好,这里首先遇到的是关于自学和对于学习态度的问题。
来看一道issue题目:
issue223:
Education is primarily a personal matter; it has little to do with school or college.
知识完全靠自学可不可以?如果是,自学相对于学校教育的优点在哪里;如果不是,那么相反可以体现出学校教育的优略性来。关于自学成材,大家可能很快会想到微软总裁比尔·盖茨的例子。这的确是一个经典的例子;但是有一点值得关注,那就是当时的他已经具有退学创办公司,实现他的想法的能力。对于大多数人来说,这往往并不现实。
issue51:
Education will be truly effective only when it is specifically designed to meet the individual needs and interests of each student.
issue80:
All students should be required to take courses in the sciences, even if they have no interest in science.
issue90:
College students should be encouraged to pursue subjects that interest them rather than seek programs that promise entry into the job market.
爱因斯坦说过:兴趣是最好的老师。我们每个人也都会有类似的感觉:当碰到是自己喜欢的事物时,再麻烦、在困难都不会当成一回事,能够都克服,最终学到自己想要的东西。
创造性思维的问题。
issue128:
It is often asserted that the purpose of education is to free the mind and the spirit. In reality, however, formal education tends to restrain our minds and spirits rather than set them free.
影片《黑客帝国》里有这么一句经典的台词:Free your mind。创造性思维对于新的学习、研究成果来说是非常重要的,可以用vital来形容。如今日益发达的金融交易市场,种种金融创新工具的推陈出新,正是得益于这种创造性思维。
批判性思维和创造性思维:推动知识社会前进的主要动力
——[美]多拉·豪维尔
(前略)
三、创新能力
创新能力包括能够在非常相似的事物中敏锐地发现其细微的不同。它依靠抽象思维来创造新颖的、独特的概念,用新的方法解决新的问题。培养这种创新能力的策略包括:让学生置身于有多种发展可能性的真实的问题之中,而问题的本身并没有固定答案。比如说水资源污染的问题,我们目前并没有找到一个很好的解决途径。我们可以让学生来讨论这个问题,让他们探讨有哪些可能的解决方法。老师应该给他们一些时间讨论这些问题。此外的策略还包括测试、评估学生提出的这些可能性,这时老师可以给出一些提示,让他们跳出已经形成的固定思维模式,让他们从其它的角度来思考这个问题,从而培养他们的观察力和洞察力。
创新能力不是依赖于特别的天赋或特别优秀的智力,而是依赖于思维产生的创造力。创新能力的一个先决条件是不要将固定的思维模式强加给眼前的事实,而是要学会如何另辟蹊径,即使这样做可能意味着将推翻他习以为常的思维方式。爱因斯坦就是创新思维的典范。他认为想象力比知识更为重要。在他的一个著名的有关思维的实验中,他问到:“如果我能以光速运行,世界将会怎样?”这个独特的视角使爱因斯坦超越了现有的知识。现有的知识认为,“时间和空间是绝对的,当光穿越时空的时候会不断发生变化。”爱因斯坦在思想上的这一小小的转换,使光超越了人们的原有概念,而被重新定义成了一个绝对的、时空的延续体。爱因斯坦具有创造性的想象给了我们全新的启示。
许多学者和教育工作者认为,一种创造性的学习能力是人类普遍共有的。孩子们通过不断地尝试、不断地完善,学会了走路、说话、了解周围的事物。孩子们在早期的几年里,用一种奇妙的创造性方式来观察身边的新事物,这种感知未知事物的能力要求他们留心身边的事物,敏锐地意识到事物的细微之处。然而随着年龄的增长,学习的含义通常变得狭隘了。在学校里,孩子们常常通过不断地重复记忆来积累知识,从而达到取悦老师,考试过关的目的。孩子们发现新事物的能力正在逐步退化。当孩子们再稍大一点,他们学会了害怕犯错误,这对于培养感知事物是很不利的。可是孩子们接受的教育是如何树立和维护自我的完美形象,错误被看作是能力低下的标志,因此他们认为经常犯错误会不受同伴的欢迎。害怕犯错误当然会影响学习,因为所有的学习都要涉及到尝试新事物。一旦害怕犯错误成为一种思维定势,就会制约批判性和创造性的思维。
这里讲到的是鼓励,对于教育和学习的作用。
issue228:
The best way to teach - whether as an educator, employer, or parent - is to praise positive actions and ignore negative ones.
当然这道题还涉及到是否忽略消极、负面的行为的问题。但是表扬、鼓励的正面作用还是可见一斑的。
在教学中“鼓励”的作用
分数的问题。就像当今社会中大家都认同的一点:财富并不等于幸福;但是财富的确是衡量一个人是否成功的严格重要标准。同样,考试分数,是对于学生学习成果的一项重要的检验。分数的高低,在一定程度上体现了学生对知识的理解、掌握和运用能力。当然,凡事“过犹不及”,过度地强调分数,往往会带来不好的后果。
issue55:
Competition for high grades seriously limits the quality of learning at all levels of education.
issue100:
The pressure to achieve high grades in school seriously limits the quality of learning. An educational environment without grades would promote more genuine intellectual development.
儿童社会化的问题。
issue130:
How children are socialized today determined the destiny of society. Unfortunately, we have not yet learned how to raise children who can help bring about a better society.
关于这个问题,可以参考鬼鬼曾经给出的微软百科全书上的资料:
Socialization, process by which people, especially children, learn acceptable and unacceptable behaviors for a given environment. 社会化的定义。
As they move in different social worlds, older children begin to grasp the informal rules for each setting and manage themselves accordingly. Children act differently at home and in the classroom, for example, calibrating their behavior to the expectations of others in each setting. They also learn to manage their emotions in social settings, looking undisturbed in the face of a peer’s taunting and laughing appropriately at a teacher’s joke. Social understanding develops in other ways also, as older children perceive family members, friends, and others as psychologically complex beings with their own emotions, motives, and perspectives.
Peer relationships become richer and more complicated in middle childhood. Whereas preschoolers master basic social skills as they play with friends, older children begin to face issues of acceptance, fitting in, exclusion, and social comparison in their peer groups. The nature of friendship changes in middle childhood to incorporate psychological closeness as well as shared activities, and friendships thus become more intense and exclusive. Children create a smaller circle of close friends and are more upset when friendships end. Friendships also coalesce into larger peer groups or clubs with their own norms for dress, vocabulary, hair style, activities, and behavior. These norms distinguish those who are included (and excluded) from the group and create strong pressures on group members to conform. At the same time, such groups can help children build self-esteem and social skills.
Socializing in middle childhood requires considerable social understanding and self-awareness, especially when conflict occurs. Older children can negotiate, bargain, cajole, compromise, and redirect conflict—such as through humor—in ways that reflect developing psychological understanding and social maturity. Not all children are so successful, however, and some become rejected by peers because of their aggressive, confrontational behavior. Developmental researchers have found that peers rejected for aggressiveness are impulsive and deficient in social problem-solving skills, often misinterpreting casual social encounters as hostile and considering few alternatives to reacting confrontationally. They also develop negative reputations. A rejected child’s lack of acceptance can, unfortunately, foreshadow long-term social difficulties if these problems are not remedied in childhood. 通过这些资料我们可以知道老外说的社会化是指儿童与同龄人的交流interaction,对环境的适应和学习等等的行为。
Parents remain central in the expanding social world of middle childhood. Although it is common to view peers as replacing parents in importance to older children, parents continue to support their children’s self-esteem, define and reinforce values, promote academic success, enable participation in neighborhood and community activities, and offer a sensitive ear and perceptive judgment. They are reliable cheerleaders as their children face the challenges of middle childhood and adolescence.家长起到的作用。
这里又附带提到了科技创造、发明、进步对于我们生活的影响。
issue205:
As society all over the world have more and more access to new information, the effectson life-long learning can only be positive.
由于是科技类的题目,具体在这里不多赘述。不过还是有相应的资料。
简评因特网对现代教育的影响
——刘尧
第三,因特网能否进课程?如果我们增加了网络课,我们就改变了学校计划和教师在课堂中的责任。如果把因特网作为课程的一部分,教师教什么和如何教就会改变。更进一步说,如果学校选择了增加因特网课,学校本身就会改变。没有办法列出一所学校选择上网可能面临的所有变化。然而对教师来说,明智的选择是:首先,作为教师,他对学生的期望不能过高。教师必须告诉学生如何处理信息,也必须教会学生如何查找新信息。其次,必须意识到我们不是在教育孩子进入我们的世界,而是在教育他们进入一个未来的世界——他们的未来。我们的课程如果不能适应解释学生的未来的需要,那我们就将做了一件非常不道德的事情。最后,变化最大的方面可能是我们不知道将来会发生什么变化,因特网在将来10年或20年会是什么样子?对学校和课程有更大的影响吗?勒温司·皮尔曼(Lewis Perelman)在他的《学校的出路》一书中,构想了一个未来需要学习的社会。一个相似于又先进于现在因特网的社会。不管未来是什么样,作为教师总是承担着为学生提供最好教育服务的重担。如果我们不能教学生如何运用可获得的资源,那么波思特曼的话将是正确的——运用技术代替人,我们可能发现自己被技术所利用。作者: 清风居士 时间: 09-8-25 21:53
另外,还可以看一下这道题:
issue42:
Because learning is not a solitary activity but one that requires collaboration among people, students of all ages will benefit academically if they work frequently in groups.
我自己当时看到这里的时候,心里在想,结果还是无法完全摆脱学校,是否学校的环境对于教育的效果也有一定的影响呢?也有一道关于学校的环境的issue题。
issue232:
The purpose of education should be to create an academic environment that is separate from the outside world. This kind of environment is ideal because it allows students to focus on important ideas without being held back by practical concerns.
附带谈到教材的问题。有一道大家很熟悉的题目。
issue5:
A nation should require all its students to study the same national curriculum until they enter college rather than allow schools in different parts of the nation to determine which academic courses to offer.
这道题目更不切题,但是我个人认为里面有一个合适度的问题。正像郑渊洁说的,他是给自己的儿子编教材,所以一他会下工夫去编;二,他了解他儿子,因此他可以因材施教,编写适合于他儿子的教材。一个人可以这么做,但是当覆盖面扩大到整个国家的教育体系来说,要编写适合于每个人的教材当然是不现实的,但是我们回到issue5,给予每个州一定的自由度来提供一些于当地文化传统、风俗信仰等有关的课程内容,就应该是一个课程与地方特色结合,尽量适合于各个州的情况的合适度的问题。
最后要说的是,郑渊洁的家庭教育,等于是完全放弃了学校教育;但是从结果来看,他是成功了的。不过话又说回来,这样的事例就像盖茨的例子,永远只会是例外。对于教育来说,家庭教育、学校教育以及社会教育是三个不可分割的部分,他们的完整统一才在普遍意义上来说达到完全的教育。
issue154:
Both parents and communities must be involved in the local schools. Education is too important to leave solely to a group of professional educators.
由于加进了许多素材,帖子比较长。当然也不能算是很权威的东西,只是我当时在看这个访谈节目的时候,觉得里面讲到的不少东西,或者观点,都可以拿来作为一些教育类issue题目的参考点。大家有兴趣的话可以看一看。作者: divaclee 时间: 09-8-26 09:20
你直接把我的贴移过来不就行了