首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
At Harvard College in September, a controversy erupted over the adoption of a "freshman pledge, " which for the first time asked
At Harvard College in September, a controversy erupted over the adoption of a "freshman pledge, " which for the first time asked
admin
2012-12-01
37
问题
At Harvard College in September, a controversy erupted over the adoption of a "freshman pledge, " which for the first time asked incoming students to sign a commitment to act with respect, integrity, and kindness in order to "promote understanding." Libertarian commentator Virginia Postrel, wrote that "treating ’kindness’ as the way to civil discourse doesn’t show students how to argue with accuracy and respect." Harry R. Lewis, a former dean of Harvard College and someone with an excellent perspective on undergraduate education, warned that it impinged on freedom of thought and that "a student would be breaking the pledge if she woke up one morning and decided it was more important to achieve intellectually than to be kind."
Has empathy become the new scapegoat in the long-standing concern about academic attainment in American schools? Books like Academically Adrift chart the decline in academic rigor on American college campuses, citing the plummeting hours that students spend on studying and critical thinking skills. But there’s also been a troubling, and concurrent decrease in empathy over the past thirty years. A study of 14, 000 college students published in Personality and Social Psychology Review in 2011 showed that the majority of college students today are less empathetic than their predecessors of prior decades. And other research even shows that education (like medical school!) can actually wring the empathy out of students.
Many people are squeamish about calls to increase empathy in young people because they wrongly assume that the ability to empathize is incompatible with traits like logic, reason, and impartiality. We’ve now entered a debate about how nice we should be or, rather, how nice we can afford to be and still stay competitive as a society, clinging to the pernicious belief that anything beneficial to young people must be painful and that we are in a rat race that is a zero-sum game.
In fact, there need be no tradeoff, at Harvard or anywhere else, between intellectual rigor and kindness. This is a false dichotomy, like the belief that a sick person must choose between a competent doctor and a humane one. Indeed, empathetic behavior—listening well, for example—actually makes a doctor better able to diagnose and treat illness, and studies show that when doctors are empathetic, their patients need less medication to relieve pain and less time to heal wounds.
People often equate empathy with gentleness and passivity. But empathy is really just a cognitive walk in another person’s shoes. An empathetic person is, fundamentally, a curious and imaginative person. Empathy involves a search for understanding. And we need today’s students to understand the world better in order to respond to its seemingly intractable problems.
Many educators agree that the intellectual skills required for the 21st century depend on not only a mastery of facts and figures, but also on complex communication, flexibility, collaboration, adaptability, and innovation. We live in a more open society than ever, with greater mixing of people and ideas.
The ability to master a new language, to translate scientific findings into policy, or to weave the concerns of one field into the terms of another (the way a Macintosh computer melds engineering and design), requires students to step outside of their own life experience and habits of mind. Steve Jobs had empathy for his customers.
Of course, we can always find examples of world-class thinkers who are oblivious to people’s feelings. But that doesn’t negate the fact that the vast majority of students will need to assume the perspective of others in order to get ahead in life. We can call this empathy. Or we can call it 21st century learning. It’s both. Empathy doesn’t always lead to more moral behavior, but it can lead to more intelligent behavior.
Virginia Postrel’s attitude towards the adoption of a "freshman pledge" is
选项
A、favorable.
B、scrupulous.
C、incredulous.
D、impartial.
答案
C
解析
态度题。由题干中的Virginia Postrel定位至首段。在首句指出the adoption of a“freshman pledge”之后,Virginia Postrel指出“treating‘kindness’as the way to civil discourse doesn’t show students how to argue with accuracy and respect”,显然,她不认为这对后面提到的accuracy和respect有很大的帮助,但又没有直接否定,因此质疑态度是比较合适的推断,故[C]为答案。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/CFaO777K
0
专业英语八级
相关试题推荐
HowtoPlanYourFutureCareerForafewmonthsbeforegraduation,universitystudentsarebusywithjobhunting.Severalpoin
Inrecentyears,moreandmorecollegestudentshavebeenworkingintheirsparetime.Somepeoplethinkitaffectsstudents’st
StudentsofUnitedStateshistory,seekingtoidentifythecircumstancesthatencouragedtheemergenceoffeministmovements,ha
DangersofUsingComputerTerminalsUndoubtedly,thecomputerhasgreatlyincreasedhumanbeing’sworkingcapacityandintelle
Teenagersareunderalotofpressuretobethin.Theyareledtobelievethattheonlywaytheycanbeacceptedandfitin,is
______takesLondonasthesettinginmostofhisnovels.
Asubtledistinctioninthewaywomenaresingledoutbythelanguageisevidentinthewaythatthesamepersonality【M1】______
A、NATOB、RussiaC、theUnitedStatesD、theUnitedNationsA本题考查细节,新闻最后提到中东会谈四方包括美国、俄罗斯、欧盟与联合国。
你得承认,多媒体不只是一件东西.而是包括许多东西的复杂的组合:硬件、软件和这两者相遇时的界面。不,我们还忘了一件很重要的事情.多媒体还包括你。是的.就是!对于多媒体.你不再县一个被动的观众-株可以控制可以交互作用.可以让它按你的需要去做。这就意味着你可以按
Shelby’ssnackshopwasthenamethatBrianEgemoofBadger,Iowa,appliedtohiswife’ssideofthebed.In1994Shelly,whoha
随机试题
分度叉的作用是便于多次重复使用相同圈孔数的分度操作。()
Icannotimagineatimewhen______tosolve.
以下那些造影剂不可以应用于心肌造影()
某工程划分为A、B、C、D4个施工过程,3个施工段,流水节拍均为3天,其中A与月之间间歇1天,B与C之间搭接1天,C与D之间间歇2天,则该工程计划工期应为()。
背景资料:《公路工程国内招标文件范本》指出:投标人必须通过资格预审并取得投标资格;投标人一般应独自参与投标,如以联合体形式投标,必须遵守相关规定;投标人编写的投标文件,应包括必须的内容;分标段招标的,招标人应合理划分标段。问题:投标
已知某公司下属20个企业职工的分组资料,如表4-2所示。根据上述资料计算该公司职工的平均工资步骤中:根据该资料计算的平均工资为()元。
构建社会主义和谐社会,是在发展的基础上正确处理各种社会矛盾的()和社会结果。
按照标识符的要求,下列选项中,()符号不能组成标识符。
在模块的声明部分使用“OptionBasel”语句,然后定义二维数组A(2t05,5),则该数组的元素个数为()。
Thereareanumberofformatsforreportingresearch,suchasarticlestoappearinjournals,reportsaddressedtofundingagenc
最新回复
(
0
)