ISSUE5 美国有米寒假小组27日作业

cckantUID: 2247822

TOPIC: ISSUE5 - "A nation should require all its students to study the same national curriculum until they enter college rather than allow schools in different parts of the nation to determine which academic courses to offer."
WORDS: 454          TIME: 0:46:19          DATE: 2007-1-27

Outline：
1。让步承认统一课程设置的好处
2。转折，不统一的好处更大
3。 补充某些情况下不宜统一课程设置

Should a nation unify the curriculum for its students prior to college? I incline to think that this is not a good idea for the long term development of education, except in some special cases.

To begin with, I concede that the requiring all students in a state to study the same national curriculum until they enter college has its merit. Firstly, as the curriculum is standardized, a lower bound of content taught before college guarantee that people have similar years of schooling are reasonable to expect the similar basic knowledge of science, literature and so on. It enables an easier and less overlapped teaching in the post-secondary education, either public or private. Secondly, as there is a uniform curriculum for primary school and high school, a country is able to gather the most sophisticated expertise to elaborate on the national curriculum. The national curriculum can be very beneficial from private schools in less developed countries without sufficient sources.

However, in spite of the pros, a unified and hence imperative national curriculum has disadvantages that likely overshadow its benefit. One the one hand, it is unavoidable that national curriculum lacks of flexibility. In a country with multiple races, a significant portion of citizens have their religions, or substantially various geographical conditions, a single curriculum may be difficult to suit most circumstances. For example, in a community with a large portion of Catholic, should the Darwin’s' theories about evolution be included in the curriculum? Derivative conflicts and controversy may deplete public resource and political attention. One the other hand, nation curriculum rules out competition in curriculum among schools or regions. Government administration is inherently with bureaucratic problems. By allowing competition in curriculum between schools or regions, innovation and closely up-to-date curriculum are expected to take place more likely than that merely rely on government. I believe that in long run, fully exploited public wisdom should outperform the elite organized by the government in curriculum design.

However, one must realize that in some special cases, a nation should carefully exam the trade-off between national curriculum and other wise. For instance, for small country like Singapore, the benefit by allowing customized curriculum may be limited, due to the small number of schools and hence less intensive competition, but the cost is not. The frequently changed versions, and multiple concurrent versions of text book, result high price of them, which would significantly increase the expenditure in education, leading efficiency and people's less propensity to be educated.

In sum, in general, a national curriculum plan would not be superior to the one allowing schools in different parts of the nation to determine which academic courses to offer. However, a case-by-case analysis of cost-versus-benefit should be carry out in practice.     

[ 本帖最后由 cckant 于 2007-1-27 17:57 编辑 ]

holdingUID: 2285054

ISSUE5 美国有米寒假小组27日作业

TOPIC: ISSUE5 - "A nation should require all its students to study the same national curriculum until they enter college rather than allow schools in different parts of the nation to determine which academic courses to offer."WORDS: 454          TIME: 0:46:19          DATE: 2007-1-27

Outline：
1。让步承认统一课程设置的好处
2。转折，不统一的好处更大
3。补充某些情况下不宜统一课程设置

Should a nation unify the curriculum for its students prior to college? I incline to think (去掉that) this is not a good idea for the long term development of education, except in some special cases.

To begin with, I concede that (去掉the) requiring all students in a state to study the same national curriculum until they enter college has its merit. Firstly, as the curriculum is standardized, a lower bound of content taught before college guarantee that people have similar years of schooling are reasonable to expect the similar basic knowledge of science, literature and so on. It enables an easier and less overlapped teaching in the post-secondary education, either public or private. Secondly, as there is a uniform curriculum for primary school and high school, a country is able to gather the most sophisticated expertise to elaborate on the national curriculum. The national curriculum can be very beneficial from private schools in less developed countries without sufficient sources. (这句总结的不是很好)

However, in spite of the pros, a unified and hence imperative national curriculum has disadvantages that likely overshadow its benefit (过渡的很好，学习) . One the one hand (on one hand) , it is unavoidable that national curriculum lacks of flexibility. In a country with multiple races, a significant portion of citizens have their religions, or substantially various geographical conditions, a single curriculum may be difficult to suit most circumstances. For example, in a community with a large portion of Catholic, should the Darwin’s' theories about evolution be included in the curriculum? Derivative conflicts and controversy may deplete public resource and political attention. One (on) the other hand, nation curriculum rules out competition in curriculum among schools or regions. Government administration is inherently with bureaucratic problems. By allowing competition in curriculum between schools or regions, innovation and closely up-to-date curriculum are expected to take place more likely than that merely rely on government. I believe that in long run, fully exploited public wisdom should outperform the elite organized by the government in curriculum design.

However (连续两段开头用however不好）, one must realize that in some special cases, a nation should carefully exam the trade-off between national curriculum and other wise. For instance, for small country like Singapore, the benefit by allowing customized curriculum may be limited, due to the small number of schools and hence less intensive competition, but the cost is not. The frequently changed versions, and multiple concurrent versions of text book, result high price of them, which would significantly increase the expenditure in education, leading efficiency and people's less propensity to be educated.

In sum, in general (感觉有点重复) , a national curriculum plan would not be superior to the one allowing schools in different parts of the nation to determine which academic courses to offer. However, a case-by-case analysis of cost-versus-benefit should be carry out in practice.  

条理较清楚，修改后的字数也挺多的，感觉写的很好

[ 本帖最后由 holding 于 2007-1-29 11:18 编辑 ]