Zhu Jiaxiong: What difficulties does early childhood education face?

Education is like planting plants. We hope that the planted seeds will germinate smoothly, grow stems and leaves, bloom and bear fruit, and in the process, provide sunlight, air, fertilizer and water to the planted plants. Educating a group of children is like planting a handful of seeds. Growers may not necessarily know exactly what types of seeds there are in a handful of seeds, what are the properties of each seed, what is the growth pattern of each seed (including what basic external conditions are required, etc.), or in other words, growers basically It is impossible to know thoroughly, unless you are a very experienced gardener. Therefore, under normal circumstances, teachers\’ education of a group of children will be somewhat \”blind\” and to some extent based on the teacher\’s experience as the basic starting point and destination. However, since these \”seeds\” are scattered in batches in the \”field\”, and the various conditions provided to them cannot be very different, the \”plants\” that finally grow into them are very different. thing. In such a \”chaotic\” state, it is necessary to figure out various relationships, such as whether it is more important to adapt to children\’s development or to provide knowledge and skills, how to provide the most suitable and effective education for children, how to create an educational environment, how to Evaluating the success of education, etc., is something that you can work hard to do, but it is difficult to do. There is probably no way out if you use \”clearness\” to confront \”chaos\”. Maybe it is better to use \”chaos\” to confront \”chaos\”. 02 Creating and providing the most suitable and effective educational environment for children is something that preschool educators often talk about. The question is whether there is such an environment? How to create it? It is not a question of whether to create it. When thinking about a question like this, one only has to think about how difficult it is to provide the most suitable and efficient growing environment for each of a handful of different seeds to understand the importance of creating and developing solutions for each child. How difficult it can be to provide the most appropriate and effective educational environment. One of the difficulties is that when teachers face a group of children, it is difficult for them to truly know the \”understanding\” and \”potential\” of each child. This is like a grower facing a large handful of seeds. In fact, they may not know clearly, or in other words, It is basically impossible to have a thorough understanding of what types of seeds there are, what the properties of each seed are, what the rules of growth of each seed are (including what basic external conditions are required, etc.), etc., unless you are a very experienced gardener. Therefore, when creating and providing an educational environment for children, it is difficult to be accurately suitable and even more difficult to be effective, because a large number of teachers do not know much about children, let alone understand every child thoroughly. The second difficulty is that educators are faced with a group of children, a group of very different children, just like a grower is faced with a bunch of different seeds, not the same seeds; what the educator can provide is roughly the same. The educational environment is just like when a grower faces a large number of seeds and can only provide them with a similar growing environment of sunlight, air, fertilizer and water. Maybe we can also find the third and fourth difficulties, but these two are enough to make people feel difficult. Faced with such difficulties, many people with \”right to speak\” began to \”fool people\” and they would sing \”high-profile\”, can \”explain\” and \”evaluate\”, even though they themselves can\’t do it, and although they themselves don\’t know how to do it, it will not go wrong if they say it \”falsely\”, and they don\’t need to be responsible. It will make you look very smart. Faced with such difficulties, the people who are asked to do things are a bit \”miserable\”. They are \”not human anyway\”. They are constantly accused of doing something wrong and are constantly instructed on what to do, but after all, they are still \”in the clouds\” \”In the fog\”, because these accusations are often at the \”ideational level\”, and these guidance are often \”macro\” to the point where they sound reasonable but are at a loss when implemented. 03 Regardless of whether there is the most suitable and effective environment, regardless of whether such an environment can be created, education must still be carried out, and an educational environment must be truly created and provided for children. Therefore, people do things based on experience, Gain experience by doing things. What is education doing? This is what education is doing. Educators are people with ideals and motivation, people who are not afraid of doing things, or even people who are not afraid of doing wrong things. What often happens in education is that if you plant flowers intentionally, they will not flourish, but if you plant willows unintentionally, they will create shade. Therefore, \”the most suitable\” and \”the most effective\” are often just an ideal state. To be precise, the results cannot be completely consistent with the wishes. , and may even be inappropriate. \”Fortunately\”, no one can accurately measure and evaluate the consistency of the results with the wishes, so this matter was carried out \”as usual\”. People do not stop planting flowers because they are not alive, and people do not plant willows everywhere just because they can provide shade. Sometimes, if you plant flowers with care, although the flowers are not alive and indifferent, they will bloom on their own when they are supposed to bloom. Therefore, you should not give up planting flowers just because they are not blooming at the moment. What is difficult for people to understand is that the “most” in “most suitable” and “most effective” actually does not exist. Education happens so naturally. If you want to be the \”best\”, you often don\’t get it. 04 An old woman once said to her granddaughter: \”Educating children is originally a very simple matter. Just give them enough food, sleep, and fun.\” By implication, she meant that now people make things worse It\’s complicated and everyone doesn\’t understand it. The granddaughter of this old woman is an expert in preschool education and often talks to others about preschool education. I had a conversation with her, and I could tell from her words that she was very conflicted after hearing what her grandma said. Using the metaphor of planting plants, the old lady seemed to be saying, just take a handful of seeds in your hand and scatter them on the ground. Give them sunlight, air and water, and they will grow. Her way of speaking is a bit like \”Lao Tzu\” who treats things by doing nothing. If education is really like this, then we people will have nothing to eat. A large group of people like us are \”supported\” by society, just to figure out what else people should do besides what this old lady said? What else can people do? In fact, too many people already understand this The problem is difficult to study clearly, otherwise people like us will have no work to do thousands of years from now. Despite this, a large group of people like us are always busy, busy doing things that are not valuable at all in the eyes of the old lady. Hopefully what we people are doing is not \”complicating simple problems.\” 05 Nowadays, one of my big confusions is that I can’t understand “jargon” anymore. This means that I can’t understand the professional articles written in professional magazines, and I can’t understand the reports or reports made by some experts. Lecture. I originally thought that the problem was with me, and I tried hard to reflect on myself. Later, I asked some colleagues and teachers, and some people in the profession told me that they had similar feelings; teachers did not I dare to say it because I feel that I am not confident enough. I cannot understand or understand because my level is low and I am not up to par with what I am watching and listening to. I remember a person who once served as the top education administrator in the United States once said that he found that educational research in the United States over the past century has only played a role in catching wind and shadow, and it seems to have no guiding role in education itself. Although his words are a bit extreme, they also reveal some problems. Some people criticize that experts are people who complicate simple problems. Such criticism is understandable from the perspective of people who cannot understand or cannot bear to listen to what others say. Perhaps, experts need to change. For some majors that are more closely related to practice, it is better for experts to lower their profile and write and speak more plainly so that people can understand it. In fact, it is the most difficult to speak professional things in vernacular. 06 The difficulty with education is that no matter what you do, you will leave regrets. The difficulty is that everyone can express your opinion. The difficulty is that whoever does it will be criticized. First of all, the difficulty with education is that no matter what you do, you will leave regrets. In the field of education, the word \”education reform\” is heard most often. If you are satisfied with education, you will not hear this word all the time. And, historically, and around the world, it is rare to hear that education reform has been successful. So some people describe education reform as a \”pendulum\” that sometimes moves east and sometimes west. Secondly, the difficulty with education is that everyone can express an opinion. Education involves thousands of households and the interests of every common people, so everyone is related to it, and no one will be separated from this relationship, so everyone will comment based on their own gains and losses, and even vent based on their own gains and losses. Finally, the difficulty with education is that whoever takes the initiative to do it will be criticized. Precisely because of the \”complexity\” and the \”difficulty of all opinions to reconcile\”, it is difficult for anyone to achieve \”one basin of water is balanced\”. No matter what is done, contradictions and problems will arise, and some people will benefit and others will lose. Therefore, those who engage in education should understand these truths and prefer to be realistic rather than too idealistic; rather be low-key than too high-profile; rather be modest than too arrogant… 07 Education is a matter in which anyone can express an opinion. Not only those who have been involved in the field of educational research, but also those who have not been involved in the field of educational research can express their \”insights\”. Of course, the former seem to have more say. Perhaps education is the most ambiguous thing, and scholars arePeople who specialize in creating and explaining differences, so scholars involved in the field of educational research have had too many longings, too many expectations, too many ideas, and too many topics about education; therefore, it is not easy to begin with. Things become even harder to figure out. Although I am an educational researcher and have spent many years and energy studying education, it seems that I am increasingly unclear about what education is and what it does. I was told that life will go through three stages. The first is \”looking at mountains as mountains\”, the second is \”looking at mountains as mountains,\” and the third is \”looking at mountains as mountains.\” I take this as psychological comfort, thinking that I have not reached the third stage yet, and I still hope that I can reach the third stage. People in the second stage actually do not understand what a mountain is. They are in a state of confusion and confusion, so they are often at a loss. However, people in the second stage often have certain qualifications and have some say, so it is easy for them to express their opinions. If these people can say something that people can understand, or something that is somewhat useful, then it is still interesting; if these people just say something that is useless, or something that others cannot understand, then it will be troublesome. For people in the second stage, the latter seems to be more common. Before 08, I loved reading articles about nutrition and diet in newspapers in order to improve my health. After reading these introductory articles, I know what should be eaten and what should not be eaten; what can be eaten more and what should be eaten less; what and what cannot be eaten together, what and what should be eaten together… …. With such a \”guide\” in life, there will be \”operational\” basis in life, which is useful. Later, I gradually found that after reading too many articles like this, I no longer knew what to eat and what to eat. I often encounter this problem. I prepare food according to what this article says, but it goes against what that article says. Moreover, according to the former statement, it will bring attractive benefits, but according to the latter statement, it will not. It can cause a lot of trouble and problems, and even bring \”fatal\” consequences. So, I started to get confused. What should I do? It became a difficult task for me to plan meals. Later, I suddenly figured it out. If I didn’t read those articles before, wouldn’t I be living a good life? I returned to my original state, eating whatever I should and want, and I’m still living well now. . This principle seems to be very similar to education. I often hear some kindergarten directors say to me that they have invited some experts to give guidance. One person says this and that person says that. What one person says right is exactly what the other person says wrong, leaving them at a loss and not knowing what to do. manage.