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
Americans today don’t place a very high value on intellect. Our heroes are athletes, entertainers, and entrepreneurs, not schola
Americans today don’t place a very high value on intellect. Our heroes are athletes, entertainers, and entrepreneurs, not schola
admin
2016-09-24
50
问题
Americans today don’t place a very high value on intellect. Our heroes are athletes, entertainers, and entrepreneurs, not scholars. Even our schools are where we send our children to get a practical education—not to pursue knowledge for the sake of knowledge. Symptoms of pervasive anti-intellectualism in our schools aren’t difficult to find.
"Schools have always been in a society where practical is more important than intellectual, " says education writer Diane Ravitch. "Schools could be a counterbalance." Ravitch’s latest book, Left Back : A Century of Failed School Reforms, traces the roots of anti-intellectualism in our schools, concluding they are anything but a counterbalance to the American distaste for intellectual pursuits.
But they could and should be. Encouraging kids to reject the life of the mind leaves them vulnerable to exploitation and control. Without the ability to think critically, to defend their ideas and understand the ideas of others, they cannot fully participate in our democracy. Continuing along this path, says writer Earl Shorris, "we will become a second-rate country. We will have a less civil society. "
"Intellect is resented as a form of power or privilege, " writes historian and professor Richard Hofstadter in Anti-intellectualism in American life, a Pulitzer Prize winning book on the roots of anti-intellectualism in U. S. politics, religion, and education. From the beginning of our history, says Hofstadter, our democratic and populist urges have driven us to reject anything that smells of elitism. Practicality, common sense, and native intelligence have been considered more noble qualities than anything you could learn from a book.
Ralph Waldo Emerson and other Transcendentalist philosophers thought schooling and rigorous book learning put unnatural restraints on children: "We are shut up in schools and college recitation rooms for 10 or 15 years and come out at last with a bellyful of words and do not know a thing. " Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn exemplified American anti-intellectualism. Its hero avoids being civilized—going to school and learning to read—so he can preserve his innate goodness.
Intellect, according to Hofstadter, is different from native intelligence, a quality we reluctantly admire. Intellect is the critical, creative, and contemplative side of the mind.
Intelligence seeks to grasp, manipulate, reorder, and adjust, while intellect examines, thinks, wonders, theorizes, criticizes and imagines.
School remains a place where intellect is mistrusted. Hofstadter says our country’s educational system is in the grips of people who "joyfully and militantly proclaim their hostility to intellect and their eagerness to identify with children who show the least intellectual promise. "
What do American parents expect their children to acquire in school?
选项
A、The habit of thinking independently.
B、Profound knowledge of the world.
C、Practical abilities for future career.
D、The confidence in intellectual pursuits.
答案
C
解析
美国家长希望孩子们在学校获得未来就业的实用能力。根据第一段第三句和第二段第一句,我们的学校就是我们送孩子去接受实用教育的地方而不是为了知识而去追求知识的地方。教育作家黛安·拉维奇说,学校一直处在更重视实用性而不是理性知识的社会中。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/uxGO777K
0
考博英语
相关试题推荐
Thenewscommentatorsaysthattheargumentthespeakerhaspresenteddoesnot______water.
Studentsofthegreatsociety,lookingatmankindinthelongperspectiveofhistory,havefrequentlybeendisposedtoseekane
Thepeoplewereveryhappytoseethegovernmenttakingmeasuresto______thepossibilityofinflation.
Themanwassentencedto10yearsinprisonbecausehe______agovernmentofficial.
Thepotentialofcomputersforincreasingthecontroloforganizationsorsocietyovertheirmembersandforinvadingtheprivac
EndangeredSpeciesEndangeredspeciesareplantsandanimalsthatareinimmediatedangerofextinction.Extinctionisactua
Industrial-erathinkingforcescompaniesintocharacterizingtheirbusinessmodelsasbeingeitherproduct-orservice-focused.T
Wheneverabigcompany______asmallone,theproductalmostalwaysgetsworse.
Trafficstatisticspaintagloomypicture.Tohelpsolvetheirtrafficwoes,somerapidlygrowingU.S.citieshavesimplybuilt
Thesurveyshowedthat______numbersof15-year-oldswerealreadysmokingtwentycigarettesaweek.
随机试题
患者,男,81岁。主因“多个关节肿痛9个月,低热6周”就诊。患者应详细询问的病史包括1.是否体重下降2.是否是体力劳动者3.是否有晨僵4.是否与饮食有关5.是否有腰痛6.是否有口腔溃疡7.是否有高血压病史
当无数次重复性试验后,所获得的平均值为()。
研究表明,效果最差的建设项目负责人的领导方式是( )。
在质量管理活动中,企业对供应商进行评价的费用属于()。
只要“网红店”正当竞争、合法经营,对于它们在菜品或店面装修风格、营销方式上的创新举措,人们________。因为至少这些店在探索怎么让顾客吃得好、吃得开心、吃得有个性这方面,是值得_______的。
设随机变量X与Y的联合分布是二维正态分布,X与Y相互独立的充分必要条件是()
人员基本信息一般包括:身份证号,姓名,性别,年龄等。其中可以作为主关键字的是【】。
Whenwillthetablearrive?
Underthis______pressuresomeoftherocksevenbecameliquid.
Yourideas,________,seemunusualtome.
最新回复
(
0
)