陈凯博客： www.kaichenblog.blogspot.com
陈凯一语：
在今天文凭泛滥的中国大陆，几乎无人懂得或关心“教育”的真谛。 在腐儒与中共的教育传统与现实中，学人们被专制制度在道德、理性、原发性与创造力上彻底地阉割扭曲（中文本身就是阉割人原动力、始发力的一把利刃）。 学校成了训练培养“宦奴娼”的有效场所。 拉提夫（iqbal.latif）的这篇文章提示了每一个家庭什么是教育的真谛 - 发现与提升人的原发性与创造力，而绝不是文凭、地位与对自由的怯懦逃避。
Kai Chen's Words:
In today's China where diplomas rule the world, no one understands or cares about what "true education" is. With deep-rooted and powerful Confucian tradition and communist brainwashing combined to thoroughly wipe-out/castrate human creativity and originality (Chinese language itself playing a crucial role in such a castration), schools have long become the effective tool for the tyrannical authorities to create soulless and brainless Eunuslawhores (eunuch, slave and prostitute rolled in one).
This excellent article by Iqbal Latif exposes the corrupt educational system in the world, and reminds all of us what the true meaning of education is - exploring into every child's originality and creativity, against what is prevalent today in our schools and society - diplomas, rot-learning, social status, power, money with a cowardly escape of individual freedom.
---------------------------------------------------------
Why did I not send my kids to school? Because schools are bad for them.
为什么我没有叫我的孩子们上学？
News Type: Event — Thu Nov 18, 2010 11:17 AM EST.education
By iqbal.latif
(Creativity- the number of businesses that started of in a garage. Take for example the HP corporation which started life in a tiny 12×18 foot garage. And then there is also Google and Apple who started life in a garage.)
A teacher asked a disinterested child in a class what she was doing; The child answered, she is drawing a picture of God；The teacher said but nobody knows what the God looks like；The child said they will know in a minute.
一个教师在课堂上责问一个学童她为什么不听讲。 那个女学童说她正在给上帝画像。 教师讥笑着说没有人见过上帝是个什么样。 女学童回答说：“等我画完你就知道了”。
Twenty years ago my wife and I took a decision not to send our children to school. When we did that we faced tremendous pressure and almost universal condemnation. The kinder folk thought we were over-eager parents however most condemned us for letting our children be near-illiterate.
20 years on the story has a happy ending and our three sons lead happy well-adjusted lives in investment banking and private equity. Their story was covered in the nation press where the enduring tagline was ''it all began with algebra on the train and stock market games at home.'' They weren't wrong, it was teaching our sons math during a train journey up north showed us the burning potential that young minds have to learn.
The key lesson we took on board from our experience is that "creativity is as important as literacy." The standard definition of creativity is "having original ideas that have value." My wife and I learnt that the national curriculum is an arbitrary standard by which to measure a child's progress. The classical Greek conception of schools were that they would be cultivating and deepening young minds where-ever possible. Unfortunately in the modern day parent's simply "outsource" their children's education to schools without further thought; antithetical to the original ideal.
These heretical thoughts however were long dormant; my sons are long grown up and I'm now a grandfather. However the other day my personal heresies on education were reconfirmed by two excellent TED online lectures. The first by Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining case for creating an education system that nurtures creativity. The other 'Conrad Wolfram: Teaching kids real math with computers' happily vindicated my decision taken nearly two decades ago.
Both Sir Robinson and Mr Wolfram make the point that society must do more to encourage the cultivation of talent and inspire imagination in our young. The rigorous repetitive and standardized curriculum that we judge and measure them by is a crime committed under the banner of "organised education" and "academic excellence". These false gods spur on academic inflation, further reducing the tottering credibility of the education system.
The stress on Academic excellence is extensive and has led to society stigmatizing mistakes. Mistakes must be made, for without them we cannot learn. One of the greatest playwrights of the 20th century, Samuel Beckett, reminds us, "Try again. Fail again. Fail better." We forget that all children are born artists and dreamers, they must be invested with the tools to express their innate talent.
Every education system has a hierarchy of subjects, which encourages academic ability and "useful subjects" for practical application. Education is increasingly dominated by job requirements and many highly talented children who fail their exams are junked forever. The first task of any school, and failing that any parent, is to discover the latent talent of every child. It is striking that so many of our leading lights in society have patchy academic careers among them included are Andre Agassi, Bill Gates, Paul Allen, Mark Zuckerberg and Henry Ford.
Genius does not arise in a vacuum for the budding artist, who if neglected as a child and left undiscovered, deprives mankind the marvels of his work. Even as far back to our ancestors painting caves our collective human heritage ultimately depends on harnessing each generation's most talented voices.
Steve Jobs - Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish never graduated from college, highlighting that in his commencement address to the 2005 graduating class of Stanford University. Jobs demonstrates that his success emerged out of failure time, ably demonstrated in his narrative in how vector fonts came to be on the Macintosh:
Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn’t have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can’t capture, and I found it fascinating.
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.
Unfortunately for our minds, which are programmed to find order and meaning when often there is none, intelligence is diverse, dynamic and distinct. It is "oblique", in that it cannot be derived directly and must be sought through indirect means. Let's instil creativity and aptitude in our kids by letting them read and grow.
Each day my wife and I count ourselves lucky that we were ahead of our time and not made to suffer for it. At home we created an academy after reasoning that Socrates or Aristotle were not sent to schools. We did not teach our children formulas but curiosity to seek a logical explanation for the world. Alphabets were foregone replaced by an emphasis on words. Instead of abcd a creative young mind will feed off an inspiring story. In the same manner that children who can pick up the complexity of language so can they thrive on complex ideas.
It is my hope that going forward many more families have their eureka moments like ours did on a train. Ultimately the realization of the genius and restlessness of young minds. In my small way I'm glad that our family can personally testify to the truths that Sir Robinson and Mr. Wolfram are trying to tell us all.
陈凯一语：
在今天文凭泛滥的中国大陆，几乎无人懂得或关心“教育”的真谛。 在腐儒与中共的教育传统与现实中，学人们被专制制度在道德、理性、原发性与创造力上彻底地阉割扭曲（中文本身就是阉割人原动力、始发力的一把利刃）。 学校成了训练培养“宦奴娼”的有效场所。 拉提夫（iqbal.latif）的这篇文章提示了每一个家庭什么是教育的真谛 - 发现与提升人的原发性与创造力，而绝不是文凭、地位与对自由的怯懦逃避。
Kai Chen's Words:
In today's China where diplomas rule the world, no one understands or cares about what "true education" is. With deep-rooted and powerful Confucian tradition and communist brainwashing combined to thoroughly wipe-out/castrate human creativity and originality (Chinese language itself playing a crucial role in such a castration), schools have long become the effective tool for the tyrannical authorities to create soulless and brainless Eunuslawhores (eunuch, slave and prostitute rolled in one).
This excellent article by Iqbal Latif exposes the corrupt educational system in the world, and reminds all of us what the true meaning of education is - exploring into every child's originality and creativity, against what is prevalent today in our schools and society - diplomas, rot-learning, social status, power, money with a cowardly escape of individual freedom.
---------------------------------------------------------
Why did I not send my kids to school? Because schools are bad for them.
为什么我没有叫我的孩子们上学？
News Type: Event — Thu Nov 18, 2010 11:17 AM EST.education
By iqbal.latif
(Creativity- the number of businesses that started of in a garage. Take for example the HP corporation which started life in a tiny 12×18 foot garage. And then there is also Google and Apple who started life in a garage.)A teacher asked a disinterested child in a class what she was doing; The child answered, she is drawing a picture of God；The teacher said but nobody knows what the God looks like；The child said they will know in a minute.
一个教师在课堂上责问一个学童她为什么不听讲。 那个女学童说她正在给上帝画像。 教师讥笑着说没有人见过上帝是个什么样。 女学童回答说：“等我画完你就知道了”。
Twenty years ago my wife and I took a decision not to send our children to school. When we did that we faced tremendous pressure and almost universal condemnation. The kinder folk thought we were over-eager parents however most condemned us for letting our children be near-illiterate.
20 years on the story has a happy ending and our three sons lead happy well-adjusted lives in investment banking and private equity. Their story was covered in the nation press where the enduring tagline was ''it all began with algebra on the train and stock market games at home.'' They weren't wrong, it was teaching our sons math during a train journey up north showed us the burning potential that young minds have to learn.
The key lesson we took on board from our experience is that "creativity is as important as literacy." The standard definition of creativity is "having original ideas that have value." My wife and I learnt that the national curriculum is an arbitrary standard by which to measure a child's progress. The classical Greek conception of schools were that they would be cultivating and deepening young minds where-ever possible. Unfortunately in the modern day parent's simply "outsource" their children's education to schools without further thought; antithetical to the original ideal.
These heretical thoughts however were long dormant; my sons are long grown up and I'm now a grandfather. However the other day my personal heresies on education were reconfirmed by two excellent TED online lectures. The first by Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining case for creating an education system that nurtures creativity. The other 'Conrad Wolfram: Teaching kids real math with computers' happily vindicated my decision taken nearly two decades ago.
Both Sir Robinson and Mr Wolfram make the point that society must do more to encourage the cultivation of talent and inspire imagination in our young. The rigorous repetitive and standardized curriculum that we judge and measure them by is a crime committed under the banner of "organised education" and "academic excellence". These false gods spur on academic inflation, further reducing the tottering credibility of the education system.
The stress on Academic excellence is extensive and has led to society stigmatizing mistakes. Mistakes must be made, for without them we cannot learn. One of the greatest playwrights of the 20th century, Samuel Beckett, reminds us, "Try again. Fail again. Fail better." We forget that all children are born artists and dreamers, they must be invested with the tools to express their innate talent.
Every education system has a hierarchy of subjects, which encourages academic ability and "useful subjects" for practical application. Education is increasingly dominated by job requirements and many highly talented children who fail their exams are junked forever. The first task of any school, and failing that any parent, is to discover the latent talent of every child. It is striking that so many of our leading lights in society have patchy academic careers among them included are Andre Agassi, Bill Gates, Paul Allen, Mark Zuckerberg and Henry Ford.
Genius does not arise in a vacuum for the budding artist, who if neglected as a child and left undiscovered, deprives mankind the marvels of his work. Even as far back to our ancestors painting caves our collective human heritage ultimately depends on harnessing each generation's most talented voices.
Steve Jobs - Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish never graduated from college, highlighting that in his commencement address to the 2005 graduating class of Stanford University. Jobs demonstrates that his success emerged out of failure time, ably demonstrated in his narrative in how vector fonts came to be on the Macintosh:
Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn’t have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can’t capture, and I found it fascinating.
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.
Unfortunately for our minds, which are programmed to find order and meaning when often there is none, intelligence is diverse, dynamic and distinct. It is "oblique", in that it cannot be derived directly and must be sought through indirect means. Let's instil creativity and aptitude in our kids by letting them read and grow.
Each day my wife and I count ourselves lucky that we were ahead of our time and not made to suffer for it. At home we created an academy after reasoning that Socrates or Aristotle were not sent to schools. We did not teach our children formulas but curiosity to seek a logical explanation for the world. Alphabets were foregone replaced by an emphasis on words. Instead of abcd a creative young mind will feed off an inspiring story. In the same manner that children who can pick up the complexity of language so can they thrive on complex ideas.
It is my hope that going forward many more families have their eureka moments like ours did on a train. Ultimately the realization of the genius and restlessness of young minds. In my small way I'm glad that our family can personally testify to the truths that Sir Robinson and Mr. Wolfram are trying to tell us all.
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