recent years are constantly strengthening the strength of the West to compete with China in various fields. So let's go back and think about it, what's the use of cultivating such people?
Even in the turbulent and strife of ancient China, there were many examples of doormen who refused to serve other countries because they were grateful to their home country. In their view, talent is one thing, but virtue is more important, and if you attack your own family and your home country in order to display your talent, it is shameful for the world. But even in today's era, some people have done some heinous evil under the guise that science knows no borders. If it's one person, two people, we can still criticize, but what if it's a university, what if it's a common phenomenon in the field of education? Therefore, in my opinion, the current issue that needs to be solved in the field of education on the mainland is the question of who are the biological parents and who our education is intended to serve.