How the vicious circle of \”prestigious school complex\” limits children\’s possibilities

Recently, I have been thinking about this question – why do I often involuntarily suppress my children\’s nature even though I know deep down in my heart that I should respect their nature? After thinking about it over and over, I suddenly discovered that we were actually locked in a \”circle\”. For example, of my two children, the eldest brother has a typical science student mentality. He likes new things and is fascinated by machinery and mathematics, but he is careless in doing things and hates focusing on details. The second sister is imaginative and has strong expressive skills. Paying close attention to details, she has the patience to sit down and solve very boring problems. She has absolutely no interest in mathematics, history and geography. However, as their mother, I always impatiently pull my son to copy words when he is happily building high-rise buildings with branches, stones and sand, and when he is watching the construction team attentively. and sentence homework; and when his daughter is concentrating on drawing and making up stories, he always drags her to do weird math problems. One day, the weather was fine, and I watched them wearing roller skates and skating in the yard. While skating, they also pulled some grass to make a small thing, took some wood chips, and built a small thing… How wonderful it was. It was a scene, but after watching it for only half an hour, I began to feel anxious for no reason: \”I wonder if they have finished their homework?\” Hey, I am such a disappointed mother. The circle of \”prestigious school complex\” The magical thing about this \”circle\” is, first of all, that it has a simple and fixed scope: Chinese, English, mathematics… Another magical thing is that it has a unified scope Standard: A score of 90 or above is an A, and a score of 80 or above is a B… Then, it also has a frame of reference: if you can beat 90% of the children of the same age, if you can get the top 10% in the exam, what kind of application can you get? University…Finally, it also has standard answers! All parents know that if your child\’s IQ is good enough, as long as he works hard and answers questions again and again, he will definitely make significant \”progress.\” This trend of answering questions is ubiquitous in typical Chinese education. This temptation of \”making progress by answering questions\” is like a drug with fatal temptation. It is poisonous, but you can\’t help but force your children to try it again and again. In this circle, every parent is full of competitive anxiety, but in fact, they can also gain a wonderful but illusory \”security\” – as long as I let my children master these exercises, I only need to let my children get 95 points in the exam. , I just need to let my child go to Mathematical Olympiad cram school… He can get into a good university, find a good job, buy a good house, and enter the class of successful people… And what about the other roads to success? For example, my son fell in love with design by building blocks, and eventually became a world-famous architect… My daughter likes to draw, so she became a famous illustrator… Who has tried it? Have you tried it? The hope was too slim to take the risk. A friend of mine once said something like this, which I have always regarded as a classic. He said: \”The anxious parents of our generation were able to enter the so-called \’middle class\’ from various strata. In fact, they were able to study hard – get into a good university – find a job.To get a good job… I walked this way. At the end of the day, we haven’t seen it and we don’t know that there is any other way to go. \”This is the fundamental reason why we can\’t help but want to arrange the same path for our children. This circle of ours is the so-called \”famous school complex.\” Does \”prestigious school\” really equal success? Many parents\’ \”prestigious school complex\” comes from Such a belief: Entering an elite university is crucial to success. So, what if the data tells you that the connection between the two is not that close? A US study surveyed 4,512 executives working in the world\’s top 500 companies and CEOs, in order to understand whether they had attended so-called \”elite universities\” and received elite education. The results showed that almost one-third had obtained undergraduate diplomas from elite universities. The other two-thirds had not. Received an elite education. Mathematician Stacy Dale and Princeton University economist Alan Krueger once conducted an interesting study. The researchers tracked two groups of students. One group entered college in the 1970s, and the other group entered college in the 1990s. Enter college in the 1990s. Researchers wanted to know whether students who attended elite colleges would earn more in their 30s, 40s, and 50s than students who received the same SAT scores but had different grades. Peers of the same age who have been excluded from elite universities for various reasons. The simplest answer to this question is: no. Or, in the language of experts, it is: children with the same grades but who have not been admitted to elite universities have no income at all. Difference. What does a study like this mean? It means that, for many students, by the time they are 18, \”who you are\” is far more important than \”where you have been.\” If you are just sweating If you are worried about your school choice, your attention is in the wrong direction. Those \”excellent sheep\” in prestigious schools have recently been intensively reading a book, \”Excellent Sheep: The Improper American Elite Education and How to Be Rich\” by William Deresiewicz. \”Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life\”. In the book, the author gives in-depth thought to the current so-called \”elite education\”. In the author\’s opinion, at least the following are There are several aspects that hinder the emergence of elites——>>>The first is \”hollowness\” and anxiety. Basic education is step by step, and teachers and parents almost hand-in-hand guide their children into the university. But once they enter university and enter society, everyone Individuals must learn to make their own decisions, which leaves them at a loss. According to the American Psychological Association, almost half of American college students \”feel hopeless\” and nearly one-third feel \”very depressed.\” >>>Second It’s “sacrifice everything for academics.” A student who transferred from Stanford said:“I have witnessed my peers sacrificing their health, social interaction, opportunities for exploration, and extracurricular activities for academic purposes, which are so important to the development of a healthy soul.” A student who graduated from Yale said bluntly, “I am too busy with academics. No time to socialize.” >>>The third is “fear of being different.” The author of \”Excellent Sheep\” wrote in the book: At Yale, I continued to see similar scenes-everyone looked normal, everyone looked the same. No hippies, no punks, no \”artists\” and hipsters… Frankenstein didn\’t look that weird, the fashionable kids were dressed in understated elegance… Everyone looked like they were ready for an interview. \”You are still young!\” I want to say to them, \”Why don\’t you try to be yourself?\” In the author\’s opinion, many children who graduate from \”elite schools\” end up like excellent sheep, afraid of becoming different. Huddle together for warmth and refuse to accept challenges, resulting in hesitation and accomplishing nothing. >>>The last one is \”overconfidence\”. Because the values ​​of the entire society advocate that \”children who graduate from elite universities are elites.\” Some kids coming out of elite schools think that if a job doesn\’t pay $100,000 a year, then it\’s not worth doing. Other smart children liken themselves to \”stem cells\” – since we are so outstanding, just like \”stem cells\”, we can change into \”blood cells\”, \”muscle cells\” and \”skeletal cells\”, then Why should we focus on one area early? Times have changed, and our thinking should really change. Vinod Khosla, the founder of Sun and founder of Khosla Ventures, a top investment institution, said in a speech: \”In the past three years, I have met the CEOs of three automobile companies. I said, I There is no rush to build better cars. Ten years from now, Volkswagen or Toyota will become financial entities rather than car manufacturing companies, and the auto industry will eventually disappear. Ten years from now, more than half of the auto industry will be gone.\” \”Also. \”If I want to be a good doctor in 15 or 20 years, I won\’t go to medical school, I will study mathematics. What we are learning about medicine now will be obsolete in 15 years.\” \”You can choose medicine to go to To learn, you can also choose to study on the \’edge\’. Learning on the edge has a higher chance of failure, but the success that follows is success in the true sense.\” Whether you believe Khosla\’s prediction or not, one thing is absolutely true Questionable: The changes in the world in the future will far exceed our imagination. In order for our children to successfully adapt to the future, the importance of training them to \”what kind of people\” must go far beyond \”letting them pass the exam.\” What a high score.” And we all should know that because mechanical work and repetitive labor will definitely be increasingly replaced by machines, the way forward will definitely become narrower and narrower for \”talents\” trained by answering questions, then Having a unique personality will actually make our children safer in the future. Dare to let children be \”themselves\” in the end, tell an \”inspirational story\”: NASA has recently released a \”great man\” named Robert, who is responsible for laser research at NASA. During his nearly 13 years at NASA, Robert has achieved good results and earned a good income. However, one day suddenly, Robert said, \”I\’m done with labor and management!\” He said that the job that others envied was just a job he did for fun to support his family. Instead of studying lasers, his pursuit in life is actually – origami! Robert said that he worked to save money. Now that he has saved enough money, it is time to pursue his dream. So he resigned decisively. Start studying origami. We can take a look at his origami works together – Of course, you may say: Although origami looks beautiful, it is just a useless \”kid\’s toy\”, right? So, do you think that Robert has been poor and \”degraded\” since then? not at all. Once, NASA wanted to equip satellites with solar panels, but \”shipping\” cargo into space had strict requirements on the size and weight of items. And things like solar panels are destined to be small. In desperation, they thought of Robert, and Robert really used his own skills to design a solar panel that could be folded to the maximum extent. Later, another car manufacturer approached him and asked him to design airbags… Robert was originally just pursuing his true love and dream, but he accidentally gained both fame and fortune. The prequel to this inspirational story is that Robert began to focus on origami at the age of 6. He designed origami graphics by himself as a teenager. He relied on origami to relieve stress in college. He also joined a team of origami masters in the United States, which includes highly educated origami enthusiasts. Everyone designs different looks together. How much does he like origami? Once he starts origami, Robert doesn\’t want to do anything else! From Robert\’s story, one inspiration for us is that there are 100 roads to success. If you only use a little effort on each road, then you will be lost in the crowd; but if you are willing to work on your favorite and most If you spend 100% of your efforts on a path that you are good at, then you only need to achieve the top 10%, and maybe you will win. Focus on what you love, focus on what you are good at. Even in an ordinary field, bright flowers can bloom.