issue153

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153"Students should bring a certain skepticism to whatever they study. They should question what they are taught instead of accepting it passively."


Once upon a time, a ripe apple fell on the head of a young guy named Newton, then he began to pursuit the reasoning why an apple turning red would vertically fall down to the ground rather than fly straight up to the sky. After quite a long time of skepticism, confusion, research and thinking, Newton discovered the great Gravity Law. This widely-spread story is always taken out when people are talking about what kind of attitude we should have in study. Between skeptical study and passive accepting, which one is more beneficial and deserves application on large scales? Simply put, skeptical study takes several advantages over passive accepting.

First of all, skeptical attitudes probably would increase students’ interests on their undergoing curriculum and stimulate their desire to explore. Let me show you a simple comparison, when one merely uses his ears in classes he may soon fall asleep when his teacher is blattering excitedly on the platform. On the contrary, if one uses all together his ears, eyes, hands and brains, will he go on daydreaming? In addition, questioning what one is taught is likely to wake up his lazy body, because he should open his eyes to see, reach out his hands to calculate and use his brain to analyze. So at least, keeping a skeptical attitude towards knowledge we are learning could make a difference in “classroom nodding”.

Next, being suspicious of some inherent commonsense is presumed to give birth to more creative thoughts. As Socrates said two thousand years ago, genuine education is not inserting stuffings of information to a person but rather eliciting knowledge from him. It is the distinguished idea and insightful intelligence what our rapidly developing society really needs. In this aspect, the Wright Brothers set a good example, if they didn’t come out the idea that why we couldn’t fly in the air just like birds do, we might not travel all around the world by airplane with such convenience. Whatever, creative thoughts are key factors to improve our comprehensive ability.

Most importantly, this study method perhaps would push our society to develop more rapidly. In this era of fierce competition, every country is trying its best to become outstanding and powerful. How to achieve this grand goal? One of the core strategies is to encourage skeptical study among vigorous youth. Adolescents symbol morning sun, the hope of an ambitious country. If they are eagerly devoted their lives to doubt former theories and axioms, they are likely to discover new laws or invent practical machines, which definitely will promote their country’s strength.

Through clarifications above, we can conclude that skeptical study primarily makes influences in three sides. Firstly, to students, it can spur their curiosity on unknown fields. Secondly, it helps doubters produce more sparks in the subject. Thirdly, to their country, it makes a contribution to strengthen scientific capacity. So it is necessary to lead students to think suspiciously in their everyday work.