我又回来拉~人生第……n篇issue(28）拍死我吧

克莱茵蓝UID: 2562571

TOPIC: ISSUE28 - "Students should memorize facts only after they have studied the ideas, trends, and concepts that help explain those facts. Students who have learned only facts have learned very little."
WORDS: 586
TIME: 00:45:00
DATE: 2009/11/21 TVXQ? 4:46:32

As our knowledge increasing and our society developing, more and more attention has been paid to education of our students. When it comes to the appropriate methods for enlightening our kids, myriads of ideas comes out. One of such topics is the study of facts or concepts and the priority of the two. In my view, the two issues are not naturally opposing, and the natural characteristics of disciplines should be involved into consideration when we deciding which of them should be given the priority.

The speaker's assert has its merit, since it's built on the basis of recognizing the primary traits of both facts and theories. Accordingly, to a large scope of fields, without a clear understanding of the basic theory, trend, or concepts, facts that embody even the same idea are presented so irrelevant that students cannot recognize any similarity of them, let along understanding the impetus, consequences of them. Consider the study of aesthetics for example, when presenting an abstract painting work to students and not telling them any method and principle of appreciating art, what will the students see from it? Perhaps just a mess of color dots that means nothing. Another example has to do with the field of economy. Without any understanding of the basic mechanism of the economy world, what can we expect our students find from so many times of economic crises, or how can these students, the future owners of our society, take measures to prevent similar crisis?

However, when we refer to some other disciplines, the opposed sequence may be better，for the reason that one of the traits of some disciplines, especially those with natural science, seemed too strange that can attract our attention soon. I think many people remember their first physics, or chemistry class, in which the teacher made several interesting experiments, and all the young kids soon became so curious about these incredible facts. How can a piece of paper remain attached to the glass full of water even when no force has been exerted to bolster it? How can the liquid change its color when it has been cooked to boil? Thus, we become so interesting in these lessons and make efforts to discover the reason behind these mysterious facts, then, the objectives of our teacher has been reached. That's one of the facts' effects -----attracting our curiosity and interest.

When coming to some disciplines serve as tools, the understanding of the inner trends and concepts presented not so important compared with the ability of proficient using it. Under this circumstance, the priority of learning should belong to the fact, or basic use method, too. The example I going to cite involves the study of a second language. We begin learning the complete strange language by ways of reciting and stimulating, rather than try to understand and remember its grammar or usual expressions. Why? The first reason is that grammar is too vague and abstract for a beginner, who has spoken his or her mother tongue for too many years to understand and accept a series of brand new concepts. The second reason, and the main one, has to do with the usage of language, which is created for the purpose of communication. Even native speaker of a language can hardly use the language completely correct, but it has little influence when they expressing their ideas. So we need not to stick to the specific of the grammar, unless you are the experts of the language.

In sum, learning facts is of great value since it can render us a deep understanding of relevant theories, and it's also helpful when we need to stimulus students' interests of certain disciplines. On the other hand, studying basic theories is no less important, since without such ideas, we cannot dig out the inherent traits of facts we memorize. But the study sequence is determined primarily by the characteristics of different disciplines. As long as it will be helpful to the students, I think the priority is not a big deal.