The tone of the letter written by the student is rather good, but sometimes, it is a bit too much. Firstly, I would like to comment on the point that she said that teachers do not explain things clearly, like the question "Why is carbon a non-metal?"
In my opinion, I think that all the why, what, who, how etc. questions, should not always rely on teachers to teach you. We must all learn to be independent and to learn how to study yourself and go into deeper research. This is also why you will see tougher questions in Science or other subjects, where a lot of research, notes, and a lot of self-study is required. Why is carbon a non-metal? This question can be solved if you go deep down into research, because you cannot expect your teacher to answer all of your questions. They do not have time too. Hence I do not agree with the writer. Yes, it is right that you cannot stop questioning, and children have a lot of curiosity in mind, but sometimes things have to be done yourself, rather than relying on others for help.
However, I do agree with her that memorization is not effective. Because memorization does not help in learning. If you only memorize, what if you met a phrase you do not understand? Do we even bother to check the dictionary, or go and research? If you memorize for the sake of getting good results for your teachers, your classmates, and your parents to see, then you are absolutely wrong. And this shows that you do not really understand the point of learning. You memorize so that you can apply those knowledge you have in the future, not just only for tests and examinations.
Let me make an example - Chinese idioms. Our Chinese teacher will test us 10 idioms every week. Yes, we have to memorize, and I believe that most of us only memorize the sentences only right? Memorization is no longer useful if you do not know what is it talking about, or the meaning of a sentence or phrase.
Also, if you only memorize, you will only know a limited amount of knowledge. The number of skilled people around the world is increasing. With that limited amount of knowledge, how are you going to face the society, where there will be all different kinds of challenges, and it is impossible to use only the few ways you 'memorized' to solve.
By ending my blog prompt, I think that the education system need to change as I think that it is already good enough. However, sometimes the attitudes of the students seriously need to change, because their way of learning things may not lead them to the road of success.
Greetings Yi Fan, I am Wei Hng. I think that you have elaborated very well about why memorization is not that useful, but I think you should change another examples as it may involve personal attack towards the teacher. I do not really agree that students should find out knowledge themselves, I mean we should, but for the question "Why is carbon non-metal?" is very basic for some better students and for weaker students they may not get it completely, they may not understand even when they surf the web for information. Teachers are more informative and they can explain better, independent learning is mostly for the extra knowledge or knowledge of higher level because the teachers may not be able to teach all and sometimes the teachers may even get confused. I think the student's intention to write this statement to MoE because she wants to urge the teachers through MoE's orders to be patient with students and do not assume all students know the basics.
ReplyDeleteThat's all my comment for this blog prompt, personally I think your blog is cramped with informations...(and some random stuffs, not to mention)