去年早些时候，一张裙子的照片在互联网上引发了一场全球性的争论。一些人看到的是蓝色和黑色的裙子。另一些人看到的是白色和金色的裙子。不是”略有不同”——是完全不同的两组颜色。
同一张照片，同样的像素，在不同人的眼中呈现出截然相反的颜色。这件事在数小时内席卷了整个英语互联网，话题标签被讨论了上千万次，朋友之间因此争吵，夫妻之间产生了真诚的困惑。人们第一次在日常生活中体验到了一种令人不安的可能性：我眼中的颜色，也许和你眼中的完全不一样。
那条裙子的争论最终被视觉科学家解释了。但他们的解释比争论本身更令人不安。
因为问题不在于那张照片——问题在于人类的视觉系统本身。那条裙子只是暴露了一个一直存在、但我们从未注意到的事实：你看到的颜色，不是世界的属性，而是你的大脑的一次计算结果。
要理解这件事，我们需要从一个更基本的问题开始。
OK, I use this title just to bring attention.
After watching all 3 episodes of the BBC documentary, Are our kids tough enough, Chinese School, in my opinion, there is one aspect of British kids that really needs to improve: coping with competition and failure.
When British kids were in the PE class, they were very upset that they might fail. Philippa actually sobbed on not passing one item. And she said:
“I just don’t think comparing yourself to others is a good, healthy life style.”
Philippa is not alone. In the 1st episode, we saw another boy sobbed during PE class.
Well, I have to agree with Philippa that it is not a healthy life style. But competition is part of life. Ranking students all the time with different measures is of course too much, but exposing them to a certain dose of competition is essential to their development. To Philippa, I’d say it’s equally not healthy if young people are so scared of competition that they sob on a failure in just one PE preparation. I don’t want my daughter to be so fragile.
So this is the advantage of Chinese teaching. Put all the drawbacks aside, this is probably one thing Britain should learn from Chinese teaching: To get the kids used to competition.
中文无废话版在这里
It came to me as a complete surprise that the BBC documentary Are Our Kids Tough Enough? Chinese School got so much attention, and the debate over which is better, the Chinese way or the British way, actually got so heated up.
So I just spent 2 hours watching it on Youtube and here’s what I think.
First of all, I’d say the heated debate and all the furious comments on which way of teaching is better are mostly not based on the video itself. Because what the documentary shows is not a meaningful comparison. All the Chinese teachers simply failed miserably in managing their classes from the very beginning, due largely to, in my humble opinion, cultural conflict and language barrier. So I’ll base my comment on the program and maybe comment on the debate over this program in a separate post.
I don’t know who organized this. I think it’s a fantastic idea in terms of cultural exchange. But if the goal is to compare the Chinese way of teaching to the British way of teaching, it cannot be taken seriously.
Teaching involves extensive interaction between the teachers and the students. Language barrier and cultural difference cannot be overlooked. Stories of foreign teachers got frustrated in Chinese classes because Chinese students were inactive have been around since 20+ years now. Why should we expect the Chinese teachers not to be shocked in a British school? This cultural shock should be expected and extra time should be planned for both the teachers and the students to adapt.