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According to the speaker, formal education does not set our minds and spirits free but restrain them. I absolutely disagree with it. In my view, the ultimate purpose of education is to free our minds and spirits.
To better illustrate this point, I would like to divide the whole education process into two periods: fundamental education and advanced education. Through fundamental education, we are required to master what it is, some basic principles and means which can help us to solve the daily problems. During the period of advanced education, we are asked to comprehend how and why it works like that and some methodologies.
On the one hand, fundamental education provides one with basic knowledge and skills that is beneficial to free his/her mind.
In elementary schools, skills of primary reading, understanding, and wrting are taught, which help a child read some simple books and write some sentences; mathematics is also taught to assure that a pupil could calculate some simple figures; and some natural phenomena are explain with sciences and so forth. The purpose of education during this period is to request one to memorize the facts and to understand the things around him/her.They are not encouraged to question and criticize the facts for it is nearly impossible to make them understood. In the high school, more courses, such as physics, chemistry, politics, and primary philosophy and so on, are required to master and students begin to learn basic theories and principles that help them to explain how and why. However, we must admit that, during this period, their main task is still to memorize the theories and principles rather than to question and criticize them. The great difference between education of primary school and high school is that the former requires students to memorize the facts and the latter requests students to memorize theories and sometimes demands them to interpret some phenonmena with theories that they have learned. All this seems that formal education tends to restrain our minds and spirits on the surface, however, I strongly disagree that point. Let us imagine that we have few formal education or even none, what human beings would do. One possible result is that they fear every thing around them because they know nothing about the surroundings; the other ending is that they take every thing for granted because they have existed in the world before they were born, the latter might be more possible. No more advancement will be made for they have taken every thing for granted and then begin to lose their imagination. In short, fundamental education seems to restrain our minds and spirits for they are always indoctrinated with the facts, however, in reality, all that they learn during the fundamental education are basic knowledge which is vitally necessary for them to free their minds in future.
On the other hand, advanced education tends to cultivate creative thinking , original minds which greatly contribute to set one's minds and spirits free. In colleges and universities, we still receive a formal education, nevertheless, we are not advocated to accept every thing any more but encourage to question and ask why. More methodologies, humanities and arts courses are arranged to help students explore their minds and spirits. They are requires to discover the essentials not the facts, to find out more means to solve a problem or to explain facts in different ways. They are demanded to actively cultivate the abilities of independent thinking and are encouraged to challenge others' viewpoints if you think they are wrong. The most significant thing during this period is to cultivate one's own ideas, standards and values toward your life, your learning and the world. All this makes one free from the restrictions, makes one touch a more higher and new sky of research fields, and expands one's width and depth of thinking space. It is obvious that advanced education does not tend to restrict one's minds and spirits but lead to free them.
In sum, formal education ultimately contributes to set our minds and spirits free. Although fundamental education seems to limit our minds and spirits, we all agree that fundamental education provides the necessary knowledge that is needed to free one's minds and spirits. Without them, all imagination is only illusion. Advanced education provides us with methods, encourages us to question and criticize and finally helps us free the mind and spirits.
我是4月13日,济南考场。 |
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