In today’s America, if you spend much time with educators and policy makers, you’ll hear a lot of the following words: “standards,” “results,” “skills,” “self-control,” and so on. A look at what goes on in most classrooms these days makes it clear that when people think about education, they are not thinking about what it feels like to be a child, or what makes childhood an important stage of life in own right.
The thing that sets children apart from adults is not their ignorance, nor their lack of skills. It’s their ability for joy. Becoming educated should not require giving up joy but rather lead to finding joy in new kinds of things: reading novels instead of playing with small figures, conducting experiments instead of sinking cups in the bathtub, for example. In some cases, schools should help children find new, more grown-up ways of doing the same things that keep them joyful: making art, making friends, making decisions, etc.
However, many of the assignments and rules schools come up with treat pleasure and joy as the enemies of competence (能力) and responsibility. Children should learn to delay pleasure and joy so that they can achieve abstract goals, like going to college. Not only is this a boring and awful way to treat children, but it also makes no sense educationally. They can be forced to stay in their seats or fill out worksheets, but they can’t be forced to think carefully, enjoy books, or digest complex information.
Building on a child’s ability to feel joy, rather than pushing it aside, would require a change in the education world’s mindset (思维模式). Instead of trying to get children to work hard, why not focus on getting them to take pleasure in meaningful, productive activities. Like working with others, exploring ideas, and solving problems? These focuses are not different from the things in which they take delight.
Joy should not be trained out of school or left for after- school programs. It doesn’t run counter to the goals of public education. It is, in fact, the primary condition.
29. Many of the assignments and rules of schools are considered_______.
A. too complex for children to understand B. reasonable to achieve educational goals
C.to focus on children’s joy D. to set studying against pleasure
30. Which of the following is true according to the passage?
A. Educators are thinking about school education in a proper way.
B. The ability to feel joy often differs from the competence to study.
C. Having children work hard requires changing educators’ mindset.
D. Education should help children find joy in more grown- up ways.
31. The underlined expression “run counter to” in the last paragraph probably means_______.
A. keep back B.argue for C. make for D. go against
32. The author of the passage intends to______.
A. discuss where education leads B.suggest joy is what schools lack
C. question children’s ability to feel joy D. prove activity creates responsibility