Topic 21 有着有趣想法的人

1. Describe a respectful Chinese celebrity who has creative and interesting thoughts.
The first one I can think of is Jack Ma, the founder of Taobao. He is well-known for his fantastic thoughts about E-commerce. He has a great vision for187 online shopping. He also established one of the largest online shopping websites in the world. He’s changed tons of Chinese people’s lifestyles. It’s the reason why so many people respect him.

2. When do children begin to have their own ideas?
I guess children usually start to have their own ideas when they’re five or six. Before that, they’re pretty young. They don’t really have a sense of who they are. But once they start learning, they form their own ideas about how things work. More importantly, they can actually express those ideas to others.

3. Do children have ideas that are similar to their parents? Are their ideas often influenced by their parents?
Yes, usually children have ideas that are similar to their parents’. After all, their parents are the ones raising them. They teach you about the world. So it’s hard not to be affected. But as people grow up,they can start to form ideas that are different from their parents’.

4. Why are there more and more differences between children and their parents?
Well, nowadays everyone is being encouraged to be unique. We’re always told that we shouldn’t depend on our parents’ ideas. If children always listen to their parents and act like their parents, they probably won’t be independent. So they want to have separate ideas188 and act differently than their parents. I don’t know if a good or bad thing. It’s hard to say for sure189.

5. How can teachers inspire children to have different opinions?
Teachers can exposing children to all kinds of ideas190. If children only listen to what their parents or friends say, they’ll probably just have the same opinions as them. So they should take in a wide range of opinions and ideas. Then they can form their own opinions based on that. It’s always best to learn as much as you can before forming opinions.

187 has a great vision for：对…有远大的设想，有远见
188 separate ideas：个人独立的想法
189 It’s hard to say for sure：很难去很肯定的说
190 exposing children to all kinds of ideas: 让孩子接触各种各样的想法