Posted by luna on September 02, 19102 at 22:21:37:
Is it the educators¡¯ duty to determine the curriculum and the students¡¯ duty to study what¡¯s presented to them? While, nowadays, the educators pay more and more attention to find out what students want to include in the curriculum, then giving it to them, actually I believe that they are both accountable for the classroom control, the educators, be they administers or teachers, and the students.
On the one hand, the educators who is more reasonable than those scholarly talents always acts as directors, conducting students how to study more effective and indicating what¡¯s the real academic responsibility for them to study. As my class master in secondary school, Mr. Zhang once gave me a hand in my crossing whether to take the arts for the further study or the sciences. He told me that to choose by interest alone is not advisable, although maybe, it is a very important factor for one to devote himself/herself to study the given field more willingly, whether applicable or not is of equally important even more in determination. What is more, the educators are capable to maintain the classroom control pacing in a regularly way, which is indispensable for promoting an apropos and effective environment about the interaction between teaching and studying.
On the other hand, the students, however, over relying on whatever the teacher/professor says without thinking, may lack of creativity. As a result, their mind will become rigid gradually, which is dangerous for them to find themselves bogged down in the Sargasso Sea of passive reception alone. For example, a person whose left leg was fracture in an accident several months ago and would have been restorative, afraid of moving without walking stick, may be unfortunately losing the ability to walk normally as before ultimately. As well as that, we can also illustrate that one who is always told that tomato is toxic will lose the nice taste for ever. So what is more essential for students is that they should be cultivated to know how to acquire and choose very things they really want by themselves. Of course, I do not mean every thing should be under the control of students. Too much of any one thing becomes problematic.
As for determining the curriculum, while the educators provide an incipient mode (about when and where a certain course should be taken, and which books students should get. etc.) by experience, the students should advise in some aspects based on their own interest and needs. It is unnecessary to attribute the duty to one as well as exclude the other; in that case, one will find himself/herself over-labored while the other feels it too insipid.