TOEFL iBT, Independent Writing, A national curriculum for all children up until college

Writing Topic

Consider the following statement. The government should provide a national curriculum for all children up until college. Do you agree with this idea? Support your response by including specific reasons and examples.

 

 

☆Let’s Think

The word should is about ideal situations, so the discussion could be purely in theory as in we should not kill even for self-defense. The word should also means duty, so that the focus of the discussion can be about responsibility as in the government should support the disadvantaged.

 

☆Hints for Points

Agree:

１．higher level of general knowledge required today

２．to help avoid problems caused by extreme-specialization

 

Disagree:

1.    to protect university autonomy

2.    to promote creativity

 

             

☆Essay Structure

♦Sample essay structure in the case that you have two or three reasons to support your argument

【Introduction = Outline】　主張と理由の概略 

【Point 1】理由1の詳細 

【Point 2】理由2の詳細 

【Point 3 / Counterargument-treatment】理由3の詳細または反論の処理

【Conclusion = Wrap-up】結論 

 

♦Your Sample Essay Structure

【Introduction = Outline】

 

【Point 1】

 

【Point 2】

 

【Point 3 / Counterargument-treatment】

             

 

【Conclusion = Wrap-up】

 

 

 

☆Essay for Ideas and Expressions

While I believe that the officials in the ministry of education are conscientious and sincerely care about our children, the idea of the ministry preparing a learning standard up until college for all children and telling universities what to teach sounds unreal and, to be honest, creepy. I cannot agree with the statement that the government should provide a national curriculum for all children up until college.

 

It is true that almost half the children born in developed countries will go to university and most universities provide liberal arts, usually the first half of the college years being spent on the acquisition of the introductory level knowledge of a variety of disciplines prior to or in addition to major subjects, so that there might be an idea that we should have a national standard for the college learning. However, the idea touches the problem of how much the government should control. It would be an unnecessary intervention that the government should prepare a set of curriculum for those who have the ability to decide what they need to learn and how to handle what they have learned. Most middle school students may lack general knowledge and common sense, but college students are supposed to have them and this assumption should be respected. If there were such a government as tries to openly control the learning of the brightest people of the country, it would be the last entity that you would like to live under.

 

It is also impossible for the government, or anyone, to know what university students should learn. University is the place for voluntary pursuit of academic interest. It provides primordial environment for fact finding and creativity. It ought to be chaotic and unpredictable, the opposite of being under a management. A student majoring in literature would learn higher mathematics for fun and later become a competent manager, a student majoring in French literature would spend all four years reading all kinds of novels day and night to be an award-winning science and politics journalist because he has seen the limit of the reality depicted in fiction (a true story), a medical student who happened to be fascinated by Egyptology would work out a new approach to evolutionary anthropology by analyzing DNAs of old remains such as Egyptian mammies or Neanderthals (another true story), or a future leader of an IT giant company would take a calligraphy course and later draw on the skill in creating new machines, as in the well-known case of Steve Jobs. Let smart people study as they like, and something amazing would come out. It is ridiculous for the government to try to decide what students should get out of university education.

 

Last but not least, the goodness of a curriculum for all people up until college is questionable. The interests and abilities of people vary, and university education may have nothing to do with what many young people are trying to get out of life. After high school, some might want to work and others might want to gain skills at vocational schools even if they could go to university. There are still others just cannot stand studying. What college education helps develop is only a fraction of human activities. Setting a standard model of academic achievement for four more years for all people makes no sense. Moreover, the present national curriculum seems to be the enemy of joy of learning. Each child is born with a great capacity, I believe, but most elementary school children seem to find few subjects attractive, and after toiling all the way up to high school, most people develop a feeling of disgust towards studying. Moreover, even those who seem to like studying will forget most of what they learn at school in twenty years. This indicates that real learning seldom, if ever, takes place under the present curriculum. Even considering other factors such as teaching methods or the overall environment of education such as the academic achievement-oriented society, bad performance may well be attributed to bad materials, the class contents. The government should not extend the system that is not working.

 

A curriculum for all up until college under the guidance of the government is incoherent in its terms. It seems unnecessary and unrealistic, at best. For college autonomy and for the reality of present education, I disagree with the idea.