• Introduction

——Gu Yanwu: " Read thousands of books and travel thousands of miles.”

"Many of our primary and secondary school teachers in China don't read three or five books a year, and they only teach you a little bit all their lives. If they keep repeating themselves, they will be hollowed out. So we will find that there are many primary and secondary school teachers. In the end, the teachers' knowledge was very limited, and they were far from capable of teaching contemporary Chinese students well..."

This is New Oriental President Yu Minhong's criticism of the reading status of primary and secondary school teachers in a recent live broadcast. As soon as this remark came out, it immediately exploded on the Internet.

Some people said that Yu Minhong taught students how to take the exam, and he didn't understand the teaching of the school teachers at all, so he had no right to speak. The reason is that school teachers are busy preparing lessons, attending classes, teaching and researching, and managing students every day...how can they have time to study?

Is it true? As someone who has been teaching for 10 years, I think what Yu Minhong said may be a bit extreme, but it is not unreasonable.

A colleague gave us an extremely embarrassing lesson. That day, the school held the activity of "Push the door to listen to the class at any time". When several of our colleagues randomly entered the back door of the classroom, she happened to be attending "Ode to Efang Gong".

When it comes to "Chu people burn, pity the scorched earth", a student suddenly asked, who are "Chu people" and why does "Chu people" specifically refer to "Xiang Yu"?

The teacher didn't know whether it was due to nervousness or other reasons, but he hesitated in class and couldn't explain why. The students were whispering below, and she was almost "boomed" off the stage.

And we also found that she actually read the content in the PPT for the whole class. Obviously, she did not prepare enough for her lessons! The most fundamental reason is that the amount of extracurricular reading is not enough!

Later, I learned more about it and found that she claimed to have graduated from a prestigious university. Apart from reading reference books, she rarely read systematic education and teaching books at other times, let alone reading in-depth books such as literature.

"knowledge is power."

Bacon is telling us that Only by reading can we acquire knowledge and make people wise.

Teachers do not simply "teach", and students can "learn" well. Before "teaching", teachers must have a large amount of knowledge input, so that they can selectively output to students, so that students can use what they learn!

Some people say thatreading is a kind of practice, and I think teachers should regard reading as a habit. In other words, reading is the standard for a teacher's life!

Ouyang Xiu said:

"Establishment is based on education, and education is based on reading"

In modern society, there are many ways for everyone to acquire knowledge. The teaching method that teachers simply teach in the classroom to allow students to acquire knowledge can no longer satisfy students' thirst for knowledge.

Therefore, Teachers must keep pace with the times, constantly learn new knowledge, and systematically study and master the educational methods adapted to the new era in order to be able to do well in teaching.

If blindly using the familiar old-fashioned teaching methods mastered many years ago, teaching and learning will only be counterproductive, and even cause serious contradictions between teaching and learning, such as teachers unwilling to teach and students unwilling to learn!

There was an old teacher who was considered very good by everyone more than ten years ago, because he could memorize an entire textbook completely, and he could teach "empty-handed" when he entered the classroom.

For example, in "The Biography of Lian Po Lin Xiangru", he could memorize every single word, and everyone was impressed by his amazing memory. But in recent years, students have reported that they don't like his class very much, because his class is boring and difficult to understand, and the teaching method is single and flexible.

The reason is that he read less, and he thought that he could "travel all over the world" with "one trick". As everyone knows, modern society is changing with each passing day, reading books and newspapers regularly is at least the best way to keep up with the times.

Bacon said:

"Reading history makes people wise; reading poetry makes people smart; mathematics makes people thoughtful; science makes people profound; ethics makes people solemn; logic and rhetoric make people eloquent."

All celebrities at all times and in all over the world regard reading as a practice, a habit. As a teacher who teaches and educates people, it should be even more so.

How should teachers read? Combined with the actual work, I think there should be the following:

01 Read more professional books to make your theoretical level more systematic and professional

Before this year's "4.23" World Book and Copyright Day, Zhu Yongxin, a famous educator, said when talking about teachers' reading problems:

"The low degree of specialization is related to the lack of high-quality professional reading by teachers."

Therefore, if teachers want to teach students well, first of all, they need to reserve sufficient knowledge theory, especially the professional knowledge level in this field. Only when they are professional enough can people believe what they say, and teachers can have authority when they stand on stage.

Why do some teachers always feel uncomfortable when they are on stage? Because he always felt that the students would doubt the teacher's words. The root cause is that the teachers themselves are not self-confident because their knowledge is not systematic and professional enough.

For example, a Chinese teacher doesn't understand the word "Chinese" at all, and after a class, he knows all kinds of nonsense, which seems to "know astronomy at the top, and geography at the bottom". In fact, it is extremely empty. Students can't learn knowledge, and they won't listen carefully to the next class. The bad effect of teaching and learning will go on in a vicious circle!

How can I make my knowledge more systematic and professional? Different people have different methods.

American management scientist Thomas Carlin found through research:

"Six months of continuous reading, study, and research in any field can equip a person with above-average knowledge in that field."

We can learn from this method to make ourselves more professional. However, it does not mean that after reading or learning for 6 months, there is no need to read and study again. We also need to keep learning, advancing with the times, and constantly innovating.

02 Read more good books, learn "addition and subtraction" from reading, and then apply what you have learned.

Russian educator Suhomlinsky once said:

"In my personal library, in several rooms and corridors, shelves are lined from floor to ceiling...thousands of books...I don't read a few pages, sometimes a few lines , I can't live..."

This means that reading more books and reading good books have many important effects. However, each of us has limited energy, where is the time to read so many books?

Therefore, Having a set of extremely efficient reading methods is particularly important. There are many more utilitarian so-called efficient reading methods circulating on the Internet, you can try it, but it is difficult to have a unified conclusion on whether it is suitable for you.

We can try the "addition and subtraction" of reading, as the mathematician Hua Luogeng said:

"Read the book thick first, and then read the book thin".

Only by reading more books can one have more knowledge reserves; even if the number of books read is less, reading a book several times can also reveal more different knowledge. This is "thick reading", which is what we call "addition" of reading.

And "subtraction", that is, "thin reading", means can "read" the essence of the book concisely when using it, grasp the center, and know why.It is not for the pursuit of the book Most of them just "swallow the jujube whole", "fly around", and finally ask what the book is about, and they don't know anything.

03 Don't follow blindly when reading, but learn to reflect and experience its essence from multiple angles

Yu Qian in the Ming Dynasty said it very vividly:

"The scroll is as affectionate as an old friend, every morning and evening is sad and happy, and every blind date. There are 3,000 characters in front of my eyes, and there is no dust on my chest."

That is to say, when I read a good book, the language and point of view are exactly what I think and say, and I fully agree with the author's thoughts. However, when we study, we should also have our own attitude, learn to reflect, and don't follow blindly.

The famous educator Mr. Ye Shengtao advocates an attitude towards reading, preferably a critical attitude:

"Test it with real life, take whatever is beneficial to real life, otherwise don't take it."

He also gave the following advice on reading:

"Avoid reading to death, and reading to death makes a fool of yourself."

As teachers, we must have our own ideas. When imparting knowledge to students, we encourage students to learn to reflect and have unique insights. But our teachers themselves first play a role of reflection when reading.

After reading a book, we have to reflect. After reading a few books, we can compare and summarize, what are the advantages and disadvantages, how will it help us, and if we write it ourselves, what will be the difference.

Because only by learning to reflect can you discover your own shortcomings and make progress. As Mr. Tao Xingzhi, a well-known educator, said:

"I have to ask four questions every day: the first question is whether my body has improved? The second question is whether my knowledge has improved? The third question has been asked whether my work has improved? The fourth question has been asked whether my morality has improved."

04 Take notes when reading, and review frequently to form a habit in order to make progress.

Taking notes is not to retell the content of the book. There are many ways to take notes, you can draw the author's point of view, you can write a mind map of the book, you can talk about your own feelings...

Taking notes is for better memorization, so that it can be used in future teaching. We often tell students that "a good memory is not as good as a bad pen", and our teachers themselves must first develop a good habit of taking notes in the process of reading.

Ye Shengtao said:

"Once a good habit is formed, it will be beneficial for a lifetime; if a bad habit is formed, it will suffer a lifetime."

As teachers in the new era, we cannot ask others to read more books, but If we want to keep up with the pace of the times, we have to acquire new knowledge from books, so as to improve ourselves and ultimately promote better teaching.

This is just as Mr. Ye Shengtao said:

"Teaching is so that there is no need to teach. That is to say, we teachers should guide them so that they can learn by themselves, learn by themselves for a lifetime, and learn forever."

In short, only when the level of teaching is achieved, students will learn something, and reaching this level is successful education!

Mr. Tao Xingzhi said:

"The duty of a teacher is: to teach a thousand things, to teach people to seek the truth; the duty of a student is: to learn a thousand things, to learn to be a real person.

I hope that every teacher will read more and realize a new realm of reading!