这是儿子在夏令营期间写的论文《教育的认知》，原文转发于此。

                                 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