2007年4月27日金曜日

ARP: Reaction to Meiland's "New Types of Intellectual Work".

Kensuke Uematsu                        Uematsu 1
Professor Owen
ARW Section AI
28 April 2007
     Reaction to Meiland’s “New Types of Intellectual Work”
Summary
     According to this text, students will be required new types of intellectual work in college. There are three main points about the new work. To begin with, college students will be required the work which is exactly different and higher level compared with high school students. To illustrate, why Meiland can exactly say both high school and college are different is that, there is a kind of statement to explain how the university should be. It called a normative statement. His statements on this topic are intended to describe the way things are at the best colleges and the way they should be in every college. Next, the students should have sufficient evidence when they believe any ideas. According to W.K. Clifford a nineteenth-century English mathematician and philosopher, it’s the wrong way to believe anything without sufficient evidence. To demonstrate, the work in college deals with the rational justification of belief. Students have to investigate the rationality of every belief. Finally, there are some difference about treatment of the word “theory” between high school and college. In high school, it’s an unchangeable fact but in college, it’s a changeable and it may turn out to be wrong. For these reasons, college students will be required new types of intellectual work.

Discussion
     Meiland says that the students who are in the college required new types of intellectual work. There are various works in the college. One of them is that, students have to have a sufficient evidence to believe any ideas. To begin with, the work characteristic of college deals with the rational justification of belief. For example, college teachers are concerned not merely with imparting information but also, and mainly, to present and examine the basis on which this information is or should be believed because they want this material to be believed on the basis of reason rather than on the basis of authority. Following this, I agreed with Meiland because a good reason or sufficient evidence is surely important when people tell their own opinion to others and to make the opinion reliable. To demonstrate, if you want others to accept your opinion by a presentation or a speech in the company, you must bring sufficient reason and some hope which will become benefits to their business so students in college should acquire the skill of telling their opinion with reliable reasons before they start working in a company. On the other hand, you can get a mind of critical thinking and reasonable thinking if you always think about the evidence of all your ideas. Therefore, I agree with Meiland’s idea, students in college must have sufficient evidence to believe any ideas and it’s a quite important thing in college education.

                     Work Cited
Meiland, Jack W. College Thinking: How to Get the Best Out of College. New York: New American Library, 1981. (The ELP Reader, 2006. 7-10).

Paragraph: My Most Meaningful Experience

Kensuke Uematsu
Professor Owen
ARW Section AI
27 April 2007

My Meaningful Experiences in Singapore

      My meaningful experience that has educated me outside of school is that I have been in Singapore for six years, and there are three reasons. To begin with, I could learn about some languages which I have never learned or heard, for example, English, Chinese and Malaysian. Next, it was my first experience to live in abroad so I could know many differences between Japan and other countries. To illustrate, we can see some people who toss away a trash or a cigarette butt on the road and spit on the ground sometimes in Japan, however in Singapore, there is a fine for those things so there are few people who does those kinds of ill-mannered things. There are many kinds of fine in Singapore so that Singapore can keep a town clean. Finally, I learned about some interesting cultures of other countries because the people in Singapore came from various countries like China, India, Malaysia, and so on. They eat different foods, they celebrate different holidays and they profess different religions but they can live together nicely and peacefully. All of these reasons, my experiences in Singapore are my meaningful experience that has educated me outside of school.