“我热爱地理，但实在学不下来理科和高数” "I love geography but I feel so difficult"
©️Cedric
2020.11.05
During a morning jog
去吧！一点问题也没有，要是你觉得太难了，放弃大学学地理，探索别处的生活。
Go! If you feel too difficult to handle, absolutely fine to quit geography in the university and explore your life elsewhere.
今年听过一些故事（我也有些经历），我决定写一点可能2019年的我都会不同意的话。但今年的我、此时此刻的我（可能以后的我会变卦），会选择这样去写：现在我不会阻止一个离开ta的地理专业。
After listening to some stories (and my personal experiences) this year, I decided to write something that even the younger me in 2019 would disagree. Now I will not stop a person quitting their geography major.
事实上，我觉得我不会挽留任何一个想要离开地理专业的人。
准确来说，不是针对地理专业，我是说，所有的专业都可退。
在不符合你预期，你也觉得实在学得很难受的时候，
退学转系都是对自己现在和将来人生更负责的做法。
In fact, I do not think I will say anything to win the person want to leave their geography major.
To be precise, not just geography, I mean, all majors can be withdrawn.
When what you learn is not what you expect, and you feel bad about yourself, you decide to terminate your study or transfer to other departments are more responsible for your current and future life.
我觉得学不下去就不要学了，无论是选择终止还是暂停，你在自己的人生里随时都有权利可以按下你选择的这个键，先想想自己到底爱什么。
其他的专业我确实也不太了解，我也无意冒犯，其实我也无意冒犯所有和我一样真心实意热爱着中学地理科目和大学地理学科的地理教育从业者。但我如果说了下面这句话就一定是在撒谎：
要是你中学地理学得好也喜欢地理，
你大学选地理也会学得很好很顺利。
现在这学校里教的地理和大学里教/研究的地理是不同的地理。
对于一个不太了解两者差别的文科生（当然现在似乎这个文理分科的说法，从政策上来说又有点过时）来说，确实是太存在一些设想和现实之间的差异可能让人一时间接受不了，甚至可能让一些人选择不再继续。
I think if you find it too difficult for you to continue, no matter your choice is to terminate or pause; you always have the right to do it in your life so that you can get the time to think what really like/love.
I am not familiar with other majors, and I do not mean to offend all my colleagues and teachers/ supervisors who do love what they teach or research. But I would be lying if I say:
if you like school geography and are good at it,
then when you choose geography in the university,
you will enjoy and perform well in the geography major in the university.
The geography as a school subject to be learnt by pupils and geography as a university discipline to be taught and researched are different geography.
To someone who considers oneself as a humanities student, when they are not familiar with the difference between school geography and academic geography, what they thought that they would learn in the university would be hugely different from what they actually need to learn in reality. This could be not easy and even stop someone from continuing their study.
©️Cedric
2020.11.05
During a morning jog
人生很短，能做的事情有很多。
Life is short; you have so many things to do.
这是最近我得到的建议，也是再次提醒我在中学设置地理科目的目的。
Someone gave this advice for me, to remind why we set the geography as a school subject.
每个国家在中小学设置或不设置国家地理课程，不是就为了培养这门课程母学科的未来人才，更多是给所有学生提供一种在原本的日常生活中比较难以接触到的看待世界和自己的视角。
Each country sets a National Geography Curriculum or not in their school subjects, not for, or not at least mainly for preparing future talent in the parenting disciplines, but more to provide perspectives that which may not get access to in their daily life outside school. These perspectives can be used for the school pupils to understand themselves and the world in new ways.
在中学阶段学习地理可以看作是帮助学生掌握一种可以用学了地理会更善于使用的视角看待自己生活和未来要生活的这颗星球。我们的高中课程现在用一个术语叫做"核心素养"，之前用"知识与技能、过程与方法、情感态度价值观"，再往前用"双基"。但这些不同的术语说到底，都是为了中学生的全面发展来定制的地理课程。
Learning geography at schools can be seen as a process to help students to master one perspective to view the planet they are living now and going to live in the future. In China, the current geography curriculum describes this geographical perspective in "key competencies", used to "knowledge and skills, process and methods, emotions, attitudes and values", the previous one as "double basics". However, these different terms, on the earth, are for the geography curriculum designed for school pupils' round development.
在目前的我看来，学校地理就是提供了一种独特的视角（其他科目也是，都有各自独特的促进人潜能发展的独特贡献）。或者说一副眼镜这个比喻更容易理解，尽管不如视角那么适合。即使你喜欢对这副精心打造出来的眼镜满意，也对教你怎么使用这副眼镜的人感到满意，并不意味着你自己就觉得：好！我也要学习怎么做这副眼镜。
From what I see, school geography provides a unique perspective (so does other subjects, each school subject has its unique contribution to human potential. I would say a pair of glasses may be an easier metaphor to understand, despite being as appropriate as perspective. Even if you really enjoy this pair of glass, and enjoy the time with the person who guides you along the way to master the usage of it, it does not mean you will hold this view for long: good! I would also like to learn to make this pair of glass.
有人很喜欢的视角中的其中一种视角，有人可能就只喜欢这种视角，也有人会因为老师教得不符合自己的学习方式而不喜欢这种视角，也有人就是说不清原因但对学地理甚至学校里的所有科目都还没有感觉。所有这些都是可能的，即使地理课程似乎就是那个政策里面的、教材里设定好的。
Geography may be one of your favourite perspectives, or apple of your eye. There are also possibilities for school pupils to dislike this perspective as the teacher taught in the way they did not enjoy, some pupils may have no urge to learn geography or any school subjects without being able to articulate why. These are all likely to happen in the same geography curriculum which seemed to be written down in the policy or textbooks.
进到大学之后的地理课程以及地理系学生要学的课程，所依据的政策、所使用的教学资料与之前为中学课程所制定的政策、教材从源头开始就不同，教学目标也更是不同的导向。
The geography courses in the university and the courses for students studying the discipline, the relevant policies and teaching materials are different from the beginning of their sources, orienting in different educational purposes.
最容易让人感到困惑的就是长期以来地理似乎在实践中总被看作是中学文科，大学理科。我会认为文、理分科本来对于地理这门学科就不是适合，这个分类标准就不是很适合地理这门学科。和我有同感的人是可能拥抱高考新政策中不分文理科的。但在长久的实践中，确实有一些刻板印象似乎在一些老师、学生心中就很难立刻更新，甚至在学校的行政系统中也依然守旧。
The most confusing part is that school geography has long been considered as one of the humanities subjects, and academic geography as one of the scientific disciplines. I would argue the brutal category of humanities and sciences does not fit well with the discipline of geography. People who shared this argument with me are likely to embrace the new Gaokao policy without the inappropriate category. But when something has been implemented for long, the stereotype does exist in some teachers and students, and even in the administrative system.
我觉得这里面没有人错，因为在用的分类不同，旧分类不会一夜之间消失。但其实再守旧的人，也不得不要承认我们这个新时代已经可以有不同的观点同时存在。新的观点已经出现了，地理不需要给自己贴文或理的标签了。旧的观点还需要时间逐渐式微，还会在一段时间内还有人要去贴文理标签。
I would say no one is wrong as they use different categories; the old category will not disappear overnight. But even someone who strongly holds this old category would have to accept the different views can exist in our new era. The new view has already stood out to say that geography no longer needs the tag of either "humanities" or "science". The previous view still needs time to fade; someone will still try to tag geography.
我个人观点是，与其去争什么文理，不妨考虑一下用这个视角，老师和学生一起去思考清楚对个人发展而言更相关也有挑战性的问题：
什么是学校地理？它为什么存在（我们为什么学习它）？
什么是学术地理？什么情况下我要考虑将来学地理学科？
My personal view is, there is no need to waste time in saying geography is either/both "humanities" and "sciences". The more challenging and relevant questions for teachers and students to think could be the following:
What is school geography?
Why does school geography exist (why we learn geography at school)?
What is academic geography?
In what circumstances I shall consider the future of studying geography in the university?
近期在读一本2020年10月20日一位英国地理老师Alan Parkinson 出版的新书 Why Study Geography，里面的前七章用问题和主题的形式实实在在告诉读者学地理是怎么回事，学了地理会走向哪里，可以从事什么工作。期待有一天我们也有这样实实在在的书，这样从根源上帮助学生更理解自己到底是喜欢学校地理带来的宽阔视野，还是想以地理为志业、或者用所学的地理去改变世界...
I am reading a new book by Alan Parkinson in the title of "Why Study Geography". The first seven chapters provide his thoughts over the questions and discuss the topics to tell the readers what it means to study geography, where it would take you and what job you can do. Hope one day we would have a similar book in China to help school pupils to identify what they like in geography, the broad perspective, or taking academic geography as their dedication, or use what they learned in geography to change the world...
今天就写到这里。
Enough for today.
截图源自screenshot from:
https://www.amazon.com/Why-Study-Geography-Alan-Parkinson/dp/1913019152