Good habits, good results

Author: Qin Yu / Country: Mainland China
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-07-01
Features: Dr. Huang Quanyu once told a story: A primary school teacher named Darlin, while teaching in Kunming, observed that Chinese children had very high painting skills. One time, she gave them a theme: "Happy Festival" and asked them to draw. To her surprise, many children drew the same thing—Christmas trees! She found it strange: "Why are everyone drawing Christmas trees?" At first, she thought, "Perhaps the Chinese children are very friendly and, thinking she was American, drew a Christmas scene for the 'Happy Festival.'" But then she noticed something else: "Why are all the Christmas trees identical?" She discovered that the children's gazes were all directed in the same direction. Following their line of sight, she saw a Christmas tree painted on the wall. Darlin then covered the Christmas tree on the wall and asked the children to create their own artwork to express the theme of "Happy Festival." To her even greater astonishment, once the wall Christmas tree was covered, the highly skilled children were at a loss. Some bit their pencils, others stared blankly, glancing at each other, unable to start drawing. Darlin had no choice but to uncover the Christmas tree again.
The children she was dealing with were small "painting geniuses," but they could only imitate and didn't know how to create or think independently: "What should a 'Happy Festival' painting look like? What scenes or people should be included? How should the composition be arranged?" Though this is a small example, it highlights a widespread problem among students in China: lack of independent thinking! When facing exams, they always try to solve as many problems as possible, memorizing the solutions and standard answers for different question types, rather than analyzing and thinking with their own minds. The ability to think independently needs to be cultivated—it requires soil, water, and sunlight.
In the U.S., children often take painting classes where the teacher gives a theme and lets them draw freely, however they wish, with no interference from the teacher. After the children finish, the teacher simply says—"Good! Good!" As the old saying goes, "Without rules, there can be no order." What happens to these unruly children when they enter university?
In advanced VLSI design courses at U.S. universities, students can create actual ASIC chips and then take their designs to Silicon Valley or elsewhere for job interviews, saying, "This is what I made." Yes, university students can develop and design their own patented products, using them to knock on the door of Microsoft.
When pursuing master's or doctoral degrees, the evaluation criteria become even more "unconventional." U.S. professors generally encourage their students to engage in research rather than repetitive projects.
U.S. doctoral students typically undergo a qualifying exam near the end of their master's program. During the exam, a new research topic is proposed, and a five-person review panel evaluates the novelty, significance, and feasibility of the proposal. Only after passing the qualifying exam can students begin their thesis research on that topic. If someone else publishes preliminary research on the same topic during the review period, you must revise your topic or even start over.
At UCLA and Caltech's chemistry department, the doctoral qualifying exam includes this challenge: Several professors extract topics from newly published articles and ask doctoral students to propose solutions within two or three days, testing their sensitivity to cutting-edge research. Sometimes, not a single student passes this exam.
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