GRE作文备考资料：教育的三大目的

　　教育的三大目的

　　Fundamental purposes that have been proposed for education include:

　　The enterprise of civil society depends on educating young people to become responsible, thoughtful and enterprising citizens. This is an intricate, challenging task requiring deep understanding of ethical principles, moral values, political theory, aesthetics, and economics, not to mention an understanding of who children are, in themselves and in society.

　　Progress in every practical field depends on having capacities that schooling can educate. Education is thus a means to foster the individual?s, society?s, and even humanity?s future development and prosperity. Emphasis is often put on economic success in this regard.

　　One?s individual development and the capacity to fulfill one?s own purposes can depend on an adequate preparation in childhood. Education can thus attempt to give a firm foundation for the achievement of personal fulfillment. The better the foundation is built, the more successful the child will be. Simple basics in education can carry a child far.

　　教育面临的问题：

　　知识快速更新、 全民教育的普及、 个性化教育的实施困难

　　We increasingly see education as a critical component of democratic society. For intelligent decisions in democratic society, we need an educated population. Furthermore, we increasingly see the need for lifelong education. Society changes faster, so what is learned when we are young is fast outdated. So this need for universal education further complicatesthe problems created by growing populations, by increasing the numbers we must consider.

　　One aspect of education that must be considered is that all students are different, with different backgrounds, knowledge, interests and learning styles. Each student should be treated individually. But our current modes of learning provide little individualization. Every student tends to be provided with the same learning experiences focused around a white Anglo-Saxon curriculum. This cookie-cutter approach to learning works for a few students, but many do not learn, or learn only partially. Our classes are already too large to provide individualized learning.

　　正规教育体系的两大基本假设

　　Two fundamental assumptions that underlie formal education systems are that students retain knowledge and skills they acquire at school, and can apply them in situations outside the classroom. But are these assumptions accurate? Research has found that, even when students report not using the knowledge acquired at school, a considerable portion is retained for many years and long term retention is strongly dependent on the initial level of mastery. One study found that university students who took a child development course and attained high grades showed, when tested 10 years later, average retention scores of about 30%, whereas those who obtained moderate or lower grades showed average retention scores of about 20%. There is much less consensus on the crucial question of how much knowledge acquired in school transfers to tasks encountered outside formal educational settings, and how such transfer occurs. Some psychologists claim that research evidence for this type of far transfer is scarce, while others claim there is abundant evidence of far transfer in specific domains.

　　情商的定义及其四大内涵

　　Emotional intelligence defines EQ, which stands for emotional quotient, is a fairly new concept in the scientific community, yet it has become one of the most controversial topics. For thousands of years, people have thought that IQ is destiny, but it has turned out to be not nearly as much as we thought. Daniel Goleman, a psychology professor at Harvard, wrote a ground-breaking book about the EQ factor. His book argues that our view of human intelligence is far too narrow, ignoring a crucial range of abilities that matter immensely in terms of how well we do in life. To be emotionally intelligent relies on many factors, which include knowing one?s feelings and using them to make life decisions they can live with.

　　1. Being able to manage one?s emotional life without being hijacked by itnot being paralyzed by depression or worry, or swept away by anger.

　　2. Persisting in the face of setbacks and channeling one?s impulses in order to pursue their goals.

　　3. Empathyreading other people?s emotions without their having to tell you what they are feeling.

　　4. Handling feelings in relationships with skill and harmonybeing able to articulate the unspoken pulse of a group, for example.

　　自尊与情商

　　Self-esteem, like optimism, is essential in order to maintain a healthy emotional life. People who have confidence in themselves, their ideas and views, and what they are all about tend to be more emotionally stable than people who lack self-confidence. Being self-confident gives people the impression that you are reliable and trustworthy. Studies have showed that children who lack self-esteem are more likely to have emotional problems such as depression, violent fits and suicidal tendencies. People who have high self-esteem are less likely to be affected by any negative comments; they know that it?s what they think of themselves that counts.

　　Teaching a child to have self-esteem is very important. Children?s expectations about their abilities begin at home. If parents show confidence in children?s behaviors and judgments, children are more likely to set a higher standard for themselves, in their social and personal life. Developing a child?s self-esteem through constant praise and reinforcement, as advocated for many years, may actually do more harm than good. Helping a child feel good about themselves works only if those feelings are attached to specific accomplishments.

　　情商与成功

　　The excitement over the concept of emotional intelligence begins with its applications for raising and educating children, but extends to its importance in the work place and virtually all human relationships. Studies show that the same EQ skills that result in your child being perceived as an enthusiastic learner by his/her teacher, or being liked by his/her friends on the playground, will also help him/her twenty years from now in his/her job or marriage. In many studies, adults do not appear to be that different from the children they once were. The extent to which EQ skills can affect the workplace is still surprising. A study found out why scientists were performing poorly at their jobs in spite of intellectual and academic intelligence equal to their high-achieving colleagues. The researchers studied the E-mail patterns of all the scientists and found that the employees who were disliked because of poor emotional and social skills were being left out by their colleagues, much the same way as the nerd was left out of games on the playground. EQ is as important as IQ when it comes to success.

　　网络审查的必要性

　　The Internet offers a huge wealth of information both good and bad. Unfortunately, the very nature of the Internet makes policing this new domain practically impossible. The Internet began as a small university network in the United States and has blossomed into a vast telecommunications network spanning the globe. Today the Internet is ruled by no governing body and it is an open society for ideas to be developed and shared in. Unfortunately every society has its seedy underside and the Internet is no exception.

　　11 信息时代带来的变化

　　In the Information Age, it?s easy to forget that just 10 years ago, the Information Age was stuck on its launching pad. The Internet was unknown to nearly everyone except university researchers; TV was still patting itself on the back over cable success; films were searching for the next big thing; music was sold at record stores. Now, television and computers are colliding and millions of channels are on the horizon; films are bigger, clearer and cheaper to make; and music, more than any other industry, is using the Internet to market itself. HDTV will soon be rolling into homes, delivering a wider screen and digital picture. Television is on the brink of major changes that may forever alter the way we live. It should all happen with the inevitable switch from analog to digital technology. The world of television and entertainment is poised for explosion, and that explosion comes about because television becomes digital. It?s one of the premiere technology think tanks in the world.

　　17 技术对社会和环境的影响

　　Technology has affected society and its surroundings in a number of ways. In many societies, technology has helped develop more advanced economies and has allowed the rise of a leisure class. Many technological processes produce unwanted by-products, known as pollution, and deplete natural resources, to the detriment of the earth and its environment. Various implementations of technology influence the values of a society and new technology often raises new ethical questions. Examples include the rise of the notion of efficiency in terms of human productivity, a term originally applied only to machines, and the challenge of traditional norms