Martin Luther King once said: “The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education.” I learned how to think intensively but not critically when I was still a student in China. After three-year study in the United States, I found out that critical thinking was extremely important for a student due to the fact that every coin has two sides. Education should not be just memorization in order to get pass the exams. On the other hand, one does need a common sense or basic knowledge to learn the new material or create something new, which means learning is actually based on one’s memory. Memorization is helpful for a person in terms of understanding or creating new things, but critical thinking is the key to really see things with an open mind and come up with an even better thought that might contribute to the whole society.
I spent four years in secondary school in China. I had eight classes everyday including math, English, physics, chemistry, history, sports, music, and Chinese. The classes were in different order for each school day, but all we needed to do was to sit in the classroom and teachers would come in when the bell rings. There I learned how to think intensively but not critically. As a listener, I simply caught those words that flew out of my teacher’s mouth with my ears and pinned them on a blank sheet of paper with my pen, which became my notes. I never thought about the actual meaning behind those sentences, because I did not need them. No one would ever ask why one plus one is two in a math class. No one would ever ask why there are bubbles when mixing calcium carbonate with hydrogen chloride in a chemistry class. No one would ever ask the significance of Martin Luther King saying “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character” in a history class. We were all like porters, memorizing those concepts and moving them into correct spots on the test. I felt sorry for those students who had to take the exam called “GaoKao” and did not do well on it. I really did. It is not only because“GaoKao” is the exam that states what kind of college eduction one will receive but also through the process of preparing for it, his or her critical thinking skill is vanished. However, I still appreciate what I received in my secondary school education in China. Chinese eduction allowed me to have a lead in math when I got into high school in the United States. Since I did a lot of practice and had a very solid foundation, I could calculate in a faster phase and understood the new materials easier.
I went to high school in Avon, Connecticut. My high school experience was very different from that of my secondary school. I had seven classes everyday including free period and lunch. We could pick our classes based on our own interest. We could even pick a college level class if we had the ability. We had to design experiments for our science classes and wrote lab reports afterward. That was how I learn that one could still be right even if his data were not accurate. However, in China, that would give you a big, red x mark. The teachers in my high school taught me how to think critically; they told me that there was no such a thing called absolutely right or wrong. I was holding my opinion on that point of view until I took my first calculus exam. I went through my notes a few times before I took the exam that day. I was very confident about myself in terms of test taking, but what made me even arrogant was I memorized all the examples that teachers went through in the class. However, none of the examples were on the exam. I had a very hard time finishing the exam and the moment I handed in my test, I knew I could hardly pass it. The outcome surprised me as if I was trying to grow a tree but ended up getting a forest. I got a 80 on that exam, because I gained a lot of points for my procedure. I asked my teacher how could I still get a 80 when I did not get a single question right. My teacher looked at me as if I was asking for a lower grade. He gave a little pause and said: “Steven, you have to think critically as an ideologist. That you got wrong answers does not mean you do not understand the concept and I believe that you can get it right next time with those procedures. What’s more important is you need to start to believe in yourself!”
John Dewey, an American philosopher, had a famous quotation:“The aim of education should be to teach us rather how to think, than what to think – rather to improve our minds, so as to enable us to think for ourselves, than to load the memory with the thoughts of other men.” I finally realized that the correct answer that I once desired for was no longer the most important thing and there was nothing to fear about failure, because critical thinking would always be there and led me to judge my own mistake and help me to make an improvement. –ZhiLiang Ye, English 1003, Fall 2013