成功需要勤奋英语热门20篇

人们总是抱怨自己为什么不成功，原因就是因为人们没有做到把握生命中的每一分钟。你有没有想过：当你在抱怨自己没有成功的时候，时间又神不知鬼不觉的从你身边悄悄溜走。到不如得知自己没有成功后，多问几个为什么，把失误的地方弄明白，以便在下一次取得成功。

同学们，你们是否思考过这样一个问题：每次考试的错题，并不是没有学过，可到考试就是不会做，这是为什么呢？这是因为在你学过这个知识之后，没有利用剩余的时间去做几道题巩固一下，从而对知识点掌握不牢。你想：当时老师给你留的时间哪去了？看小差？还是？成绩的差异也正是如此啊！

能够做到把握好现在的每一分钟，并不容易。能够把时间计算到分秒得人，必然是一个成功得人。着名作家刘墉就很看重这一点，他决不耽误一分钟，正是因为他的惜时如金，才导致了他的伟大成就！

同学们，把握好想在的每一分钟，认真学习，好好学习吧！只要能做到这一点，就一定是一个成功得人！

[成功需要抓住机会作文

没有一定的知识何谈成功呢？有位捕鸟师把鸟都网住了，但是它们却并力飞走了，还捕鸟师并不是放弃，而是追逐鸟群，因为他知道，到了黄昏，鸟儿乱了，自然会掉下来的。正是因为他拥有鸟儿惯性的知识，最后大获鸟群。

知识是黑暗道路上的一盏明灯，照亮你前进的方向；知识是沙漠中的一片绿洲，给你茫然路上的希望；知识是路边的鲜花，伴你一路芬芳迷人。我们要具备一定的知识才能够成功，没有成功是草草而成的。

三国演义中的孔明先生——诸葛亮。他的名声至今依旧响边世界，正是因为它的才能、知识，铸就了他的成功。诸葛亮以他的上知天文下知地理的知识才能，筹备军备，出谋划策，最终以他的少数军队大败曹操的数万军队，把敌人打个落花流水，形成了以少胜多的历史。倘若你是一个人无知识、无能力的人，想必你不会想出如此高超的战略要求，也无法战胜敌人巨大的兵队，可恰好孔明具备着广博的知识，然而成功了。所以说，成功需要知识。

如今响震乐坛周杰伦，想必是大多学生所崇拜的偶然。当然，你的崇拜是有你的理由的，比如他颠覆乐坛的辉煌、歌词的丰富，以及音乐旋律的动人。它之所以能够成功的立足乐坛，那是他具有音乐知识。还没有出道之前的他，创作的作品不为他人欣赏，然而吴宗宪给它一个机会，那就是在十天内写出50首歌。其中选出十首来给他出专辑。周杰伦具备丰富的音乐知识，发挥自己的才能，然而在10天完成了任务，于是就出现了《Jay周》。从此出现在乐坛，再一步一步的前进，他的成功在于他具备知识。

巴西的第一位女总统，特别强调的是她是“第一位女总统”，可想而知她是具备才能才能够成就如此大的成功。她出身于贫穷的家庭，但她从未放弃学习，她参加各种政治活动，了解政治生活中的各类时项，掌握管理事务的方法。当她知识积聚到一定程度时，必定暴发力量，成就她的事业，她就是罗塞夫。无论是谁成功都需要知识。

知识是通往成功的桥梁，我们想要成功就必须积累知识，正如捕鸟师具备了捕鸟的知识，最终轻易的捕捉鸟群，如果他不具备知识，他会失去这一成果。然而，在我们人生路途中，要不断地学习知识，积累知识，不断地完善自己，朝着成功的方向前进。

这个寒假里，我读了一份让我感受很深的报纸，那就是语文报寒假版，它让我知道了只有努力才能创造成功。

语文报中我感受最深的就是《网上超市》这一栏目。其中各位运动明星说的话令我非常感动。

姚明说：“我不知到需要多少压力，多少才适合呢?现在没有人可以告诉，但我知道需要一些压力来推动我前进。”从这句话可以看出姚明每天都用压力让自己进步，用努力来弥补自己的不足。

刘翔说：“我顽强、有韧劲、不怕困难。这些好品质会使我在退役后也成为一个对国家有用的人。”正因为刘翔有这种不怕困难、能够不懈努力的精神，所以他才能够在比赛中获胜，为国家争光。

还有一篇关于刘翔过中秋节文章，它讲述了刘翔在中秋节的时候，不顾自己的身体疲劳、伤痛以及对妈妈的思念，放弃回家和家人一起渡过节日，而仍然坚持在训练场上不断地努力练习，他的妈妈非常关心他的身体，可他自己却毫不在乎，晚上12点了，还在操场上一圈一圈的跑着。他就是以这种不懈努力的精神才能获得金牌。

其实在我们的生活中，每一个成功者的背后都洒满了不懈努力的汗水。他们都踩着一路的艰辛，一步一步地走出了一条成功的道路，只有努力才能够创造一个辉煌的成功。记得我以前做什么都很不努力，总想着天上掉下一个大馅饼，让我轻而易举地获得成功，但这是不可能的。妈妈告诉我，只有通过自己不懈地努力才会能品尝到成功甜美的滋味，懒惰的人，意志不坚定的人，成功只会离他越来越远。越是觉得没有把握做好的事，越要努力尝试着做，坚持着做，才会有做好的可能。有一次妈妈要我学骑单车，可我却不想学，怕累、怕摔倒、怕痛，不愿意认真、努力地学，所以一骑上去就摔了下来。后来我下定决心努力学好，经过一个晚上的努力，经过无数次的摔倒，我终于战胜了困难，学会了骑单车。在这件事要我也认识到，其实困难也没有什么可怕的，只要你有决心打败它，它也许就是一个不堪一击的纸老虎，而且在打败它的过程中还有很多快乐。在生活中还有许许多多这样的事例，进一步的证明了只有努力才能成功，只要努力就能成功。

来吧!让我们用努力去迎接成功的到来吧!

在南美洲安第斯高原海拔4000多米人迹罕至的地方生长着一种花名叫普雅花。普雅花花期只有两个月花开之时极为美丽花谢之时也是花株枯萎之时。然而谁能想到这种花为了两个月的花期竟然等了100年!它只是静静伫立在高原上用叶儿采集太阳给予的芬芳用根儿汲取大地的养料努力营造自己的花香就这样默默等待了100年!只是为了用百年一次的花开来获得攀登者身心俱疲时的眼前一亮以此证明生命的美丽和价值。

普雅花的等待是一种信念是一种追求。它攒足了百年的颜色在经世纪的期待后以坚挺、庄严的姿势绽放出它的惊天一色。

人类的成功也需要耐心地等待。在现实世界里每个人都有梦想都有一颗不甘寂寞渴望成功的心。然而眼高手低、好高骛远成了我们追求成功路上的障碍。在许多人眼里看到的往往只是成功人士功成名就后的辉煌却忽略了他们在此之前所付出的艰苦卓绝的努力。而事实上人世间从来就没有一蹴而就的成功只有不断努力才能积聚起改变自身命运的爆发力。

学会了等待才会知道走过了寂寞的冬季充满生机的春天正在向我们走来;学会了等待才能在平和宁静的心态中实现我们的人生梦想成就生命的辉煌。

What is the definition of success? I believe different people will have different opinions about it. If anyone asks me what is success for me, I will tell him progress is success for me. I can have small goal or great aim in my whole life. If the goal what I set is too large for me, I will not taste the feeling of success. Or I always set small goals, so I will feel success all the time, which may make me become autophilia and without ambitions. Therefore, I think if I can be better than yesterday or last time, then I am successful.

成功的定义是什么？我相信不同的人会有不同的看法。如果有人问我对我来说成功是什么，我会告诉他进步就是成功。在我的一生中我可以设定很多小的或者大的目标。如果我定的目标对我来说太大了，我就尝不到成功的滋味。或者我设的目标太小了，这样我一直都会处于成功中，这也许会使我变得自恋没有雄心壮志。因此，我觉得要是我能够比昨天或者上一次好，这样我就算成功了。

成功，是一件人人都梦寐以求的事。那么，要怎么做才能取得成功呢?“失败乃成功之母”是不是只要有过失败的经历就一定会成功呢?不!不是的，每一个成功的人在面对大小不一的困难时，面对一次次失败的打击时，不悲观，不沮丧。而是化悲愤为力量，以勇敢的拼搏精神战胜困难，从而取得成功。然而，有些人在困难的面前，失败的打击下，一点儿主意也没有，一点儿从头再来的勇气也没有。结果，这些人就被失败彻底的打败了。

有拼搏的精神是成功的前提。例如跳水名将——伏明霞;当她在为亚特兰大奥运会作准备时，大大小小的伤痛突然地发生在她的身上，但是，顽强的拼搏精神驱使着她，坚强的斗志激励着她。因此，她把一切的伤痛都抛诸脑后，带伤训练，正是有了这种拼搏的精神，才使她一步一步的.走上了成功的道路。这正好说明了：拼搏精神是成功的前提。

没有拼搏精神的人难以取得成功，即使这个人的所做所为是对的，那这个人仍然会失败。哪怕这个人真的成功过，那也不是真正的成功。大约在60年前，有一个名叫弗兰克林的英国女医生，她从自己拍摄X射线衍射的照片中发现了DNA(脱氧核糖核酸)的双螺旋结构，经过研究，她大胆的提出了假说，并以此为题做了一次很出色的演讲。然而，当时有许多人对她的发现提出了质疑，怀疑她的照片的真实性。然而，因为她没有战胜困难的勇气，结果，她开始动摇了，她也开始怀疑自己是不是真的错了。最后，在重重的压力下，她放弃了。于是，她公开否认了自己的假说，再也没有研究下去。

也许，她怎么也不会想到，后来有两位科学家在这个领域的研究中取得了重大成果，并且获得了诺贝尔医学奖。而这位女医生，也就差那么一点点，那么一点点!就成功了，在这个世界上，有过她这种经历的人有很多，但是，能够东山再起，从头再来的人确实是寥寥无几。

只要有拼搏精神，并向着目标前进，就算是失败了，那也可以说成是一种另类的成功。三国时期的蜀汉丞相诸葛亮便是个例子;他的目标是辅助蜀汉统一天下的大业。但是，自刘备死后，朝中的大小事务便交给了他管理。百姓生活他要关心、军中要务他要关心、朝中繁琐之事他更要关心。民间百姓生活苦，他要亲自去安怃;军中有责杖二十以上的，他要亲自审判;朝中大臣，边疆军吏的上书，他要亲自审阅，亲自批改。不久之后，他因为操劳过度而病倒了。虽然他的一生都充满了坎坷，但是他却以那顽强的拼搏精神挺了过去。虽然他到死也没有完成他的目标，但是，我认为他的一生是成功的一生，这只不过是他的一生中的一粒芝麻般的污点而以。

只要有拼搏的精神，就会有成功的希望，其实正是有了拼搏，才铸造了真正的成功，也正是有了成功，才出现了拼搏。

人在成长的路上需要什么呢？掌声？压力？鼓励？友谊？这些我觉得都不重要，最重要的是“失败”！只有失败才能戒掉心中的浮躁，让人“卷土重来”，“凤凰涅槃”。

记得三年级的期末，老师发的练习复习卷因为我在家里都做过了，基本上都得了第一。因此老师经常表扬我，鼓励我，同学们也对我刮目相看，佩服我。这一切的发生让我变得骄傲起来，让我忘记了这不是我的真才实学，让我忘记了这不是我该得的。

转眼间，期末考试到了。骄傲的我满怀信心地答好了卷子，检查都没检查就交了试卷，心里坚信：我一定是第一，我一定考100！于是我经历了人生中最大的失败——试卷上鲜艳的“87”分把我拉回了现实。我失败了，彻底地失败了。这鲜艳的分数让我措手不及，真想哭！我的骄傲和浮躁瞬时不见了。于是我开始反思：在我骄傲的日子里，我的成绩下降了，批评增多了，朋友离我远去了……我一定要重新开始，我想着。

四年级开始了，我把以往玩耍的时间都投入到了学习中。慢慢地，慢慢地，我惊奇地发现自己变得谦虚起来，朋友也回到了我的身边。但我丝毫不放松，因为我知道我的目标是期末考试。

期末考试如约而来，我使出了十二万分的努力来做试卷。做好后我一遍又一遍地检查。为了有好成绩，我拼了！不久后，试卷发下来了，我考了双百！我没有激动，因为我知道这是我努力的结果，我怀着笑意，走出了教室……

“再见，我的眼泪、跌倒和失败。再见，那个年少轻狂的我！”成长需要失败，才能有成功的出现。至少我认为如此……

成功是我们每一个人的追求与理想，那么，我们怎样才能获得成功呢?让我们一起来听一下历史杰出人物们的声音吧：

爱迪生说：成功需要99%的努力+1%的汗水。

爱因斯坦说：成功需要发达的头脑

哥伦布说：成功需要探索。

曾国藩说：成功需要专一，不能坐这山，望那山，否则一事无成。

而我却要说：成功更需要坚忍不拔的毅力!

我曾经听说过这样的一个故事：

在很久以前有一匹老骆驼在垂暮之年又一次的跨越了号称“死亡之海”的千里沙漠，当它凯旋归来之时一名记者上前采访道：“你能谈一谈您面对一片茫茫的沙漠你是怎样坚持到最后的吗?”

只见老骆驼顿了顿后，沉稳地说：“其实也没有什么好说的了，如果要说我为什么能坚持到最后，我只能够说你要看准目标，耐住性子，一步一步脚踏实地的往前走，就到达了目的地。老骆驼的话让这位记者思索了很久很久。最后这位记者感叹道，是啊!看准目标耐住性子就是成功的前提。

还有人认为，成功是一种毅力——如果你不信你去看——看金字塔顶的老鹰和蜗牛你就会明白了。

老鹰生来就会飞，它那雄健的双翅好像能够不费吹灰之力就能到达金字塔顶一样，而我却不认同这种观点。因为当老鹰还是雏鸟的时候，也只是胆小地畏缩在窝旁，看着深深的悬崖峭壁。但是如果不经历过无数次的跌落摔爬，它能翱翔于令人向往的蓝胆战心惊地望着大地?

但是总有那么一些人奢望道：“我要是一只老鹰该多好呀，喜欢到哪就到哪!”孰不知，就凭这种浅识，你若是一只老鹰也是一只永远畏缩在窝中的老鹰，不会有你同类直冲九天的胸怀。由此看来，金字塔顶的老鹰的出现并非出于偶然。它能振翼天宇，而原因是什么呢?那就是——毅力!

很多人对从不显眼的蜗牛很是鄙视，嘲笑它身上背负重重的壳，不论在哪一种场合，只要干什么慢就拿蜗牛说事：“你怎么比蜗牛还慢?”听听这话，能不让人生气吗?

可蜗牛却从不与人争辩，只是用行动让明自己的实力，金字塔顶蜗牛的身影，就是最好的证明。因为在蜗牛身后的一道道明亮的痕迹清晰可见，那就是蜗牛毅力的彰显。

再看看赛跑的乌龟和兔子，你还不能悟出成功究竟需要什么吗?那便是毅力。

念念不忘，必有回响。锲而不舍，方得始终。做任何事唯有坚持方能成功！

在我还很小的时候我就喜欢幻想我的未来，会想我长大要干嘛，然后要赚很多很多钱，买衣服买吃的等等。那时的我总是对未知充满了好奇，似乎觉得成功是件很容易的事，所以那时的我总希望自己能快点长大，早点离开爸爸妈妈的羽翼，独自在天空自由翱翔。

再后来，我上了初中。我的学业开始繁重起来，我失去了那些可以幻想的日子，我开始为考试而紧张，为成绩而着急。起初我还有些不适应，但时间久了，我在不知不觉间喜欢上这种忙碌时日子。恰同学少年，风华正茂，书生意气！渐渐的，我在心中许下了梦想的种子，我开始变得成熟起来。

那三年，是拼搏的三年，是忙碌的三年，更是需要坚持的三年。在一次次的逼迫自己，锤炼自己后，我终于可以迎来希望的曙光，摸到希望女神的衣角！讲真的我感谢那三年，怀念那三年。在那一段时光里，我明白了：有些事不是看的希望才去坚持，而是坚持了才看的到希望。

那时的我早早的就在心中许下愿望，确定了自己的目标，并一直朝着自己的目标一步步前行着。

直到现在我进入了高中。起初，我迈着自信的步伐，走进这所我所憧憬的高中，我期待着自己三年后能像今天一样自信的走在这条路上，迎着祝福与期望。可不久，我就对我的智商产生了前所未有的怀疑，上课，考试，这一桩桩一件件都仿佛一盆冷水把我的希望的小火苗浇灭。在那一两个星期里，我感觉我好像陷入了一个极大的深渊里，无论多么努力回应我的也只是无尽的黑暗。我迷茫，我无助，我开始变得焦躁，变得没有耐心。可我又马上想想我之前所信奉的坚持！是啊，任何困难只要咬咬牙坚持下去就一定会成功的。

我开始重拾信心，不断的给自己加油鼓劲，上课不错过老师讲的任何知识，有不懂的一定要向别人请教。果然，上天总是不会亏待努力的孩子的。我开始习惯了新的上课方式，新的老师和同学。心中只感觉有了一股前所未有的成就感！

经常听到有人对我妈妈说，唉！你姑娘会读书咧，有啥秘诀没有。而我想，这有啥秘诀，说白了就是要坚持。

成长就是这样，从莽撞轻狂，历经困难挫折，会逐渐收敛成大人的模样，经历过的风雨越多，就越有内涵。

最后，我想每个人都一定渴望成功，但成功不是就说说这么简单的，锲而不舍，一路坚持，方能成功！

勤奋，是一种来自于内心的动力，是一种坚忍的精神，没有它，就没有人能学有所成;勤奋，就是在困难面前不低头，对取得的成绩不满足，不断地追求能更近一步，敢于克服困难，不解决困难便决不罢休的顽强意志。

催命的闹钟是一天生活开始的标志，关了闹钟，匆匆地起床洗漱，便看到了母亲在厨房里忙碌的身影，脸色微黄的母亲正在亲切地叮嘱，出门要小心。来到学校，一天紧张而忙碌的生活便政史开始了-或许会有些枯燥无味，但这并不意味着毫无乐趣，在踏向理想的道路中，这过程是痛苦的，我们注定要过上十年寒窗生活，但这也是我们走向成功的道路，每天沐浴在老师和同学们亲切的关怀下，怎么能不努力学习呢?知识是掌握自己命运的关键，一个人如果没了知识，就像一个没有灵魂的躯壳，一个没有知识的人，只能让自己徘徊在人生的十字路口上，或原地踏步，或驻足观望，最终会失去自己的目标，迷失自己的方向。

世上没有抛弃的理想，只有抛弃梦想的人，一个人，有了自己的梦想，就不能轻言放弃，把梦想拿起，再放下，久而久之，梦想就会背叛你，失败了一次，不要放弃，还会有更多的机会，而在当今的时代，只有努力拼搏，才能成就自己的梦想。取得一个好的成绩，才能有所成功，因为，没有人会对你的人生感兴趣!在灰心失意的时候，我们不妨把人生当作是一场旅行，苦难便是旅途中的狭路，只要走过它，人生就会柳暗花明。当我们取得成功时，不要骄傲自大，这只是我们在旅途中的一处景点，驻足观望一阵后，又要重拾行李，再次出发。

走自己的路，听从自己的意愿，勤奋学习，抛除一切杂念，即使遇到再大的挫折与苦难，也要坚持走下去，坚持是通向光明的目的地的小船!

如果成功是大海中的一个小岛，那么勤奋就是通向它的轮船；如果成功是一座险峻的高山，那么勤奋就是爬上它的小径；如果成功是滚滚长江岸上的小草，那么勤奋就是挖起它的小铲。所以成功来自勤奋！

泱泱中华，记载着上下五千年的历史，谱写着成千上万的成功人士。但在成功的背后一定付出了很多的汗水，很多的努力。爱迪生曾说过：“天才是百分之一的灵感加百分之九十九的汗水。”由此可见成功必须勤奋，必须付出汗水，当你勤奋了，成功一定就在你眼前了。

匡衡一个历史上非常有学问的人。他小时候酷爱读书，可家中非常穷，买不起书、上不了学。后来，去一个亲戚家中认字、识字。匡衡非常勤奋，从小养成了看书的好习惯。那时书非常贵重，有书的人不会轻易借给别人，于是，匡衡便在农忙时，给有钱人做短工，不要工钱，只求人家给书看。渐渐地，匡衡长大了，成了家中主力劳动，一天到晚在田野干活，只有在中午歇脚时，才有功夫读书，一卷书要十天半个月才能看完。匡衡心急如焚，就想：“白天干活，没有时间看书，我可以利用晚上多读书。”但是，他家清贫，买不起油灯，怎么办呢？一天晚上，匡衡躺在床上背白天看过的书，突然发现东墙有一丝光，于是他便将洞凿大些，借光下读书。匡衡正是在这样的环境下坚持不懈地发奋读书，终于成为一个有大学问的人。古人勤奋读书走向成功的例子举不胜举。

可现在相对来说，我们的学习环境好多了，有宽敞明亮的教室，不用在昏暗的柴房中苦读；有雪白的纸，不用在沙地上练字；有各种书籍，不用为一本书苦苦相求……可现在有很多人都偷懒，作业总拖到最后一天去做，读书不认真，老师在上面讲课，他却在下面津津有味地画画……这与勤奋学习的人形成了鲜明的对比！同学们，醒醒吧！只有勤奋才能走向成功，让我们珍惜时间，勤奋读书吧！

一个个数不胜数的例子，都说明了只有勤奋读书，不断索取知识，才能得到回报，才能得到成功，他们的成功令世人赞叹，他们的成功来自于勤奋。

[有关写成功来自勤奋作文

“书山有路勤为径，学海无涯苦作舟”这是一句从小背到大的诗句，但是对于这句话出自何处却不可得知。只知道这句话的大概说的是学习要勤奋，吃得了苦。对此我深信不疑。

例如我国近代着名的文学家、翻译家，清末举人林纾便是一个很好的例子。

林纾小的时候由于家贫，买不起书，往往借书而读。他每天晚上坐在母亲做针线的油灯前捧着书孜孜不倦地苦读，一定要读完一卷书才肯睡。由于家穷，加上读书的劳苦，他18岁时，患了肺病，连续10年经常咳血，但他卧病在床上还坚持刻苦攻读。到22岁时，他已经读了古书2000多卷，30岁时他读的书已经高达一万多卷了。

他不懂外文，就采用世人很少见的翻译书的方式：先后由十多个懂外文的人口述，他作笔译，将英、法、美、俄、日等十几个国家的1700余部名着翻译成中文，开创了中国翻译外国文学着作的先例，影响很大。康有为将林纾与严复并列为当时最杰出的翻译家，称赞说：“译才并世数严林。”

读书勤劳吃得苦的不仅只有我国可见，在全球范围内比比皆是，例如恐怖小说大师斯蒂芬。金。

他在一年之中的每一天里，几乎都做着同一件事：天刚放亮就伏在打字机前开始一天的写作。然而他成功经历却十分坎坷。在他成了世界上着名的恐怖小说大师后，整天稿约不断常常是一部小说还在他的大脑中酝酿时，出版社高额的定金就支付给了他。可他仍然是在勤奋的创造中度过的。斯蒂芬。金的成功秘诀很简单，只有两个字：勤奋。一年之中，他只有三天时间是例外的，不写作。这三天是：生日、圣诞节、美国独立日。勤奋给他带来的好处是，永不枯竭的灵感。

成功的秘诀也许有很多，但我认为“勤”是最为有效的。正所谓“书山有路勤为径，学海无涯苦作舟”便应该是这个道理吧!

每个人都希望成功，每个人都想要找到打开成功这扇门的那一把钥匙，但是成功的道路并不是一帆风顺的。

“坚持就是胜利”这是爸爸教我的。他说：“做一件事，不管事情的结果会怎样，而是应该去想‘你努力了吗？你坚持过吗？’这才是最重要的。”从小到大，我遇见了无数的难题，尝试了无数的方法。虽然也会失败，但我并不会去后悔，因为我努力了，我也坚持了。

上中学了，爸爸的话仍然激励着我。在一次体育测试中，我认为自己做的非常棒，那是八百米长袍（在学校操场跑四圈半），这对于大堆数人来说都是一件难事，要考验耐力的。我一开始认为肯定过不了关的，但我还是坚持跑了，两圈过后，我开始受不了了，我的两条腿竟然不听使唤，就在我决定要放弃的时候，听到了一个强壮有力的声音：“坚持下去，不要放弃，我们相信你可以的。”那是我的班主任班级老师，班上同学们也在为我加油。这是耳边又响起爸爸的话：“坚持就是胜利”。在班级老师班上同学的鼓舞下，我有重新振作起来，尽管已经筋疲力竭，但是我不想让班级老师班上同学失望。于是，我咬紧牙关坚持了下来。最后，我得了第三名，试想：如果当时我放弃的话，还会取得这样的好成绩吗？

小小的水滴，力量看似很小，但是日积月累，能把石头滴穿。

所以，我们要有“水滴石穿”的精神，不管遇到什么事情，都要有持之以恒、坚持不懈的精神，这样成功不是就离你很近吗？

在成功面前，你会感到骄傲;在成功面前，你会感到自豪。但在成功背后，他需要一种毅力，是坚持。

成功需要坚持，需要持之以恒。

记得那是一次运动会，班内同学都在刻苦练习，生怕自己给班内抹黑，我也不例外。每天下午放学一定要跑步，这是我给自己定下的目标，这样下来，我一定能给班里争分的，下午放学，我和班内几名同学一商量便开始练习了。但我总偷懒，一个八百米还没跑下来就大喘气，“累死我了，我不跑了。”我抱怨着。一名同学看到我这样，急忙跑了过来，说：“跑步是一种毅力，它不仅仅是锻炼你的身体，而且还考验你的耐力与坚持。你这样不练了，怎么能考验出你的坚持呢。别人都这么刻苦练习，难不成你要给班里抹黑?”随着语气的加重，我似乎明白了什么。我鼓起勇气，站了起来，大声喊道：“我要加油。”随着回音的想起，我走到起步线，心想：这是一个新的起跑，一个新的起点，无论怎样我也要坚持下来。第一圈，我小步跑，算是在热身，并默念还有3圈，第二圈，已经过了一半了，我渐渐加快速度，但是刚跑到第三圈时，我就累的要死了，可是我并没有走，而是咬紧牙，并鼓励自己说：一定要坚持下来，第四圈终于到了，我不由的加快速度迎接冲刺阶段。最后我坚持着到达终点。我很高兴，留下了眼泪。

在运动会的赛场上，大家努力拼搏，但我并没有受打击，最后进入前八名，那一刻，我更是骄傲与自豪。

成功需要坚持，不仅在体育方面，学习方面也是如此。

一次拼词比赛中，老师选上了我，但我却不知如何下手，爸爸走头，看我着急得热锅上的蚂蚁，就教了我一套方案，我按照方案去做，每天都如此，最后拿到校级二等奖。成功需要坚持啊!

成功是一种喜悦，但背后总离不开坚持。坚持能战胜自己，赢得胜利。成功也是一种意志上的磨练，成功需要坚持啊!

在美国的一个城市，有一家公司招聘职员。大学毕业生汤姆和杰瑞一同前去应聘。老板让他们从基层做起。汤姆心里觉得不服气，觉得大材小用，于是离开了。杰瑞欣然接受了，并想踏踏实实的好好做下去。十年后，汤姆仍然没有找到向往的工作，而杰瑞已经是这家公司的ceo。自命清高的汤姆天天梦想着天上掉馅饼给他，这样想走捷径的人往往一事无成，碌碌终生。可见，成功需要脚踏实地。

著名哲学家维特根斯坦说过，“我要贴在地面前行，不在云端跳舞。”纵观古今，凡有建树之人无一不是脚踏实地，一步一步走向成功。世界首富比尔盖茨，一位影响了两个世纪的男人，可谁又知晓，飞黄腾达的背后是怎样的辛酸，终日泡在电脑前，承受巨大的辐射，日复一日，年复一年，终于研究出了dos甚至今日多数人使用的windows。如果不是比尔盖茨的呕心沥血，我们的信息时代不知会推迟多久到来。民族英雄岳飞，生逢乱世，自幼家贫，在乡邻资助之下在陕西名师周桐门下习武，期间目睹山河破碎，百姓流离失所，萌发报国志向。寒暑冬夏，苦练不辍，一个动作可以练到成百上千遍，以求精准。在名师周桐的指导下终于练成了岳家枪，并率领王贵等伙伴投身于抗金爱国的爱国洪流之中。满腔抱负，一心救国，脚踏实地，立志不移，终成民族英雄。

宋朝文学家苏洵27岁发奋，立志就读，昼夜不息，终成唐宋八大家之一；张海迪立志成才，自幼高位截瘫，几次濒临死亡边缘，但她不放弃。20年来她学会四门外语，翻译著作16万余字，还自学针灸，治疗病患10000余人；李时珍发现以前的医书中有多处错误，决心写一部医书。他读了800多种书，写了上千万字的笔记，游历7个省，收集了上千万单方，为了了解草药效果，他甚至亲自吞下，就这样用了31年著成《本草纲目》；古希腊著名演说家德摩斯梯尼，先天口吃，为了实现演说家的梦想，每天口含石子练习发音，终成口若悬河演说家。

如果不是脚踏实地，苏洵可能只是芸芸众生；张海迪可能郁郁而终；李时珍可能重蹈覆辙，一样写一部错医书；德摩斯梯尼可能永远被别人笑话。可见，成功需要脚踏实地。

脚踏实地，生命旅程上寂寞可以铺成一片蓝天；脚踏实地，孤单可以演绎成一排鸿雁；脚踏实地，欢乐可以绽放成满园鲜花。

成功需要脚踏实地。

人人都说失败是成功之母，而在失败后，只有奋斗了，才会有所成功。人人都是这样，我也不例外。 Everyone says that failure is the mother of success, and only after failure can they succeed.Everyone is like this, and I am no exception.

记得在四年级的时候，我和一个很淘气的男孩同桌。他成绩很差，上课经常玩东西，还不时地影响到我。让我不能认认真真地听课，不能积极地回答问题。所以那个月，每次考试都考不出好成绩来。

妈妈知道后，对我说：“张一萌，我知道是你同桌在上课时打扰你，你要学会控制住自己不要理睬他，专心听课，回家再把原来没听的课补起来，我相信你一定能回到从前那么优秀的!”

第二天，我去了学校，坐在座位上，全神贯注地看书，那个淘气的男生来了，把椅子猛的拿开，教室便发出巨响，接着，他说：“张一萌，你是个大笨蛋。”我听了，放下书，心平气和地说：“再笨也没有你笨。”说完，又拿起书，目不转睛地看起来。他气愤极了。他一定在想，看我上课怎么整你。

“叮铃铃，”上课铃响了，语文老师吉老师拿着教案走进教室。开始上课了，他又拿出玩具拍拍我说：“张一萌，你看这个小玩具多么可爱呀!是吗?”我当做没有听见似的，继续听课。他又拍了拍我，我还是不理睬，他又说：“你不看白不看，多么好玩的东西。”我听了他的这一句话后，心里痒痒的，特别想看。正当我准备回头看他的玩具时，我又想起妈妈对我说的话，便还是专心地听课了。他无奈，只好自己玩起玩具来。

回到家里，我把今天的经过告诉了妈妈，妈妈表扬了我。然后，我们便开始了补习功课，在做练习时，我遇到了不少的困难，但我从不气馁，从不烦恼，而是开动脑筋，奋斗地思考，绝不放弃，直到把那道题做完为止。

在我的不懈奋斗下，我终于获得了应有的回报，我考了全班第一。

如果成功是鲜艳花朵，那奋斗就是助于它成长的肥料;如果成功是嫩绿小草，那奋斗就是清澈的雨露;如果成功是远大的梦想，那奋斗就是美好的祝福。

只有奋斗，才会有收获;只有奋斗，才会有回报;只有奋斗，才会成功。生活中的一切困难，只要你奋斗去做，你就能克服。

我成功，因为我奋斗。

勤奋的主要目的就是成功，有了勤奋，才有成功；然而，成功的主要途径也正是勤奋，想要成功，就必须勤奋。勤奋与成功，彼此都需要彼此，因此，它们之间有较大的关联。

曾经看到过那么一则小故事：有一位很聪明的书生，在考试前觉得自己很聪明了，不必再读书。在考试时因平时的懒散而丧失了机会。这则故事在我心里敲醒了警钟：成功离不开勤奋。

去年暑假，我和妹妹一起到小婶工作的厂里打工。“工作”是把珠子一颗颗地镶在铁丝做的树上。妹妹学的很快，用最快的速度可以达到一分钟串三十个，是我速度的两倍。我们都对这份“工作”产生了兴趣，每天按时去那里打工。一次，在我们快要回家的十分钟前，妹妹赶好了她那天的任务，伸了个懒腰，冷冷地对我说：“你的速度真慢，简直是乌龟的化身！我去玩十分钟，到时候你才能赶上我。”

我心里有些不服，于是在她玩的十分钟里，我拼命地在赶，终于超过了她。记得那天以后，她每天都忙里偷闲十分钟，尽情地玩。我也每天都利用十分钟时间超过她。眼看快要结束工作了，妹妹再怎么赶也追不上我了。不错，我是乌龟，但也应该是《龟兔赛跑》的故事中的乌龟；而妹妹，只能是那只速度比别人快，行动却比人家懒散的兔子。再聪明的人，如果不勤奋，那么后果也只能是竹篮打水——一场空。

如果大家不想做一事无成的兔子的话，那么就必须勤奋，必须始终坚信“成功离不开勤奋”。成功没有捷径，勤奋是唯一通往成功的路。

成功，就像那散落了的珍珠，不一定可以全部拾起，但只要你努力了，就必定会有收获。想要成功？那么就要从这一秒起，勤奋！

“宝剑锋从磨砺出，梅花香自苦寒来”。就是说宝剑的锋利和梅花的无比清香都是经过了很多的磨难才得来的，也就是说一个人要想成功，就要能吃苦，多锻炼，靠自己的努力。

刚上一年级时，我参加了学校的琵琶课观摩，李老师的一曲《天山》让我对琶琶充满新鲜感。记得我一会儿摸摸琴，一会儿拨动拨动琴弦，还似懂非懂得看着老师的乐谱。心想凭这些阿拉伯数字居然能弹出这么美妙、动听的声音来，简直太神奇了，于是我嚷着要学习琵琶。

真得学琵琶并不是一件容易的事，记得上第一堂课，我就坚持不下来，沉重的琴压得我两腿发麻，细如丝的琴弦勒红了手指，手上的指甲套挑疼了指肚，疼得我直叫唤。老师见了，把我批评了一顿，还对妈妈说我根本没有学琵琶的天赋。那天我是哭着离开的，回到家里，把房门一关，往床上一趴，整个人就像霜打了的茄子，彻底绝望了。妈妈看我十分沮丧，鼓励我说：“小欢，这才只是一个开始，你还没有真正地去尝试过，付出过，怎么就放弃了呢?你要知道人生的道路不是一帆风顺的，每个人都会遇到挫折、磨难，只要你坚持到底，你就一定会成功。人只有付出才会有回报，妈妈相信你，你是最棒的!”听了妈妈的话，我豁然开朗，又重新振作起来。再上琵琶课的时候，我认真听讲，仔细地看老师弹琴的每一个动作。回到家一遍遍练习。功夫不有心人，四年来，我已经考到了琵琶八级，我弹琴的水平也得到了老师的肯定。老师建议我参加区小荷民乐团，由于我弹奏熟练，被乐团任命为首席，还经常去国内外交流演出，去年我们乐团参加北京市比赛取得了团体第一名的好成绩。收获后的我仿佛掉进了蜜罐，心里有一种说不出的喜悦。

成功是来之不易的，宝剑如果不经过千万次的磨炼怎能变得锋利无比?梅花若是没有坚强的意志，又怎能挺过寒冷的冬天，散发出扑鼻的香气呢?人也是这样，不经历风雨，就见不到美丽的彩虹，只有经历了挫折、磨难，才能登上成功的巅峰!

如果把“成功需要什么”看作是一道选择题的话，那么这道选择题肯定是一条多选题。因为成功对于每个人的意义都是不同的，有人会说成功要努力，有人会说成功要智慧的头脑，有人会说成功要机遇，也有人会说成功要拼搏……那么也许有人会问：成功究竟需要什么呢？我当然也不会真正知道，但是我想对我来说，成功也就是这样的：

成功需要勤奋努力。俗话说：“一份耕耘一份收获。”没有努力，哪里来的成功？我国历史上著名的一位书法家王羲之，为了练好毛笔字，不断地找时间写，每次写过之后，他都会把笔放在家里的一个水池清洗一下，结果，那池水竟全部被染成了黑色。

成功需要抓住时机。古人有句话叫“酒香不怕巷子深”，但毕竟历史已经经过变迁了，现代的社会如果只坐等机遇的话，却很难被人发现，现代的社会需要在关键时刻抓住时机，这样才能更好地展示自己。

成功需要奋力拼搏。单有想要成功的心是不够的，更重要的是付诸行动，不断奋力拼搏，我们要时时刻刻保持一颗积极向上的心，不要什么事都三分钟热度。

成功需要坚忍不拔的毅力。不是有句话叫“成功贵在坚持”吗？每个人在通往成功的道路上，都会遇到各种各样的困难，这就要看你的毅力了，如果你坚持不懈的话，总有一天会取得成功，但如果你一遇到困难就轻易退缩的话，那你永远都不会取得成功。

成功所需要的东西太多太多了，我只能告诉你这些，剩下的就靠你自己去揣摩了。

There are many different types of music in the world today. Why do we need music? Is the traditional music of a country more important than the international music that is heard everywhere nowadays?

范文：

It is true that a rich variety of musical styles can be found around the world. Music is a vital part of all human cultures for a range of reasons, and I would argue that traditional music is more important than modern, international music.

Music is something that accompanies all of us throughout our lives. As children, we are taught songs by our parents and teachers as a means of learning language, or simply as a form of enjoyment. Children delight in singing with others, and it would appear that the act of singing in a group creates a connection between participants, regardless of their age. Later in life, people’s musical preferences develop, and we come to see our favourite songs as part of our life stories. Music both expresses and arouses emotions in a way that words alone cannot. In short, it is difficult to imagine life without it.

In my opinion, traditional music should be valued over the international music that has become so popular. International pop music is often catchy and fun, but it is essentially a commercial product that is marketed and sold by business people. Traditional music, by contrast, expresses the culture, customs and history of a country. Traditional styles, such as ...(example)..., connect us to the past and form part of our cultural identity. It would be a real pity if pop music became so predominant that these national styles disappeared.

In conclusion, music is a necessary part of human existence, and I believe that traditional music should be given more importance than international music.

[我们为什么需要音乐英语作文

下面的材料旨在丰富学生在是非问题写作方面的思想和语言，考生在复习时可以先分类阅读这些篇章，然后尝试写相关方面的作文题。

对于素材中用黑体字的部分，特别建议你熟读，背诵，因为它们在语言和观点上都值得吸收。学习语言的人应该明白，表达能力和思想深度都靠日积月累，潜移默化。从某种意义上说，提高英语写作能力无捷径可走，你必须大段背诵英语文章才能逐渐形成语感和用英语进行表达的能力。这一关，没有任何人能代替你过。

因此，建议你下点苦功夫，把背单词的精神拿出来背诵文章。何况，并不是要求你背了之后永远牢记在心：你可以这个星期背，下个星期忘。这没有关系，相信你的大脑具有神奇的能力。背了工具箱里的文章后，你会惊讶的发现：I can think in English now！

1.?????? Proverbs

1. A graduation ceremony is an event where the commencement speaker tells thousands of students dressed in identical caps and gowns that individuality is the key to success.

2. The primary purpose of a liberal education is to make one’s mind a pleasant place in which to spend one’s time.

3. Next in importance to freedom and justice is popular education, without which neither freedom nor justice can be permanently maintained.

4. The classroom--not the trench--is the frontier of freedom now and forevermore.

5. Education’s purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.

6. It is the purpose of education to help us become autonomous, creative, inquiring people who have the will and intelligence to create our own destiny.

7. You see, real ongoing, lifelong education doesn’t answer questions; it provokes them.

8. People will pay more to be entertained than educated.

9.the most important function of education at any level is to develop the personality of the individual and the significance of his life to himself and to others. This is the basic architecture of a life; the rest is ornamentation and decoration of the structure.

10. The essence of our efforts to see that every child has a chance must be to assure each as equal opportunity, not to become equal, but to become different-to realize whatever unique potential of body, mind, and spirit he or she possesses.

11. A great teacher never strives to explain his vision-he simply invites you to stand beside him and see for yourself.

12. If you can read and don’, you are an illiterate by choice.

2. Damaging Research

A study by National Parent-Teacher Organization revealed that in the average American school, eighteen negatives are identified for every positive that is pointed out. The Wisconsin study revealed that when children enter the first grade, 80 percent of them feel pretty good themselves, but by the time they get to the sixth grade, only 10 percent of them have good self-images.

3. Education and Citizenship

An important aspect of education in the United States is the relationship between education and citizenship. Throughout its history this nation has emphasized public education as a means of transmitting democratic values, creating equality of opportunity, and preparing new generations of citizens to function in society. In addition, the schools have been expected to help shape society itself. During the 1950s, for example, efforts to combat racial segregation focused on the schools. Later, when the Soviet Union launched the first orbiting satellite, American schools and colleges came under intense pressure and were offered many incentives to improve their science and mathematics programs so that the nations would not fall behind the Soviet Union in scientific and technological capabilities.

Education is often viewed as a tool for solving social problems, especially social inequality. The schools, t is thought, can transform young people from vastly different backgrounds into competent, upwardly mobile adults. Yet these goals seem almost impossible to attain. In recent years, in fact, public education has been at the center of numerous controversies arising from the gap between the ideal and the reality. Part of the problem is that different groups in society have different have different expectations. Some feel that children should be taught basic job-related skills; still others believe education should not only prepare children to compete in society but also help them maintain their cultural identity (and, in the case of Hispanic children, their language). On the other hand, policymakers concerned with education emphasize the need to increase the level of student achievement and to improve parents in their children’s education.

Some reformers and critics have called attention to the need to link formal schooling with programs designed to address social problems. Sociologist Charles Moscos, for example, is a leader in the movement to expand programs like the Peace Corps, Vista, and Outward Bound into a system of voluntary national service. National service, as Moscos defines it, would entail “the full-time undertaking of public duties by young people whether as citizen soldiers or civilian servers-who are paid subsistence wages” and serve for at least one year. In return for this period of service, the volunteers would receive assistance in paying for college or other educational expenses.

Advocates of national service and school-to-work programs believe that education does not have to be confined to formal schooling. In devising strategies to provide opportunities for young people to serve their society, they emphasize the educational value of citizenship experiences gained outside the classroom. At this writing there is little indication that national service will become a new educational institution in the United States, although the concept is steadily gaining support among educators and social critics.

4. The Teacher’s Role

Given the undeniable importance of classroom experience, sociologists have done a considerable amount of research on what goes on in the classroom. Often they start from the premise that, along with the influence of peers, students’ experiences in the classroom are of central importance to their later development. One study examined the impact of a single first-grade teacher on her students’ subsequent adult status. The surprising results of this study have important implications. It is evident that good teachers can make a big difference in children’s lives, a fact that gives increased urgency to the need to improve the quality of primary-school teaching. The reforms carried out by educational leaders like James Comer suggest that when good teaching is combined with high levels of parental involvement the results can be even more dramatic.

Because the role of the teacher is to change the learner in some way, the teacher-student relationship is an important part of education. Sociologists have pointed out that this relationship is asymmetrical or unbalanced, with the teacher being in a position of authority and the student having little choice but to passively absorb the information provided by the teacher. In other words, in conventional classrooms there is little opportunity for the students to become actively involved in the learning process. On the other hand, students often develop strategies for undercutting the teacher’s authority: mentally withdrawing, interrupting, and the like. Hence, much current research assumes that students and teachers influence each other instead of assuming that the influence is always in a single direction.

5. Education Philosophy

For the past fifty years our schools have operated on the theories of John Dewey (1859-1953), an American educator and writer. Dewey believed hat the school’s job was to enhance the natural development of the growing child, rather than to pour information, for which the child had no context, into him or her. In the Dewey system, the child becomes the active agent in his own education, rather than a passive receptacle for facts.

Consequently, American schools are very enthusiastic about teaching “life skills” –logical thinking, analysis, creative problem--solving. The actual content of the lessons is secondary to the process, which is supposed to train the child to be able to handle whatever life may present, including all the unknowns of the future. Students and teachers both regard pure memorization as an uncreative and somewhat vulgar.

In addition to “life skills”, schools are assigned to solve the ever growing stoke of social problems. Racism, teenage pregnancy, alcoholism, drug use, reckless driving, and are just a few of the modern problems that have appeared on the school curriculum.

This all contributes to a high degree of social awareness in American youngsters.

6. Student Life

To the students, the most notable difference between elementary school and the higher levels is that in junior high they start “changing classes”. This means that rather than spending the day in one classroom, they switch classrooms to meet their different teachers. This gives them three or four minutes between classes in the hallways, where a great deal of the important social action of high school traditionally takes place. Students have lockers in these hallways, around which thy congregate.

Society in general does not take the business of studying very seriously. Schoolchildren have a great deal of free time, which they are encouraged to fill with extracurricular activities—sports, clubs, cheerleading, scouts—supposed to inculcate such qualities as leadership, sportsmanship, ability to organize, etc. those who don’t become engaged in such activities or have afterschool jobs have plenty of opportunity to “hang out”, listen to teenager music, and watch television.

Compared to other nations, American students do not have much homework. Studies also show that American parents have lower expectations for their children’s success in school than other nationalities do. (Historically, there has not been much correlation between American school success and success in later life.) “He’s just not a scholar”, the American parents might say, content that their son is on the swim team and doesn’t take drugs. (Some of the young do choose to study hard, for reason of their own, such as determining that the road to riches lies through Harvard Business School.)

What American schools do effectively teach is the competitive method. In innumerable ways children are pitted against each other—whether in classroom discussion, spelling bees, reading groups, or tests. Every classroom is expected to produce a scattering of A’s and F’s (teachers often grade A=excellent; B=good; C=average; D=poor; and F=failed). A teacher who gives all A’s looks too soft—so students are aware that they are competing for the limited number of top marks.

Foreign students sometimes don’t understand that copying from other people’s papers or from books is considered wrong and taken seriously. Here, it is important to show that you have done your own work and are displaying your own knowledge. It is more important than helping your friends to pass, whom we think do not deserve to pass unless they can provide their own answers. Group effort goes against the competitive grain, and American students do not study together as many Asians do. Many Asians in this country consider their group study habits a large contributor to their school success.

7. Adult Education

After complaining about many aspects of American life, a 40-year-old woman from Hong Kong concluded, “But where else could someone my age go back to school and get a degree in social work? Here you can change your whole life, start a new business, do what you really want to do.”

So at least to this person, school requirements weren’t inhibiting. And to millions of others, adult education is the path to a new career, or if not to a new career, to a new outlook. Schools generally encourage the older person who wants to start anew, and besides regular classes, schedule evening classes in special programs. Today there are so many people of retirement age in college that it is no longer remarkable.

8. Moral Relativism in American

Improving American education requires not doing new things but doing (and remembering) some good old things. At the time of our nation’s founding, Thomas Jefferson listed the requirements for a sound education in the Report of the Commissioners for the University of Virginia. In this landmark statement on American education, Jefferson wrote of the importance of education and writing, and of reading history, and geography. But he also emphasized the need “to instruct the mass of our citizens in these, their rights, interests, and duties, as men and citizens.” Jefferson believed education should aim at the improvement of both one’s “morals” and “faculties”. That has been the dominant view of the aims of American education for over two centuries. But a number of changes, most of them unsound, have diverted schools from these great pursuits. And the story of the loss of the school’s original moral mission explains a great deal.

Starting in the early seventies, “values clarification” programs started turning up in schools all over America. According to this philosophy, the schools were not to take part in their time-honored task of transmitting sound moral values; rather, they were to allow the child to “clarify” his own values (which adults, including parents, had no “rights” to criticize). The “values clarification” movement didn’t clarify values; it clarified wants and desires. This form of moral relativism said, in effect, that no set of values was right or wrong; everybody had an equal right to his own values; and all values were subjective, relative, and personal. This destructive view took hold with a vengeance.

In 1985 The York Times published an article quoting New York area educators, in slavish devotion to this new view, proclaiming, “They deliberately avoid trying to tell students what is ethically right and wrong.” The article told of one counseling session involving fifteen high school juniors and seniors. In the course of that session a student concluded that a fellow student had been foolish to return one thousand dollars she found in a purse at school. According to the article, when the youngsters asked the counselor’s opinion, “He told them he believed the girl had done the right thing, but that, of course, he would not try to force his values on them. ‘If I come from the position of what is wrong,’ he explained, ‘then I’m not their counselor.’”

Once upon a time, a counselor offered counselor, and he knew that an adult does not form character in the young by taking a stance of neutrality toward questions of right and wrong or by merely offering “choices” or “options”.

In response to the belief that adults and educators should teach children sound morals, one can expect from some quarters indignant objections (I’ve heard one version of it expressed countless times over the years): “Who are you to say what’s important?” or “Whose standards and judgments do we use?”

The correct response, it seems to me, is, is we ready to do away with standards and judgments? Is anyone going to argue seriously that a life of cheating and swindling is as worthy as a life of honest, hard work? Is anyone (with the exception of some literature professors at our elite universities) going to argue seriously the intellectual corollary, that a Marvel comic book is as good as Macbeth? Unless we are willing to embrace some pretty silly position, we’ve got to admit the need for moral and intellectual standards. The problem is that some people tend to regard anyone who would pronounce a definitive judgment as an unsophisticated Philistine or a closed-minded “elitist” trying to impose his view on everybody else.

The truth of the real world is that without standards and judgments, there can be no progress. Unless we are prepared to say irrational things—that nothing can be proven more valuable than anything else or that everything is equally worthless—we must ask the normative question. It may come, as a surprise to those who fell that to be “progressive” is to be value-neutral. But as Matthew Amold said, “the world is forwarded by having its attention fixed on the best things” and if the world can’t decide what the best things are, at least to some degree, then it follows that progress, and character, is in trouble. We shouldn’t be reluctant to declare that some things, some lives, books, ideas, and values are better than others. It is the responsibility of the schools to teach these better things.

At one time, we weren’t so reluctant to teach them. In the mid-nineteenth century, a diverse, widespread group of crusaders began to work for the public support of what was then called the “common school”, the forerunner of the public school. They were to be charged with the mission of school felt that the nation could fulfill its destiny only if every new generation was taught these values together in a common institution.

The leaders of the common school movement were mainly citizens who were prominent in their communities—businessmen, ministers, local civic and government officials. These people saw the schools as upholders of standards of individual morality and small incubators of civic and personal virtue; the founders of the public schools had faith that public education could teach good moral and civic character from a common ground of American values.

But in the past quarter century or so, some of the so-called experts became experts of value neutrality, and moral education was increasingly left in their hands. The commonsense view of parents and the publicthat schools should reinforce rather than undermine the values of home, family, and country, was increasingly rejected.

There are those today still that claim we are now too diverse a nation, that we consist of too many competing convictions and interests to instill common values. They are wrong. Of course we are a diverse people. We have always been a diverse people. And as Madison wrote in FederalistNo.10, the competing, balancing interests of a diverse people can help ensure the survival of liberty. But there are values that all American citizens share and that we should want all American students to know and to make their own: honesty, fairness, self-discipline, fidelity to task, friends, and family, personal responsibility, love of country, and belief in the principles of liberty, equality, and the freedom to practice one’s faith. The explicit teaching of these values is the legacy of the common schools, and it is a legacy to which we must return.

9. Schools Should Teach Values

People often said, “Yes, we should teach these values, but how do we teach them?” this question deserves a candid response, one that isn’t given often enough. It is by exposing our children to good character and inviting its imitation that we will transmit to them a moral foundation. This happens when teachers and principals, by their words and actions, embody sound convictions. As Oxford’s Mary Warnock has written, “You cannot teach morality without being committed to morality yourself; and you cannot be committed to morality yourself without holding that some things are right and others wrong.” The theologian Martin Buber wrote that the educator is distinguished from all other influences “by his will to take part in the stamping of character and by his consciousness that he represents in the eyes of the growing person a certain selection of what is, the selection of what is ‘right’, of what should be.” It is in this will, Buber says, in this clear standing for something, that the “vocation as an educator finds its fundamental expression.”

There is no escaping the fact that young people need as example principals and teachers who know the difference between right and wrong, good and bad, and who themselves exemplify high moral purpose.

As Education Secretary, I visited a class at Waterbury Elementary School in Waterbury, Vermont, and asked the students, “Is this a good school?” They answered, “Yes, this is a good school.” I asked them, “Why?” Among other things, one eight-year-old said, “The principal Mr. Riegel, makes good rules and everybody obeys them.” So I said, “Give me an example.” And another answered, “You can’t climb on the pipes in the bathroom. We don’t climb on the pipes and the principal doesn’t either.”

This example is probably too simple to please a lot of people who want to make the topic of moral education difficult, but there is something profound in the answer of those children, something education should pay more attention to. You can’t expect children to take messages about rules or morality seriously unless they see adults taking those rules seriously in their day-to-day affairs. Certain must be said, certain limits lay down, and certain examples set. There is no other way.

We should also do a better job at curriculum selection. The research shows that most “values education” exercises and separate courses in “moral reasoning” tend not to affect children’s behavior; if anything, they may leave children morally adrift. Where to turn? I believe our literature and our history are a rich quarry of moral literacy. We should mine that quarry. Children should have at their disposal a stock of examples illustrating what we believe to be right and wrong, good and bad—examples illustrating what are morally right and wrong can indeed be known and that there is a difference.

What kind of stories, historical events, and famous lives am I talking about? If we want our children to know about honesty, we should teach them about Abe Lincoln walking three miles to return six cents and conversely, about Aesop’s shepherd boy who cried wolf if we want them to know about courage, we should teach them about Joan of Arc, Horatius at the bridge, and Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad. If we want them to know about persistence in the face of adversity, they should know about the voyages of Columbus and the character of Washington during the Civil War. And our youngest should be told about the Little Engine That Could. If we want them to know about respect for the law, they should understand why Socrates told Crito: “No, I must submit to the decree of Athens.” If we want our children to respect the rights of others, they should read the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, the Gettysburg Address, and Martin Luther King, Jr.’ “Letter from Birmingham jail.” From the Bible they should know about Ruth’s loyalty to Naomi, Joseph’s forgiveness of his brothers, Jonathan’s friendship with David, the Good Samaritan’s kindness toward a stranger, and David’s cleverness and courage in facing Goliath.

These are only a few of the hundreds of examples we can call on. And we need not get into issues like nuclear war, abortion, creationism, or euthanasia. This may come as a disappointment to some people, but the fact is that the formation of character in young people is educationally a task different from, and prior to, the discussion of the great, difficult controversies of the day. First things come first. We should teach values the same way we teach other things: one step at a time. We should not use the fact that there are many difficult and controversial moral questions as an argument against basic instruction in the subject.

After all, we do not argue against teaching physics because laser physics is difficult, against teaching American history because there are heated disputes about the Founders’ intent. Every field has its complexities and its controversies. And every field has its basics, its fundamentals. So they are too with forming character and achieving moral literacy. As any parent knows, teaching character is a difficult task. But it is a crucial task, because we want our children to be healthy, happy, and successful but decent, strong, and good. None of this happens automatically; there is no genetic transmission of virtue. It takes the conscious, committed efforts of adults. It takes careful attention.

10. College Pressures

Mainly I try to remind that the road ahead is a long one and that it will have more unexpected turns than they think. There will be plenty of time to change jobs, change careers, change whole attitudes and approaches. They don not want to hear such liberating news. They want a map—right now – that they can follow unswervingly to career security, financial security, Social Security and, presumably, a prepaid grave.

What I wish for all students is some release from the clammy grip of the future. I wish them a chance to savor each segment of their education as an experience in itself and not as a grim preparation for the next step. I wish them the right to experiment, to trip and fall, to learn that defeat is as instructive as victory and is not the end of the world.

My wish, of course, is na?ve. One of the national gods venerated in our media—the million-dollar athlete, the wealthy executive—and glorified in our praise of possessions. In the presence of such a potent state religion, the young are growing up old.

I see four kinds of pressure working on college students today: economic pressure, parental pressure, peer pressure, and self-induced pressure. It is easy to look around for villains—to blame the colleges for charging too much money, the professors for assigning too much work, the parents for pushing their children too far, and the students for driving themselves too hard. But there are no villains: only victims.

“In the late 1960s.” one dean told me. “The typical question that I got from students was ‘Why is there so much suffering in the world’ or ‘how I can make a contribution?’ Today it’s ‘Do you think it would look better for getting into law school if I did a double major in history and political science, or just majored in one of them?’” many other deans confirmed this pattern. One said: “They are trying to find an edge—the intangible something that will look better on paper if two students are about equal.”

Note the emphasis on looking better. The transcript has become a sacred document, the passport to security. How one appears on paper is more important than how one appears in person. A is for Admirable and B is for Borderline, even though, in Yale’s official system of grading, A means “excellent” and B means “very good.” Today, looking very good is no longer good enough, especially for students who hope to go on to law school or medical school. They know that entrance into the better schools will be an entrance into the better law firms and better medical practices where they will make a lot of money. They also know that the odds are harsh. Yale Law School, for instance, matriculates 170students from an applicant pool of 3,700; Harvard enrolls 550 from a pool of 7,000.

It’s all very well for those of us who write letters of recommendation for our students to stress the qualities of humanity that will make them good lawyers or doctors. And it’s nice to think that admission officers are ready reading our letters and looking for the extra dimension of commitment or concern. Still, it would be hard for a student not to visualize these officers shuffling so many transcripts studded with As that they regard a B as positively shameful.

The pressure is almost as heavy on students who just want to graduate and get a job. Long gone are the days of the “gentleman’s C.” when students journeyed through college with a certain relaxation, sampling a wide variety of courses-music, art, philosophy, classics, anthropology, poetry, religion—that would send them out as liberally educated men and women. If I were an employer I would rather employ graduates who have this range and curiosity than those who narrowly pursued safe subjects and high grades. I know countless students whose inquiring minds exhilarate me. I like to hear the play of their ideas. I do not know if they are getting As or Cs, and I do not care. I also like them as people. The country needs them, and they will find satisfying jobs. I tell them to relax. They cannot.

Nor can I blame them. They live in a brutal economy. Tuition, room, and board at most private colleges now come to at least $7,000, not counting books and fees. This might seem to suggest that the colleges are getting rich. But they are equally battered by inflation. Tuition covers only 60 percent of what it costs to educate a student, and ordinarily the remainder comes from what college receives in endowments, grants, and gifts. Now, the remainder keeps being swallowed by the cruel costs—higher every year—of just opening the doors. Heating oil is up. Insurance is up. Postage is up. Health-premium costs are up. Everything is up. Deficits are up. We are witnessing in American the creation of a brotherhood of paupers—colleges, parents, and students, joined by the common bond of debt.

Today it is not unusual for a student, even if he works part time at college and full time during the summer, to accrue $5,000 in loans after four years—loans that he must start to repay within one year after graduation. Exhorted at commencement to go forth into the world, he is already behind as he goes forth. How could he not feel under pressure throughout college to prepare for this day of reckoning? I have used “he,” incidentally, only for brevity. Women at Yale are under no less pressure to justify their expensive education to themselves, their parents, and society. In fact, they are probably under more pressure. For although they leave college superbly equipped to bring fresh leadership to traditionally male jobs, society has not yet caught up with this fact.

Along with economic pressure goes parental pressure. Inevitably, the two are deeply intertwined.

I see many students taking pre-medical courses with joyless tenacity. They go off to their labs as if they were going to the dentist. It saddens me because I know tem in other corners of their life as cheerful people.

“Do you want to medical school?” I asked them.

“I guess so,” they say, without conviction, or “Not really.”

“Then why are you going?”

“Well, my parents want me to be a doctor. They are paying all this money and …”

Poor students, poor parents, they are caught in one of the oldest webs of love and duty and guilt. The parents mean will; they are trying to steer their sons and draughts toward a secure future. But the sons and daughter want to major in history or classics or philosophy—subjects with no “practical” value. Where’s the payoff on the humanities? It’s not easy to persuade such loving parents that the humanities do indeed pay off. The intellectual faculties developed by studying subjects like history and classics—an ability to synthesize and relate, to weigh cause and effect, to see events in perspective—are just the faculties that make creative leaders in business or almost any general field. Still, many fathers would rather put their money on courses that point toward specific profession—courses that are pre-law, pre-medical, pre-business, or, as I sometimes heard it put, “pre-rich.”

But the pressure on students is severe. They are truly torn. One part of them feels obliged to fulfill their parents’ expectations; after all, their parents are older and presumably wiser. Another part tells them that the expectations that are right for their parents are not right for them.

I know a student who wants to be an artist. She is very obviously an artist and will be a good one—she has already had several modest local exhibits. Meanwhile she is growing as a well-round person and taking humanistic subjects that will enrich the inner resources out of which her art will grow. But her father is strongly opposed. He thinks that an artist is a “dumb” thing to be. The student vacillates and tries to please everybody. She keeps up with her art somewhat furtively and takes some of the “dumb” courses her father wants her to take—at least they are dumb courses for her. She is a free spirit on a campus of tense students—no small achievement in it—and she deserves to follow her muse.

Peer pressure and self-induced pressure are also intertwined, and they begin almost at the beginning of freshman year.

“I had a freshman student I’ll call Linda,” one dean told me, “who came in and said she was under terrible pressure because her roommate, Barbara, was much brighter and studied all the time. I could not tell her that Barbara had come in two hours earlier to say the same thing about Linda.”

The story is almost funny—except that it is not. It is symptomatic of all the pressure put together. When every student thinks every other student is working harder and doing better, the only solution is to study harder still. I see students going off to the library every night after dinner and coming back when it closes at midnight. I wish they would sometimes forget about their peers and go to a movie. I hear the clacking of typewriters in the hours before dawn. I see the tension in their eyes when exams are approaching and papers are due: “Will I get everything done?”

Probably they won’t. They will get blocked. They will sleep. They will oversleep. They will bug out.

Part of the problem is that they are expected to do. A professor will assign five page papers. Several students will start writing ten page papers to impress him. Then more students will write ten page papers, and a few will raise the ante to fifteen. Pity the poor student who is still just doing the assignment.

“Once you have twenty or thirty percent of the student population deliberately overexerting,” one dean points out, “It’s bad for everybody. When a teacher gets more and more effort from his class, the student who is doing normal work can be perceived as not doing well. The tactic work, psychologically.”

Why cannot the professor just cut back and not accept longer papers? He can, and he probably will. But by then the term will be half over and the damage done. Grade fever is highly contagious and not easily reversed. Besides, the professor’s main concern is with his course. He knows his students only in relation to the course and does not know that they are also overexerting in their other courses. Nor is it really his business. He did not sign up for dealing with the student as a whole person and with all the emotional baggage the student brought along from home. That’s what deans, masters, chaplains, and psychiatrists are for.

To some extent this is nothing new: a certain number of professors have always been self-contained islands of scholarship and shyness, more comfortable with books than with people. But the new pauperism has widened the gap still further, for professors who actually like to spend time with students do not have as much time to spend. They are also overexerting. If they are young, they are busy trying to publish in order not to perish, hanging by their figure nails onto a shrinking profession.

If they are old and tenured, they are buried under the duties of administering departments—as departmental chairmen or members of committees—that have been thinned out by the budgetary axe.

Ultimately it will be the students’ own business to break the circles in which they are trapped. They are too young to be prisoners of their parents’ dreams and their classmates’ fears. They must be jolted into believing into themselves as unique men and women who have the power to shape their own future.

“Violence is being done to the undergraduate experience,” says Carlos Hortas. “College should be open-ended: at the end it should open many, many roads. Instead, students are choosing their goal in advance, and their choices narrow as they go along. It’s almost as if they think that the country has been codified in the type of jobs that exist-that they’ve got to fit into certain slots. Therefore, fit into the best paying slot.”

“They ought to take chances. Not taking chances will lead to life of colorless mediocrity. They’ll be comfortable. But something in the spirit will be missing.”

I have painted too drab a portrait of today’s students, making them seem a solemn lot. That is only half of their story; if they were so dreary I wouldn’t so thoroughly enjoy their company. The other half is that they are easy to like. They are quick to laugh and to offer friendship. They are not introverts. They are usually kind and are more considerate of one another than any student generation I have known.

Nor are they so obsessed with their studies that they avoid sports and extracurricular activities. On the contrary, they juggle their crowded hours to play on a variety of teams, perform with musical and dramatic groups, and write for campus publications. But this in turn is one more cause of anxiety. There are too many choices. Academically, they have 1,300 courses to select from; outside class they have to decide how much spare time they can spare and how to spend it.

This means that they engage in fewer extracurricular pursuits than their predecessors did. If they want to row on the crew and play in the symphony they will eliminate one; in the ‘60s they would have done both. They also tend to choose activities that are self-limiting. Drama, for instance, is flourishing in all twelve of Yale’s residential colleges, as it never has before. Students hurl themselves into these productions—as actors, directors, carpenters, and technicians—with a dedication to create the best possible play, knowing that the day will come when the run will end and they can get back to their studies.

They also cannot afford to be the willing slave of organizations like the Yale Daily News. Last spring at the one-hundredth anniversary banquet of that paper—who’s past chairmen include such once and future kings as Potter Stewart, Kingman Brewster, and William F. Buckley, Jr.—much was made of the fact that the editorial staff used to be small and totally committed and that “newsies” routinely worked fifty hours a week. In effect they belonged to a club; Newsies is how they defined themselves at Yale. Today’s students will one or two articles a week, when he can, and he defines himself as a student. I’ve never heard the word Newsie except at the banquet.

If I have described the modern undergraduate primarily as a driven creature who is largely ignoring the blithe spirit inside who keeps trying to come out and play, it’s because that’s where the crunch is, not only at Yale but throughout American education. It’s why I think we should all be worried about the values that are nurturing a generation so fearful of risk and so goal-obsessed at such an early age.

I tell students that there is no one “right” way to get ahead—that each of them is a different person, starting from a different point and bound for a different destination. I tell neither them that change is a tonic and that all the slots are not codified nor the frontiers closed. One of my ways of telling them is to invite men and women who have achieved success outside the academic world to come and talk informally with my students during the year. They are heads of companies or ad agencies, editors of magazines, politicians, public officials, television magnates, labor leaders, business executives, Broadway products, artists, writers, economists, photographers, scientists, historians—a mixed bag of achievers.

I asked them to say a few words about how they got started. The students assume that they started in their present profession and knew all along that it was what they wanted to do. Luckily for me, most of them got into their field by a circuitous route, to their surprise, after many detours. The students are startled. They can hardly conceive of a career that was not pre-planned. They can hardly imagine allowing the hand of God or chance to nudge them down some unforeseen trail.

11. To Err Is Wrong

In the summer of 1979, Boston Red Sox first baseman Carl Yastrzemski became the fifteenth player in baseball history to reach the three thousand hit plateaus. This event drew a lot of media attention, and for about a week prior to the attainment of this goal, hundreds of reports covered Yaz’s every more. Finally, one reporter asked, “Hey Yaz, aren’t you afraid all of this attention will go to your head?” Yastrzemski replied, “I look at this way: in my career I’ve been up to bat over ten thousand times. That means I’ve been unsuccessful at the plate over seven thousand times. That fact alone keeps me from getting a swollen head.”?

Most people consider success and failure as opposites, but they are actually both products of the same process. As Yaz suggest, an activity that produces a hit may also produce a miss. It is the same with creative thinking; the same energy that generates good creative ideas also produces errors.

Many people, however, are not comfortable with errors. Our educational system, based on “the right answer” belief, cultivates our thinking in another, more conservative way. From an early age, we are taught that right answers are good and incorrect answers are bad. This value is deeply embedded in the incentive system used in most schools:

Right over 90% of the time = “A”

Right over 80% of the time = “B~”

Right over 70% of the time = “C~” Right over 60% of the time = “D~” Less than 60% correct, you fail.

From this we learn to be right as often as possible and to keep our mistakes to a minimum. We learn, in other words, that “to err is wrong.

Playing It Safe

With this kind of attitude, you aren’t going to be taking too many chances. If you learn that failing even a litter penalizes you (e.g., being wrong only 15% of the time garners you only a “B” performance), you learn not to make mistakes. And more important, you learn not to put yourself to situation where you might fall. This leads to conservative thought pattern designed to avoid the stigma our society puts on “failure”.

I have a friend who recently graduated from college with a Master’s degree in Journalism. For the last six month, she has been trying to find a job, but to no avail. I talked with her about situation, and realized that her problem is that she doesn’t know how to fail. She went through eighteen years of schooling to try any approaches where she might fail. She has been conditioned to believe that failure is bad in and of itself, rather than a potential stepping-stone to new ideas.

Look around. How many middle managers, housewives, administrators, teachers, and other people do you see who are to try anything new because of this failure? Most of us have learned not to make mistakes in public. As a result, we remove ourselves from many learning experience except for those occurring in the most private of circumstances.

Different Logic

From a practical point of view, “to err is wrong” makes sense. Our survival in the everyday world requires us to perform thousand of small tasks without failure. Think about it: you wouldn’t last very long if you were to step out in front of traffic or stick your hand a pot of boiling water. In addition, engineers whose bridges collapse, stock brokers who lose money for their clients, and copywriters whose ad campaigns decrease sales won’t keep their jobs very long.

Nevertheless, too great an adherence to the belief “to err is wrong” can greatly undermine your attempts to generate new ideas. If you are more concerned with producing right answers than generating original ideas, you’ll probably make uncritical use of the rules, formulae, and procedures used to obtain these right answers. By doing this, you’ll by-pass the germinal phase of the creative process, and thus spend litter time testing assumptions, challenging the rules, asking what-if questions, or just playing around with the problem. All of these techniques will produce some incorrect answers, but in the germinal phase errors are viewed as a necessary by-product of creative thinking. As Yaz would put it, “if you want the hits, be prepared for the misses.” That’s the way the game of life goes.

Errors as Stepping Stones

Whenever an error pops up, the usual response is “Jeez, another screw up, what went wrong this time?” the creative thinker, on the other hand, will realize the potential value of errors, and perhaps say something like, “Would you look at that! Where can it lead our thinking?” and then he or she will go on to use the error as a stepping stone to a new idea. As a matter of fact, the whole history of discovery is filed with people who used erroneous assumptions and failed ideas as stepping-stones to new ideas. Columbus thought he was finding a shorter route to India. Johannes Kepler stumbled on to the idea of interplanetary gravity because of assumptions that were right for the wrong reasons. And, Thomas Edison knew 1800 ways not to build a light bulb.

The following story about the automotive genius Charles Kettering exemplifies the spirit of working through erroneous assumptions to good ideas. In 1912, when the automobile industry was just beginning to grow, Kettering was interested in improving gasoline engine efficiency. The problem he faced was“knockthe phenomenon in which gasoline takes too long to burn in the cylinder-thereby reducing efficiency.

Kettering began searching for ways to eliminate the “knock.” He thought to him, “How can I get the gasoline to combust in the cylinder at an earlier time?” the key concept here is “early”. Searching for analogous situations, he looked around for models of “things that happen early.” He thought of historical models, physical models, and biological models. Finally, he remembered a particular plant, the trailing arbutus, which “happens early,” i.e., it blooms in the snow (“earlier” than other plants). One of this plant’s chief characteristics is its’ red leaves, which help the plant retain light at certain wavelengths. Kettering figured that it must be the red color, which made the trailing arbutus bloom earlier.

Now came the critical step in Kettering’s chain of thought. He asked himself, “How can I make the gasoline red?” perhaps I’ll put red dye in the gasoline—maybe that’ll make it combust earlier.” He looked around his workshop, and found that he didn’t have any red dye. But he did happen to have some iodine—perhaps that would do. He added the iodine to the gasoline and, lo and behold, the engine didn’t “knock”.

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