issue47 FLY AW小组第二十九次作业

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TOPIC: ISSUE47 - "Society does not place enough emphasis on the intellect-that is, on reasoning and other cognitive skills."
WORDS: 495          TIME: 上午 12:45:00          DATE: 2006-7-4

Our modern era has been marked with tremendous inventions, which are the products of the human intellect, including reasoning and other cognitive skills. Owning to these bonuses, our society has been developing increasingly fast. Though benefits significantly from the human intelligence, our society has been gradually aware of the key role of intellect, including recognition, deduction, and creativity, whether academically, economically, or politically. Yet in our daily life, the emphasis placed on the intellect is still not enough, especially in the field of education.

The importance of the intellect is obvious, either in the level of an individual or from the angel of the holistic society. The intellect, which exclusively belongs to the human race, involves in the rational as well as intelligent thoughts, may partly derived from the inherent abilities, yet to a larger part should be ascribed to the acquired skills. Owning to these skills, our humanities thus have the resources pool for providing the society with endless brilliant creations and profound  scientific theories，based on which diverse inventions emerged in the recorded history.  Newton' gravity theory, for example, paved the way for the development of the modern science and serves as the landmark throughout the course of the development of science. Most people would claim that the gravity theory is actually derived from an average apple, yet it is Newton’s intellect inspired and further developed his original question and assumption.

Fortunately, our society has recognized the importance of improving the intellect. Having realized the importance of the intellect which was owned uniquely by our human race, our society began to established several relevant organizations concentrating on the research of the intellect as well as the development of the intellect. The Olympic schools, which were common in city centers of China, target at preschoolers, in order to cultivate the students with inherent high abilities in intelligence, make them be equipped with the cognitive skills. This special training does not only benefit the students in the future studies, and also assemble a set of potential little scientists who would boost our society for the society. Another apt example illustrating the awareness of the intellect involves the popularity of debate throughout the Asian countries. Since the process of debating involves in the fundamental skills such as reasoning and questioning, the increasingly important status of debate either on campus or in the working field has been acknowledged. And the prevailing trends activate individuals' motivation of improving their cognitive skills in order to excel in the debate.
Given the emphasis placed on the humanistic intellect, yet in most fields of our society, the intellect is still not fully recognized and developed. Though the education serves as the resources pool providing the society endless sources either in natural science or in liberal arts, our professional educators still do not put enough emphasis on the intellect. Actually, the basic skills such as reasoning and other cognitive skills play a more critical role in determining the personal development, and should be instilled into the one' minds at his or her school time. By means of exerting the intellect equipped in one's mind, the academic knowledge could thus be re-aligned into a system, which could be used into practice more effectively and efficiently. While several talented students are sent to Olympic schools, the rest who are not considered talented are all left in the dull class, where the obsolete knowledge is instilled, keeping in silence is encouraged. The students become machine. Undoubtedly, machine has no or just limited intellect. Our educators are more likely to teach students the relevant skills which could be directly used into their future jobs, the knowledge being instilled does not to be developed, or questioned. Sometimes, some knowledge does not fit the social need, yet even slight alternation is not permitted, thus, the intellect which should have promote the process of learning, turn out to be overshadowed by the dogmatism. As a result, our average students' cognitive skills have been suffocated by the passive acceptance of the knowledge taught in class.
In conclusion, given the importance of the intellect, our society has become aware of it, yet the emphasis put on it is still not enough, since the development of the intellect is usually concentrating on a particular group, neglecting the others. Thus, the research and improvement of the human intellect should be further emphasized and developed, not only for our modern society, but also for the human race as a whole.