213 Too much emphasis has been placed on the need for studen

[Erin]

213 Too much emphasis has been placed on the need for students to challenge the assertions of others. In fact, the ability to compromise and work with others—that is, the ability to achieve social harmony—should be a major goal in every school.

 

[bravest]

213 Too much emphasis has been placed on the need for students to challenge the assertions of others. In fact, the ability to compromise and work with others¡ªthat is, the ability to achieve social harmony¡ªshould be a major goal in every school.

 

 

 

The speaker contends that nowadays too much emphasis has been placed on the need for students to challenge the assertions of others and the ability to compromise and work with others should be a major goal in every school. I cannot fully agree with this thought. In my opinion, it is wrong that, in order to compromise and achieve social harmony students should sacrifice their independent thoughts and their right to challenge the wrong assertions of others. Instead, school should try to encourage their students to challenge reasonably others' assertions in order to develop their habits of independent thinking which is the most significant thing for the students.

 

As we all know, the development of science is in some sense the result of skepticism and challenging the established theories. Copernicus is a good example. Just because of his insistence in his new thoughts and his courageous attitude towards authority, the great astronomy development is achieved. And the development of the quantum physics is another instance. Before the foundatin of the theory of quantum physics, the Newton classical physics is the authority and its status seems to be unshakable. However, with the in-depth research in physics, some scientists found that the classical physics cannot always explain the exprimental results. So some scientists began to challenge the Newton classical physics, and thereby the more advanced theory-quantum physics-was founded.

 

Furthermore, little emphasis has been placed on the development of students' habit of independent thinking, and if the schools make the ability to compromise of students their major goal, the situation would be worse. In today's shool, students are often viewed as a empty container, and the duty of teachers is to make this container full of desired knowledge. In classes, students could only passively accept the knowledge given by their teachers and have no chances to ask questions about these knowledge, nor the opportunity to challenge them. The fact that our students receive no education on skepticism, and often have no habit of independent thinking is the fault of schools. So, for the sake of the students well-being and the development of their creative character, the schools' major goal should not be the ability to compromise and to achieve harmony, but the ability to challenge reasonably the established theory.

 

However, this does not follow that students could challenge others' assertion without any acceptable reasons. It is also true that too much challenge and doubt towards other people's assertions will often result in the destruction of social harmony. No one would like the person who will invariably doubt your opinions with no regard to their truth and other people feelings.

 

In sum, in order to develop students' habit of independent thinking and challenging attitude, schools should not make the development of students' ability to compromise the major goal of education. Rather, more emphasis should be placed on the education of how to challenge reasonably others' assertions.