As what’s been taught, didn’t FIT the needs of learning, or even, the interest profiles of, the students, commentaries off of the Front Page Sections, translated…
The story on the 24th, “The Science Exams on the High School Entrance Exams Showed the Differences of Levels in the Cities Versus the Countryside”, it’d reminded me of how as I worked as a teacher during an exam, and uncovered something unexpectedly.
In the classroom where I was assigned to oversee the students taking their exams, half of the students were students of the kinesiology track, the young man sitting right in front of the lecture podium was the one who’d, caught my attention. He’d thought very hard on the social studies, the Chinese exams, as he’d, answered the test questions, and he’d answered, most of them correctly too, and, on the writing portions, he’d filled up two-thirds of the page, with the clear cut paragraphs too. And yet, for the math section, he’d not even read through the test questions, and just, started, bubbling the answers at random and, for the science exams, at first, he was, focused on answering the problems, but, as he got to the physics section, where there are calculations needed, he’d looked, defeated, and started, answering at random; for the English section, he barely made it past the very first question, but, as he’d, continued, to work on the reading comprehension sections, he’d, thrown in his towels immediately.
From the performance of this student, study, is one who’d wanted to work hard on, the social studies, the Chinese, to even biology and/or physics, he’d, hit the books I suppose? But why, for the other subjects, he’d, thrown in the towels immediately? This kind of a student, I don’t believe, is found right here, I’m sure, that they’re, all around the nation, and, they’re, increasing by the numbers each and every year. And, you can imagine, that this kind of a pupil, after entering into high school, s/he will only feel, more defeated, not knowing where one’s own, future lies.
The mathematics, you can’t just, rote memorize the formulas, the sciences, you need the experiences of doing the experiments, the English section focuses on hearing, and speaking, all of these, are from the newly, written curricula that’s just passed into bill, and they’re all something worth, working towards. But, had the scholars who are, doing the curricula, the teaching plans thinking: what sort of a situation, can we find a formula on our own, without reading about any precedence, and be able to, apply them? Can we, put in the liquid, putting the parts together, picking the flowers, plucking the fruits, and understand the laws of nature? Can we take ourselves abroad, and started, comprehending a foreign language on our own without the lessons? Especially, in the areas where the resources are, lacking, this method of education, this way of testing, is, no doubt, without, any, fairness.
The secondary education section of the Department of Education stressed, that they’d, already, issued the money as incentives, for the local governments to increase the resources, encouraged the various schools to set up for the hardware of a laboratory, at the same time, they are hosting the course design seminars for elementary and middle school science teachers too, to make up for the lacking for the teaching staff in the distant regions. But, this is not just the issue of hardware, or having qualified school instructors, it’s, the steps to teaching that’s, been written wrong.
As the new curricula for 2019 added the flexible courses outside of the academics, the hours of teaching in the fundamental subjects were, reduced, and, the students were left, without, enough of the basic knowledge of a subject, how do we, expect our, lost middle school students, choose their courses, based off of their, interest profiles? Without having the fundamental theories in knowledge, how would they be able to walk into a laboratory,, and start, discovering using the experiments? There’s a set order, a SET logic to teaching, and all of those scholars, who are, writing up the curricula, did they already, forget the hardships they’d, weathered, as students themselves already?
Chu stressed, how there’s a REASON behind how everything worked; Yang-Ming Wang counted the days down using the bamboos, and all he got were, hallucination, and his, growling stomach, without gaining the wisdom, the knowledge that he was, seeking. The difference between these two ancient scholars lies in how Chu believed that we should proof the existence of things from one’s own externalities, that reason must, precede, proof; while Wang, without the reasoning, how could he possibly, find the proof he was, searching for? And this can be applied to the current education forum, the national education should BE helping all students to get to a certain level of education, and using this as a baseline, then, expand on their various areas of interests. Without having the fundamentals down pat, they’re, already, branching out, it’s the same as teaching an infant how to run before s/he can even, crawl, in the end, nothing gets, achieved!
And so, this, is what the education looks like here, the country is too eager, to copy the way of education that’s worked in the western world, that’s why, there’s, this reform that got started, a decade, two decades ago (how the hell should I know how long ago that was!), and the government failed the students, because it failed to realize, that even IF one way worked somewhere else, that does NOT mean, that the exact same system would work here, and they’re, too eager, to copy the western methods, not realizing, that in the beginning, in the western world, they’d, gone through the trial-by-errors, the hits, and the misses too.
The government should RE-THINK about its policy on education, and, MAKE the curricula FIT, the students’ needs of learning, helping them acquire a set of viable skills, and find out what their, areas of interests are, so they can, work toward that, that would be, MORE, practical, instead of doing THIS!