A brief analysis of Martin Luther King’s opinions about education

A brief analysis of Martin Luther King’s opinions about education

ARTICLED BY JEREMY

“The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically.But education which stops with efficiency may prove the greatest menace to society.The most dangerous criminal may be the man gifted with reason,but with no morals.”Fifty years ago,Martin Luther King announced his splendid thoughts towards education,which,even now,storms and flashes us people.

As far as I’m concerned,to think intensively and critically is a necessity in the process of human wisdom development.

To think intensively is that one can infer other things new in one fact and explain profound theories in one’s own words,which is also a process of searching the essence of living things.True intensive thinking is the driving force of social development.Take those inventions and discoveries for example,the advanced development, like airplane from automobile and telephone from telegram, both provided us daily convenience.Moreover,the discovery of Molecular and then quark presented human beings a further understanding of the microscopic world.Undoubtedly,none of these inventions and discoveries can be carried out merely by carelessly and cursorily thinking but by wholeheartedly and devotedly endeavors.

To think critically means one has to jump out of the intrinsic frame of a theory and can keep a clear awareness all the time as well as not being easy to be brain-washed by others.What’s more, one has to propose his own thoughts and points of views especially the contrasting ideas of a same thing.To think critically,one has to uphold the truth.As Liang Wendao,a sophisticated writer says”Intellectuals should only serves to truth,rather than yield to positions.”History witnessed Bruneau’s great death of being burnt because he stuck to heliocentric theory instead of geocentic theory,what we can learn from him is that sometimes we have to keep our beliefs even with the possibility of death..And also Aristotle,who seriously doubted his teacher’s theory foundation called Theory of Idea and created his own theory called Theory of Substance.Aristotle,a brave man,insisted on criticizing his teacher’s mistakes and errors.Since he held serious differences views in philosophy with that of his teacher Plato,some people pointed out that he betrayed his teacher,which made born the famous saying of Aristotle”Plato is dear to me,but dearer still is truth.”

However,if we want to possess the ability of thinking intensively and critically,education is a must.

As Martin Luther King said”education which stops with efficiency may prove the greatest menace to society”I can’t agree more with it.currently Chinese educational system has exactly been tending to a wrong path which stops with efficiency,which makes it a major drawback of Chinese education,paying too much attention to practical benefits and ignoring the students’true value.To deal with,both teachers and students has compelling obligations.However,we see a strange relationship between teachers and students,which directly affects the quality of education.Ancient educator Han Yu

said:”Teacher is one who could propagate the doctrine，impart professional knowledge，and resolve doubts.”But propagating the doctrine doesn’t meet the principle of Value neutrality,talking about”solving doubts”?sorry,our teachers are too busy and be in no mood to do this.As a result,presently teachers lessen their responsibility to just”imparting professional knowledge”,what’s worse, more and more college teachers show up for class and leave immediately after class!In addition,Students are not willing to think actively in classes,rather,they just find the way to get high marks in examinations.Some of them keep their eyes closely on the bulletin board,wondering if there are jobs to do.Worse still, some students have considered university study as a platform to find a job or even equals the function of university to social work.When both primary school,middle school,high school,or even university regard graduation rates,excellent rates,,employment rates as the first standard to measure the quality of education but ignore the quality of students’s moral merits,when those schools are not actually doing the all-round development of students but announce that they are,then,more and more students are just deformities,and more and more graduates are just machines,being skillful at examinations without any creative thoughts.You said this society is promising and full of potential?Let me answer you with a saying of Author Bei Dao”I do not believe it!”,

If the all-round development of students or the ideological moral education can truly cultivates the talents and driven people,then it’s hard to contemplate the results when this kind of education goes to a wrong direction.

Research shows that the most skillful criminals are professor of psychology.These criminals have also received education even are well-educated.However, years of education means nothing to them literally..Just as Martin Luther King said.”The most dangerous criminal may be the man gifted with reason,but with no morals.”Then we start to think,whether or not knowledge learning is the core of education,and whether or not all-round development education can be the core of education,both two questions maintain unknown.Without doubt, all-round development is an indispensable part of our education,and this kind of development is to teach students a capacity to tell right and wrong,is also a sense of justice,which draws you a moral bottom line.Personally speaking,even it means to sacrifice some of the benefits of knowledge learning,we have to place all-round development education on the agenda.In a nutshell,knowledge is not power,but wisdom is. Maybe the real problem of our education owes to our social system.However,we can not pass all these bucks to our society,after all ,a society consists of you and me.We can’t change where we live but we can change ourselves.Speaking of education,both teachers and students should take actions.A pressing matter of the moment is that on one hand,our teachers have to correct their teaching attitudes,guiding the students to form study habits and learning methods instead of putting high marks as the top priority.On the other hand,as students,we should calm down and study diligently,minimizing the importance of high marks but place moral traits before everything.Only in this type of interactive endeavor can brighten our days for a better tomorrow.