Bai Yansong: Education should teach children to win, but also to teach children to lose gracefully

For people of my age, they may always think of a few words about education when they were young – moral, intellectual, physical, artistic and labor. What I want to share with you today is precisely the changes in these words in the new era. I would also like to add one more: love. At the same time, I feel that every word is changing in the context of education in the new era. How to educate a generation to have \”public morality\”? In the past, we talked about \”morality, intelligence, physical beauty, and labor.\” When we talked about \”morality,\” we were more talking about personal morality or virtue. But for today’s education, do we need to add the word “public morality”? For a long time, Chinese morality can be divided into two parts: one is in the world of acquaintances, and the other is in the world of strangers. Because China has been a farming economy for a long time, we have the highest moral standards in the world among acquaintances. It is rare to see in any country like China, acquaintances will rush to pay the bill, and even fight after eating. But once you enter the world of strangers, this restriction will quickly diminish. I once saw such a scene on a plane: two middle-aged men may have drunk too much. One man kept talking loudly in the cabin. His companion persuaded him to keep his voice down. Unexpectedly, the man still spoke rudely. Say: \”No one here knows me, it doesn\’t matter!\” You see, in some people\’s hearts, as long as they enter the world of strangers, their virtues are not restricted. Therefore, when talking about the \”moral, intellectual, physical, artistic and labor\” aspects of education, as the first point of education, today we need to talk about how to educate a generation to have \”public morality.\” The report of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China mentioned \”a better life\” many times and emphasized the continuous promotion of people\’s all-round development. And should our education be oriented towards shaping more comprehensive people, and clearly define the goal of education as shaping future Chinese people? When you define the goal of education as shaping future Chinese people, you know that this must be a more comprehensive person. To establish \”morality\”, we must first shape public morality, and more importantly, guide people to maintain public order and possess public morality. A person must be able to treat things far away as things around him, and treat strangers as relatives. There should be this idea in your mind: I pay attention to everything because it has something to do with me. Education must undergo great changes on this basis. How to turn \”intelligence\” into \”wisdom\” in future education? Next, let’s talk about “wisdom”. In our country, normal colleges are responsible for cultivating future teachers. My parents both graduated from normal universities, and I am now a teacher myself. I think it is getting more and more difficult to be a teacher now. Why? Because today we are facing unprecedented challenges. If today\’s teachers are still just passers-by of knowledge, it is very likely that as soon as you reach level 3, the students below will already be on Baidu to level 8. Knowledge is increasingly not held by a few people. Students can even use modern techniques and technical means to quickly acquire knowledge. I believe that modern teachers are gradually transforming from transmitters of knowledge to transmitters of wisdom. Therefore, under the conditions of the new era, I am afraid that the \”wisdom\” of \”morality, intelligence, body, art, and labor\” should pay more attention to wisdom. Many young people around us seem to know everything, but they cannot be transformed into behavior or a way of thinking. He has no shortage of knowledge, butLack of wisdom, lack of wisdom of life, wisdom of life. Therefore, how to turn \”intelligence\” into \”wisdom\” in future education? I think it is a very big challenge. The focus of sports is not on physical fitness, but on education! The next thing to talk about is \”body\”. I feel this is lacking. Many educators believe that President Cai Yuanpei of Peking University is the best principal in our minds. What makes Cai Yuanpei so great? I think there are two points: first, after he became the president of Peking University, he put forward the educational concept of \”more comprehensive people\”; second, in the process of cultivating more comprehensive people, he introduced Peking University\’s A very important change is sports. Yesterday I met the former president of East China University of Political Science and Law. He told me that East China University of Political Science and Law was formerly known as St. John\’s University. St. John\’s University is the birthplace of modern sports and the Olympics in China. The first athletes to participate in the Olympic Games went to the Olympic Games accompanied by their academic dean. Why do the older generation and the educators we admire place sports in a particularly important position? Do we need to re-evaluate the word \”body\” in \”morality, intelligence, body, art, and labor\” today? Have we regarded \”body\” as the concept of health, but forgotten the word \”education\” in sports? According to the figures I know, today\’s children\’s lives have undergone very positive changes, but in many physical indicators they are actually not as good as our generation, and not as good as our group of teenagers who grew up in hunger. I even learned that there are many children now who cannot do more than ten pull-ups standardly. In addition to looking at health indicators, we also need to understand what is more important that sports give children? In 2012, I participated in covering the London Olympics. The slogan of the London Olympics was to inspire a generation. At the end of the Olympic Games, a reporter asked people from the London Olympic Organizing Committee, how do you understand sports to inspire a generation? What did it inspire a generation? The head of the London Olympic Organizing Committee said that first of all, sports teach children how to win within the constraints of the rules. Then he said the second sentence, which had a huge impact on me and left a deep impression on me. He said that first of all, sports teach children and young people how to win within the constraints of rules, and then they teach children how to lose decently and with dignity. So, when have we ever taught our children to lose gracefully and with dignity? If we cannot teach generations of Chinese people to lose with dignity and dignity, and elevate losing with dignity and dignity to a concept called \”the second kind of success,\” it will be difficult for fundamental changes to occur. We always emphasize \”mass entrepreneurship and innovation\”, emphasize independent innovation, etc. I think in China, innovation must be promoted, but do we have an environment that tolerates mistakes? Do we have an environment where beautiful failure is also a success? How can we innovate without an environment where beautiful failure can also be a success? If everyone wants to achieve visible success but dare not make attempts that may fail, then innovation will be impossible. If our children cannot learn to win and lose decently and with dignity from the \”education\” of sports, how can we slowly become an innovative country? Therefore, sports are better thanWe imagine something more complex and greater. It is not just as simple as Chinese football and Chinese basketball, nor is it just asking children to run 800 meters to exercise. no! It can temper the will of a nation and change the genes of a nation. The focus of sports is not \”body\”, but \”education\”. How to cultivate people with aesthetic ability? Let’s talk about “beauty” next. I did a program a few days ago. This program said that it is rare to see many cities in China starting to have a new aesthetic. I don’t know if you have noticed that this autumn, Beijing, Chengdu, Wuhan, Shanghai and many other places have implemented \”slow leaf sweeping\” – slowly sweeping fallen leaves in parks and streets with good tree species, so that the beauty of fallen leaves and the beauty of autumn can be seen in people\’s field of vision. This was unbelievable in the past. In the past, we paid attention to efficiency and wished we could say \”the fallen leaves do not fall to the ground\”. The cleaners had to sweep them up quickly, but today\’s aesthetics have finally transitioned to the point where we can appreciate the golden beauty of autumn. Frankly speaking, aesthetics will be a very high challenge in China in the future. Since the reform is from life to good life to beautiful life, with the word \”beautiful\” added, how high is the aesthetic level required for all future decision-makers? Will our requirements keep up with the times from the beginning and cultivate people with aesthetic abilities? I believe that in the future development process, it is a particularly big challenge for education to teach generations of Chinese people to have real aesthetic abilities that keep pace with the times. Our current labor ability must be reflected in wisdom. Next, we need to talk about \”labor\”. In the past, people of our generation knew that the \”labor\” in \”moral, intellectual, physical, aesthetic and labor\” emphasized labor. We breathe the same breath, share the same fate, and we must learn from industry and agriculture. I think the \”labor\” nowadays is more about the \”labor\” that needs to be created with intelligence. When artificial intelligence becomes a reality, current labor capabilities must be reflected in wisdom. We need to have a new concept of labor. Our education should add the concept of emotional intelligence to cultivate more comprehensive people. Finally, I would like to add \”emotion\”. I think our education has placed too much emphasis on IQ for a long time. How to add the concept of \”emotional intelligence\” to education so that our children can control their emotions, be keenly aware of surrounding emotions, and handle interpersonal relationships well is a question worth thinking about for educators. If we want China to become a harmonious society, I am afraid that the whole of China needs generations of people with high emotional intelligence. This is what I understand to be the \”morality, intelligence, body, beauty, labor and emotions\” of modern society.