Original link: https://codechina.org/2022/07/zhishi/
It seems that everyone has seen some sayings about knowledge changing destiny. In the past, some public service advertisements were often broadcast on CCTV saying that “knowledge changes destiny”.
There is also a well-known little girl who was the protagonist of a poster of Project Hope back then. Everyone called her big eyes.
This is a little girl from the countryside, her name is Su Mingjuan. The photographer of the photo is called Xie Hailong, and you can even say that this photo changed the girl’s fate. This photo was taken in 1991 at a primary school in Zhangwan Village, Taoling Township, Jinzhai County, Anhui Province. Later, this photo was selected by the China Youth Development Foundation as the propaganda logo of the Hope Project.
Under the great influence of this photo, Su Mingjuan got help from many people. Her primary school was transformed into a Hope Primary School. She was also admitted to university and later became a deputy department-level cadre. destiny. (1)
There is also the famous teacher Zhang Guimei. She set up a free school for girls in the deep mountains of Yunnan. Under her insistence, 1,600 girls were admitted to universities and walked out of the mountains. (2)
These stories and many others move us to believe that knowledge changes destiny. However, is this really true?
Who needs to be changed by knowledge most?
To put it simply, China is divided into urban and rural areas, and China’s urbanization rate is now only 50 percent. As we all know, China’s urbanization rate is actually a very low-level urbanization rate.
In fact, the cities that are really rich and have very good living conditions, in fact, we know that there are only first-tier cities. Second- and third-tier cities are completely incomparable with first-tier cities, let alone rural areas. Except for a few very wealthy rural areas, it is the rural residents who need to change their fate the most in China. There are of course poor households in cities, but in general the living standards and various supplies of urban residents are much better than those in rural areas.
Premier Keqiang once said that there are still 600 million people in China with a monthly income of only 1,000 yuan. This number may be incomprehensible to ordinary people living in the north. But in fact, there are still many people below the poverty line in China. The poverty alleviation projects undertaken by the government, you know, only aim to have an annual income of more than 4,000.
One billion people in China have never been on a plane, and 1.3 billion people have never been abroad. These numbers may also be difficult for those living in Tier 1 cities to comprehend. (3) There are many people from Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen on the Internet, which will give many people the illusion that everyone is from Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, and everyone has money. In fact, there are more than 20 million people in Beijing, more than 20 million people in Shanghai, and 1-20 million people in Guangzhou. The population of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen is over 100 million. In fact, it does not account for a high proportion of China’s total population.
If you insist on comparing living standards, you can understand that Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen are equivalent to a moderately developed country, while the rest of China is equivalent to a huge poor country.
If you look at the advertisements and stories that knowledge changes destiny, they are actually all about how some rural people, especially those in poor mountainous areas, get a chance to change their lives and change their destiny. You may have never heard of such a story that knowledge changes fate: the child of a resident of Chaoyang, Beijing, had the opportunity to stay in a big city because he was admitted to a university and find a job he liked.
I believe that the vast majority of advertisements, articles, and stories where knowledge changes fate are sincere, and the stories they tell are true, but they are still part of the illusion. why?
If only a few people can change their destiny, just like a lottery ticket, then we can still shout loudly, can knowledge change our destiny? Why don’t we advertise lottery to change destiny?
People who win the lottery can really change their destiny. Why don’t we advertise?
Because the lottery only has very few people, one in a million people have a chance, and even fewer people have a chance. We all know that winning the lottery is called luck, not changing fate.
It has to be said that knowledge changes destiny. For those rural children who need to change their destiny the most, it is an equal opportunity, or a small probability event. If it is a small probability event, and only a few people have the opportunity to change their destiny, then how come knowledge can change their destiny, isn’t that just luck?
In fact, the college entrance examination is hugely unfair. Although from a certain point of view, the college entrance examination is currently the most reasonable and one of the fairest systems. But it is inherently hugely unfair, especially for rural children.
In order to make comparisons, we all talk about extremes. For example, the best city in China for the college entrance examination may be Beijing. Of course, Shanghai and Tianjin are also very easy. Let’s take Beijing as the most extreme example. Then the most difficult province may be Henan, and there are many places in the middle that are difficult.
How easy is Beijing, how difficult is Henan?
For example, according to 2018 data, there are 980,000 candidates in Henan, which is almost 1 million, but only 60,000 candidates in Beijing.
Take the admission rate of one book as an example, Beijing is more than 30%, that is, 20,000 people can take one.
In the same period, Henan only had an admission rate of 7.8%. From the perspective of the number of people, it is 4 times more difficult for Henan people to get admitted to a book than Beijing. Only 76,000 people in Henan can read one. Although Henan has 980,000 candidates.
But that’s far from all the data.
Because the educational resources in Beijing are different from those in Henan. The educational resources of the capital cities and rural areas of Henan are also different.
You can imagine a best school in Beijing. He may have a 100% rate of one student, which means that he has almost no students with less than one book, but more than one book, for example, 985, 211, and directly studying abroad and going to the Ivy League are all one. heap.
You can also imagine that one of the most extreme examples in Henan is a village where there may be dozens of candidates, and none of them were admitted to university.
I haven’t actually been to Henan. But I have been to a village in Anhui, a very large village, and it may only take a few years for a college student.
Almost any average school in Beijing has better resources than a fairly good school in Henan.
In terms of teaching level, excellent teachers who have graduated from various good normal schools are given priority to stay in big cities. Of course, there are many people who have ideals and who volunteer to teach, but in reality, the tilt of educational resources is so obvious.
Teachers in big cities are very standard in Mandarin, while many teachers in rural areas cannot speak Mandarin well. Why do you think a young man can’t speak Mandarin well now? In fact, it is because of poverty. Because of poverty, the school cannot afford to hire better teachers or retain better teachers, so children cannot speak Mandarin well. You think it is a simple language problem, but it is also a typical economic problem.
Let’s look at English education again. When a bilingual school is established in a big city, when hiring a foreign teacher, it is difficult for many rural areas to hire an English teacher whose own English does not have a local dialect.
Many articles like to sing praises. People who were admitted to university from Dashan, and who made great achievements returned to Dashan to become teachers. Such stories are very touching. But in practice, stories like this are often spread, officially because it’s not a common phenomenon. The worst thing to say is that when you praise an action, you often find that it may be because it is against economics, that is, against what most people choose. Most of the teachers who study and get good grades still hope to find employment in bigger cities, bring more lucrative income, and also bring a better future to their children.
Originally, we left rural children with fewer opportunities for admission, and we allocated fewer educational resources to them. Therefore, they are actually competing under double inequality.
Therefore, the college entrance examination is very unfair.
The state should put educational resources in those poor areas, because that area cannot obtain equal educational resources through normal economic adjustment.
We can open a school in Beijing, and the budget of this school must be very high, because the local economy is good. Then the government should have made adjustments. Rural villages cannot afford to hire good teachers. At the same time, the conditions in mountainous areas and rural areas are difficult, and even if the salary is the same, teachers with better conditions are of course willing to go to cities.
And the wages in rural areas are actually still lower, so the teachers who are invited are definitely not good enough. The government should give all kinds of inclinations to rural areas and give all kinds of education support.
But in fact, in fact, the distribution of education in our country may be reversed, a bit like the Matthew effect. In places like Beijing, it is already a mess, and then we give him more investment, big cities, A good university, a good school, get more funding, we have the money to build Tsinghua University and Peking University.
At the same time, many places in rural areas have the problem of dropping out of school, which is why the Hope Project was born. Hope Project has been in operation for so many years, is it designed for children in Beijing? Of course not, their educational resources are surplus.
In fact, after so many years of the Hope Project, it is said that the total donation is more than one billion yuan, which is really not a big sum of money in China. With today’s China’s financial resources, it is a very small project to make billions of dollars.
However, there are many things in rural schools in China, and they need to be funded by the society, not the government. This is a situation that is inherently unfair in education, which makes it worse.
Under such unfair education, if two people have the same intelligence. One was born in a big city, Beijing and Shanghai. The other person lives in a poor rural area.
You have received an elite education in a big city and the education of the best teachers. The teachers on my side can’t even speak Mandarin well, and they can’t even speak English well. How difficult it is for me to get the same grades as you.
So knowledge changes destiny, it is actually an illusion.
It doesn’t mean that no one can change their destiny through the college entrance examination. We definitely don’t mean that. Of course, I don’t mean to obliterate the role of the college entrance examination. There are indeed countless rural people, and countless people who were born in poor conditions because of the college entrance examination. Because of going to school, he didn’t even go to university, but because he learned all kinds of knowledge, he got a lot of opportunities, and he changed his fate.
However, the college entrance examination in big cities is already easy, and many children in big cities can easily get university education. And it is too difficult for the rural children who really need to change their destiny the most.
A village has a college student within 5 years, of course he is very lucky. And more people, maybe also very smart, maybe also very motivated, even very smart, but he can’t get into college in the end.
So I still say the same thing, saying that knowledge can change the fate of some people, but you can’t use it as a slogan, because those who need it the most to change their fate cannot change their fate because of knowledge.
What is the problem that knowledge changes destiny that I want to talk about today?
What I want to talk about is that, when we actually think about problems, we need to think about problems from a statistical point of view. I like the title Knowledge Changes Destiny, and I like the slogan, but that was when I didn’t know much about statistics.
After I understand statistics, I will feel that it is slim and hopeless that knowledge can change the fate of the vast rural children. The things that can really change the fate of some of them are only the best, and it is not these things that change the fate of most people.
For most rural people, he could only face the loess and turn his back to the sky. What changed his fate may be reform and opening up. Suddenly, a coastal city recruited workers, such as Shenzhen or Dongguan, where there is an electronics factory that needs part-time jobs. , they go to work, and then some people get a high income in the process, some people of course also have a very average salary, but some people settle in Shenzhen or Tianjin, Beijing or somewhere, and slowly began to leave the original destiny.
In other words, these two years may be some work, such as opening a taxi, opening a Didi, doing takeaway, and so on.
Since the re-opening, the biggest change in fate is the permission to go to work in cities, giving many people the opportunity to change their fate and gain a new opportunity.
Education is very important, and the college entrance examination is also very good, but to be honest, the people who are changed by education and the college entrance examination are not the main body. In my opinion, they are still a very small part. Of course, this does not mean that we should not study or educate, but it means that if we have the opportunity to receive a higher education, we have the opportunity to become a person who can learn English at home, learn computers, and learn programming languages by ourselves. This is just a mess of our luck relative to many people.
I think when we understand the unfairness of the natural distribution of education in society and the reality that it cannot be changed, we may need to cherish the environment we already have.
If not, you must know that there are many other opportunities in life, and the injustice of the whole society will exist for a long time. We can only work harder to get rid of and create destiny.
source:
1. https://ift.tt/tNjv2qW
2. https://ift.tt/4MRASyZ
3. https://ift.tt/Fkqwx7E
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