I vaguely remember that before going abroad, Mr. Zhang my English teacher in China, once asked a classmate a question in a certain class of study would you go abroad if you had a chance? I boldly answered this question, I said: 'Yes, because I want to experience different cultures and civilizations'. What a particularly simple and immature reason.
Recalling my educational experience in China, I may be the only Chinese who is bad at mathematics, so I have to admit that I am a loser in this course. Not because I didn't work hard enough. On the contrary, I paid the same effort as most students but still got lower grades than these people, I guess I’m just not good at this. So I feel mathematics has become useless to me except for bringing me torture and anxiety. These frustrations have even obliterated my passion for learning mathematics. When I came abroad, the situation was different. American mathematics courses are very simple for me, but that doesn't mean that I can close my eyes and still get a perfect score, especially since I didn’t know many Mathematical terms in English in my first year. However, relying on the previous foundation, I started to become a bit arrogant and felt that I could do everything. I don’t listen to the lecture and don't like to do my homework at all. Of course, retribution soon appeared. At the end of the term, I found out that I messed up many simple questions on the exam. Holding the final math score, I questioned my math cells again in the cold wind. I told myself that I couldn’t give up so easily and I should be used to receiving setbacks and I resolutely decided to do well on the next math course. I corrected my study attitude, took notes every day finished every exercise in the book, and finally got a good score, although this math class is much more difficult than the first one.
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Mathematics in the United States is not as difficult as in China, but it is enough to gauge whether you have spent your time and worked hard for it. Also, It teaches you more about the attitude than how to figure out what kind of image that function corresponds to or what kind of equation an ellipse is. It eliminates people who don't work hard, not people who are not talented enough. Except for the math genius, I believe that most people have experienced countless sleepy nights for the numbers, piled up a stack of exercise books at their feet, and kept asking teachers questions in self-study classes. Like I said at the beginning, my grades were not good, but when I decided to put my heart into studying mathematics, I saw that time was probably the most earnest in my life, and there were no other entertainment activities except for normal social needs.
Later on, I saw people on the Internet saying how crazy the kids in the United States were that they could date each other and start a relationship, and then concluded that 'this is youth.' I commented under the original post 'But they didn't experience the kind of life that worked hard for their dreams.' Then I found that I was wrong. They are not without experience instead, they experience it a little bit later. In high school, they also have 99.7% of students graduated with a very high GPA, and they also have a lot of extracurricular activities to find their hobbies. As a Chinese student, what did we sacrifice because of math? How many people didn't even know what they liked in their senior year? How many people blindly follow parents' advice when choosing a school? How many people still feel the future is blurred even after entering college? When I graduated from high school, I was confused because we were always paying attention to the results. Many relatively average people do not know what they should learn.
Under such a Chinese education system, many children have no chance to learn and practice. Naturally, they dare not think about what they can do. They spend countless hours learning mathematics, but they also waste the equivalent time doing what they are interested in and good at. We eliminated 70% of the 'not brave, not earnest' people with the math exam, but at the same time, we eliminated more future singers, painters, novelists, lecturers, and debaters with it. What is taught in school is the correct standard answer. Doubt or criticism is not allowed, and analysis and demonstration are not trained. Teachers don't know this because it's never been in books. The logical thinking ability of students in science classes often only has scientific means (techniques and skills), there is no scientific method or scientific spirit. What is the spirit of science? In my opinion, the spirit of skepticism, criticism, analysis, and positivism is the sum of these four spirits. Without this, no one can think independently and everyone loses self.
Why do I go abroad? I clearly remember that a class meeting was for students to talk about their dreams. What I said was very vulgar 'I want to be an artist and then travel around the world with paper and brushes'. Under the Chinese education system, I only know that this is an unreachable dream. But here, this dream does not seem so far away. I have a lot of opportunities to learn and explore and that lets me know that I am approaching there step by step. Even on this path, there will be setbacks, stagnation, and failure, and I have at least seen that my dream is not so far away. Even though I did take a detour, I'll get there in the end. At least it tells me that no matter what the reality is, you can think about it. If you dare not even think about it, it will always be a dream. We want to live in the present, but we have to look far into the future.
I do not mean to vigorously criticize China's education and consider the current system to be nothing. For example, I still like the concept of 'class collectives' in Chinese education, there is a lot of time in the day with the same group of people and taking different classes in the same classroom. many classmates have become very important friends in my life. The American education system does not have such a concept instead each class has its classroom and students will be going to a different classroom during school hours. Although there are many friends, our relationship only stays with classmates.
Every country's education system has its drawbacks. I am grateful that education in China has taught me how to learn, but I am more fortunate that education abroad has taught me how to think independently.
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