Modern Express
October 13, 2009

With a letter to the editorial board of the Xinhua News Agency, Premier Wen Jiabao proves himself a paragon of scientific rigor.

In his short note, the premier apologized for a mistake in a speech whose full transcript was published by the news agency yesterday and reprinted by newspapers across the country.

The letter, written vertically in traditional brush calligraphy, reads:

In my article "Teachers Are the Pillars of Our Education," which was published by your agency yesterday, the categories of petrology ought to be "sedimentary, igneous, and metamorphic". I wish to make this correction and to express my apologies to all readers.

Wen's original text had "sedimentary, igneous, and volcanic rock" (沉积岩、岩浆岩、火山岩). The standard name for "igneous" is 岩浆岩, which translates as "magma rock." An alternate version that Wen included as a parenthetical in his note, 火成岩, is closer to the Latin root of the English term, which means "fire."

Needless to say, the apology burnishes the established reputation of Wen as a humble, down-to-earth, grandfatherly leader, even if, as a graduate of the Beijing Institute of Geology, he really ought to have known such basic information.

Another reason, perhaps a more important one, is that for the Communist Party, which has been touting "scientific" as its top claim to power (as in "the scientific concept of development" associated with president Hu Jintao), scientific rigor is definitely a quality it would like to be associated with.

If that is what the bosses of the party organ have in mind, many newspapers have taken the cue and dedicated large chunks of space to the story. Among them, the Nanjing-based Modern Express made it today's top headline, which appears to be out proportion to the story's little newsworthiness, to say the least.

Wen's apology

The Beijing News ran an article excerpting part of the premier's speech in which he raised questions about the teaching methods at Beijing's #35 Middle School. The article assembled five excerpts, each followed by a teacher's response.

Wen: When the teacher asked what the class should be about, a student replied, "I like rocks. I want to study rocks". However, the teacher avoided the suggestion because (she might think) that rocks are irrelevant to the subject. The teacher should be more knowledgeable and should respond to the student's curiosity more positively.

Gu Fang (Research instruct): The Premier is right that this subject should be all about opening up students' minds and guiding them to discover problems, raise questions, and think independently and come up with a solution. When a students said he wanted to study rocks, I didn't think it was practical since there is only one class per week, so I didn't reply him. Now that the Premier raised this issue, I think he is right. A teacher should encourage and guide, but I am still strongly influenced by old ideas that have prevented me from thinking from a student's perspective.

To foster their ability to explore and discover, we need to protect and respect the students' own interests to enable them to develop their ability to become excellent researchers.

Also, I was a little nervous that day, so I didn't consider some of the questions carefully enough. I will pay attention in the future.