55.
Why has the government issued “the Eight Honours and Disgraces”?
A. To
ask Chinese people to gain more knowledge. B. To tell people to obey
laws.
C. To
tell people that science is very important D. To
help Chinese people form life values.
E
The
question of what children learn, and how they should learn it, is continually
being debated and redebated. Nobody dares any longer to defend the old system,
the parrot-fashion(way of learning by repeating what others say)of learning lessons,
the grammar-with-a-whip(鞭子)system, which was good enough for our grandparents. The
theories of modern psychology have stepped in to argue that we must understand
the needs of our children. Children are not just small adults; they are
children who must be respected as such.
Well,
you may say, this is as it should be, and a good idea. But think further. What
happens? “Education” becomes the responsibility not of teachers, But of
psychologists. What happens then? Teachers worry too much about the
psychological implications(暗示)of their lessons, and forget about the subjects
themselves. If a child dislikes a lesson, the teacher feels that it is his
fault, not the child’s. So teachers worry whether history is “relevant” to
modern young children. And do they dare to recount stories about violent
battles? Or will this make the children themselves violent? Can
they tell their classes about children of different races, or will this
encourage racial hatred? Why teach children to write grammatical sentences?
Oral expression is better. Sums? Arithmetic? No: real-life mathematical
situations are more understandable.
You
see, you can go too far, Influenced by educational theorists, who have nothing
better to do than write books about their ideas, teachers leave their
teaching-training colleges filled with grand, psychological ideas about
children and their needs. They make complicated(复杂)preparations and try out their “modern methods” on the
long-suffering children. Since one “modern method” rapidly replaces another,
the poor kids will have well been fed up by the time they leave school. Frequently
the modern methods are so complicated that they fail to be understood by the
teachers, let alone the children; even more often, the relaxed discipline so
necessary for the “informal” feeling the class must have, prevents all but a
handful of children from learning anything.