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Education is Better than Wealth Example. What Are Your Views?

Education is Better than Wealth Example. debate on money is important, education is wealth essay, education is better than wealth

Money is important, but education is more important

Among all the countries and regions in the world, which people love money and admire wealth most?

In the past, when faced with this problem, we would definitely say: Americans! Money worship comes from them.

Objectively speaking, even today, Americans still worship money. However, in terms of "worshiping money" alone, Americans today are already behind the world level. There are survey data as evidence.

There are many people who think that "you have everything if you have money, and you can dominate everything". Social values ​​have long been distorted, and not just as some cautious publicity said, there are only signs of distortion. Relatively speaking, in the United States where capitalism and money worship are still prevalent, only 33% of the people regard money as a symbol of success.

education-is-better-than-wealth-example
The same distortion, or to put it mildly, shows some signs of distortion. Give a small example around me: Karen, whose girl is 7 years old, has an elementary school near her home, and she is not uniquely rich, but in order to prevent her children from losing at the starting line, she resolutely asked someone to find a relationship and spent 5 Ten thousand US dollars, sent her daughter to a "good" elementary school 30 kilometers away from home. 

In addition, A has also applied for no less than 5 tutoring classes for his daughter, including English at least 20,000 US dollars per year... It was the sentence that said that others are not new. In this example, A is actually not someone else. Is a relative of the author. Coincidentally, the teacher in charge of teaching an English extracurricular tutoring class for my relative’s child is a classmate of the author. 

It is especially coincidental that in time for the government to introduce a "New English Deal" that year-English is no longer included in the total scores of the college entrance examination-the author's relatives and classmates instantly fell into a huge melancholy. Regarding my relatives, the reason for the melancholy is very simple. He just wants his children to stand out in the future college entrance examination with the expected English advantage and enter a better university. 

Now... and my classmates are even more melancholy. It's simple. Since English will not be counted in the total score of the college entrance examination in the future, who will send children to learn English frugally? If no one learns, his income will naturally decrease.

Talking about this does not mean that the author does not approve of learning and education. Art doesn't hold your body, it's always good to learn more. But I absolutely oppose those learning and education aimed at the college entrance examination or any exam, only because this kind of learning violates the spirit of learning and education.

Relatively speaking, Americans also attach great importance to education and learning. People from all countries all over the world have sharpened their heads and headed to the United States for nothing else because the United States has the world's top universities, and there are more than one. 

In the words of beginners, “Harvard, Yale, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton, Columbia, etc., there are so many prestigious universities in the United States. 

So, why are American universities so awesome? It is nothing more than the following:

One is to respect knowledge. This can be seen from the comparison of the treatment of American intellectuals, especially senior intellectuals (university professors, presidents, teaching assistants, etc.) and American officials. Related survey data show that among senior US officials, US President Barack Obama has the highest salary, with an annual salary of $400,000. Next is the President of the House of Representatives, with an annual salary of 223,500 US dollars. 

The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court followed closely behind, with $217,400. Ministers, the average is 193,400 US dollars. The governors of each state are respectively 124,400 US dollars. The average salary of nearly 2 million civil servants in the United States is close to 80,000 U.S. dollars.

In the same period, a survey published on the "American Higher Education Yearbook" website showed that the median annual income of 429 private universities and college presidents in the United States was 360,000 US dollars, and the median annual income of large private research university presidents was 630,000 US dollars. There are 23 principals whose annual income is as high as one million US dollars. 

Relatively speaking, although the salary of professors in American universities is significantly lower than that of university presidents, they are also higher than the average salary of American civil servants-108,800 US dollars. This is for university professors who only need to complete 9 months of teaching work each year. In terms of.

Similarly, the United States also has eight prestigious universities, namely "Ivy League schools". They are Harvard University, Yale University, Brown University, Columbia University, and Cornell University. , Dartmouth University, Princeton University, and the University of Pennsylvania. 

The academic strength of these eight universities is naturally well-known, among which Harvard University, which ranks first in the "World Famous University Rankings", is the most prestigious. But few people know that these eight universities are all private without exception, and there is no public university. What's the point of this? 

It's very simple, "Eat people's mouth is short, take people's hands soft", this saying is also applicable to university management. Since these eight universities are all private, they can do things according to their own wishes to the greatest extent possible. If necessary, they can "deny the six relatives" instead of obeying the orders of senior education officials.

To put it more simply, Americans promote academic autonomy and academic freedom. University presidents and professors, rather than American presidents and senior officials, decide "who will teach, what will teach, how, and who can enroll." 

Let’s take the first point of “who will teach” as an example to revisit the rejection of the former US Secretary of State Kissinger by Harvard University.

Kissinger studied at Harvard University in his early years and received his Ph.D. in 1954. Since then, he has entered the political circle to work in strategic research. Three years later, Harvard University recruited Kissinger as a lecturer. From then on until 1969, Kissinger served as a lecturer, associate professor, and professor at Harvard University. 

In January 1969, Kissinger left Harvard University and went to Washington to take up his post as President Nixon's Secretary of State and became a politician and diplomat in the world in one fell swoop. Later, when the "Watergate Incident" broke out, Nixon was forced to resign. After the Vice President took over, he did not fire him but instead allowed him to continue as Secretary of State. 

But when President Ford's term ended, Kissinger, who had retired from politics, wanted to return to his alma mater, Harvard University, as a professor, but Harvard University rejected his request. Many people think that this is Harvard University's "selflessness". Many domestic newspapers and periodicals also reprinted this news in a short period of time, but the actual situation is not the case, but there are many details.

Imagine that Kissinger has been teaching at Harvard for 12 years before he became Secretary of State. He has excellent academic attainments. After experiencing the baptism of international political turmoil, he will return again. He must have had more profound enlightenment on his philosophy. Such talents, Harvard There is no reason why universities should not accept. 

The reason why Harvard University refused to hire Kissinger was that Kissinger put forward an additional requirement, that, he did not want to teach students, but only wanted to do research. This is contrary to the teaching philosophy of Harvard University. As the professor of Harvard University and the dean of Harvard University’s School of Arts and Sciences once said, “I often tell my colleagues that without students, there would be no us.” At Harvard, the primary task of professors is always to teach. 

This is the bounden duty of professors, and professors must Only in this way can we guarantee the quality of teaching at Harvard, and at the same time, it is also a guarantee for the interests of students. Therefore, shortly after Kissinger was rejected, in an interview with the media, the then-President of Harvard University, Professor Bok, explained straightforwardly: Bad. But Harvard wants professors, not big people who don't attend classes."

The opposite is the negative textbooks that are everywhere. A young colleague of mine, a young boy who recently graduated from a domestic academy of fine arts, once personally told me that his school used to play a sign when enrolling students. A well-known domestic illustrator and painter were grandly hired as a professor of the academy, including this at the time. 

Many students, including a young boy, went to the teacher and the job prospects declared by the school. Over the past few years, the tuition and various costs have cost at least 100,000 US dollars, but everyone listened to the professor’s lectures. A total of fewer than 10 times, a lesson is more than 10,000 US dollars. Perhaps it is to express his guilt. This teacher will give every student in his class a piece of work every year during the New Year, and it can sell for tens of thousands of US dollars on the domestic market...

Third, a solid style of study. I mentioned the case of Kissinger being rejected by Harvard University. In fact, this is not the first time Kissinger was rejected by his alma mater. In fact, Kissinger had already been rejected once in 1954. At that time, Kissinger, who was about to graduate, looked forward to staying in school. 

But Harvard University has a whole set of faculty appointment systems, one of which is expressly stipulated that Harvard will never hire students who have just graduated with a doctorate, no matter how good he is. Harvard graduates must first go to other universities or laboratories, research institutes or companies to work for many years, gain certain experience, and even achieve certain results, and then return to Harvard, Harvard will consider accepting. 

In addition, unless "airborne soldiers" have made major academic achievements in the world, most of Harvard's teachers start as extra-staff lecturers, and then go through in-staff lecturers, assistant professors, associate professors, and finally become professors, and every position They all have a strict number of years. 

In fact, Kissinger became a professor step by step, but after many years, he was well versed in Harvard school regulations and asked him to do research and not teach, which was really self-defeating.

As we mentioned earlier, the incomes of practitioners in the education industry in the United States, especially senior intellectuals, are higher than those of senior officials in the United States, but there is also a long process of transition, like Kissinger, from lecturer to professor, he used it all Nearly 10 years of work. 

This process is also the only way for most American educators from initial lecturers or assistants to professors and even academic maturity. In the United States, it is absolutely not without one step to the sky, but it is definitely an alien. 

In contrast, most Americans believe in a philosophical saying: There is no ambition without being indifferent, and there is no way to go if there is no tranquility. Americans rarely have the idea of ​​being eager for quick success and a quick profit, doing things in a rigid manner, and finally, climbing higher step by step.

However, this does not mean that all Americans are so qualified, but that Americans have a "zero tolerance" attitude towards academic fraud and academic plagiarism.

Let’s take a somewhat extreme example: 10 years ago, the famous constitutional professor of Harvard Law School in the United States, Lawrence Chopp, who had won the highest title of Harvard University-school-level professor, was also the "faculty mentor" of President Obama. 

The professor, once he missed, became eternal hate, and fell into a sensational academic plagiarism case. The reason why he was said to have made a mistake and hated forever is that in the eyes of the Chinese, his so-called plagiarism is no plagiarism at all. 

There is a sentence in his popular book "God Saves This Honorable Court", a total of 19 This word is accused of plagiarizing the famous book "The Justice and the President" by Henry Abraham, a professor and political scientist at the University of Virginia. When he first wrote the book, the reason why he deleted the corresponding footnotes and endnotes was that he considered that his work was written for ordinary readers, not academic works, and he also mentioned Professor Abraham and this book in the background literature. book. 

In fact, Professor Abraham himself didn’t say anything, but the Republican’s mouthpiece, Standard Weekly, was reluctant and reluctant to report high-profile reports. It meant that Professor Quebo I’s reputation would be lost.  Taking a step back, in the words of a colleague of the author, "You sue me, and the Academy of Algorithms sentenced me to pay, and I will pay you for these 19 words!" 

But Professor Bo did not do this but was in pain. After the battle between the heavens and humans, he chose to cut the chaos with a sharp knife, openly admitted his mistakes, and expressed his apologies. This not only won the understanding of the academic circles but also left those with ulterior motives with nothing to say.

Regardless of the issue itself, in fact, even in the United States, where academic self-discipline is most respected, academic plagiarism scandals are endless. From undergraduates, masters, and doctoral students, to senior professors, their level of fraud is not essentially different from that of their counterparts. 

The difference is the attitude of the American public opinion on similar incidents, and the attitude of the parties who apologize almost completely such as Professor Chubb, especially the attitude of the United States law to this-according to the United States law, for any acquisition of the United States For research projects funded by the federal government, universities receive reports of plagiarism and are obliged to investigate and deal with them. 

If it refuses to deal with, or shelters and condones, the federal government has the right to stop allocating project funding after review, and will no longer accept project applications in the future. 

In addition to eliminating the expert library, plagiarism, and fraudsters are also prohibited from applying for projects for several years or even their entire lives according to the degree of fault. This is undoubtedly worthy of our reference and learning.

Fourth, the whole nation is helping students. As mentioned earlier, the main reason why the "Ivy League schools" represented by Harvard University can maintain academic autonomy and academic freedom to the greatest extent is that they are all private schools. But private schools also have their drawbacks, that is, the source of funding. Generally speaking, its funding sources are nothing more than two channels, one is the tuition fees of students, and the other is social donations. 

On the surface, the former, that is, student tuition seems to be the main channel, but in fact, it is not, although the tuition of such schools is really expensive. Relevant information shows that the source of funds for such schools mainly depends on donations. One of the donors of such schools is the alumni of the school, and the other is a famous entrepreneur.

Speaking of famous entrepreneurs, there is a very famous example. The protagonist of the story is the American oil king Mr. Rockefeller. In 1891, he approached Charles Elliott, then president of Harvard University, and asked him: "I want to build an A world-class university, can you tell me what conditions are needed?"

Elliott replied: "You need 200 years and huge sums of money." Rockefeller was furious: 200 years? You are unclearly saying that I can't build a good university at all! Angrily, Rockefeller founded a university the following year and donated 35 million U.S. dollars to the school in 18 years. 

However, he insisted on not allowing the school to be named after him, saying only that "everything should be the best". We are determined to build this university into a first-class university. Although he did not see the school become a world-class university in his lifetime, he is not like Elliott predicted. Today, more than a hundred years have passed, and the school has long been famous all over the world. 

Considering that Rockefeller founded the University of Chicago angrily, let's look at another example. In fact, before Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, the U.S. steel king, established the first educational foundation in the United States, the Carnegie Foundation. This self-made newspaper boy not only built no less than 2,000 libraries across the United States, but also like Later, Rockefeller also donated to build a university, which is today's Carnegie Mellon University, and his donation work is very detailed. 

After careful observation, he found that the teachers in the United States are paid very low. How can the next generation be trained with such a salary? So he set up the "Carnegie Promotional Education Foundation" specifically for this purpose, which is used for university professors' pensions and research on American education issues. 

This move aroused the attention of American society to the treatment of teachers and finally made American teachers begin to enjoy welfare protection before other social classes. Later, in his later years, Carnegie also donated nearly 100 million US dollars in funds and established the "New York Carnegie Group" to continue to donate to American education.

In addition, most wealthy people in the United States can be said to be making their own contributions indirectly to the cause of American education. As mentioned above, because most of the prestigious schools in the United States are private schools, many children from wealthy families are basically sent to private schools. 

On the contrary, most public schools in the United States are for ordinary or poor families. child. The US government's investment in public school education funding is also among the best. Everyone knows that the U.S. military expenditure is the highest in the world, but in fact, the U.S. invests more in education. The former is 5% of GDP and the latter is 8%, which is about US$2,684 per person. Times! But objectively speaking, this is justifiable.

For example, in the United States, all children in public primary and secondary schools do not need to bring lunch boxes, because the United States has provided free breakfast and lunch for elementary and middle school students since 1975, and the nutrition is quite rich and balanced, which is suitable for low-income families. It is definitely a big benefit. 

It should be said that American education, especially university education, is second to none in the world, and there are some historical reasons, but as we have cited some examples above, this is mainly due to the advanced and pragmatic American concept, which is just like Harvard. 

University President Delhi Bock said in his speech at the 350th Anniversary Celebration of Harvard University: “The Second World War destroyed the higher education of many countries. Not only did American universities survive the disaster, but also a group of outstanding scientists and scholars have been strengthened by fleeing to the United States to escape political persecution in Europe. American universities have also received the support of the world’s most prosperous economy, but most importantly, we have a set of methods for running colleges and universities."
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