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

Chapter 14 Learning Creatively, Walking Out of the Extraordinary Road (1)
(Harvard representative: Fairbank) The hope of mankind depends on the thinking of those intellectual pioneers, who may think more than ordinary people for years, generations or even centuries.

——Elliott, the No.20 first president of Harvard University
【Wonderful Guide】

Biography of Fairbank

Fairbank (1907-1991), formerly known as John King Fairbank, is a famous American sinologist and historian, a tenured professor at Harvard University, and the founder of the Center for East Asian Studies at Harvard University.

Born in South Dakota, USA in 1907, he studied at Harvard University. In 1929, he won the Rhodes Scholarship and went to study at Oxford University in England. The research topic was "Sino-British Relations in the 19th Century".In order to write a doctoral dissertation, he went to China in the summer of 1931 to investigate and study customs trade and learn Chinese. He was mainly taught by Jiang Tingfu and worked as a short-term part-time lecturer in economic history at Tsinghua University.During this period, he met Hu Shi, the president of Peking University, Tao Menghe, the director of the Peking Institute of Social Research, Ding Wenjiang, a researcher at the China Geological Survey, and others. Sheng became friends with physicist Zhou Peiyuan and others.

1935年离开中国。后于1936年回母校哈佛大学历史系任教，并从1939年起与美国的日本问题专家赖肖尔一起开设东亚文明课程。1941年被征召至美国情报协调局，前往美国首都华盛顿工作。1942年9月至1943年12月被派往中国，担任美国战略情报局官员并兼美国国务院文化关系司对华关系处文官和美国驻华大使特别助理。

From October 1945 to July 10, he came to China again and served as the director of the US Information Agency in China. After World War II, he returned to Harvard University in 1946 to teach. In 7, with the support of the Ford Foundation, he presided over the establishment of the Center for East Asian Studies, which was later funded by the Rockefeller and Carnegie Foundations. Zhengqing Center for East Asian Studies" in commemoration.In the decades when he directly or indirectly presided over the research center, the Center for East Asian Studies of Harvard University has become an academic center for the study of East Asian issues in the United States. After the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and the United States in 1946, at the invitation of Premier Zhou Enlai of the People's Republic of China, he revisited China for the first time since 1955.

【Character Story】

Take an unusual step

When Fairbank was in elementary school, he showed an innovative spirit different from ordinary children. When he was doing homework, he did not set the goal of obtaining accurate results, but sought as many ways to solve problems as possible, so sometimes He has to do all day with very little homework.But precisely because of this creative and energetic way of learning, he can sometimes finish a lot of difficult assignments with high quality in a short period of time.

The mathematics teacher found that Fairbank was flexible in solving problems, not sticking to the rules in the textbook, and always trying to find the simplest method to solve problems.Once, the math teacher wrote an unlearned topic on the blackboard, and everyone was thinking hard.Fairbank looked at it for a while and then showed a happy smile. The math teacher asked him to solve it, and sure enough he did it in a while.The mathematics teacher then directly recommended Fairbank to participate in the "Inter-School Algebra League" in the junior high school group.

In the competition, there was such a form of problem: all team members completed the problem independently, and could write anything on the checking paper, as long as each team member circled the answer that they finally thought was correct, the time was 45 seconds.The final judgment is based on the number in the circle, so even if the problem-solving rules in the book can be used, it is impossible to finish it within a limited time. Only by solving the problem in the simplest way that you think can be successful.Benefiting from the training of creative learning, Fairbank was always the first to write the answer on the paper, and then waited leisurely for the teacher to come up with the next question. When the judges came to collect the checking paper, they found that his The checking steps are minimal.As a result, he won No.1 with a perfect score in the competition.

But after the competition ended, Fairbank did not leave immediately, but re-checked the calculation on paper, which was not understood by his classmates and teachers.One of the teachers walked up to him and saw that he was checking all the questions that he had answered correctly just now. The teacher was very curious and couldn't help asking him: "You have done it correctly, why do you do it again?" He said with a smile: "I'm looking at how to design those topics to be better."

This kind of creative learning training is very helpful to his later study, and keeps him full of vitality, which is also very helpful to his later foreign language learning, and finally makes him a famous Sinologist and historian. Home.

【Harvard view】

Knowledge comes more from thinking than from books
If we say that the most amazing and greatest thing in the universe is the human brain.Be good at thinking with your brain and constantly explore new knowledge, your learning process will also be full of endless fun.

Peng William, a famous American scholar, said: "Real knowledge comes more from thinking than from books. In the process of learning, you should use your 'brain' to learn rather than 'eyes'." The knowledge learned with the eyes is in the brain. It is still knowledge, and knowledge is obsolete and forgotten.Learning with the brain turns it into methods and wisdom through thinking, and cultivates one's own opinion and independent thinking ability, which becomes a part of a person's life. This is a person's real ability.

Einstein was a child who was good at thinking with his brain when he was a child.When someone asks him a question, he always matures the answer in his mind first, then reads it in a low voice, and waits until he thinks there is no mistake before saying it out loud.His way of answering questions makes the listener feel very anxious, eager to pick the words out of his mouth, but this is what distinguishes him from other children.

There is a garden around the house of Einstein's family. He often squats in the bushes in the corner of the garden for a long time alone, stroking the small leaves with his hands or staring at the ants crawling in a hurry.From an early age he loved to meditate and wanted to understand the mysteries of nature.Once, during a picnic on the banks of the Isar River, a relative said that little Einstein was very serious, sitting alone looking at the other side of the lake while other children were playing and amused.Mother Pauline defended her child affectionately: "He is quiet because he is thinking with his brain. Just wait, one day he will become a professor!" The relative felt ridiculous, but also understood the mother's feelings .

Einstein's unconventional, creative and independent thinking habits were even more evident in the learning process. He was never willing to follow the standard methods taught by his teacher to solve problems, and often had to think for a long time before arriving at the answer.He is even unwilling to accept every word the teacher teaches without thinking, which is simply unreasonable in the eyes of ordinary people.No wonder when Einstein's father went to the school to discuss his son's future with the principal, the principal told him regretfully: "Your child will not succeed in any aspect, so there is no future at all."

However, it was this boy who was regarded by the principal as having no future and would never succeed in anything he did, who became the greatest scientist.His success can be said to be because he is good at thinking with his brain and dares to learn creatively.

Being good at thinking with your brain is not only an ability, a quality, but also a habit.To have this ability, we must first develop good thinking habits and carry out creative learning.And maintaining a strong thirst for knowledge is the prerequisite for developing good thinking habits and creative learning. Without a strong thirst for knowledge, you will naturally not use your brain.It is also a book or a class, if you are bored or don’t care about it, you will feel that your brain is numb and irritable, then you can’t talk about enthusiasm, let alone use your brain to think and be creative learned.On the contrary, if you can fully arouse your thirst for knowledge, feel that it is full of interesting knowledge, and feel that you will be happy and proud when you master it, then your brain will always be in an excited and active state, instead of people It is often said that the wood has lumps.

A person who is good at thinking with his brain will never study aimlessly and boringly, because thinking is for better learning in the future and for making greater progress in the next step of learning.

[Easy interaction]

test you
There is such a story: There are two adjacent small islands, A and B, in the Pacific Ocean. The residents of island A are all honest people, and the residents of island B are all liars. When you ask a question, the residents of island A will tell you the correct answer, while the residents of island B will give you the wrong answer.One day, a tourist landed on one of the islands alone. He couldn't tell whether it was Island A or Island B. He only knew that there were both residents of this island and visitors from another island.He wanted to ask the people on the island "Is this Island A or Island B", but he couldn't judge whether the answer of the person being asked was correct or not. After thinking for a while, the tourist finally came up with a way. Anyone who visits can ask a question, and can accurately determine which island this is from the answer of the other party. Can you guess the question asked by the tourist?
answer:

Ask anyone at random: "Are you a resident of this island?" If the answer is yes, then this island is Island A.If the answer is no, then this island is Island B.

【Parent-child total product】

(End of this chapter)