Passage 2
Americans today don′t place a very high value on intellect. Our heroes are athletes,
entertainers, and entrepreneurs, not scholars. Even our schools are where we send our children to geta practical education--not to pursue knowledge for the sake of knowledge. Symptoms of pervasiveanti-intellectualism in our schools aren′t difficult to fred.
"Schools have always been in a society where practical is more important than intellectual,"says education writer Diane Ravitch."Schools could be a counterbalance." Ravitch′s latest book,Left Back: A Century of Failed School Reforms, traces the roots of anti-intellectualism in ourschools, concluding they are anything but a counterbalance to the American distaste for intellectualpursuits.
But they could and should be. Encouraging kids to reject the life of the mind leaves themvulnerable to exploitation and control. Without the ability to think critically, to defend their ideasand understand the ideas of others, they cannot fully participate in our democracy. Continuing alongthis path, says writer Earl Shorris, "We will become a second-rate country. We will have a less civilsociety."
"Intellect is resented as a form of power or privilege," writes historian and professor RichardHofstadter in Anti-Intellectualism in American Life, a Pulitzer-Prize winning book on the roots ofanti-intellectualism in uspolitics, religion, and education. From the beginning of our history, saysHofstadter, our democratic and populist urges have driven us to reject anything that smells of elitism.
Practicality, common sense, and native intelligence have been considered more noble qualities thananything you could learn from a book.
Ralph Waldo Emerson and other Transcendentalist philosophers thought schooling andrigorous book learning put unnatural restraints on children: "We are shut up in schools and collegerecitation rooms for 10 or 15 years and come out at last with a bellyful of words and do not know athing." Mark Twain′ s Huckleberry Finn exemplified American anti-intellectualism. Its hero avoidsbeing civilized--going to school and learning to read--so he can preserve his innate goodness.
Intellect, according to Hofstadter, is different from native intelligence, a quality we reluctantlyadmire. Intellect is the critical, creative, and contemplative side of the mind. Intelligence seeks tograsp, manipulate, re-order, and adjust, while intellect examines, ponders, wonders, theorizes,criticizes and imagines.
School remains a place where intellect is mistrusted. Hofstadter says our country′ s educationalsystem is in the grips of people who "joyfully and militantly proclaim their hostility to intellect andtheir eagerness to identify with children who show the least intellectual promise."
What do American parents expect their children to acquire in school
A.The habit of thinking independently.
B.Profound knowledge of the world.
C.Practical abilities for future career.
D.The confidence in intellectual pursuits.
