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1、通识教育基于哈佛大学的经验Program in General EducationThe new Program goes into effect for the Class of 2013. The Harvard College Handbook for Students states:Students must complete one letter-graded course in each of the eight categories in General Education (click on the categories for their respective descrip
2、tions): Aesthetic and Interpretive Understanding (A&I), Culture and Belief (C&B), Empirical and Mathematical Reasoning (EMR), Ethical Reasoning (ER), Science of Living Systems (SLS), Science of the Physical Universe (SPU), Societies of the World (SW), and United States in the World (US/W).One of the
3、se eight courses must also engage substantially with theIn general, students should plan to take one General Education course per term. There are, however, no requirements regarding the timing of the requirements as long as all are completed by graduation. First-year students often find that General
4、 Education courses are useful for exploring potential concentrations. Other students use the General Education requirements to add some variety to their course of study.Aesthetic and Interpretive UnderstandingOne of the goals of general education is to help students understand themselves and others
5、as products of and participants in traditions of culture and belief. One step toward achieving this understanding is the development of aesthetic responsiveness and the ability to interpret forms of cultural expressionliterary or religious texts, paintings, sculpture, architecture, music, film, danc
6、e, decorative arts. These skills allow students to engage intelligently and critically with the world of art and ideas, and they are necessary for understanding how meanings are produced and received. Reading a poem, looking at a painting, and listening to a piece of music are complex capacities tha
7、t build an informed sensitivity, an interaction between the intellect and the senses. And students need to know how to interpret cultural works-to know, for example, how to distinguish the literal and symbolic, something that is crucial to evaluating and making sense of everything from religious tex
8、ts and lyric poems to pop songs and motion pictures. Knowing something about language and perception can heighten students * aesthetic responses to and interpretation of cultural objects. Exploring theoretical and philosophical issues concerning the production and reception of meanings and the forma
9、tion of aesthetic judgment enhances students awareness of ways in which cultural objects acquire value and significance.Courses in Aesthetic and Interpretive Understanding should: Develop skills in criticism, that is, aesthetic responsiveness and interpretive ability; develop skills in understanding
10、 written, aural, visual, kinaesthetic, or other forms by examining primary texts in any language, linguistic structures, and/or works of art in one or more media; teach how to analyze these works in a contextual framework, such as critical theory, aesthetics, philosophy of art, rhetoric, theories of
11、 language and meaning, or theories of perception; and where practicable and appropriate, include experiences out of the classroom, such as visits to exhibitions, performances, and readings, or interactions with performers, directors, and curators, or allow students to undertake creative work.List of
12、 courses ihat satisfy the AI category.Culture and BeliefIn developing an awareness of themselves and other people as products of and participants in traditions of culture and belief, students need to do more than acquire skills in interpreting and responding to art and ideas-the aim of courses in th
13、e Aesthetic and Interpretive Understanding subject area, above. They need to put these works in contextto see how social, political, religious, and economic, and cross-cultural conditions shape the production and reception of ideas and works of art.They also need to learn about the ways in which cul
14、tures and beliefs mediate people, s understanding of themselves and the world.The role of culture and belief in shaping identities and communities is not simple: culture and belief can cause change, and they can also be sources of resistance to change. Cultural expressions have never been more widel
15、y disseminated. Music, images, and literature of all kinds are accessible to an extent unheard of even twenty years ago, and this has altered the way we think about cultures. We are more aware than ever of the degree to which cultures feed off one another across national, regional, religious, and et
16、hnic boundaries. Yet it is often in the name of their culture that national and ethnic groups engage in conflict with other groups.Religious beliefs and practices are topics that some courses in this category should address. Religion has historically been, and continues to be, a force shaping identi
17、ty and behavior throughout the world. Harvard is a secular institution, but religion is an important part of our students lives. (Ninety-four percent of HarvardJ s incoming students report that they discuss religion “frequently or occasionally, “ and seventy-one percent say that they attend religiou
18、s services.) When they get to college, students often struggle to sort out the relationship between their own beliefs and practices and those of fellow students, and the relationship of religious belief to the resolutely secular world of the academy. It is also important for students to have the opp
19、ortunity to learn something about the impact that religious belief and practice has on the world, as well as on themselves.There are many topics of wide practical and intellectual interest that courses in Culture and Belief might address: problems of translation, the concept of authorship (its signi
20、ficance for claims about plagiarism or copyright), censorship, conflicting interpretations of religious and other texts, institutional mediation of aesthetic experience (art museums, the music industry, the church), canon formation, the tensions between modernity and reactionary thinking, violence a
21、nd its representation.Courses in Culture and Belief should: Develop an understanding of and appreciation for traditions of culture and belief in human societies; introduce students to primary texts in any language, works of art in one or more media, or ethnographies, social histories, or other secon
22、dary texts; develop the ability to analyze these works in the light of their historical, social, political, economic, religious, and/or cross-cultural conditions of production and reception; examine ways in which traditions of culture and belief shape the identities of individuals and communities; a
23、nd draw connections between the material covered in the course and cultural issues of concern or interest that are likely to arise in students, own lives.List of courses that satisfy the CB category.Empirical and MathematicalReasoningAfter they graduate, students will be making important decisions,
24、for themselves and others, under conditions of uncertainty. They will have to decide, for example, what medical treatments to undergo, when a defendant in court has been proven guilty, whether to support a policy proposal, and how to manage their personal finances. They also will be called upon, as
25、individuals and as citizens, to evaluate empirical claims made by others. Courses in empirical reasoning help students learn how to make decisions and draw inferences in matters like these that involve the evaluation of empirical data. They teach students how to gather and assess information, weigh
26、evidence, understand estimates of probabilities, solve problems, draw inferences from the data available, and also how to recognize when an issue cannot be settled on the basis of the available evidence. To develop these abilities, students need to learn how to apply the abstract principles and conc
27、epts of probability theory, statistics, decision theory, logic, and mathematics to concrete problems. Ordinarily, they will learn to do this in the form of hands-on exercises. Just as one doesn, t become a marathon runner by reading about the Boston Marathon, so, too, one doesn t become a good probl
28、em solver by listening to lectures or reading about statistics. Students should learn empirical reasoning by practicing it.Empirical reasoning is not a discrete body of knowledge. It is a set of related conceptual skills that guide valid reasoning and decision-making. To take just a few examples, st
29、udents might learn the statistical principle that exceptional cases will regress to the mean; that relaxing the standards for reporting an uncertain event will increase both hits and false alarms; that a person with the typical symptoms of a rare condition probably does not have that condition; that
30、 in certain interactions the best option for each individual can bring about the worst outcome for all of them. It is also helpful for students to become aware of the many mistakes that human beings are prone to making in their reasoning, such as mistaking correlation for causation, ignoring base ra
31、tes in estimating probabilities, overinterpreting coincidences, and the like. Knowing common pitfalls in inference-making can help students avoid them.Empirical reasoning should be taught in the context of a variety of subjects so that students can work on topics of intrinsic interest to them, such
32、as medicine and disease, public policy and political behavior, and legal or economic decision-making. We expect that many students will fulfill the requirement with courses in the statistical and analytical methods of their field. Mathematics and logic courses that demonstrate the applicability of t
33、heir methods to concrete problems should also count toward this requirement.Courses in Empirical and Mathematical Reasoning should: Teach the conceptual and theoretical tools used in reasoning and problem solving, such as statistics, probability, mathematics, logic, and decision theory; provide exer
34、cises in which students apply these tools to concrete problems of wide concern; and where practicable, familiarize students with some of the mistakes human beings typically make in reasoning and problem solving.List of courses that satisfy the EM category.Ethical ReasoningMany of the decisions our s
35、tudents will make in their personal and professional lives will have ethical implications: choosing a political candidate to support; assessing public policies; negotiating professional interactions; resolving family dilemmas; and, ultimately, choosing among different life projects. Courses in Ethic
36、al Reasoning teach students to reason in a principled way about moral and political beliefs and practices, and to deliberate and assess claims for themselves about ethical issues. These courses will examine competing conceptions and theories of liberty, justice, equality, democracy, rights, obligati
37、ons, the good life, and the like, illustrating how they bear on the sorts of concrete ethical dilemmas students may encounter in their public, professional, and personal lives. Because they explicitly link theory and practice, some courses in this category might profitably engage professional school
38、 faculty.In learning how to wrestle with ethical issues, it is often helpful for students to encounter a value system very different from their own, one that calls attention to the many ethical assumptions that they make without realizing it. This encounter may be with a value system from the past o
39、r from a different culture, and it may be within the context of a religious tradition.By challenging students to evaluate, and possibly change, the assumptions and values they grew up with, these courses promote our students personal development and build the capacities for argument and deliberation
40、 essential for effective civic agency. Advances in science and technology will continue to raise difficult and unanticipated ethical questions into the future, and the impact of social and economic globalization is felt perhaps most keenly when ethical convictions of different cultures collide. Stud
41、ents must be equipped to engage with the challenges that these twenty-first-century realities will raise.Courses in Ethical Reasoning should: Teach how to reason about moral and political beliefs and practices, and how to deliberate and assess claims about ethical issues; examine competing conceptio
42、ns and theories of ethical concepts such as the good life, obligation, rights, justice, and liberty; teach how to assess and weigh the reasons for and against adopting these various conceptions and theories; apply these conceptions and theories to concrete ethical dilemmas of the sort students will
43、encounter in their lives, such as those that arise in medicine, law, business, politics, and daily life; and where appropriate, acquaint students with value systems different from their own, such as those of different religions or different historical periods and those expressed in different languag
44、es, or with empirical studies of moral life.List of courses that satisfy the ER category.Science of Living SystemsThe exponential growth of scientific knowledge has been accompanied by a corresponding increase in the impact of science and engineering on all of enormous activity. The science and engi
45、neering that study living organisms have affected our students in many ways: such studies have led to life-saving medicines, technologies for diagnosing and understanding human disease, genetically engineered plants and animals as new food sources, and the invention of biological warfare agents. The
46、 life sciences have also stood at the crossroads of many of the most vigorously debated and transforming public issues of the past centuries, including the theory of evolution by natural selection, the legality of embryonic stem-cell research, and the ethics of human cloning.members of society, scie
47、ntists and spectrum of science and engineering origins, the way it changes and is ways in which its span in humans cannon-scientists alike. Within the activities, understanding life-its changed by the environment, and the be extendedcontinues to be an areaGeneral education courses in Science of Livi
48、ng Systems teach central facts and concepts in the life sciences and engineering and relate them to life outside of the classroom or laboratory. These courses do not strive to train students to become future scientists or to enable students to take more advanced science classes; therefore, they are
49、not expected to cover in depth any specific scientific sub-discipline. Rather, general education courses in Science of Living Systems should convey material that is broadly applicable to life after college. To do so, they should: Introduce key concepts, facts, and theories relevant to living systems; teach the nature of experiments on living systems, ideally through laboratory experiences; relate scientific concepts, facts, theori