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  3. (1)Oscar Wilde’s definition of a cynic was someone who knew the price of everything and the value of nothing. His epigram applie

(1)Oscar Wilde’s definition of a cynic was someone who knew the price of everything and the value of nothing. His epigram applie

admin2021-08-05  31
问题     (1)Oscar Wilde’s definition of a cynic was someone who knew the price of everything and the value of nothing. His epigram applies to the way we talk about education nowadays, focusing on what it can do for the economy. That is indeed important, but it does not capture the real value of education. It is almost as if people are afraid of saying education is a good thing in itself. That comes from a loss of confidence in the importance of transmitting a body of knowledge, a culture, ways of thinking, from one generation to the next. It is a crucial obligation we have to the next generation and we are failing to discharge it.
    (2)The latest example of this loss of confidence in education is the titles of the departments created by splitting the Department for Education in two. We have the Department of Innovation, Universities and Skills and we have the Department for Children, Schools and Families. The key word that is missing in those two lists is education. It is almost as if the government has lost confidence in the value of education, as distinct from other worthwhile aims such as helping families or raising our levels of innovation.
    (3)For the government, science is no longer about evidence and reason, it is a lever for increasing productivity. Foreign languages are not a means of appreciating the culture of another people; they are a means of improving trade. Yet people do not become teachers because they aspire to raising the rate of growth; they wish to pass on a love of their subjects. There is a paradox here. If we see education as a way of imparting a body of knowledge, we will do better at the functionalist side of education as well. Like happiness, it can be achieved only as a byproduct of something else.
    (4)Real education means real subjects with a history, shape and rigour, together with the intellectual curiosity to challenge and renew them. Our body of knowledge must be rooted in a tradition, but must also be open to questioning. Indeed, what we know changes all the time—when Einstein was at Oxford in the 1930s, he set a physics paper with the same questions for two years running. When his colleagues challenged him, he replied that although the questions were the same the answers were different. That is part of the excitement of intellectual endeavour.
    (5)Of course, skills matter too. But often they are best mastered through learning stuff. Look at what has gone wrong with history. We expect school-children to compare different primary sources and learn the analytical tools of the historian, but we will not allow them the sheer excitement of learning what happens next in a narrative history of our own country.
    (6)Several subjects now face the vicious spiral of not enough people emerging from university who have studied the subject to provide the teachers to keep it going in schools. We cannot just solve this problem by passing a law or setting yet another target. We need a smarter policy than this that understands the role of a proud profession in living up to its own standards, and the power of choice by parents and students.
    (7)There are problems with the national curriculum but even more important is the intricate relationship between the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority and the examining boards. This is the source of the dumbing down and predictability of exams.
Oscar Wilde’s definition of a cynic applies to the way we talk about today’s education because _____.
选项 A、the public fail to value education for itself
B、the expenses of modern education is too high
C、me definitions of two objects are the same
D、me economic development depends on education
答案A
解析 第1段首句提到，Oscar Wilde对“愤世嫉俗者”的定义是只知道价格(表面)而不知道价值(内在)的人；接着第2、3句提到，人们现在谈论教育的时候只是围绕教育能为经济做什么(表面)，而忽略了教育自身的价值(内在)。A的说法与此一致，故正确。B虽是公众批评教育的热点，但文中未提及；作者借用OscarWilde的“愤世嫉俗者”的定义去谈论教育是因为二者有一定的相似性，而不是定义完全相同，故C错；D在下文中有提及，但不是两者相似的原因。
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