第十天。 2012-7-28

今天是夏令营的最后一天，几乎所有的班都在练节目。上午又被叫去开会，这应该是最后一次开会了。

下午的时候我去跟Pey，那个哈佛数学系的外教拍了张照片留念，效果还真不错，我们搭着肩，就跟哥们儿似的。这几天下来，还真是有了点感情。

晚上有这次夏令营的演讲比赛，我去看了。20多个人上台，其中有几个很不错，在内容、发音和自信度上都不错，至于其他人，有的是稿子特别短，有的说得不好，反正要想达到各方面都好是不容易的。

尾声。2012-7-29

今天夏令营终于结束了。回想我在这儿度过的10天，最有价值的应该就是中途那两天我写的那篇报告。为了写这篇文章，我去和几个外教聊天，先不说有多大的信息采集吧，光是在与人交流这方面的锻炼上我就收获了很多。我写这篇文章的收获不仅仅在于文章本身，还有我为此付出的各种努力，这都锻炼了我的能力。话说回来，这件事还是老曹让我做的，真是要感谢他，一个老师能引导学生去做一件有益的事，让学生自己从中领悟，这样的老师才能称作“导师”，老曹真是厉害。

上午有个夏令营汇报表演，每个班都有节目，合唱、小品、相声、乐器、舞蹈，还有跆拳道什么的，各种各样都有。有个班特别活跃，把外教都弄上台一起跳。好多家长都提前来接学生，一起看表演，很多家长都在后面拍照、摄像。

看完节目之后我去吃饭，然后就回家了。我走的时候看见几个外教正回他们宿舍，他们还要再待二十天，后面还有两期夏令营呢，不知道以后还能不能再见到他们。要是真能再见，说明我也考上哈佛、剑桥了，要是在校园里遇见，不知会有多惊奇呢！

附：完成的论文

                      Cognition of Education

  As an essay written in forms of cognition and about some common social issue, this one is not unique, certainly not among the surge of same kind of essays spread in internet now days. Whatever I am going to talk, I have become most aware of the phenomenon that many college graduates didn’t find work, as you all days see on news. Today more and more people begin to doubt and deny our education, basically, my essay is about education and it’s product.

  Not that our education is a completely failure. It had prepared me very well of a basic view in several different subject. It had showed me some basic concepts and knowledge, also how to solve a very complex problem base on them .Chinese had taught me in reading and writing, then how to quickly summarize and evaluate some information from an essay, even if the author actually did not mean in that way; Mathematics had taught me in solving skills mostly to perform test, but says real knowledge I didn’t learn too much; History had shown me some past events, but all in same those descriptions are not objective and by-passed details which pretend me from comprehending the history completely.      

 In short, my education fulfilled methods and practices but wipe out by thinking. Independent thinking is really what we student need to learn, much more necessary than any of those which emphasized and imposed by our education. But how can they solve such a difficult problem without thinking? They can because they keep doing that, those actions of repeating doing changeless problems treat people like problem solver machines. Methods of manipulating those problem have already deep into their brain——they study without thinking.                                                                                              

  In such a situation, we begin with the fact that the nation itself does not hold good universities cheaply. Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard, Yale, those are all top schools with a long history. Hundred years ago, when they were just built, people went there are settlers and pioneers, all fulfilled with ambitions. They became the greatest people in history, involved some magnificent feat which commended by people till now and it seem that their step could never be reached. Those schools are top not that people study there are all geniuses but that people there follow the step of those greet scholars of the past and reached a new level. They learn, and then they create, leaving something for future generation to think over.

  Among these people are politicians, researchers, economists and everyone made a contribution to our environment. They are different in nationalities, races, religions, colors and genders. But in same, they are all willing and capable to think. Unfortunately, our educations are in short of training student how to think. Indeed, without thinking you can do anything but only on skin; and you can get some happiness but won’t last for too long; and you can be rich but only be regarded as a person who is “poor in spiritual”; and you can be in way of a pursuit of authority but eventually be powerless absolutely.

  Universities are not as good as we expect it should be. Let me put it differently, then. In order to guarantee more yang people getting higher education, government expands the size of universities to let more students to enter. Luckily, some student used to under the admission scores now can transfer their dream into truth. But the truth is not real. Universities set admission scores in order to ensure the quality of student, the great expending cause the standard of Chinese universities go down instantly, thus crush the whole china education system. The situation now is extremely serious; government begins to realize the causes of the phenomenon. But it’s too late. Chinese graduates are now in a disaster in finding jobs. By the shorthand of education they have begun to loss competitiveness in international society. And there is even no security that our future generation can run the nation well because of their weakness in living skills.

  Even if the reality is in such grim, I still wonder that if the students itself are motivate to accomplish their duty. But the fact is that universities have become a place for entertainments and commerce. For student itself, a large group of them hardly take lessons; instead, they stay at dormitory and play games all day long. Not that all the students be derelict in duty and run irrelevant business, there are some of them want to study, only a very small part of but still exist. However, people around them all act in that way. Normally, they would either be assimilated, or be “banished”. Teachers are not responsible enough. They only care about their research which used for job titles, not focus

on their career as a teacher. And advertisements are everywhere, cars in and out. It seem that atmosphere of academic vanish in air.

  The expanding aggravates the competition, and because of the laziness in school, it’s really hard for graduates to find a job. Even they find one, maybe is not relate to their major. In these case, top universities ensure students finding a good job. "I think I'm really lucky, because I study in Cambridge," Richard Alam, a student study law in Cambridge said," that means....I'm the top, my experience can offer me nice job." But what about those who come from normal school? Just waiting for chances God gifts them? To avoid this, government can provide more internship. It can not only produce more goods, but also train them professional skills. But in essential, student should think about they enter universities for what, that’s really a question.

  The business of universities is not only to train students, but to put them in touch with what the best human mind have ever thought. If they have no time   for the crystallization of human wisdom then they have no business being in university. Our schools inevitably graduate a number of such student, those top schools sure does but in a small percent. For those students, it can not be said they went to university, but the university went through them, without making contact.

  In those respect, the failure of Chinese education does not simply belong to anyone. It is caused by the missing between our education and the requirements of times. In spite of some spiritual resource of ancient China are still respected today, our education is surely thrown down by times, far behind  the running world. What we fail to do is to be conscious of the rapid development of the world. But asking what the future would be? The new generation will respond; it won’t be denied.

                                       By Albert Li, 7.26.2012