原创英语散文2: Essay by Haijun II Skeptical Students 美式发音 海钧

Skeptical Students One of the least charming parts of being a teacher is dealing with skeptical students. The skepticism is manifested in their suspecting eyes, incredulous “really?”s, resolve of not getting over a disagreed point, and reluctance of moving on with the class. There are always a sizable number of such students in a class, their skepticism being situated on a spectrum of visibility. Sure, the spontaneity of questioning things around oneself, especially authority, suggests a person’s fairly high level of intellectual achievement. Along human history, most major scientific breakthroughs were achieved not as a result of blindly conforming to established rules but courageously questioning conventional wisdom, Darwin’s evolution theory and Copernicus’s heliocentric theory, just to name a couple of examples. Yet, instead of being the bounty for vigorous pursuit of knowledge, skepticism can be purely a product of unfortunate societal circumstances. In a culture where almost everything can be fabricated, academic credentials, luxury bags, breasts, noses, you name it, and where honesty is a laughable instead of honorable quality, it’s naive to expect students to be naturally trusting and receptive. Rather, doubting and questioning are the default settings in their minds. Huge problem: learning is a process in which the learner acquires what he didn’t know hitherto and modifies what he incorrectly knew about one specific area under the instruction of the teacher who specializes in that domain, so when the learner spontaneously questions whatever the teacher introduces that contradicts his long-held cognition, how can the teaching and learning process proceed? The learner murmurs to himself, I swear to God I know what I know is correct, the teacher is probably just fooling me. His mind is intent on gathering proofs that validate his suspicion, thus unable to flow along with the current of the class. The learner’s effort to vigorously defend his established perceptions, ironically, is against the unspoken prerequisite of learning: to accept that the learner is in an inferior state to the teacher in the field that the teaching centers on. If the tacitly agreed precondition of learning cannot stand, the action of learning is practically pronounced a stillbirth. Learners of such kind are still grappling with the cruel fact that their knowledge is insufficient and they need to learn, so even though they sit in the classroom, their minds cling tight to their past selves and refuse to accept any changes. Looking back at my teaching career, the highest-achieving students are invariably those who are most accepting and compliant to my instructions. I don’t think it’s because they are feather-brained or simply mom’s good children, indiscriminate in receiving new ideas. On the contrary, I suspect they are too smart to apply skepticism to where they thunderously know they are the inferior. In other words, they understand that learning is based on acknowledging one’s inadequacy, therefore, they glide swiftly to the actual task of learning. That’s why they gain so much more from the learning than the skeptics. Also, students’ appreciative reception of a lesson is so gratifying to a teacher that he tends to be more unreserved in giving out the best possible that he can offer, which in return is in the benefit of the learners.