本帖最后由 even207 于 2011-1-27 08:05 编辑
The speaker states his appreciation upon skepticism in education and simultaneously encourages students to challenge authority rather than receive knowledge indiscriminately. My opinions are in line with the assertions.
To say the least of it, skepticism to education is what broth to soup. Initially, I would like to clarify the true nature of education in my humble opinion. According to The Four Pillars of Education, educators should imbue students with the four capabilities of learning to know, learning to be, learning to do, and learning to live together. I enlightened the first two pillars to serve as the evidences for the importance of skepticism in education.
To begin with, Learning to Know emphasizes more on the mastery of learning tools rather than the structured knowledge, thus the purpose is to help students understand the world around them. For that matter, skepticism turns out to be the catalyst of creativity, the incentive of originality, and the motivation for critical thinking because the world is exposed only to curious eyes. For those who question the doctrines, the world expends: Galileo queried Aristotle’s theory of dropping objects and then corroborated to the world that no matter how differently the two things weigh, they dropping time is exact the same under the condition of same time and same height. More than 2,000 years, no one doubted Aristotle’s words and the one, who did, became the founder of modern science. For those who obediently accept everything they’ve been taught, the world shrinks: Chinese people in 1960s lost their ability to doubt; consequently they believed whatever the clout said and failed in telling right from wrong.
Next, Learning to Be accentuates that all people should be received the education which develop their own independence, critical thinking and judgment so that they can make their minds in different circumstances. Without skepticism, there’s no question of originate one’s own idea, which will cause catastrophe in certain historic backgrounds. Take the Revolution in France for example, in the year of 1793, thousands of hundreds of people agitated by extremely radical politicians, had lost their consciousness in the revolution. Their initial strong will for freedom and liberty soon evolved into to a frenetic desire for vengeance. Slaughtering innocent people, destroying indiscriminately can be seen everywhere. If the people had asked themselves whether the revolution was still following its original spirit, disasters could be avoided to some extent. Similar tragedies can also be seen in many other countries.
Similarities sometimes make people invisible for the truth. That’s why we value the spirit of skepticism so much. However, things could be discussed the other way around. Rational skepticism should keep away from going to the extreme way of nihilism or cynicism, which refutes everything and even pave the way for sophists. Only under the belief of longing for truth can sensible questions benefit human being in the broadest sense.
All in all, skepticism betters education by bringing about the best of students while people should also be aware of the potential of transforming from skepticism into extreme anti-social cynics. | 
发表于 2011-1-27 07:53:15
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