Saturday, April 08, 2006
Skill and Wisdom
Soony Seo
GSE: S/R#1
3/29/06
Skill and Wisdom
In this essay, Education for a Difficult World, Bertrand Russell explains his ideas of modern good education. Russell believes that a suitable education can help young people understand problems and evaluate solutions of a difficult world. I agree his idea that we have to learn the general in the particular to understand each other for good human progress.
The modern society wants knowledge of specialization to solve its problems, but the problems seem to be mysterious to most people because of their complexity, so it also needs to become more cooperative than before in searching solution to the problems. Modern education is likely to teach more skills of high technological development to solve the problems than wisdom which educators taught before, but skill does not show what should be done to the people. He emphasizes our high technique of science must bring disaster unless our feelings become more co-operative. According to Russell, teaching history and literature to young people is good way to understand mankind for good human progress. Every education should teach the general in the particular.
I agree that it is important to teach not only skills but also history and literature for the young people. First, learning history is good way to understand human beings. History shows us various pictures to check a way to a solution like looking mirror. Just as, we can check our faces when we look the mirror for make up, we need mirror to see our faces, because the mirror can show our face. History shows us our past story to show who we are. Knowing history is wisdom to search for solutions to the present problems and future problems. We can find the way to understand human beings by knowing the facts of yesterday. There are distinguishable facts in history, and they have common truth such as we are a same human being who is not forever in the world. We can see not only the relationship between the cause and the result and know solution in history.
Second, learning literature is also a good way to understand who we are. Literature is life. Than means that it shows us our various characters during appreciating it. The various characters in literature represent our shapes; they have the precious value for human being. Experience is very important to know something and to accumulate wisdom. There are two kinds of experiences such as direct experience and indirect experience. Literature make us possible to have indirect experiences for understanding ourselves and others.
Third, teaching skill and wisdom is education. Education is to stimulate effectively the learner’s potential to solve their problems. Considering life is searching answers to own problems, we have to know skill and wisdom for the solution. Even though we know the facts, we sometimes focus on achieving skills in modern life. Because high technology skills are profitable for a material life, some young people tend to study high technology for good jobs, but just skill is dangerous to us even if they have the sense of balance that keeps harmony of logical thinking and emotional thinking.
Consequently, it is important to educate young people in history and literature for understanding human being. We need logical skills and emotional wisdom to solve our problems because modern life is not simple. We try to see the general good will in particular real life for a good human progress.
Reference
Russel, B. (1952). Education for a difficult world. New York. George Allen & Uniwin, Ltd.
GSE: S/R#1
3/29/06
Skill and Wisdom
In this essay, Education for a Difficult World, Bertrand Russell explains his ideas of modern good education. Russell believes that a suitable education can help young people understand problems and evaluate solutions of a difficult world. I agree his idea that we have to learn the general in the particular to understand each other for good human progress.
The modern society wants knowledge of specialization to solve its problems, but the problems seem to be mysterious to most people because of their complexity, so it also needs to become more cooperative than before in searching solution to the problems. Modern education is likely to teach more skills of high technological development to solve the problems than wisdom which educators taught before, but skill does not show what should be done to the people. He emphasizes our high technique of science must bring disaster unless our feelings become more co-operative. According to Russell, teaching history and literature to young people is good way to understand mankind for good human progress. Every education should teach the general in the particular.
I agree that it is important to teach not only skills but also history and literature for the young people. First, learning history is good way to understand human beings. History shows us various pictures to check a way to a solution like looking mirror. Just as, we can check our faces when we look the mirror for make up, we need mirror to see our faces, because the mirror can show our face. History shows us our past story to show who we are. Knowing history is wisdom to search for solutions to the present problems and future problems. We can find the way to understand human beings by knowing the facts of yesterday. There are distinguishable facts in history, and they have common truth such as we are a same human being who is not forever in the world. We can see not only the relationship between the cause and the result and know solution in history.
Second, learning literature is also a good way to understand who we are. Literature is life. Than means that it shows us our various characters during appreciating it. The various characters in literature represent our shapes; they have the precious value for human being. Experience is very important to know something and to accumulate wisdom. There are two kinds of experiences such as direct experience and indirect experience. Literature make us possible to have indirect experiences for understanding ourselves and others.
Third, teaching skill and wisdom is education. Education is to stimulate effectively the learner’s potential to solve their problems. Considering life is searching answers to own problems, we have to know skill and wisdom for the solution. Even though we know the facts, we sometimes focus on achieving skills in modern life. Because high technology skills are profitable for a material life, some young people tend to study high technology for good jobs, but just skill is dangerous to us even if they have the sense of balance that keeps harmony of logical thinking and emotional thinking.
Consequently, it is important to educate young people in history and literature for understanding human being. We need logical skills and emotional wisdom to solve our problems because modern life is not simple. We try to see the general good will in particular real life for a good human progress.
Reference
Russel, B. (1952). Education for a difficult world. New York. George Allen & Uniwin, Ltd.
# posted by soony @ 5:53 PM 
