Why do some children learn it right away, while others fail to get the point after repeatedly answering the questions? How to raise a "smart" child? The golden period for language learning is before the age of 3. What is the scientific basis for this statement? If you understand brain science, you will have answers to the above questions. Recently, Xue Gui, a member of the Central Education Committee of the Democratic Progressive Party, a professor at the State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning at Beijing Normal University, and a researcher at the IDG-McGovern Institute for Brain Research, accepted an exclusive interview with a reporter from China News. Combining brain science and education, Analyze how a smart brain is built.
Different ages, different brains
"In order to be interviewed, I ran a few extra laps the day before." In his office at Beijing Normal University, Xue Gui said with a smile that if he does not do aerobic exercise, his brain will "stop working." "After aerobic exercise, , the secretion of neurotrophic factors and endorphins is increased, brain activity is enhanced, and the human brain will be much more awake."
Xue Gui believes that from the perspective of brain development, education should have at least three important goals - strong cognitive ability, organic knowledge system, and lasting motivation to learn.
He pointed to the brain model on his desk and said that if you want to achieve these three types of goals, you need to develop the frontal and parietal lobes at the top of the brain, the temporal and occipital lobes between the ears, and the middle of the brain. "If these major sectors are run well, students will be able to have excellent learning abilities and be able to cope well with problems encountered in growth and development."
In Xue Gui’s view, what distinguishes humans from other creatures is their strong ability to learn and adapt to the environment, which manifests itself differently at different ages:
Infants and young children can survive in different environments and adapt quickly, so much so that the "special functions" of babies before one year old have not even been learned by the current large artificial intelligence models; around the age of three, the size of an infant's brain grows to 90% of an adult's ; Near the age of five, the number of neuron cells in a young child's brain reaches its peak; the number of synaptic connections of human brain cells reaches its peak at the age of two, and the period when the neural package is particularly complete will not be until about the age of 30. At this time, the brain is developing. Maturity also means the end of adolescence. Therefore, it is very important to seize the period of rapid human brain development and take advantage of brain activity at different stages to provide scientific learning guidance.
Many parents will find that children under three years old are in the golden period of language learning. In this regard, Xue Gui explained that in infants and young children of this age, the neuron cells in the brain are sensitive to all sounds in the environment. Later, because some sounds in a language do not exist, the cells responsible for processing these sounds have died or been appropriated by other sounds, rendering us unable to accurately distinguish them. This type of sensitivity also applies to taste cells. Taste cells that have been stimulated a lot since childhood will become more developed, so even when humans reach a gray-haired age, they will think that the food cooked by their mother when they were young is the most delicious.
In addition, babies and children are born with a strong curiosity to explore the world and express themselves, and their motivation to learn is stronger than adults. At this time, in the eyes of adults, the child's performance may include frequent crying and talking, "making trouble", "showing off" his abilities, etc. Our education needs to continue to nurture this powerful drive for learning.
Around the age of twelve or thirteen, children enter adolescence that troubles countless parents. Xue Gui often uses cars to describe the behavior of adolescent children: with the secretion of sex hormones and stimulation of the dopamine system, cars have a developed "throttle"; however, because the medial prefrontal cortex of children in this age group has not yet fully matured, their self-control ability is insufficient. Strong, so the "braking system" of the vehicle is not very effective; coupled with the fact that children have not formed complete values and want to show off their independence, they will lose control of the "steering wheel" and run rampant. At this time, "symptoms" such as addiction to playing games, irritable and changeable moods, rebelliousness, and "not listening to adults so much" appear, and may last until the end of adolescence.
Based on the developmental characteristics of the brain, in Xue Gui's view, the core point of cultivating a "smart" child is to return to the essence of life growth, understand the structure and development rules of the brain, and pay attention to and understand the brain activity patterns of children of different ages. , to cultivate children's cognitive abilities in a targeted manner, protect their learning motivation, and improve their self-control abilities.
Draw a good cognitive map and find out the learning tips
"In modern society, the learning and establishment of knowledge systems has become more and more important, because engaging in professional work and creating new creations requires learning all kinds of knowledge in accordance with the knowledge organization principles of the human brain."
In the process of studying learning and memory, Xue Gui found that in some scenarios, experts can memorize faster than novices, such as memorizing Go scores, memorizing English words, and experienced police identifying criminal suspects. This is because experts learn through , forming a cognitive framework called a cognitive map or schema.
When a person's cognitive framework is established, it is like building the base and framework of a learning house. It is easy to add knowledge bricks to it. At this time, the human brain can quickly learn new content.
Xue Gui regards establishing a knowledge framework as one of the goals of learning. He suggested that we should break the boundaries of semesters, academic periods and disciplines and build an organic knowledge system.
Why do some students study questions every day but have poor results? Xue Gui said that it was because they were not good at establishing connections between topics and could not build a knowledge system. "If you don't follow the human brain's learning methods and the principles of knowledge organization, you will learn very tiredly and rigidly, and you won't solve the problem." He took his physics teacher as an example, who was good at organizing the entire high school curriculum. Knowledge decomposition, breaking down difficult problems into very simple basic questions. "He has clearly thought about the entire knowledge system of physics, and designed a simple and efficient learning path for students based on the cognitive map in his mind. Students love to hear it." , the learning effect is also very good.”
Xue Gui introduced that currently, the education field advocates large-unit learning, theme-based learning, project-based learning, interdisciplinary learning, etc., and is also moving in the direction of knowledge integration. The current reform of college entrance examination propositions also emphasizes the construction and application of a comprehensive knowledge system.
What should I do if my child is addicted to games? Recovering the "Hijacked Reward System"
Developing strong learning abilities requires strong learning motivation. This power "throttle" is innate to human beings, that is, human nature and curiosity.
However, Xue Gui discovered that Internet games, short videos, etc. have "hijacked" the reward system that humans are born with. Today, many children are not interested in playing with friends, playing sports, or even eating delicious food. They are addicted to the emptiness of cyberspace and cannot perceive the joys, sorrows, and joys brought by real human interactions.
Xue Gui emphasized that in order to cultivate "smart" children, it is necessary to find the "hijacked" reward system and try to guide children to return to the most authentic life system of human beings and feel the rewards given by life: the delicious fragrance of food and the pleasant scenery. , the joy of exercise, the comfort of friends... In the full experience of life, explore how to achieve a flexible and vivid self.
Xue Gui believes that cultivating students' learning abilities requires not only strengthening the popularization of brain knowledge, but also scientifically evaluating students' development levels and providing targeted and efficient training to improve them. How to help students take brain education classes aimed at improving their learning abilities is an important task for him.
In recent years, Xue Gui has led team members to compile a series of books on "Brain and Psychological Development" for primary and secondary school students. This series of books has become a school-based textbook for many brain education pilot schools.
Xue Gui said that if students are familiar with how the brain works in the basic education stage and have a foundation of underlying abilities, their subsequent learning efficiency will be very high. Some high school children like programming. Although they have not deliberately learned it before, they learn it very quickly after they have basic learning ability and strong interest. They can write useful programs in more complex computer languages in two or three days. (over)
(Reported by China News reporter Zhang Le)