Looking through the Chinese textbook of my son's first grade primary school, there are several texts that require reciting, some require reciting the whole text, and some require reciting their favorite parts.
Generally speaking, famous poems selected into textbooks can be recited because they are short, pithy, catchy, well-known and far-reaching. For example, Xiao Chun, Murakami, Seeing, Koike, etc.
Others belong to modern children's songs, such as Liu Woke up, Two Birds' Eggs and Happy Festival. , with the form and charm of poetry. It is not too much to recite them properly.
What I question is that some of them are neither poems nor excellent essays, but some ordinary texts are actually recited. For example, crows drinking water, Sima Guang and painting hometown are just short stories or essays. Remember the content, you can repeat it or understand it, you don't need to recite it. But somehow, these texts just fill in the blanks and need to be memorized.
In fact, when I was at school, I also had difficulties in reciting, and I was afraid and uneasy every time, such as reciting Lu Xun's masterpieces and Zhu Ziqing's essays. I still remember that in high school, several people went to the Chinese teacher's dormitory to recite, and the teacher only chatted with us, but in the end they didn't recite. Is it really good for reading and writing to recite texts, especially modern texts? I don't think so at all It just increases the burden on students. Do you think it is difficult to recite modern Chinese word for word, and in order to achieve 100% accuracy, students have to work hard several times. Wouldn't it be better to read more extracurricular books this time? Are Chinese achievements and Chinese ability improved by reciting? In the final analysis, we should read more books and form the habit of reading, which can be improved imperceptibly.
There is no doubt that recitation is the "tradition" of Chinese education in China. Isn't this the case from the requirement of reciting the four books and five classics in ancient private schools to the simple reading advocated by the Bible reading movement today? Why were the ancients so keen on reciting? Think about it for several reasons: the ancients learned fewer subjects, fewer books, shorter space and lighter learning tasks; Ancient books are inconvenient to carry and consult, but convenient and quick to remember in your mind; Ancient knowledge was not popular, especially the worship of knowledge and intellectual class, based on classics; Allusions and poems occupy an important position in literati exchanges and imperial examinations, and become an important means to show off their talents; Take profound knowledge, not ideological innovation as the ideal of studying, and so on.
On the other hand, today, in addition to literary works, our writing advocates literary order, plain and rigorous, and easy to understand. Even if you quote famous sayings and allusions, you only need to remember the accumulation of reading on weekdays, and you can use your computer and mobile phone to search when you use it. Why do you have to cram chunks into your head? Even if you want to master some necessary language skills, you can read e-books in addition to paper publications. The vast amount of information on the Internet is basically inexhaustible for a person's life. In subtle reading, communication is not a problem, and even writing is not a problem. Especially the existence of BBS and self-media, people have entered an era in which everyone can write, read and express their opinions on the Internet. Knowledge is no longer as sacred as it was in ancient times, and it is no longer monopolized by a few elites.
The requirements of the Internet age have changed, and it has become how to collect knowledge, identify knowledge and create new ideas and new viewpoints. It is absurd for people who read classics to worship ancient books, read them backwards a hundred times and try to find eternal things from them. And those "experts" who write textbooks, don't they follow the old ways and toss the new generation after "zero zero" with the method of rote learning in exam-oriented education?