孙远的工具箱.doc

让我们再一次感谢我们最可爱的人——giftedcoala! ^o^

写作工具箱-----孙远
下面的材料旨在丰富学生在是非问题方面的思想和语言,考生在复习时可以先分类阅读这些文章,然后再尝试写相关方面的作文题.
对于文章中用黑体 字突出的部分,特别建议你熟读,背诵.因为他们在语言和观点上都值得吸收.学习语言的人应该明白,表达能力和思想深度都靠日积月累,潜移默化.从某种意义上说,提高写作能力无捷径可走,你必须大段大段地背诵英语文章才能逐渐形成语感和用英语进行表达的能力.这一天,没有任何人能代替你过,新东方也帮不了你.
因此建议你下点工夫,把背单词的精神拿出来背文章,何况,我并不要求你背了之后永远牢记在心:你可以这个星期背,下个星期忘.这没有关系,相信你的大脑具有神奇的能力.在你背完工具箱里的文章后,你会惊讶的发现:I can think in English now.
经常有学生告诉我:不知道背什么好.现在我可以告诉各位:背下下面的文章错不了,至少对GRE的写作来是有立杆见影的效果!可别再找借口了哦!~

section one:Education

proverbs

1,a graduation ceremony is an event where the commencement speaker tells thousands of students dressed in identical caps and gowns that individuality is the key to success.
2,the primary purpose of a liberal education is to make one's mind a pleasant place in which to spend one's time.
3,next in importance to freedom and and justice is popular education,without which neither freedom nor justice can be permanently maintained.
4,the classroom--not the trench--is the frontier of freedom now and forevermore
5,Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.
6,it is the purpose of education to help us bacome autonomous,creative,inquiring people who have the will and intelligence to create our own destiny.
7,you see,real ongoing,lifelong education doesn't answer questions,it provokes them.
8,people will pay more to be entertained than educated.
9,the most important function of education at any level is to develop the personality of the individual and the significance of his life to himself and to others.this is the basic architecture of a life;the rest is ornamentation and decoration of the structure.
10,the essence of our effort to see that every child had a chance must be to assure each an equal opportunity,not to bacome equal,but to become differentto realize whatever unique potential of body,mind,and spirit he or she possesses
11,a great teacher never strives to explain his vision-he simply invites you to stand beside him and see for youself.
12,if you read and don't,you are an illiterate by choice.

Damaging Research

A study by the National Parent-Teachers Organization revealed that in the average American school,eighteen negatives are identified for every positive that is pointed out.The Wisconsin study revealed that when children enter the first grade,80 percent of them feel good about themselves,but by the time they get to the sixth grade,only 10 10 percent of them have good self-images.

Education and Citizenship

An important aspect of education in the Unite States is the relationship between education and citizenship.Throughout its history this nation had emphasized public education as a means of reansmitting democratic values,creating quality of opportunity ,and preparing new generation of citizens to function in society.  in addition,the schools have been expected to help shape society itself.during the 1950s,for example,efforts to combat racial segregation focused on the schools.later,when the Soviet Union lanched the first orbiting statellite,American schools and colleges came under intense pressure and were offerd many incentives to improve their science and mathematics programs so that the nation would not fall behind the Soviet Union in scientific and technological capabilities.
education is often viewed as a tool for solving social problems,expecially social inequality.the schools,it is thought,can transform young people from vastly different backgrands into competent,upwardly mobile adults.yet these goals seem almost impossible to attain.in recent years,in fact,public education has been at the center of numerous controversies srising from the gap between the ideal and the reality.part of the problem is that different groups in society have different expectations.some feel that stdents need better preparation for careers in a technologically advanced society;others believe children should be taught basic job-related skills;still others believe education should not only prepare children to compete in society but also help them maintain their cultural identity(and ,in the case of Hispanic children ,their language)  .on the other hand,policymakers concerned with education emphasize the need to increase the level of student achievement and to involve parents in their children's education
some reformers and ciitics have called attention to the need to link formal schooling with programs designed to address social problems.Sociologist Charles Moscos,for example,is a leader in the movement to expand programs like the Peace Crops,Vista nd Outward Bound into a system of voluntary national sevice.National service,as Moscos defines it,would entail "the full-time undertaking of public duties by young people whether as citizen soldiers or civilian servers-who are paid subsistence wages"and serve for at lease one year.in reture for this period of service,the volunteers would receive assistance in paying for college or other educational expenses.
Advocates of national service and school-to-work programs believe that education does not have to be confined to formal schooling.in devising strategies to provide opportunities for young people to serve their society,they emphasize the educational valus of citizenship experiences gained outside the classroom,at this writing there is little indication that national service will become a new educational institution in teh United Stated,although the concept is steadily gaining support among education and social critics.

The teacher's role

Given the undeniable important of classroom experience sociologists have done a considerable amount of research on what goes on in the classroom .often they start from the premise that,along with the influence of peers,students' experiences in teh classroom are of central importance to their later development.one study examined the impact of a single first-grade teacher on her students's subsequent adult status.the surprising results of this study have important implications,its is evident that good teachers can make a big difference in children's lives,a fact that gives increased urgency to the need to improve the quality of primary-school teaching.the reforms carried out by  educational leaders like James Corner suggest that when good teaching is combined with high levels of parental involvement the results can be even more dramatic.
Because the role of the teacher is to change the learner in some ways,the teacher-student reationship is an important part of education.Sociologists have pointed out that this reationship is asymmetrical or unbalanced,with the teacher being in a position of authority and the student having little choice but to passively absorb the information provided by the teacher.in other words,in convertional classrooms there is little opportunity for the student to become actively involved in the learning process.on the other hand,students often develop strategies for undercutting the teacher's authority:mentally withdrawing,interrupting ,and the like.Hence,much current research assumes that students and teachers influence each other instead of assuming that the influence is always in a single direction.

Education Philosophy

for the past fifty years our schools have operated on the theories of John Dewey(1859-1952),an American educator and writer.Dewey believed that the school's job was to enhance the natural development of the growing child,rather than to pour information,for which the child had no contextinto him or her.in the Dewey system,the child becomes the active agent in his own education,rather than a passive receptacle for facts.
Consequently,American schools are very enthusiastic about teaching"life skills"--logical thinking,analysis,creative problem-solving,the actual content of the lessons is secondary to the process,which is supposed to train the child to be able to handle whatever life may present,including all the unknowns of the future.students and teachers both regard pure memorization as uncreative and somewhat vulgar.
in addition to "life skills"schools are assigned to solve the evergrowing shock of social problems.Racism,teenage pregnancy,alcoholism,drug us,reckless driving,and suicide are just a few of the moderm problems that have appeared on the school curriculum.
this all contributes to a high degree of social awareness in American youngsters.

Student Life

to the students,the most notable difference between elementary school and the higher levels is that in junior high they start"changing classes,"this means that rather than spending the day in one classroon,they switch classrooms to meet their different teachers.this gives them three or four minutes between classes in the hallways,where a great deal of the important social action of high school.traditionally takes place.students have lockers in these hallways,around which they congregate.
society in general does not take the business of studying very seriously.schoolchildren have a great deal of free time,which they are encouraged to fill with extracurricular activities--sports,clubs,cheerleading,scouts--supposed to inculcate such qualities as leadership,sportmanship,ability to organize ,etc.those who don't become engaged in such activities or have after-school jobs have plenty of opportunity to "hang out"listen to teenage music,and watch television.
compared to other nations,American students do not have much homework,studies also show that American parents have lower expectations for their children's success in school than other nationlities do.(Historically ,there has not been much correlation between American school success and success in later life)"he is just not a scholar,"the American parents might say,content that their son is on the swim team and doesn't take drugs.(some of the young do choose to study hard,for reasons of their own,such as determining that the road to riches lies through Harvard Business School.)
what American schools do effectively teach is the competitive method.in innumerable ways children are pitted against each other--whether in classroom discussion,spelling bees,reading groups,or tests.every classroom is expected to produce a scattering of A's and F's (teachers often grade A=excellent;B=good;C=average;D=poor;and F=failed).a teacher who gives all A's looks too soft--so students are aware that they are competing for the limited number of top marks.
Foreign students sometimes don't understand that copying from other people's paper or from books is considered wrong and taken seriously.here,it is important to show that you have done you own work and are displaying your own knowledge.it is more important than helping your friends to pass,whom we think do not deserve to pass unless they can provide their own answers.Group effort goes againse the competitive grain,and American students do not study together as many Asians do.Many Asians in this country consider their group study study habits a large contributor to their school success.

Adult education

after complaining about many aspects of American life,a 40- year-old woman from Hong Kong concluded,"But where else could someone my age go back to school and get a degree in social work?here you can change your whole life,start a new business do what you really want to do"
so at least to this person,school requirements weren't inhibiting.and to millions of others,adult education is the path to a new career,or if not to a new career,to a new outlook.schools generally encourage the older person who wants to start anew,and besides regular classes,schedule evening classes in special programs.today there are so many people of retirement age in college that its is no longer remarkable.

Moral Relativism In America

Improving American education requires not doing new things but doing(and remembering)some good old things.at the time of our nation's founding.Thomas Jefferson listed the requirements for a sound education in the Report of the Commissioners for the University of Virginia.in this landmark statement on American Education,Jefferson wrote of the importance of education and writting,and of reading,history,and geography.but he also emphasized the need "to instruct the mass of our citizens in these,their rights,interests,and duties,as men and citizens."Jefferson believed education should aim at the improvement of both one's "morals"and "faculties"that has been the dominant ciew of the aims of American education for over two centuries.but a number of changes,most of them unsound,have diverted schools from these great pursuits.and the story of the loss of the school's original moral mission explains a great deal.
starting in the early seventies,"values clarification"programs started turning up in schools all over America.according to this philosophy,the schools were not to take part in their time-honored task of transmitting sound moral values;rather ,they were to allow the child to "clarify"his own values(which adults,including parents,had no "right"to criticize).the "values clarification"movement didn't clarify values;it claridied wants and desires.this form of moral relativism said,in effect,that no set of values was right or wrong;everybody had an equal right to his own values;and all values were subjective,relative,personal.this destructive view took hold with a vengeance.
in 1985 The New York Times published an article quoting New York area educators,in slavish devotion to this new view,proclaiming that "they deliberately avoid trying to tell students what is ethically right and wrong."the article told of one counseling session involving fifteen high school juniors and seniors.in the course of that session a student concluded that a fellow student had been follish to return on thousand dollars she found in a purse at school.according to the article,when the youngsters asked the counselor's opinion,"he told them he believe the girl had done the right thing,but that,of course,he would not try to force his values on them."if i come from the position of what is right and what is wrong,"he explained'then i'm not their counselor.'"
once upon a time,a counselor offered counsel,and he knew that an adult does not from character in the young by taking a stance of neutrality toward questions of right and wrong or by merely offering "choices"or "options"
in response to the belief that adults and educators should teach children sound morals,one can expect from some quarters indignant objections(i have heard one version of it expressed countless times over the years):"who are you to say what's moral and what's important?"or "whose standards and judgments do we use?"
the correct response ,it seems to me,is ,are we really ready to do away with standards and judgemnts?is anyone going to argue seriously that a life of cheating and swinding is as worthy as a life of honest,hard work?is anyone (with the exception of some literature professors at our elite universities)going to argue seriously