issue 51 by wdi ken4huo

ken4huoUID: 2416482

51."Education will be truly effective only when it is specifically designed to meet the individual needs and interests of each student."

命题：教育的有效性与个人需要及个人兴趣之间的关系

无可否认的是，个人兴趣对受教者有着积极的影响。这个阶段，正是培养他们兴趣爱好的阶段.


每个人都是不同的，真正的个人化教育需要极其庞大的教育资源。因此在考虑到教育资源有限的情况下，针对每个不同的人的教育无法实现。现在的私立学校都标榜因材施教。

一味强调对个人兴趣的注重，可能会导致学生缺少最基本的生存技能。保持接受知识的结构完整性也是很必要的。如果无法保证基本知识结构的完整性，那么这样的教育是失败的。

Narrowing down to the institution education, interests which students show to the courses could be considered as a catalyzer for the education process. Yet, excess individualization on education might play a negative role on education.

Admittedly, if students’ interests are well considered in an education system, they might be hugely motivated to learn. Each student who is the direct object on which education system acts might have his or her own potential in a certain area. Development for their potential and cultivation for their interest should be as significant as instruction on the basic general courses in institution education especially in the period primary and secondary education. In this period, teenagers whose interests are still uncertain are eager to find out what are their favorites. If school education could provide choices in a broad enough range, students could be attracted in school and might find their true interests. Else, students might try to find their interests outside the school and feel bored about the school life, even be attracted by some negative part of the adult society. Be afraid of occurrence of such situation, more and more parents tend to be client of private school which flaunts the small class and focus on individual development, although the cost might be as several times as of the public school. No parent wants their son or daughter’s potential to be covered by everyday’s boring study, thus every responsible school should consider how to develop students’ interests seriously.

However, the fact is each student might have quite different interest in kinds of areas. This fact decides that the true individualization of education might cost a really huge resource. Today’s limited education resource must be not enough to realize the individualization. Imaging that each student in a certain class might have a unique interest, to realize the complete individualization, the school might have to give each student a nice environment to learn something about his or her interest. Even the best private school cannot achieve this standard, not to mention the public general school. Especially, when these interests include some expensive items such as piano, violin or ballet, the cost might be astronomical. Thus, instead of complete specialization designed education, a feasible measure for schools might be creating various electives which covering some big areas, such as music, literature, sports, dancing and so on, to enlighten each student to find his or her own interest. Then, the real individualized education must be concerned by his or her parents, not the institution education system.

Even if the advanced technology and plentiful wealth make the complete specialized education feasible in the future, it is dangerous for people to take such education. The chief reason is because excessive individualization of education might lead to the deformity of knowledge structure. Though students might feel comfortable in that education environment, the deformity of knowledge structure will ruin their growth. For one thing, some basic subjects such as reading, writing, mathematics, history and so on aims at training students’ ability to survive in modern life. For another thing, comprehensive knowledge might have big help to development of the interests. For instance, Leonardo da Vinci is famous for his achievements on painting and painting theory including perspective and precise depicture of human being’s body through anatomy, all these could not be departed from his comprehensive knowledge covering optic, medicine, biology and others. So the institution education cannot be specialized to the extent that each student just touches his favorite subject.

To sum up, interest does play a significant role in the education system. Yet, the assertion that only complete individualization education is effective is too hasty and shallow. It cannot be realized in finite education resource. At even worse, such education is negative for a teenager’s growth.