Professor Harvard: Why can overseas Chinese make remarkable achievements?

After studying at Reed University for six months, he dropped out. Later, he only took some interesting courses, such as calligraphy. People may ask: Is the development of calligraphy and computers related to the great success of Apple? In fact, calligraphy is closely related to design, aesthetics and designing a unique computer. American culture respects individuality. If we can only sum up why American education is the best in two words, I will think of "exploration" and "tolerance", that is, exploring the unknown spirit and tolerating failure. In the eyes of Americans, there can be different paths from point A to point B, and the best one has not yet been opened up, not what people have already gone through. If people want to open up new roads, get new ideas or develop new products, they must explore. I want to share with you a story that happened to my husband Lester Thoreau, an American economist, former dean of the Si Long School of Management at MIT, and a best-selling author of Time magazine in new york. When he wrote his 16 or 17 books, he took home two boxes of books, about 200 books. I asked him, do you want to read all these books? He said, yes. I asked again, how many of these 200 books do you think are useful for your new book writing? He said that two or three books have such a short paragraph. I was very surprised. He explained that plagiarism cannot create new ideas. Although the 200 books I read may not come in handy immediately, the knowledge I gained from them will be stored in my mind and used somewhere in the future. Therefore, in the eyes of Americans, the road map for doing things is not simply from A to B, but to find a new path to B through exploration. The second example I want to talk about is about the MIT Media Lab. MIT Media Lab is the top research institution in America. Besides engineers, scientists and technical experts, there are many designers, musicians and artistic geniuses working there. People can't help asking, what is the relationship between music and emerging science? MIT will give the answer that different disciplines will promote different aspects of a project. If you want to innovate, you can't repeat what you have done thousands of times according to the old routine, but you should absorb different ideas. The third example to be given below is the case study of Harvard Business School [Weibo]. Case studies are applied in many universities, especially Harvard Business School. Through these real cases of companies or business circles, students learn how to think about problems from the standpoint of enterprise decision makers and put forward solutions and implementation plans. Case analysis focuses on practice, teaches students to collect and evaluate information, and proposes solutions. Case analysis pays attention to teamwork, teaches students to work together and puts forward convincing views. Americans tolerate failure because they believe that failure gives more people and is more instructive for the future. American culture regards people who have failed as people with ideas, courage and energy. "Failure" is not a negative word. "Oral presentation" allows children to go on stage and learn how to state their ideas clearly and receive feedback. American education pays attention to communicative competence. Americans think communicative competence is very important. Since kindergarten, children have to make "statements" in class. They may just show their friends some ordinary stones found on the beach and then make a simple oral statement. However, in this activity, children go to the stage, stand in front of their peers, learn how to state their ideas clearly, and accept feedback from their peers and teachers. When these children are in high school or college, it has become a common thing to state their views to others. When they need to make personal statements to potential investors or employers in the future, there is no doubt that they can do well. Students need to imitate teachers, but teachers should also allow students to innovate and let them find ways to grow. Confucianism occupies a dominant position in China culture, and ancient China is a bright pearl in world history. China has four great inventions-papermaking, compass, gunpowder and printing. It can be seen that the Chinese nation was once the most creative nation in the world. In China culture, Confucianism has always occupied a dominant position. Confucianism advocates order, hierarchy, diligence and continuous learning, all of which are good values. These values were vigorously promoted at that time and played a positive role in promoting social development at that time. For people, in the period of social unrest, such as the Warring States period, the most important thing is to establish an orderly order. Therefore, in the education system of China at that time, "order" was highly respected. Although respecting elders and not questioning teachers is a good quality, not daring to challenge authority also inhibits the cultivation of students' critical thinking. People don't want to see students questioning what the teacher said. The same is true of Asian countries such as Japan, South Korea and Singapore. In fact, no matter how smart, correct, experienced, knowledgeable or friendly a teacher is, students should feel it is normal to question and challenge the teacher. Only in this way can students cultivate the habit of independent thinking and the ability of innovative thinking. Students need to imitate teachers, but to a certain extent, teachers should also allow students to innovate and let them find their own way of growth. China people not only inherited traditional values, but also absorbed new ideas from their education abroad. Why can overseas Chinese make remarkable achievements? Yang Zhiyuan, one of the founders of Yahoo, and Cheng Zhengchang, founder of panda express (Catering Group); Sun Dawei and Du Jichuan, founders of Kingston Technology (a global storage leader); Zhang Yin, founder of nine dragons paper, etc. They are all Chinese with outstanding career development in the United States. Why can China people make such remarkable achievements in the United States? Because these Chinese not only inherited the traditional values of hard work, being good at learning and obeying order in the national spirit, but also absorbed new ideas from their education in the United States, namely, critical thinking, independent thinking habits, exploring the unknown spirit and accepting the attitude of failure. So we come to a conclusion that what we used to need is not exactly what we need now. The society is changing, and China's education system should also adapt to the new changes and new requirements. So how do we integrate the excellent values mentioned just now? China and Jews attach importance to education, family and hard work, which are very good values. Americans and Jews also have some of the same excellent qualities. For example, they respect people's spirit of exploring the unknown world, don't insist on order, and allow failure; They love to play, attach importance to good social and interpersonal skills, and have the ability to criticize others and accept criticism from others. This is the purpose of our international education. Q: Q: What kind of students does Harvard prefer? Dr Anna: First of all, you should get good grades! Harvard University has a large number of applicants every year, all of whom are excellent and the competition is fierce. If your grades are not good, the situation will be very bad. But for Harvard, it is not only "learning" that is important, students should learn more-sincere attitude towards life, unique experience, critical thinking and creativity are all very important qualities. There are many world-class universities, and as few American students as China students can enter Harvard University. You might as well regard Harvard as the representative of the world famous schools and take it as the benchmark of your efforts. In the process of perfecting yourself, you may find the best institution that suits you best. The experience of visiting the international elite class of Bayi Middle School a few days ago left a deep impression on me. Their language is quite outstanding, and what is more outstanding is their sharp questions, which let me see their critical and distinctive thinking mode. Translation of this edition/Photo courtesy of Hu Zuhong/Sun Yanyan