Self-Education, Lifelong Learning, and Frequent Reflection

When Mr. Zhou Youguang spoke about education, he emphasized three points: first, education hinges on self-education; second, one must pursue lifelong learning; third, one must reflect often.

When Zhou Youguang was in middle school, classes were held in the morning, while afternoons and evenings were self-study periods; students studied electives in the school on their own according to their interests. This shows that Republican-era education was more enlightened than today. I see that children of my son's generation have little self-study time, and when I was at school I did not have so much either. But I was lucky: in high school my teachers took special care of me, allowed me to skip classes, gave me a key to their office, and let me arrange my own study. They cared only about results, not process, as long as my exam scores satisfied them. So from then on I had considerable freedom.

Some time ago, my son's math teacher fell ill and took a leave of over a month; the school assigned another math teacher to substitute, and the substitute was also stretched thin. Later the regular teacher and the substitute arranged for my son to lecture his classmates on new material, because his math scores were the best in the class. I was delighted by this, because it gave the child a chance to self-educate and to train himself at the podium. He prepared very conscientiously, looked up a lot of material, and reportedly gave a decent lecture.

Teachers should give children such opportunities for self-education, and parents should too. Self-education is a habit that must be cultivated from childhood. I have always opposed sending my son to extracurricular tutoring classes; from primary school until now he has handled his own study and homework. I barely supervised him, let alone tutored him. There is something wrong with our education today: there are far too many cram schools, parents are too anxious, always expecting their children to win in competition, paying tutors to occupy the child's time with coaching. Few are willing to slow down and let the child develop the habit of self-education; I personally do not endorse such education.

When Zhou Youguang went to study in Japan, he was admitted to Kyoto University, and he completed his coursework through self-study rather than by attending professors' lectures. He and his wife Zhang Yunhe felt most strongly in Japan that self-education is vitally important. Everyone eventually leaves school; if one has not cultivated the habit of self-education at school, it becomes hard to make further progress afterward. A person who has formed the habit of self-education can self-educate every day and broaden their knowledge. Such a person adapts well to new environments, because they can always improve themselves through self-education.

We often say "live and learn"—that is lifelong learning. In fact, lifelong learning first requires the habit and ability of self-education. Many people lack that habit and ability, making lifelong learning very difficult for them. No matter how well we do at school, if we stop learning afterward we are easily eliminated by society. Human knowledge and technology advance so fast that what we learned ten years ago is already outdated, and what we learn today will be outdated in three to five years. Without continued learning we cannot keep pace with the times.

Because I developed the habit of self-education at school, after leaving school I lived near a library and set aside time each day to study there on my own. I also kept writing relentlessly, which is a way of taking notes on what I have learned. Once the habit of daily study and writing is formed, it produces great effect. Learning depends on accumulating over time; the idea that one can achieve mastery overnight through talent alone is a fantasy. Only those who can settle down and accumulate day by day can truly succeed.

I am not the brightest person; growing up I met many people smarter than I, but I may be one of those with the greatest endurance and perseverance. I compensate for my intellectual shortcomings through daily study and lifelong learning—this is what the ancients called "diligence making up for dullness." The ancients also said, "Heaven rewards the diligent." Some people now envy my relatively free life; honestly, I earned this freedom through diligence. To be fair, I sweated more than others and desired less, so heaven had to reward me with something; in the end it gave me more freedom.

Zhou Youguang said: "Prophets are self-appointed, and prophecies are deceptive. If one does not reflect afterward, that is true stupidity. Cleverness comes from reflection." This is excellently put. We must grow wiser by reflecting on all sorts of things we experience. When we do something right, we should reflect, because there may be a better solution and we may have merely used an inferior one. When we do something wrong, we should reflect even more, because such reflection lets us learn from failure. Reflection is a very effective learning method; we make major progress through it.

Whenever a difficulty arises, we should quiet our mind. What for? To think and reflect calmly—think thrice before acting, and also reflect thrice after acting. A person who does not think or reflect can only live in arrogance and folly. A nation that does not think or reflect is also arrogant and foolish; though it may look splendid and glittering, it is all too often "gold outside, rubbish within."

Although the Confucian sage Zengzi taught us to "examine ourselves three times a day," few truly manage it. Those who do at least will not repeatedly stumble in the same place—Confucius called this "not repeating the same mistake," meaning those good at reflection do not commit the same error twice. Reflection relies on self-criticism and accepting criticism; those who can criticize and accept criticism are confident and wise, and a nation that can do so is a great nation.

Do not fear difficulty; difficulty is an opportunity for progress. People grow fastest amid hardship. Everyone is somewhat lazy; it is always hardship that spurs us to think and reflect. The brain also follows the basic natural law of "use it or lose it": use it much and it improves, neglect it and it degenerates. Great scholars like Zhou Youguang, Zheng Ji, Yang Jiang, and Coase remained mentally sharp past a hundred precisely because they kept using their brains.