英语阅读一Week2Assigment.docVIP

There are three passages for you to read in this Lecture: 1. From Competence to Commitment 2. The Quiet Revolution From Competence to Commitment Ernest Boyer Para 1 Today’s students have ambiguous feelings about their role in the world. They are devoting their energies to what seems most real to them: the pursuit of security, the accumulation of material goods. They are struggling to establish themselves, but the young people are admitted to confusion: where should they put their faith in this uncertain age? Undergraduates are searching for identity and meaning and, like the rest of us, they are torn by idealism of service on the one hand, and on the other, the temptation to retreat into a world that never rises above self-interests. Para 2 In the end, the quality of the undergraduate experience is to be measured by the willingness of graduates to be socially and civically engaged. Reinhold Niebuhr once wrote, “Man cannot behold except he be committed. He cannot find himself without finding a center beyond himself.” The idealism of the undergraduate experience must reflect itself in loyalties that transcend self. Is it too much to expect that, even in this hard-edged, competitive age, a college graduate will live with integrity, civility – even compassion? Is it appropriate to hope that the lessons learned in a liberal education will reveal themselves in the humaneness of the graduate’s relationship with others? Para 3 Clearly, the college graduate has civic obligations to fulfill. There is urgent need in American teaching to help close the dangerous and growing gap between public policy and public understanding. The information required to think constructively about the agenda of government seems increasingly beyond our grasp. It is no longer possible, many argue, to resolve complex public issues through citizen participation. How, they ask, can nonspecialists debate policy choices of consequence when they do not even know the language? Para 4 Should the use of