[作文] Issue 42 怀疑精神

snowmelt · 发表于 2011-10-29 04:07:29

42 Students should always question what they are taughtinstead of accepting it passively.
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In the area of education,there has been a wide debate over the role of skepticism (questioning, inanother word). It is obvious that skepticism has been very important to the rapiddevelopment of sciences and technologies by questioning old viewpoints and presentingnewer and truer ones after. Individulas can also develop into independentthinkers by learning to question accepted but wrong points of view. Thus, educationalinstitutes should encourage student to question to some extent. Yet questioningis not always helpful. Only can it be useful to students when it is kept withina safe extent.

View from the long humanhistory, skepticism has been one of the key points in getting to know theworld. However, the world is so big and mysterious that we are not guaranteedto be always right on the way of exploring it. Skepticism has served like a GPSto get us closer and closer to the truth. Long time ago, earth was believed tobe the center of the universe. Being skeptic to the old viewpoint, Copernicus presentedHeliocentric system, which was a great achievenmt in astronomy and undoubtedly closerto the truth. Another example is Galileo who was brave enough to challenge theauthority Aristotle, proved that two items must fall down with the same speedregardeless the weight of the items. Without the spirit of skepticism, ourhuman society might be still on the level of two thousand years ago, knowingvery little about the world. Thus, students need to be encouraged to questionwhat they are taught when necessary, and keep trying to continue the gloriouspattern our antecedents have made.

As for an individual, questioning,as a process of thinking, is a person’s significant ability which plays an importantrole in his/her way to success. Questioning usually could lead to threedifferent results: successfully refuting the extant viewpoint, proving theextant viewpoit, or finding that there is no answer to the question. No matterwhich of the results a questioner gets, he/she must have experienced a preciousprocess of thinking, because one has to study on sufficient knowledge relativeto the question so as to successfully support the new point. Not surprisingly, toa student, this ability of thinking is indespensable in his future life aftergraduation. For example, a student who tends to be a scientist must have theability of questioning to possibly find new theories or facts; a literaturecritic must adopt this way of thinking into his career so as to write insightfulwork; a student who aims to work as an officer in a company also needs theability of skeptism to find out the best way to solve problems. Thus, learn toquestion is an important quality for a student to be an independent thinker, soas to benefit his/her future career.

However, it is not alwaysbeneficial for a student to question what they are taught. This is especially truefor a young student. When children are very young, they may ask many questionsbecause the world is so new to them. However, in most of the cases they are tooyoung to be insightfully suspicious, due to their limited cognition to theworld. How can a 2^nd grader question how thewater circle works theyare taught without knowing sufficient knowledge to do so? How can a 3^rdgrader question the effectivness of a free market while he does not even have freepurchasing power? Skeptisicm in these cases are not helpful but rather a wasteof time. It is even better if they passively accept the mechanism taught by theteachers and actively participate into the teaching activities.

In sum, as discussedabove, skepticism is so import to both the society and individuals that studentsneed to question what are being taught when it is necessary. Without the spiritskepticism, the new generation will not be able to successfully explore thetruth in the world; without the ability of questioning, they probably not beable succeed in the future. When pursuing the benefits of skepticism, we haveto notice that inappropriate questioning could be ineffective and useless.

[作文] Issue 42 怀疑精神

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