I recently heard that the Ministry of Education is going to make major changes in basic education in primary and secondary schools, which reminds me of a past event 30 years ago.
That was 1980. After attending a mechanical drawing training class at a technical school for several months, I was transferred to work in the drawing room to do mechanical drawing and surveying.
One day, the leader sent me to the crushing workshop to survey and map an equipment part and prepare to process it according to the drawing. Arriving at the dark and damp underground equipment with only dim lights, I began to measure the parts amidst the roar of the huge machines.
The part to be measured is a huge steel plate with a large round hole in the middle and a thick rotating shaft passing through the hole. A problem arises: neither the diameter nor the center position of this large circular hole can be measured. It is impossible to remove the running shaft and then measure it; the machine is running, so it is impossible to measure indirectly. This part is shown in the picture below:
To measure the diameter and position of the circle
I used my brain and used the mathematical knowledge I learned in the first semester of the second grade of junior high school to list a three-dimensional linear equation system, and then solved the equation. The drawing of the part is drawn.
When the Cultural Revolution began in 1966, I was almost finishing my second grade of junior high school. After that, he went to the countryside to become an educated youth and was recruited as a worker. As of 1980, he had never learned any mathematics. Therefore, ternary linear equations can only be learned in the first semester of the second grade of junior high school, and ternary quadratic equations will be learned in the next semester.
Later, the original design drawing of the part that was not found at first was found in the gallery. Comparing it with the original picture, I found that the center position of the circle calculated by mathematical formulas only differed by 2 millimeters. You must know that this steel plate is a relatively rough piece, with a total length of 4.6 meters. The round hole is also about 1 meter in size, and the 2 mm error is completely negligible.
10 years have passed. The company built a new modern factory with imported equipment from abroad, and recruited a large number of college students. There are also several newly graduated college students in our office. One day while chatting, a college student asked everyone a question. I suddenly remembered this work I did 10 years ago. I took it out to test the students and told them the requirements: the known conditions are only two dimensions: length and width, and the diameter and position of the circle must be drawn.
Everyone thought for a long time and looked at each other, but no one came up with an answer. Finally, I explained the method and told them: This is the content of the first semester of the second year of junior high school.
Many of these college students graduated from the 985 and 211 programs.
Later, on this topic, plus several other mathematical knowledge used in actual surveying and mapping projects, I wrote a paper "Application of Mathematics in Mechanical Surveying and Mapping" and published it in a magazine. In fact, most of the so-called mathematics is junior high school knowledge.
From this point of view, college students often fail to integrate theory with practice, and it is a common phenomenon that the knowledge learned is disconnected from practical application.
Therefore, it is time for education to be reformed.
