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
18
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
Theadvancementofscienceandtechnologyhasdemonstratedthatafactappearingtocontradicttocertaintheorymayactuallybe
Theprotestwentaheaddespitegovernmentassurancesthattheywouldpressfor______withtheneighboringcountryintheissuing
Aschildrenwestart【C1】______anaturalcuriosityabouteverythingaroundus,andduringthematurationprocessthiscuriosityc
Bypatientquestioningthelawyermanagedto______enoughinformationfromthewitnesses.
InDeathValley,California,oneofthehottest,mostaridplacesinNorthAmerica,thereismuchsalt,andsaltcandamagerock
Theproducersofinstantcoffeefoundtheirproductstronglyresistedinthemarketplacesdespitetheirmanifestadvantages.Fu
Crisiswouldbetherighttermtodescribethe______inmanyanimalspecies.
EndangeredSpeciesEndangeredspeciesareplantsandanimalsthatareinimmediatedangerofextinction.Extinctionisactua
EndangeredSpeciesEndangeredspeciesareplantsandanimalsthatareinimmediatedangerofextinction.Extinctionisactua
随机试题
慢性肺淤血的特征性X线表现是
【背景资料】某城市桥梁工程项目,施工人员在大体积墩台及其基础施工时的部分施工工艺和方法为:(1)在墩台基础中埋放了厚度为120mm的石块,且埋放的数量为混凝土结构体积的20%;(2)在浇筑混凝土时选择了一天中气温较高时进行;(3)在后张有黏结预应力混凝土
为了担保债的履行而在债务人或第三人特定的物或权利上所设定的权利称为()。
已知某基础工程经过调整的双代号网络计划如下图,其表达的正确信息有()。
根据基金销售机构对个人投资者的财富水平的区分,下列哪类个人投资者财富水平最高?()
企业股东大会通过决议宣告发放现金股利和股票股利时,应作为负债和利润分配处理。()
信息化是构建信息与信息的快速传播方式,其本质是一种信息的传递。数据化描述则是将现实世界的某些特点进行数据整理收集或对某些世界的功能进行模拟,并以信息化的状态表述出来。根据上述定义,下列属于数据化描述的是:
投递:收件()
《讨粤匪檄》
在Windows98中可按(1)键得到帮助信息。Windows98中的“回收站”是(2)。在Windows98资源管理器中,要恢复误删除的文件,最简单的办法是单击(3)按钮。
最新回复
(
0
)