ISSUE28 请猛拍！！！

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Is it appropriate for the students to memorize facts only after they have studied the ideas, trends and concepts that might help them to understand the facts, as the author mentions? In my view, I fundamentally agree with the author's contention. However, the speaker unfairly exaggerates the effects of ideas, trends and concepts as the basis of interpret the facts. Also, the author ignores otherwise possibility that the facts may act as practical cases which help the student to seize the ideas, grasp the trends and understand the concepts they have learnt in class. All my contentions will be explained below.

First, I concede the speaker's assertion that only after understand the ideas, trends and concepts can the students memorize the facts. No one could deny the fact that it is easier for the student to memorize the facts on the basis that they have learnt and already interpreted the ideas, trends and concepts. Otherwise, if the student memorize the facts literally, they would find it difficult to memorize them and easy to forget them only after few days. To make matters worse, if the student cannot keep these facts deeply in mind, they will never interrelate the facts or theories to construct a knowledge system in their brains. Thus, they will never be seminal and come up with new ideas in cases where they find coincides or interrelations between facts or theories memorized in their minds. Isaac Newton had said that he could see further because he stood on the shoulders of Giants. Newton had written out the Principia--The Mathematical Principle of Natural Philosophy because he had found the interrelationship between the motions of heavenly bodies and math computation. Consider that if Newton had not remembered the theories about the motions of planets and moons, comets and spacecraft and the principle of math, how could have he come up new ideas about the Universe.

However, what could the student do if they only understand the ideas, trends and concepts? The students do not know the facts and hence they cannot relate the facts with the theories and apply the theories to solve the existed problem they might meet in daily life. Also, many previous theories may be finally proven wrong when it comes to the time that the existed theories cannot explain a new phenomenon. Furthermore, scientists still work on the most recent ideas such as black holes, gravitational waves and the beginning of the Universe. For themselves, they do not even know whether the hypothesis is right but they may tell their thoughts to the student to stimulate their interests in such areas. If the students only tried to understand the trends without examining their correct, the case would be a tragedy.

Consider twice the effects of facts may have on understanding the ideas, trends and concepts. I find that the author wrongly ignores the fact that facts can help the student to understand the ideas, trends and concepts. Moreover, the facts may help students to develop new ideas and theories. A scenario in science perfectly demonstrates my point of this view. The Light-electron effect suggests that the energy of light can be divided and thus light can be treated as millions of energy particles. Yet the graph of interference produced by light propagating a narrow slot has explained the wavelike nature of light. If the students only understand the wave theory and the particle theory, how could they explain this Light-electron effect? As Plank suggested a hypothesis in 1900 that the energy of light and everything can actually be divided into particles, Einstein and other scientists developed Plank’s theory into Quantum Mechanics several years later. Only by observing newly found phenomena and effects which cannot even be explained by existed theories, can the student really understand the ideas; trends and concepts they have learnt in class which might be proven totally wrong afterwards and thus develop new reasonable theory.

In sum, I agree with the author in aspect that if the students have not learnt the ideas, trends and concepts needed to explain the facts they will not know why those phenomena occur and will not memorize them. However, the “only” unfairly exaggerates the effects of ideas, trends and concepts in future study and inventions. Furthermore, the author ignores the effects of facts on the student to develop new ideas, trends and concepts.