The learning methods and training details of Harvard's top students

Chapter 26 Be a good child's first teacher and guide him to learn how to behave (2)
After Mrs. Curie and her husband won the Nobel Prize twice in a row, two pairs of younger generations trained by Mrs. Curie also won the Nobel Prize one after another: the eldest daughter Irene, a nuclear physicist, and her husband Joliot shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery of artificial radioactive substances.The second daughter, Eve, is a musician and biographer. Her husband won the 1956 Nobel Peace Prize as Director-General of UNICEF.

Chapter 18 Strictness is also a kind of kindness (Harvard representative: Yo-Yo Ma) People are often not good at setting standards for kindness and strictness, but in education, such standards are absolutely necessary.

- Famous quote from Harvard University
【Wonderful Guide】

Yo-Yo Ma Biography

马友友（1955- ）是世界著名的美籍华裔大提琴演奏家。他出生于巴黎，祖籍浙江宁波鄞县。父亲马孝骏是作曲家兼指挥家；母亲卢雅文则是一名歌手。马友友4岁时就开始学习提琴演奏，7岁时与家人移居美国纽约。之后便投入提琴大师琼斯·舒尔兹门下；1962年进入茱莉亚音乐院受教于罗斯教授；1978年即荣获享誉全球的艾维-费雪奖，并毕业于哈佛大学；1991年由哈佛大学授予其荣誉博士学位。

Yo-Yo Ma is not only a leader in the field of classical music, but also involved in jazz music, folk music, dance music and other fields, trying various possibilities of music in many ways.Yo-Yo Ma has set many new records for cello: such as using the cello to challenge the difficult repertoire of Kreisler and Paganini's violin, performing in cooperation with Japanese kabuki superstar Tamasaburo Bando, using Bach's unaccompanied cello suite as a modern dance soundtrack, and Cooperate with American "rap" singer Bob McFerrin to record an album, try to make a perfect combination of vocals and cello, etc.

In 1997, Yo-Yo Ma collaborated with composer Tan Dun on "Symphony 1997" at the Hong Kong Handover Ceremony, which attracted worldwide attention. In 1998, Yo-Yo Ma collaborated with six artists from different fields in the music film "Yo-Yo Ma's Bach Inspiration", which gave Bach's music a new meaning. In 2000, the soundtrack of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" starring Yo-Yo Ma won the Oscar for Best Soundtrack.

Over the past 1981 years since the release of his first album in 20, more than 80 exquisite works have established Yo-Yo Ma's status as a master, and he is recognized as a rare superstar in the classical and cross-border music world.He has won more than a dozen Grammy Awards so far.In addition, he also won the Canadian "Gould Award". In February 1999, New York City renamed 2th Street in the East District as "Yo-Yo Ma Road"; the governor also designated February 46th as "Yo-Yo Ma Day" every year.He often attends White House banquets, and one of the three seats reserved by the President of the United States for Chinese artists must belong to Yo-Yo Ma.

【Character Story】

Genius comes out of strictness

Yo-Yo Ma's father Ma Xiaojun taught his son to play the piano very well.He knows that children's concentration time is very short, so he especially grasps the 10 to 15 minutes that children concentrate on.Although, as long as he practiced the piano for 15 minutes a day, the requirements of his parents were not low at all-he must concentrate and practice wholeheartedly.

Later, Yo-Yo Ma said that this training method has benefited him endlessly.To this day, he still believes that it is impossible to practice the piano well if you spend more time practicing it, and forcing children to practice the piano will never be good. Only when the practitioners are willing to practice and concentrate on practicing the piano can they achieve good results.

When he was young, his parents would teach Yo-Yo Ma the cello for two hours every day. His father was very strict with his son. Performing on stage many times, Yo-Yo Ma will leave a deep impression on the audience after each performance.Since Yo-Yo Ma is a child prodigy, there is a limit to what his parents can teach him, so they hired a famous teacher to continue teaching him.

Yo-Yo Ma, who was only 6 years old, performed on the same stage with the famous New York Philharmonic Orchestra under the command of the great conductor Bernstein.But Xiaotian didn't continue to act as a music prodigy on the stage, but heeded Bernstein's words and went back to school to study piano and read books.

As a result, Yo-Yo Ma began to learn the piano from the famous cellist Leonard Ross, and entered the prestigious Juilliard School of Music in the United States to study for 7 years.

At the Juilliard School, Yo-Yo Ma's grades were among the best. However, when this genius was about to graduate in another year, he chose to drop out and enter Harvard University to study humanities.During the four years of studying at Harvard while practicing the piano and attending classes, Yo-Yo Ma obtained the nutrition that he would benefit from all his life: he not only enriched his knowledge, broadened his horizons, but also understood the importance of understanding and appreciating the connotation of music.When he received his Harvard diploma at the age of 20, Yo-Yo Ma already had a richness that his music school classmates did not have.

【Harvard view】

The combination of strictness and tolerance is the most effective
In terms of educating children, many parents either only emphasize strictness but not tolerance, or only emphasize tolerance but not strictness.They believe that strictness and tolerance are contradictory and incompatible, so they always go to extremes.There must be a degree in everything, and there is bound to be a loss in excess, and the same is true for children's education.Only emphasizing strictness or leniency will have a bad influence on the child's growth and cause the child's personality deformity.

Children who have been tolerated and indulged for a long time will develop some bad personalities, such as excessive self-centeredness and boastful self-esteem.Like other people's appreciation, can not accept other people's suggestions and criticisms.Often make behaviors that do not meet social requirements, lack responsibility and social morality, and easily violate the law and discipline.There is no regret, no shame, no guilt after making a mistake, not to learn from the mistake, but to push the responsibility on others.

Parents who strictly educate their children will never condone when their children have bad words and deeds; when their children achieve results, they will not be complacent and forget the responsibility of education.

The father of the famous German scholar Carl Witt in the 19th century, when Witt Jr. was just showing his talents, he was very taboo about calling his son a "child prodigy" and never praised his son easily in person.Once, a school inspector came here especially because he wanted to test Serena Witt.Old Witt agreed, but made a promise: "No matter how well you do in the exam, don't praise my son." During the exam, the inspector deliberately asked some math problems, but Little Witt's answers were very smooth, and the inspector was very impressed and couldn't help but say: He said: "Oh! It's a scholar who surpassed us!" Old Witt quickly corrected him and said, "Where is it, because my son has been studying mathematics at school for the past six months, so I still remember it." A mathematician at the time, Euler, "thought for three days before finally making it".With only a cup of tea, Serena Witt answered again.The supervisor forgot the agreement again, and congratulated Old Witt: "I should say, your son is better than Euler!" : "Blind birds can sometimes pick leftover beans, which is also accidental." Under the strict education of his father, Little Witt avoided the common bad luck of "a prodigy at 15 years old, a genius at 20 years old, and a mediocre person after [-] years old" .Strict education of children must be based on love and authority.

If children are frequently beaten, scolded and reprimanded, the children will not be willing to approach their parents.If children stay away from their parents or neither respect nor approach them, let alone talk to their parents, it will be difficult to achieve good educational effects.Parents who frequently beat and scold their children not only fail to make their children correct their mistakes, but also damage their emotions and hearts, making them indifferent, inferior and lack of self-esteem, and even run away from home because they cannot bear the beating and scolding of their parents.It can be seen from this that corporal punishment to children is only a manifestation of parents' lack of reason and helplessness, and it is impossible to have the effect of strict requirements.

To educate children, parents must follow the following points:

First of all, the parents' request is reasonable, in line with the child's actual situation and beneficial to the child's physical and mental health.It is possible to ask a four-year-old child to walk behind their parents as far as they can, but it is unreasonable to ask the child to walk as fast and as far as their parents.

Secondly, the requirements put forward by parents must be appropriate, which can be achieved by the children through hard work. If the requirements are too high, the children will not be able to meet them even after hard work, and the children will lose confidence, and the educational effect will not be achieved.

Again, the requirements for the child must be clear and specific, so that the child understands what to do and how to do it, and should not be ambiguous, making the child at a loss.

The last point is that once parents put forward their requirements for their children, they must urge their children to do it earnestly. They can't say that it doesn't count, or they can do it or not, but they must let their children do it, otherwise they will not be able to achieve it. educational effect.

[Easy interaction]

1. What enlightenment did the story of Carl Witt in the article give you?
2. As a parent, are you strict or loose in your child's education?How well do you think they work and what are their shortcomings?

【Parent-child total product】

Liu Yong, a famous Taiwanese writer, painter, and educator, has a pair of sons and daughters. His son is Liu Xuan, who has received a doctorate from Harvard University and has published four books. His daughter is Liu Yifan. President's Award".

When his son planted flowers when he was a child, he didn’t dare to mix mud with his hands, so Liu Yong mixed a pile of mud and forced his son to put his hands in; he controlled his son’s watching TV; It takes 3 hours a day to commute to middle school in the "venomous snake and beast infested" place in Manhattan.

While Liu Yong's "powerful education" made his son outstanding, it also made the relationship between father and son very tense.Summarizing his lessons, he said that in the past, he arranged everything for his son, but later he discovered that this made his son develop a bad habit of being irresponsible.Parents' excessive arrangement will make children not polite and cherish, which is the most taboo thing in family education.

【Harvard view】

To punish children, understanding and respect are the premise
Today, "emphasis on education and light punishment" has become the consensus of the majority of parents.In people's subconscious mind, punishment is synonymous with beating and scolding.

Educational psychologists believe that there are various ways of punishment, and beating and scolding is only one of them, which is an extreme behavior of punishment.Misuse, abuse of punishment, or even irresponsible physical and mental violence against children will aggravate the child's rebellious psychology, and in the long run will make the punishment ineffective, leading to the final "out of control of the child"; It can act as a warning to children and encourage them to correct their mistakes, thus receiving the effect of using punishment as a teaching assistant or replacing a teacher with punishment.

Therefore, punishment is an art of family education. Whether punishment can achieve the desired effect depends on whether parents can use it properly.

When punishing children, parents can consider the following aspects:

1. Immediate punishment if possible.When a child commits a wrong behavior, he should be punished immediately. At this time, the punishment will be highly targeted, and the child will easily associate the punishment with the wrong behavior, prompting the child to consciously correct the wrong behavior to avoid repeating the crime.

2. If punishment cannot be given immediately, try to reproduce the scene of the child's wrong behavior.Parents can reproduce their children's wrong behaviors in many ways, such as storytelling, chatting, etc., so that children can recall their wrong behaviors.At this time, parents can educate their children to achieve the same effect as immediate punishment.

3. Ask the child to react opposite to the wrong behavior. Parents can repeatedly strengthen the child's reaction.Children's imitation ability is very strong. After repeated reinforcement, they can master the correct behavior and gradually eliminate the opposite bad behavior.

4. Avoid punishing children too lightly or too severely.Punishing children too lightly is not enough to achieve the purpose of punishing and eliminating bad behaviors, and it may even become an encouragement for children to repeat wrong behaviors.If the punishment is too heavy, the child may retaliate by persisting in the wrong behavior, which is easy to embark on the road of a vicious circle.

5. Choose the appropriate punishment method according to the child's wrong behavior.Some children do some pranks to attract their parents in order to get their parents' attention. At this time, parents can punish him by ignoring him.

6. The attitude of executing the punishment must be the same, the attitude of the parents must be the same, and the way of punishment must be the same before and after, and the principle of fairness and justice must be adhered to.For example, the mother-in-law loves her grandson eagerly, and she will always stop you when you teach the children, which will cause serious problems between the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law; or if the mother always plays a bad face, while the father always plays a bad face, the child will think that the mother does not like him.

7. The secret of education is true love.Parents need to know that as long as the child does not do bad things on purpose and the matter is not so serious, there is no need to punish the child.If the child's behavior has caused certain harm, such as hindering other people's activities or damaging property, try to let the child bear the consequences.For children who often make mistakes, try to understand the reasons for their unwelcome behaviors and prevent them from causing unwelcome behaviors.On the premise of love, parents should respect their children's personality, and should not punish them in a humiliating manner, and refrain from making personal attacks, such as "big idiot" and "stupid".On the premise of respecting the child, it will not cause his rebellious character in the future.

[Easy interaction]

1. Do you punish your child when he makes a mistake?
2. As a parent, how do you punish your children?What is the effect?

【Parent-child total product】

Kindergartens and schools in the United States will punish children for their bad behavior.Their punishment method is: let the child who has made a mistake go to a corner alone for a few minutes.When the child realizes that the mistakes he made have brought him trouble, the teacher will seize the opportunity to educate the child and let the child understand where he is wrong.

If the child is too naughty, the kindergarten or school will contact the parents and let the parents participate in reforming the child.In serious cases, parents may even be asked to take their children home and educate them before sending them back to kindergarten or school.

For Japanese families, the father is the absolute authority.It is precisely because they are used to obedience that the Japanese have become the most disciplined and collectivistic nation.If the child makes a mistake, Japanese parents will take various measures to punish the child.For example, cancel the child's plan to go out to play, or even make the child hungry, or impose moderate corporal punishment.

However, if a child makes a mistake in a public place, parents generally do not punish the child in public.Japanese parents believe that punishing children in public places is not in accordance with the etiquette norms, but also can damage the child's self-esteem.Therefore, they will comment on the child's performance after returning home, or give the child some punishment.

(End of this chapter)