成功需要勤奋英语精选20篇

我上低年级的时候，就非常羡慕学校的升旗手。每当看见他迈着矫健的步伐，高擎着鲜艳的五星红旗，正步走向旗杆时，我就想，他多光荣啊。什么时候我也成为一名光荣的升旗手，该有多好啊！

一天，学校的升旗手找到我，告诉我被学校选为后备升旗手。我高兴地跳了起来！我的愿望就要实现了！

放学后，在老师的指导下，我们开始了认真的训练。我们先练习站姿。挺胸、抬头、五指并拢，这些动作说起来挺容易，可做起来就不这么简单了。

我以前没有受到过这方面的训练，十多分钟下来，我就有些坚持不住了，感觉后背发酸腿发软，就想歇一歇。这时，老师好像看到了我们的心思，高声地说：“要想当好一名合格的升旗手，就要严格要求自己，严格训练。”我听到老师的话，立刻把胸挺了起来。

经过几天艰苦的训练，我们终于迎来了第一次升旗仪式。那天，我特意穿上了一双新买的白鞋，早早来到学校，按照老师的嘱咐检查了旗杆的挂钩，活动一下身体，等待着升旗仪式的开始。同学 和 老师都集合在操场了，我肩扛着五星红旗，立正站在出旗位置，心脏紧张地怦怦跳着。

出旗的音乐响了起来，我随着口令正步向主席台走去。来到旗杆下，我把五星红旗顺利地挂在绳子上，准备升旗。这时，庄严的国歌响彻了学校的操场，鲜艳的五星红旗在我们的目送下缓缓上升……

我面对着升起的国旗，心里非常激动。我成功了！我成为了一名向往已久的升棋手！我知道，这个工作是光荣的，是一种荣誉，同时也是一种动力，让我更加努力学习，努力工作。我要更加严格地要求自己，对得起我肩上的这面五星红旗！

我目送着鲜艳的五星红旗缓缓上升、上升……

[我成功因为我勤奋作文三篇

“书山有路勤为径，学海无涯苦作舟。”这句话很有深意，值得探讨下~~但我还是要说明，这句话只有前半句适合我哈~~

先来剖析下前半句，“书山有路勤为径”：书山：顾名思义，书堆成的山，按现在的情况来看，从小学到博士后要读的书加起来足足可以压死一头牛，堆起来后说“山”也不为过...;有路：很好解释，可以解释成有一条路~;勤：勤劳、勤快，与鲁迅先生的“俯首甘为孺子牛”的境界大致相同...;为径：分开来讲，为是成为、成功成为某某，径是小路的意思;连起来说就是书堆成的山虽然有路，但你要勤快才能爬上去滴~~

再来剖析下后半句：“学海无涯苦作舟”：学海：顾名思义，学问的海洋，照现在的处境来想，从三字经到史记再到四大名著，蕴含着多少学问，说“海”绰绰有余....;无涯：很好理解，可以理解成没有对岸~;苦：苦涩、艰苦，与红军爬雪山过草地的革命大无畏的乐观主义精神有异取同工之处...;作舟：分解开来，作是划的意思，那么舟就是小船的意思;连起来就是：虽然学问的海洋没有对岸，但还是要苦苦划着属于你的一叶扁舟哦!

学习需要勤奋，正所谓古语云：“—勤天下无难事”，唐代文学家韩愈也说：“业精于勤”，即学业的精深造诣来源于勤。

学习需要勤奋，因为勤出成果。在辽阔的学海生涯中，勤奋是必不可少的。爱迪生说过：“成功是1%的灵感加上99%的汗水”，可想而知，勤奋的分量是多重啊！也许有些人天生头脑比较灵活，聪明，但是那绝对不可能是一辈子的，后天教育是非常重要的。曾记得，在上中学以前，我是一个很勤奋学习的学生，对于学习，无论是对哪一种，哪一个词，哪一个字我都非常认真地去学习，对不懂的词语我做到了“不耻下问”，每一天我都很勤奋地预习、复习。此外，我还阅读很多的课外书，我渴望能在书海里可以扬帆航行，快乐成长。正所谓“皇天不负有心人”，我每一次测验，考试都可以“下笔如有神”！所以每一次成绩排名榜我的名字总可以名列前茅。我以我自己为荣，家人以我为荣，就连同学们也投来那羡慕的眼光，我的内心世界那种充盈感，幸福感难以形容，我非常喜欢那种感觉。所以，我要说，学习真的需要勤奋，只有勤奋学习，成功的果实才会有机会收获，只有勤奋面对学习和考试上的难题才会迎刃而解。

学习需要勤奋，以为勤出智慧。我们在学习的山峰上攀登，只有勤奋，努力向上爬，我们就可以登上顶峰。俗话说得好“一分耕耘一分收获”，我坚信上天是公平的，只要你付出了，就肯定会有收获，哪怕只是一丁点的收获也象征着自己曾经努力过。自从上中学之后，随着青春期的成长，成熟，对许多新奇事都产生了好奇心，对学习先是放松，后是不问不理，导致成绩一落千丈。我以前总幼稚地认为人生的道路是一帆风顺的，但当挫折出现在我面前的时候我选择了消极的态度去面对。告别了以前勤奋的学习生活，我有许多知识都不懂，有许多题目在我脑海中变成了“问号”，但是我还是那样无动于衷。现在，我开始羡慕别人得到优异的成绩。我不得不承认，我的智慧变低了，脱离了勤奋，就像学习的列车在中途停止了前进，就像……学习需要勤奋，我现在也在努力地改变，使自己变得勤奋，我渴望有朝一日我也可以登上顶峰，这次期中考试，由于我勤奋复习，所以得到了很多的进步，我感到很满足，很欣慰，因为我的勤奋得到了认可，我的付出得到了收获。

以后，我还会更加勤奋地学习，为以后的事业打下良好的基础，无论有多困难，我都不会再选择消极的态度去面对，我相信风雨过后一定会见到彩虹的！所以，我要说，勤出智慧，只要你勤奋，智慧就会慷慨的充实你的头脑，只有勤奋学习，你才不会虚度光阴，只有勤奋学习，才能拥有更多的智慧，更高的智商。

“书山有路勤为径，学海无涯苦作舟”，读书的滋味肯定会有苦，但只要你努力，勤奋地学习，就会尝到甜味。就像古代十年寒窗苦读的书生，为了有朝一日可以考取功名，废寝忘食，还有许多文学家，作家为了自己的作品可以成功发表，付出的代价是那样地大，是那样勤奋地拼搏。像儒勒·凡尔纳的《气球上的五星期》写了十几年，达尔文的《物种起源》写了20年，法布尔的《昆虫论》学了20年，马克思的《资本论》写了40年，曹雪芹的《红楼梦》批阅了10载……这些著名文学家的成功不是有力证明了勤奋的成果吗？

古语云：“只要功夫深，铁杆磨成针。”他告诉我们勤奋是学习成功的保证。也许有些同学认为自己天生资质差，很笨，学不了。其实每一个人都不笨，“天生我才必有用”，问题是你肯不肯下工夫，只要你的方法正确，再勤奋一点，一定也可以拿到好的成绩。就好比是在田地里埋下一颗种子，既不浇水也不施肥，它怎么会成长呢？相反，你下功夫精心浇水施肥，种子有长不大的道理吗？不管做什么事都一样，只要你用心，你勤奋，就可以成功。

学习的路上需要勤奋，只有用“勤”开路，学习才会进步。同学们，加油！要想有个美好的将来，要想明天会更好，请把握好现在，勤奋读书，努力学习，相信自己也可以做得到！

那天下午阴惨惨的天，细雨蒙蒙给天地涂上一层灰色颜料。小巷里水泄不通，汽车笛鸣、灯亮，却让这个世界更冷寂。爸爸妈妈举着雨伞紧张的在校门口巴望着，终于，一个落魄的身影出现了。

那天报名后，初赛理我脱颖而出、喜笑颜开；后来的复赛中，因为没有准备，我险些落败；再后来的决赛，我一改往日的高傲，认真备赛，携着老师同学的希望与祝福，我重新信心满满地回到了决赛。比赛中可说异常惨烈，两队拼了个你死我活。

随着黑皮伞下一个男孩背着黑色的书包低着头，一头乌黑的头发慢慢走出校门，爸爸妈妈的眼神有惊喜或期盼慢慢黯淡下去。终于，这个男孩一声不吭栽到他们的怀里，泪水就像街道的小雨，一点一点的浸出来。爸爸妈妈着急的安慰他，不知所措。其实他一点也不想哭，“可能是太冷了，眼泪太闷了。”他这样想。的确，除了雨打在瓦檐上清脆的滴答声，他一点抽泣声也没有发出。

我一直觉得我没能走出阴霾，沉浸在挫折中无法自拔。在英语的学习中我从此不再骄傲或是张扬，凡事小心谨慎。听好老师讲的每一句话，做好老师布置的每一项任务。我从此懂得其实并不是只要努力一时就能成功，因此，我从原来班级中上层面慢慢进步、变得更优秀。

老师对他说：“从你挣扎着爬起的一瞬，你早已战胜了挫折！”

没错，挫折是一笔巨大的财富，没有挫折就没有进步。

别人说：挫折总是存在，关键在于能不能爬起来。我说：成功近在咫尺关键在于能不能跨过挫折——跌倒后站起来，不仅意味着坚强，你还会看到看得挫折前已硕果累累！

一勤天下无难事。从古到今，有多少名人不是有勤奋而得来成功的?三国时吴国的吕蒙，近代数学家华罗庚，不都是经过了自己的勤奋而取得成功的吗?爱迪生还说过：“巨大的成就，出与长期的勤奋。”因此，成功来自勤奋。

成功与勤奋有着密不可分的关系，成功是勤奋的结果，而勤奋则是成功的必备条件。成功的关键在于勤奋，勤能补拙是良训，一分辛劳一分才，只有勤奋才能取得成功。传说古希腊有一个叫德摩斯梯尼的演说家，因小时口吃，登台演讲时，声音含混，发音不准，常常被雄辩的对手压倒。可是他气不馁，心不灰，为克服这个弱点，战胜雄辩的对手，便每天口含石子面对大海朗诵，不管春夏秋冬，坚持五十年如一日，连爬山，跑步也边走边做演说，终于成为全希腊一个最有名气的演说家。这样的事例不正说明勤奋可以克服一切困难，战胜一切，从而取得成功吗?不是正告诉人们，一切事物都要勤奋吗?

如果一个人天生有聪明的才智，可后天不注意培养，不勤奋，不学习，那他终究不会成功!宋代有个名叫方仲永的“神童”，五岁便会作诗，被乡里称为奇才，可谓聪明过人;但他出名后，不再勤奋上进，而是整天由他父亲带着到处吃喝受礼，结果诗才枯竭，终于“泯然众人矣”。看了这样的事例，一定感受颇深，如果方仲永不由他父亲摆布，如果他继续勤奋上进，那他一定回取得更大的成功!可见勤奋的重要性.再例如,伟大的物理学家爱因斯坦在上学的时候,并不是一名成绩出色的学生,老师甚至说他是"智能底下的人".可是他毫不泄气,勤于学习,虽只上了3个月的学校就被迫离开学校,但没有失去信心,反而成为了一名举世闻名的科学巨匠.还有,闻名世界的大发明家爱迪生,上小学的时候被老师称为"智能底下的人",只上了3个月的学就被迫离开了学校,但他并不因此而丧失了信心,反而以顽强的一直勤奋学习,最后终于成了举世闻名的大发明家.这一切都证明了成功来自勤奋,然而一个人学会了勤奋,也就意味着他必定会成功.

同学们，曾经的无忧无虑离我们远去，丰富多彩的童年渐行渐远。时间啊，就像握在手中的沙子，你越想握紧它，它却流逝得越快；懵懵懂懂中，我们进入了中学，虽然说中学是学习的黄金时段；但是我们的生活却被语文、数学、英语、历史、生物、物理……等等科目填满。花开花落，一季又一季，如此单调无味，枯燥的生活，我们一定也时常期待幸运女神的降临，成功意外地发生在我们身上。但是，光阴荏苒，奇迹的成功对于我们依然难得一见。所以，我想对你们说：成功绝不是偶然，成功只能从一点一滴的勤奋开始。

想想还是古人说得好“书山有路勤为径，学海无涯苦作舟”这是对我们诉说着勤奋的重要性，所以勤奋是通向成功的最佳路径。虽然每一个勤奋的人不一定都成功，但成功的人却一定出自勤奋。在平常的生活中，总听到同学们抱怨，“为什么我不是天才？”“为什么我不能成功？”其实所谓的天才获得的成功，正是出于他们的勤奋和努力。众所周知，杂交水稻之父——袁隆平，他培育出来的讪型杂交水稻，被称为“东方魔稻”。袁隆平经历文化大革命，在没有任何研究器材，甚至在研究的过程中，还受到红卫兵、文革小组的阻挠。但他还是凭着自己的勤奋，日以继夜地找资料;凭着简陋的试验地，还有那拼了命保护的种子，年复一年地尝试。终于挺过了文革的十年，并获得了成功。使中国用占世界7%的耕地养活了占世界22%的人口成为了一个奇迹。

古往今来，外国的成功者自己的奋斗历程也无一例外地向我们验证了这一成功的真谛。大发明家，爱迪生，少年家境贫困，仅仅读了3个月的书，当时他在班里成绩很低，但他并不灰心，依然勤奋。摘写了45万页的材料，从1600多种矿物质和600多种植物中研制出了灯泡和灯丝，发明了电灯，取得了成功。居里夫人在一间木制板架下经过4年坚持不懈的研究发现了镭……他们都是天才吗？不是！他们的成功都在于他们的勤奋。

这一切的一切，都告诉我们，没有意外的成功，只有通过勤奋地付出。虽然说只有经历过的人才知道，青涩的果子是如何成熟在枝头。但是，我希望还没有获得成功的同学们，一定要继续勤奋地学习，总有一天，你会获得成功！

勤奋就是成功，给人们带来快乐；勤奋就是一束灯光，给晚上读书的人们而照亮，勤奋就是一条小溪，给万物带来甜美的营养。

古代有许多勤奋的人，比如为了写完《本草纲目》的李时珍，他将近用了三十年的时间来写这本书，在这三十年的时间中，他每天都要上山采药，来研究它们，李时珍大约研究了上千种草药，研制出了上万种药方。

你们知道我国的大诗人是谁吗？没错，他就是李白，可是你们知道吗？李白小时候可不是这样的，他小时候是很贪玩的，写一会字就去捉蝴蝶。有一天，李白又去捉兔子看见一个老太太要把铁杵磨成绣花针，于是他很受启发，从此用功读书上，最终成为了一名诗人。

我自己曾经也勤奋过，好一次是我在家里吃饭，我一不小心把邻居家的玻璃用石头打破了，我吓了一跳，回去后，我把这件事的来龙去脉告诉了外姥，没想到不但不生气，反而对我说：“我可以帮你先顶住这件事，但是你要干家务活，这样，如果你把全部的家务活都干完，我就会帮你把打碎窗户的钱赔给人家。”于是，我趁外姥和妈妈她们去买东西的时间，把这些活一一干完，最后外姥按照约定把钱赔给了邻居。

勤奋是石，擦亮了星星之火；勤奋是火，点亮了前言的道路；勤奋就是生活的一部分，没有它，我们的生活就不完美。

Failure is the mother of success. Sometimes people have to cope with many mistakes and failures in order to reach the successful finals. While others might succumb to failure, they tend to retreat and give in their efforts. Success often provides confidence and satisfaction, nevertheless failure companies with bitter, saddness, and suffering. It seems people have to learn through each experience, as success doesnt always falls from heaven.

I remembered I used to fail on my vocabury test when I was in high school. I had problem to memorize new words which got lloose each day. I almost decided to give up English, but was obliged to one of my neighbour classmates who kept on sending small sheet for me. In the end of the semester, I found I had finished my vocabulary book which became a work force in reading English. I then realized that a new word came and left our brains for several times. Nobody is born as genius for success. Success tends to arrive after a serial of trials and failures.

Of course, success brings confidence and victory. But, life is not always easy and comfortable. There are more difficulties than eases in the real life. It is likely that we have to face some failures ahead. Therefore, those who learn how to deal and endure failures will taste their success eventually.

许多人都会问我认为成功最需要什么，我会毫不犹豫的说：“是自信，一个人连自信都没了，他怎么还能成功呢?”自信，顾名思义，就是自己对自己有信心，每件成功的事背后，都少不了自信。

记得那是前一段时间发生的一件事，我在家里做奥赛题，可那道题特别难，我算了好几遍都没算出来，我想这道题我肯定算不出来，正准备看书上答案时，又一想，我这不是自己对自己失去信心吗?我这不是自己放弃自己吗?成功的背后需要自信和汗水，相信自己，我一定能行!又过了一会，经过冥思苦想，终于把这到题做出来了。

是啊!成功不是靠投机取巧，成功不是靠花言巧语，成功靠的是自信和辛苦的汗水呀!

两个人比赛，一个对自己充满信心，心里想的我能行!我一定能赢，另一个人对自己不抱希望，心里想着我如果输了该怎么办?你们说，他们两个谁能赢?答案是肯定的：第一个人一定赢，因为他对自己充满信心!

自信是成功的第一步，也是最重要的一步，如果这一步你走不好，那你将永远与成功擦肩而过!

有一位歌手，大家现在可能对他并不陌生，他还没有出名的时候不知道受到了多少音乐人的嘲笑和白眼，好几次想放弃不再做音乐创作，因为他付出太多而收获却太少，他为了给自己挽回面子，十年执着地坚持自己的专业，最后到了2000年以一首《黄昏》而走红大江南北，写到这里我不用说大家都知道是谁了!他就是现在台湾当红歌星周传雄(小刚)。也许我们往往想到的是一个人成功的光环，而不知道他们背后默默付出的艰辛，今天我写这个情歌王子的故事是源于去年看凤凰卫视的《鲁豫有约》，嘉宾就是周传雄，这是他自己亲口说的，出名后的他更激发了这个音乐才子的潜能，2000年到现在更是好歌不断。象我喜欢的《记事本》《我难过》《男人·海洋》《伤心酒杯》等都是他作的词，如果说没有小刚的执着就没有小刚的今天，那我们就欣赏不到小刚的好音乐。

我村里也有一个执着的人，离我家50米远。前些年我在家的时候知道他一个人种了十多亩田地，有时候和他聊天，我说你干嘛种那么多田呢，人家给你种的田就不要了，这样会累坏的，而他用平和的语气对我说，反正我还吃得消，可是他一家三口人，一个小儿子，一个有点精神病的老婆，虽然种那么多田，可是他缺少管理，田里的粮食都产值不高，除了肥料，农药钱也就够自己吃，没有太多的剩粮，领着低保过日子。到了现在由于党的好政策，免去了公购粮，而且每种一亩田能补到100多元，管理又上去了，收成多了，日子要比以前好得多。

他一个人能种那么多田也是源于他的执着，要是象我们一般的人能种十多亩吗?不会吓出一身病来才怪。

对于每个人来说执着是好事，生活中还很多人都做不到执着，一遇到风雨就放弃。人生其实不要怕遇到风雨，怕的是在风雨中放弃自我。只要锲而不舍，坚守信念加执着，相信每个人都会离成功越来越近。

执着对于还未成功的人来说是最好的基石。

自古以来，成功的人有很多，失败的人也有很多，为什么有些人就能成功，而有些人就失败呢？

爱迪生说过：“天才是1%的灵感加99%的汗水。”没有人可以不付出勤奋就能取得成功，而那些成功的人付出的努力是离我们很遥远的。

美国科学家爱迪生在1879年研制成功耐用碳丝灯泡为世界带来了光明，他还发明了很多电器产品，正式注册的发明就有一千三百种之多，被誉为“发明大王”爱迪生热衷于发明创造，在研制电灯泡以前就有170项发明。

牛顿说过：“如果我看到比别人更远些，那是因为我站在巨人的肩膀上。”

英国科学家牛顿是近代自然科学的奠基人之一，他的成就主要体现在天文学，数学，力学等方面。牛顿在天文学上的主要贡献是在17世纪下半期发现了万有引力定律；在数学上最重要的贡献是微积分的创造；在力学上牛顿建立了完整的力学理论体系。牛顿对近代自然科学的发展影响很大。

贝多芬曾说过：“我要扼住命运的咽喉，它绝不能使我完全屈服”

德国伟大作曲家贝多芬，也是一位资产阶级革命运动的热情歌颂者。贝多芬26岁时不幸患上了中耳炎，1820年，贝多芬两耳完全失聪，这对一个音乐家来说，是个沉重打击，但是，贝多芬并没有完全屈服，为克服失聪带来的困难，贝多芬曾用一支小木杆，一端插在钢琴箱里，一端咬在牙齿中间，在作曲时用来听音，这个特别的听音器。至今还保存在贝多芬的博物馆里。

梵高说过：“相信我吧，在艺术问题上，下面这句话是实在的：老老实实是最好的办法，宁看不厌其烦的严肃钻研，而不是投机取巧，哗众取宠。”

以成功源于勤奋来说，勤奋是成功之母，而成功是失败之母，我们要以贝多芬，牛顿，爱迪生等等为榜样，学习他们的精神。

开发自己的智能，“勤奋”二字最紧要的，人的天资是有差别的，但勤奋比天资重要得多。

天才就是勤奋，人的天赋就像火花，它既可以熄灭，也可以燃烧，而迫使他熊熊燃烧的办法，只有一个，那就是勤奋。这些名人名言告诉我们一个颠扑不破的真理，一个人能否成功，不是看他有多高的天赋，而关键在于它是否勤奋。

居里夫人，法国国籍，波兰科学家，研究放射性现象，发现镭和钋两种放射性元素，一生两次获诺贝尔奖。多少个孤独的夜晚，多少个寒冷的冬日，她为了自己的理想去和自己的生命搏斗。当有些人行走在繁华的街道时，挑选着自己喜欢的衣服，那种欣慰的表情无法表达;还有些人在自己的家里看电视、玩电脑时，而居里夫人却独自坐在实验室里搞研究。

也许有人会说：“我们是中专生，上的是职业类学校，没必要象名人那样刻苦勤奋，我们太平凡了，也创造不出什么大发明，我们只要不旷课、不早退学不学都无所谓。其实，作为一名平凡的人，我们有必要勤奋刻苦，它依然是我们学习中最锋利的武器。我们只要在自己的岗位上有所突破也就是没有虚度年华，不要等到莫等闲，白了少年头，空悲切!

青岛港桥吊队长许振超是一名普通的农民工，在平凡的岗位上却做出了不平凡的贡献。1974年只上了一年半初中的他截出桥吊后，面对厚厚一本100多张的桥吊英文图纸，暗下决心：不会就学，绝不能趴下。可能许多人认为搬运工不会有什么大作为，可许振超相信知识可以改变命运，岗位能够成就事业，咱当不了科学家，但可以练就一身绝活，做个能工巧匠，无愧于时代，无愧于港口的培养。他不断学习提高自身素质，通过努力，成为爱岗敬业的“工人专家”。在他的带领下连续创新装箱单船装卸作业效率的世界纪录。

我们不要因学历而使自己的前程毁灭，我们也要象许振超一样在平凡的岗位上做出不平凡的成绩，我们应该全力以赴投入到学习中，养成独立思考的习惯，提高整体素质，塑造一个新型自我。

有耕耘就会有收获，对于我们中专生来说时间与勤奋同等重要。只要我们渗透了勤奋的源泉，风雨过后会是春色满园，荆棘过后前面会是铺满鲜花的宽敞大道。让我们一起铸就明日的荣光!

阅读下面的材料，按照要求写一篇不少于800字的文章(60分)

有一个聪明的年轻人，很想在任何方面都比他身边的人强，他尤其想成为一名大学问家。可是许多年过去了，他的其他方面都不错，学业却没有长进。他很苦恼，就去向一个大师求教。

大师说：“去登山吧，到山顶就知道该如何做。山上有许多晶莹的小石头，煞是迷人。每见到他喜欢的石头，大师就让他装进袋子里背着，很快，他就吃不消了。“大师，如果再这样下去，别说到山顶了，恐怕连动也不能动了。”年轻人痛苦地看着大师。“是呀，那该怎么办呢?”大师微微一笑，“该放下不放下，背着石头怎么能登山呢?”大师道。年轻人一愣，忽然心中一亮，向大师道谢而去。之后，他刻苦学习，进步飞快……

要求：选准角度，明确立意，自选文体，自拟标题;不要脱离材料内容及含意的范围作文，不要套作，不得抄袭。

【范文】

成功，需要懂得放弃

每个人一生不知道要经历多少困难与挑战，而我们也正是在战胜困难的过程中一步步地前行，并自我完善着。成功的过程就像小孩学步一样，只有亲身体验到失败，才能领悟到一条通往成功的的道路。叶子飞得再高也会落下来，因为它靠的是风的力量，行囊背得太多，也要学会放下，因为生命不能承受之重。实践证明：想取得成功，必须懂得放下。

坚定信念，需要执着。五代时桑维翰参加进士考试，主考官认为他的姓“桑”与“丧”同音，便心生厌恶，没有录取他。有人劝他不必再考进士，可以另辟蹊径，求得做官。桑维翰不肯，感慨万千，作《日出扶桑赋》以表明心志，又打造铁砚，对人说：“等这铁砚磨穿了，我再选择其他求官的方法。”成功就像一棵大树上的果实，并非可望而不可即的，只需不停的向上爬，努力拼搏，执着追求，就会摘到成功的果实。事实证明，桑维翰用他的执着和坚韧，终于敲开了成功的大门，上帝青睐那些坚定而执着的人士。

坚定执着，学会放弃。奥运冠军刘翔曾经宣称：“亚洲有我，中国有我”，面对种种质疑，刘翔自信地回答说：“一个人要对自己有信心，不论成功与失败，做每件事当然要注重结果，但更要注重过程，不断提升提炼的过程，相信自己奋斗的过程。”但是，面对荣誉、地位和金钱等身外之物，需要学会放弃，减轻身心的重量，轻装前进，才能迅速前行，实际刘翔也是这样做的，放下一个个辉煌，迎接一个个新的挑战，就能不断地进步。一种叫蝜蝂的小虫子，遇到东西总是背仔仔身上，重量越积越多，最后被压垮死掉。实践证明，无论身处顺境还是逆境，都应微笑平静地面对，放弃杂念，一心冲向目标，成功就有了希望。

抓住机会，付诸行动。当一个人有了信念，坚定执着，又懂得负重的时候，需要的就是抓住机会了。成功的机会是稍纵即逝的，常常与人们擦肩而过，留下许多遗憾。越王勾践在战败的情况下，被迫到吴国当奴隶，受尽耻辱，但他并没有自暴自弃，只是默默地忍受着，韬光养晦，期待时机，有所作为。吴王被勾践忠诚所迷惑，将他释放。勾践终于迎来重拾旧河山的机会。他用了十年壮大人口，富国强兵，最后一举灭掉吴国，报仇雪恨。事实明证，成功并不难，只要拥有坚定信念，执着的追求，迅速行动，以及善于把握机遇，就够了。

当我们走在通往成功的道路时，我们会面对一切困难的挑战。我们别无选择，只有坚定目标，执着追求，善于舍弃与放下，给生命之重卸载，才会轻装前进，达到梦想彼岸。

有一次，学校要举行演讲比赛，班主任决定先在班上举行一次预赛。我各方面都不错，就是从来没有上台演讲过。稿子写好了，我读了一遍又一遍，也试着演讲了好几次。

终于等到了班会课。老师宣布开始，班长便大大方方地走上讲台，他声音洪亮，口齿清楚，演讲起来极富感情。演讲完毕，教室里爆发出经久不息的掌声。接着，又有几名同学上台演讲。

我开始不安起来，我能像他们一样顺利地讲下来吗?演讲不好让同学们笑话怎么办?我不敢再往下想了，手心开始出汗，那份稿子越攥越紧。等我右边的那个同学演讲完毕，班会课已经过去半个钟头了。老师在一旁鼓励大家：“还有没有?不用怕，大胆地走上来，鼓起勇气!”我感到自己的心“怦怦”直跳。想上去，又怕演讲不好被人笑话，多没面子啊;不上去，就会失去一次难得的机会，机不可失呀!老师的话又在耳边响起：“鼓起勇气来，不用怕!”是啊，即使失败，又算得了什么?去试一试，又怎知自己一定会失败呢?

“鼓起你的勇气来，你会成功的。”这是勇气在对我说话。

我终于站了起来，手里拿着那份已被汗水浸湿的稿子，大步走上讲台。同学们充满期待地望着我。我深深地吸了一口气，让自己平静下来，然后，又鼓足勇气，开始演讲。慢慢地，我不再害怕，心中纯真的感情在言语之中自然地流露。

“哗——”当我演讲结束，台下爆发出一阵热烈的掌声。“真棒!”我的好朋友欧冉对我说。最后，当老师宣布我获胜时，我喜极而泣。我成功了!

“是什么力量是你走上台来，讲得这么好呢?”老师问我。

我回答：“是勇气。”

我知道，在关键时刻，发挥自己的长处不是问题，而快速提升自己最“短”的那块“板”——勇气，才是最重要的。

助你成功的性格 The Personality Characteristics That Make You Successful

When we talk about those famous people， we all like to know how they succeed. Meanwhile we all admire their personal special virtues which lead them to triumph. And it is obvious that many successful people have some personality characteristics in common. As far as I concerned， I deem that persistence， prudence， confidence and courage are the most important.

当我们在谈论那些名人的时候，我们都想知道他们是如何取得成功的。同时我们都很钦佩引导他们走向胜利的特别的个人美德。很明显，许多成功的人都有一些共同的个性。就我而言，我认为毅力，谨慎，自信和勇气是最重要的。

Firstly， I think persistence should come first before the other three personality characters. As we all know that a person cannot always successfully reach his aim at his first try， there are many barriers waiting for him. Therefore the person will fail many times before he gets his victory. If he doesnt persist in trying again and again and make a breakthrough， thus he will stay still， no progress. He may not move forward or even regress. A person without the personal character of persistence can’t finally succeed in getting his goal.

首先，我认为毅力要比其他三个个性都要重要。总所周知，人不可能总是在第一次尝试的时候就成功地达到自己的目标，肯定会有很多阻碍等着他。因此，人们会在多次失败后才会取得胜利。如果他没有坚持不断地努力和突破，他将会保持静止状态，没有进步。他不可能前进甚至是倒退。一个没有毅力的人不能取得最终的成功。

Secondly， a man who wants to be successful should also own the characteristic of prudence. The inventor of the electric bulb gives a good example for explaining that. It is said that the inventor tried to use thousands kinds of metal to make electric bulb filament in order to find the most suitable metal which can let the lamp light longer and brighter. I suppose that without the very prudential work， the inventor could not triumph in the end. A self- made man should do his jobs with prudence， sometimes even should be careful doing a very trivial thing. Like when those scientists or mathematicians are dealing with a complex matter， if they make a small mistake， the efforts which they made before will be in vain. Accordingly， cautiousness is necessary.

其次，一个人想要取得成功的人还应该有谨慎的性格。电灯的发明者就为解释这一点提供了一个很好的例子。据说，发明者试图用几千种金属来找到最合适的的金属做电灯泡灯丝使得灯的寿命更长、更亮。我觉得如果发明者不是非常谨慎工作，他不可能在最后取得胜利。一个靠自己努力而成功的人应该是谨慎地工作，有时连一些很琐碎的事情甚至都要小心。就像当那些科学家和数学家正在处理一个复杂的问题时，如果他们犯了一丁点的错误，他们之前的努力都将是徒劳的。因此，谨慎是很有必要的。

In addition， the self- made men all are self-confident and courageous. As the saying goes， “fortune never helps the man whose courage has failed.” Supposed that a soldier loses his confidence and gallantry to fight when he is in the field of the battle， I am sure that he does not have the fortune to survive successfully. Therefore people who want to achieve their goals in their work all should be self-confident and courageous.

此外，一个靠自己努力而取得成功的人都是有自信和勇气的。俗话说，“运气永远不会帮助没有勇气的人。”假如一个失去了信心和勇气的士兵仍然在战场上战斗，我敢肯定他不会有幸存下来的运气。因此，想要实现自己在工作上的目标的人应该是要有自信和勇气的。

In a word， my view regarding those famous people’s success is that they persist in working hard， do their jobs with prudence， are confident in themselves and have courage to overcome any kinds of difficulties; it is the reason that they can make themselves into a celebrity and admired by others.

总之，我对于名人成功的看法是，他们坚持努力工作，谨慎，对自己有信心，有克服任何困难的勇气。这就是他们之所以成为名人并受人敬仰的原因。

天才就是勤奋，人的天赋就像火花，它既可以熄灭，也可以燃烧，而迫使他熊熊燃烧的办法，只有一个，那就是勤奋。这些名人名言告诉我们一个颠扑不破的真理，一个人能否成功，不是看他有多高的天赋，而关键在于它是否勤奋。

居里夫人，法国国籍，波兰科学家，研究放射性现象，发现镭和钋两种放射性元素，一生两次获诺贝尔奖。多少个孤独的夜晚，多少个寒冷的冬日，她为了自己的理想去和自己的生命搏斗。当有些人行走在繁华的街道时，挑选着自己喜欢的衣服，那种欣慰的表情无法表达；还有些人在自己的家里看电视、玩电脑时，而居里夫人却独自坐在实验室里搞研究。

也许有人会说：“我们是中专生，上的是职业类学校，没必要象名人那样刻苦勤奋，我们太平凡了，也创造不出什么大发明，我们只要不旷课、不早退学不学都无所谓。其实，作为一名平凡的人，我们有必要勤奋刻苦，它依然是我们学习中最锋利的武器。我们只要在自己的岗位上有所突破也就是没有虚度年华，不要等到莫等闲，白了少年头，空悲切！

青岛港桥吊队长许振超是一名普通的农民工，在平凡的岗位上却做出了不平凡的贡献。1974年只上了一年半初中的他截出桥吊后，面对厚厚一本100多张的桥吊英文图纸，暗下决心：不会就学，绝不能趴下。可能许多人认为搬运工不会有什么大作为，可许振超相信知识可以改变命运，岗位能够成就事业，咱当不了科学家，但可以练就一身绝活，做个能工巧匠，无愧于时代，无愧于港口的培养。他不断学习提高自身素质，通过努力，成为爱岗敬业的“工人专家”。在他的带领下连续创新装箱单船装卸作业效率的世界纪录。

我们不要因学历而使自己的前程毁灭，我们也要象许振超一样在平凡的岗位上做出不平凡的成绩，我们应该全力以赴投入到学习中，养成独立思考的习惯，提高整体素质，塑造一个新型自我。

有耕耘就会有收获，对于我们中专生来说时间与勤奋同等重要。只要我们渗透了勤奋的源泉，风雨过后会是春色满园，荆棘过后前面会是铺满鲜花的宽敞大道。让我们一起铸就明日的荣光！

“蜂采百花酿甜蜜，人读群书明真理”。这句话是什么意思呢?这句话告诉我们蜜蜂只有采集许多的花酿出来的蜜才甜，人只有博览群书才能明白世间的真理。你看，花朵开的再鲜艳、再美丽它没有颜色它也不让人赏心悦目，人没有知识也只是社会上的废物。无论在现代还是在古代，凡是有功名和才能的人，无不用自己的汗水写着一个大字-------“勤”。

周恩来小时候，在鸡叫三遍过后就起来朗诵诗词，就算是在饭桌上也问个不停，到了晚上，他不管多晚多累都要练一百个大字才睡觉，但是他要看到哪个字没写好，就会重新写那个没写好的字，直到写好为止。周恩来是值得我们学习的榜样。

鲁迅的成功是在于他珍惜时间，他说过：“时间，就像海绵里的水，只要你挤，总是有的。”鲁迅读书的兴趣十分广泛，又喜欢写作，他对于民间艺术，特别是传说、绘画，也深切爱好;正因为他广泛涉猎，多方面学习，所以时间对他来说，实在非常重要。

牛顿是当代著名的物理学家，他发现了地心引力。他是怎么发现地心引力的呢?我来告诉你们，在一个风和日丽的上午，他来到了野外游玩，累了，在一棵树下休息，忽然一个苹果掉了下来，正好砸在了他的头上，牛顿立马想到了一件事：为什么苹果不是往上升而是往下掉呢?于是，他回到家苦心钻研，终于他发现了地心引力。牛顿的贡献不只是发现了地心引力还有：

1.以牛顿三大运动定律为基础建立牛顿力学。2.建立行星定律理论的基础。3.致力於三菱镜色散之研究并发明反射式望远镜。4.发现数学的二项式定理及微积分法等 5.近代原子理论的起源。

好了，说了这么多的故事，也该结束了，虽然文章有些间短，但是只要是爱学习、爱读书的人就不会在意。这篇文章我掏出了我所有的心思，希望你们多多支持我，谢谢。

星期六是中秋节，晚上，我回到家，抬头眺望天空，黑乎乎的一大片，连颗星星也没有。我多么渴望看见那在天空中闪闪发亮的星星和又大又圆的月亮呀!

我等着，盼着!

到了晚上十一点，路上的行人似乎也没有了，我呆呆地看着天空，心里非常失望，就走开了。等我洗好澡，再一次拉开窗帘布时，我得到了个意外的惊喜。

我大声叫爸爸妈妈：“爸爸妈妈、爸爸妈妈，快过来呀，我发现了那个又大又圆又亮的白玉盘了!”

爸爸妈妈跑过来了，也惊呼道：“真的呀，那又大又圆的月亮正挂在空中呢!”

可是，在月亮的旁边总是有许多烦人的乌云，一会儿就把月亮遮住，我那时就在想，月亮为什么就不会把乌云给“踢”开呢?

那月亮白里透亮，犹如一颗颗珍珠做起来的白玉盘，月亮走到哪里，哪里的云就亮堂堂，月亮那五彩环隐隐约约地把那些云变成了“五彩云”。多么美丽的夜空呀!

有几颗星星在月亮姐姐旁边玩耍，它们一个个眨着顽皮的小眼睛，在月亮金黄的光芒的照耀下，也变成了金黄色的了!

多么美的深夜呀!如此的美的夜让我久久不想去睡觉，可是，那眼皮子怎么也不听我的话，不知不觉的就自己合上，然后不知不觉得进入了梦乡。

同学们，曾经的无忧无虑离我们远去，丰富多彩的童年渐行渐远。时间，就像握在手中的沙子，你越想握紧它，它却流逝得越快。懵懵懂懂中，我们进入了中学，虽然说中学是学习的黄金时段，但是我们的生活却被语文，数学，英语，历史，生物，物理……等等科目填满。花开花落，一季又一季，如此单调无味，枯燥的生活，我们一定也时常期待幸运女神的降临，成功意外地发生在我们身上。但是，光阴荏苒，奇迹的成功对于我们依然难得一见。所以，我想对你们说：成功绝不是偶然，成功只能从一点一滴的勤奋开始。

古人说得好“书山有路勤为径，学海无涯苦作舟”这是对我们诉说着勤奋的重要性，勤奋是通向成功的最佳路径。虽然每一个勤奋的人不一定都成功，但成功的人却一定出自勤奋。在平常的生活中，总听到同学们抱怨，“为什么我不是天才？”“为什么我不能成功？”其实所谓的天才获得的成功，正是出于他们的勤奋和努力。众所周知，杂交水稻之父——袁隆平，他培育出来的讪型杂交水稻，被称为“东方魔稻”。袁隆平经历文化大革命，在没有任何研究器材，甚至在研究的过程中，还受到红卫兵、文革小组的阻挠。但他还是凭着自己的勤奋，日以继夜地找资料；凭着简陋的试验地，还有那拼了命保护的种子，年复一年地尝试。使中国用占世界7%的耕地养活了占世界22%的人口成为了一个奇迹。

古往今来，外国的成功者自己的奋斗历程也无一例外地向我们验证了这一成功的真谛。大发明家，爱迪生，少年家境贫困，仅仅读了3个月的书，当时他在班里成绩很低，但他并不灰心，依然勤奋。摘写了45万页的材料，从1600多种矿物质和600多种植物中研制出了灯泡和灯丝，发明了电灯，取得了成功。居里夫人在一间木制板架下经过4年坚持不懈的研究发现了镭……他们都是天才吗？不是！他们的成功都在于他们的勤奋。

这一切的一切，都告诉我们，没有意外的成功，只有通过勤奋地付出。虽然说只有经历过的人才知道，青涩的果子是如何成熟在枝头。但是，我希望还没有获得成功的同学们，一定要继续勤奋地学习，总有一天，你会获得成功！

失败是成功之母，但让失败变成成功之母的前提是要学会坚持。”这是《顶碗少年》这一课给我的启示。不光是这位少年，我也有失败的时候。

记得那年，小提琴杨老师来我家叫我拉小提琴。“哆咪啦哆”“糟了，最后一个哆我没拉好。”杨老师看了我一会，从他嘴里蹦出三个字：重新拉。于是我又从头拉起，本来以为这此可以过，可是这讨厌的“哆”我又拉跑了音。杨老师很生气。他看着我什么也不说。

我害怕了，我怕再拉错老师会说我;我怕再拉错老妈会凶我;我怕再拉错老爸会嘲笑我说：“亏你还说自己拉得好，我看你呀先吹了。”……我想试一下的信念战胜了恐惧。我鼓起最大的勇气问老师：“老师，我可以再试一次吗?”

结果是什么?结果就是我最后一起成功了。

通过这一次让我明白了一个道理成功离我们每一个人都不远，只要你肯努力，只要你肯坚持。你就会成为一个成功者。

在以后的岁月里，每当我遇到困难时，我老是会想起我拉琴的经历。不知怎么的，我每每想起的时候。我就一定会使出我全身的力气去坚持下去。最终取得成功。

让我们做一个学会坚持，学会不被失败打到的人吧!

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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