英国要用中国方法教小学生数学了，英国网友炸开了锅

英国人数学差，是出了名的。前首相卡梅伦去年在一次讲话中强调乘法表的重要性，然后记者问他8x9等于多少……他直接转移话题，说自己只在送孩子上学的车里和孩子练乘法表。英国国家数学能力中心的调查显示，英国成年人数学不好导致英国政府每年直接或间接经济损失200亿英镑。痛定思痛，英国政府决定向数学大国，中国，取经。所以，现在，“中国style”教学法要在英国全面推广了！

然后，英国人民就炸开锅了。大家恍然大悟，这不就是我们以前的上课方法嘛……

Learning by rote then. Basically, the way maths was taught in the 50s. Worked well when I was a kid and I enjoyed it too.

这就是死记硬背嘛。基本上，50年代数学就是这么教的。我小时候觉得效果很好啊，我很喜欢的。

【by rote】死记硬背，机械地

That's not "Chinese style", that's Victorian style. They used to do this the same way in schools all over the British Empire until the post-WWII years ushered in crazy left-wing ideological meddling with the school system and broke teaching so fundamentally that it's a miracle you learn anything useful in middle-school today at all.

这才不是中国style，这是维多利亚style。二战前大英帝国的学校都是这么教的！然后他们就引进了各种左翼疯狂思想，搅乱了教学系统，教育就彻底崩坏了。现在你想在中学学到点有用的知识简直就是个奇迹。

【usher in】引进，领进

还有人跑题，赞美中国孩子素质高。

Some pupils from a school near Beijing, China are on a visit to my daughters secondary school. They all speak impeccable English as well as their mother tongue. So very polite and courteous as well - great young amassadors for their country.

中国北京周边一个学校的学生来访问我女儿的中学。他们一个个都讲一口流利英语，跟说母语似的。特别讲文明懂礼貌，真是中国的小大使。

【impeccable】无可挑剔的，没有缺点的

【mother tongue】母语，本国语言

大多数网友都很赞同这个做法：

Better idea. Let's get ALL schools to actually TEACH instead of pamper the little........darlings.

这样更好。学校都真真正正开始“教育”而不是“放纵”这些小宝贝吧！

【pamper】宠爱，纵容，过度关怀

但很多人对英国老师不是很有信心。

Common sense at last.But are the teachers up to it?

终于有点常识了。不过老师们真的能胜任么？

【up to it】能做到

The problem is teaching kids like this, involves hard work. Nobody likes hard work anymore. Especially if you are in a teachers union.

这样教小孩的问题是，要费很大心力。现在没人喜欢努力工作了。尤其是你加入了教师工会的话。

还有人把错误都怪在英国文化上……

Yet again we are foolish enough to think that you can just copy a teaching method from an entirely different culture and that it will work in our own.

又傻了吧，觉得可以直接从一个完全不同的文化中复制一套教育方法拿过来用。

但是也有人指出，这种教学方法，对于实际能力的培养十分有限。

As a British mathematics teacher who teaches mathematics to children in Shanghai (following over a decade of teaching British children in the UK), I feel suitably qualified to comment on this.

作为一名在上海教数学的英国数学老师（我之前在英国教了十几年），我觉得自己有资格对这件事做些评论。

It is true that Shanghai's children, in general, have a higher level of numeracy and can perform calculations some three or so years ahead of their UK counterparts. It is not true, however, that this makes them better mathematicians.

没错，上海的孩子一般来说是要在计算能力方面比英国同龄人领先3-4年。但是这不意味着他们会成为更好的数学家。

They tend to have a limited appreciation of why they are doing anything, knowing only how to repeat mechanical processes flawlessly.

他们不是很清楚为什么要这么做，只知道准确无误地机械重复过程。

Their understanding of statistics and geometry tends to be significantly behind that of UK children, and their problem solving skills are minimal. In short, yes, these methods are very successful at making 'human calculators', but quite unsuccessful at preparing children for any useful application of that knowledge.

他们对统计和几何的理解要落后于英国的学生，他们解决实际问题的能力也比较弱。总而言之，是的，这些教学方式非常成功地把他们培训成“人类计算器”，但在知识的运用方面打得基础则比较弱。