A story about asking the captain's age

How old is the captain? -This is a real and thought-provoking thing. A French educational psychologist once asked the children in Shanghai a question: "There are 75 cows and 32 sheep on a ship, so how old is the captain?" Experts assert that if a student gives an answer, it means that the school has taught the child stupidly. 1998, pupils and junior high school students in a coastal city of China took a test with this joke, and the result was as high as 90%. Even in the third grade of a key middle school in Shanghai, 10% students still got the answer of 75-32 = 43 years old. Only 10% students think this question is ridiculous and can't be answered. Of course 10% of the students got it right, because the topic is just a European joke and there is no answer. When answering a reporter's question, these students said, "The questions given by the teacher are always right, so it is impossible not to do them." "The teacher usually teaches us that we can get points by doing the questions, and we can't get points without doing the questions." Some students think that if addition is used, it should be 107 years old. It is impossible to be a captain at such an age, so I can only be 43 years old.

French experts lamented that China students listened to their teachers very much, because more than 90% of the students raised objections and even laughed at the teacher as an "idiot" when doing experiments on the same topic in French primary schools.

Enlightenment: Only by looking at problems from different angles, boldly questioning and trying to control our own thinking can our education and educated people make great achievements. Of course, this story left us a lot of room for thinking.