Among all the questions I get these days, I'm most helpless with this one: “Do you have any questions?” Usually I can only reply it with nothing. It doesn’t feel right when I can’t think of any question about something I’ve just learnt, because the lack of question often relates to a lack of thinking. And the lack of question may also lead to understanding without depth.
It seems that I lost my questions, but how?
There are some clues in my previous education. Students are not encouraged to ask question in some way in China. For most of the time we were just told to accept what has been brought to us, without questioning. The reality is that getting a good grade during the examinations always takes the priority in our learning, especially in the high school. Learning how to solving problems that may appears in the exam paper somehow overweight learning how to build up an advanced way of thinking and getting more knowledge. Because the knowledge appears on the textbook is already enough for the formal examinations, extra questions are “not necessary”. It’s an obviously short-sight opinion, but it’s realistic and efficient under the Chinese education atmosphere.
In this case, asking questions about what we have been told will get in the way of solving problems in the examination. Because problems-both the underground information and the question-in the examination have always been simplified, we have to follow this pattern to get a desired answer. If a student tends to think from different aspects and to raise questions, which is described as “thinking too much”, he will found some of the problems are ambiguous and confusing. That may make him fail to answer the question properly. That’s why a chemistry professor usually can’t solve a problem in the high school chemistry test.
This circumstance forces us to limit our thought. Sometimes teacher just make their student ignore the questions, even if they are aware that there are important. First of all, students are trained to think in a set pattern. Later on, as some of us become experienced in dealing with examination, we automatic adapt the simple way of accepting what comes to us without much thought.
Since we are no longer in that learning atmosphere, hopefully, we can gain the ability to asking question with some training and guidance.
Now it's time for us to adapt ourselves to the new education system, with the teachers' and classmates' help, I believe we will get along well with it. After all, we have 6 months!
ReplyDeleteNow,we are studing in singapore and learning in a different education system compared to china.I believe you will make great progress.
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