0我需要勇气用英语怎么说（热门20篇）
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294寻找勇气之源英语作文
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+ 加入清单勇气是人类文明亘古不变的主题，但是对勇气的系统性研究却是最近才开始的。什么是勇气？勇气从何而来？它在身体和大脑中是如何体现的？为何我们会对它如此之挚爱？没有恐惧感是不是件好事情呢？本文将一一予以解答。
In his 20 years as a firefighter and paramedic in Colorado Springs, Bruce Monson, 43, has had his little fist-bumps with death: a burning roof collapsing on top of him, toxic fumes nearly suffocating him.
在其作为科罗拉多斯普林斯（Colorado Springs）市消防员和急救人员的20年生涯里，43岁的布鲁斯·蒙逊（Bruce Monson）跟死神有过小小的亲密接触：一座燃烧的屋顶从他头顶坍塌，有毒气体几乎令其窒息。
Yet far more terrifying than any personal threats are what Mr. Monson describes as the "bad kid calls," like the one from a mother who had put her 18-month-old son down in his crib right next to a window with a Venetian blind and its old-fashioned cord.
但是比所有的个人威胁都要恐怖得多的，是被蒙逊先生描述为"捣蛋鬼电话"的，就像是一位妈妈打过来的电话一样，这位母亲把自己18个月大的孩子放到了婴儿床上，而婴儿床则正好靠近一个带有软百叶窗和老式绳索的窗户。
"The kid had grabbed the cord and gotten it twisted around his neck, and the mother came in and found him hanging there," said Mr. Monson. "Im the first one in the door, shes in a panic, and she shoves the kid into my arms, crying, Please save him, please save him! "
"小孩抓住了那条绳子，然后被绳子绕住了自己的脖子，接着母亲进来就发现他悬在那里了"，蒙逊先生说："我是第一个上门的，她还在恐慌之中，一把就将孩子塞到我手臂里，哭着说，请救救他，快救救他！"。
The childs body was blue, but Mr. Monson and his fellows met parental despair with professional focus and did everything they could. "We worked on him for over an hour," said Mr. Monson. "Its like a state of calm. Youre so tuned in to what youre doing, youre not thinking about the reality of the situation."
孩子的身体都已经发紫了，但蒙逊先生和同伴的职业素养遭遇了父母的绝望眼神，他们竭尽所能。"我们在孩子身上努力了一个多钟头"，蒙逊先生说："那就好像是进入了一种入定的状态。你对自己的正在做的事情是如此的全神贯注，以至于到了弃现实情况于不顾的地步"。
Their best was not enough, however, and later, at the hospital, the terrible sadness settled in.
然而，尽其所能仍回天乏力，随后在医院里传来了噩耗。
As Mr. Monson filled out his report, the mother sat in the trauma rooms designated "bereavement rocking chair," rocking her dead son, saying her goodbyes, while family members filed in and wailed at the sight.
正如蒙逊在报告中所写的那样，那位母亲坐在创伤室指定的"丧亲摇摇椅"上，不断摇晃着她死去的孩子，喃喃着自己的告别，此情此景，一旁的家庭成员也哀嚎不已。
An image of that mother in her rocking chair comes to Mr. Monsons mind every time he answers another "bad kid" call, spurring him to keep going, to never give up or grow sloppy or cynical, to simply do his job; and through doing his job, he has saved far more lives than he has lost.
每次接到一个又一个的"捣蛋鬼"电话时，蒙逊先生的脑海总会浮现出那位母亲坐在摇摇椅上的景象，激励着他不断前进，永不放弃，永远都不能麻痹大意或者是愤世嫉俗，只想着做好自己的工作；通过他的努力，他所救活的生命远远超过了失去的。
Only once did he allow the furniture connection to spook him — when his own wife was at the same hospital having emergency surgery for a ruptured ectopic pregnancy, and his young daughter happened to climb onto the bereavement seat. "I knew it was a totally irrational thing to do," he said, "but I made her get out of that chair."
这种联想只有一次让他被吓到了—— 当他自己的妻子因为宫外孕破裂在同一家医院接受急救手术的时候，他年轻的女儿恰巧爬上了那张丧亲之椅。"我知道，这完全是一件荒谬的事情"，他说："但是我把她从椅子上弄下来了"。
Courage is something that we want for ourselves in gluttonous portions and adore in others without qualification. Yet for all the longstanding centrality of courage to any standard narrative of human greatness, only lately have researchers begun to study it systematically, to try to define what it is and is not, where it comes from, how it manifests itself in the body and brain, who we might share it with among nonhuman animals, and why we love it so much.
勇气是某种我们希望自己富有并无保留地仰慕别人拥有的东西。在人类文明的任何标准记叙当中，勇气的中心地位一直是屹立不倒的，尽管如此，但是研究者也只是最近才开始对它进行系统性的研究，试图去定义什么是勇气，什么不是勇气，勇气从何而来，它在身体和大脑中是如何体现的，在非人类的动物里面我们会跟谁分享勇气，以及为何我们会对它如此之挚爱。
A new report in the journal Current Biology describes the case of a woman whose rare congenital syndrome has left her completely, outrageously fearless, raising the question of whether its better to conquer ones fears, or to never feel them in the first place.
《现代生物学》杂志的一份新报告描述了一个案例，一位患有罕见的先天性综合症的女人，在全然无所畏惧的情况下彻底痊愈，报告向我们提出了一个问题，是否说克服恐惧，或者永远不把恐惧摆在首位是不是会更好？
In another recent study, neuroscientists scanned the brains of subjects as they struggled successfully to overcome their terror of snakes, identifying regions of the brain that may be key to our everyday heroics.
在另一份最新研究中，神经系统科学家扫描了成功克服了对蛇的恐惧感的研究对象的大脑，确定了有可能是我们平常英雄事迹的关键的大脑区域。
Researchers in the Netherlands are exploring courage among children, to see when the urge for courage first arises, and what children mean when they call themselves brave.
荷兰的研究者正在探索儿童的勇气之源，试图找出什么时候会催生出勇气来，以及孩子们自称勇敢时其意思是什么。
The theme of courage claims a long and gilded ancestry. Plato included courage among the four cardinal or principal virtues, along with wisdom, justice and moderation.
勇气这个主题有着久远而辉煌的历史。柏拉图把勇气与智慧、正义及节制一起，列为四种体液或称之为四美德。
"As a major virtue, courage helps to define the excellent person and is no mere optional trait," writes George Kateb, a political theorist and emeritus professor at Princeton University. "One of the worst reproaches in the world is to be called a coward."
"作为一项主要美德，勇气帮助我们定义优秀之人，它不是可有可无的选项"，普林斯顿大学的政治理论家和名誉教授乔治·卡泰（George Kateb）说："这个世界上最糟糕的指责之一就是被称为懦夫"。
Yet defining what it means to be courageous has often proved as thistly as distinguishing the wise ones from the fools. For Plato and many other authorities, courage is above all a martial art, most readily displayed on the battlefield — the iconic brave solder running into the line of fire to retrieve an injured comrade.
但是，要界定什么是勇敢，往往被证明跟在愚者中区分出智者一样的棘手。对于柏拉图和许多其他的权威来说，勇气首先是一种搏击术，最容易在战场上展示出来——标志性的铁血战士冲破火线救出受伤的战友。
But Dr. Kateb points out that if courage finds its highest expression in war, then the trait paradoxically becomes an immoral virtue, ennobling war and carnage by insisting that only in battle can men — and it usually is men — discover the depths of their nobility.
但是卡泰博士指出，如果说勇敢在战争中有最高表现的话，那么其特点就自相矛盾地成为不道德的美德，强调人们，通常是指男人，只有通过战争才能发掘其灵魂深处的高贵，从而把战争和屠杀高尚化。
Marilynne Robinson, the novelist and social critic, has observed that courage is "dependent on cultural definition" and "rarely expressed except where there is sufficient consensus to support it." Where religious martyrdom is lionized, there will be martyrs; where social or political protest is seen as glorious warfare in civvies, there will be a rash of red-faced declaimers, soapboxes on every street.
玛丽琳·罗宾逊（Marilynne Robinson），小说家和社会评论家，她已经注意到勇气"依赖于文化定义"，"很少被表达出来，除了在得到足够的舆论支持的场合"。在为宗教而罹难者被奉为圣人的地方，就会有殉道者；在社会或政治抗议被视为光荣的平民斗争的地方，每一条街道临时搭建的演讲台上就都会充斥着面红耳赤、激昂陈词的演说家。
In pioneering work from 1970s and beyond, Stanley J. Rachman of the University of British Columbia and others studied the physiology and behavior of paratroopers as they prepared for their first parachute jump.
在上世纪70年代及之后的开创性工作中，不列颠哥伦比亚大学的斯坦利.J.拉赫曼（Stanley J.Rachman）等人在其首次跳伞准备的过程中研究了伞兵的生理及行为特征。
The work revealed three basic groups: the preternaturally fearless, who displayed scant signs of the racing heart, sweaty palms, spike in blood pressure and other fight-or-flight responses associated with ordinary fear, and who jumped without hesitation; the handwringers, whose powerful fear response at the critical moment kept them from jumping; and finally, the ones who reacted physiologically like the handwringers but who acted like the fearless leapers, and, down the hatch.
这项工作发现了三个基本组别：超乎寻常的大无畏者，很少表现出心跳加速、血压升高、手心出汗及其他的与平常恐惧有关的战或逃反应，在跳伞的时候总是毫不犹豫；踌躇紧张者，在关键时刻其强大的恐惧反应令其不敢跳下；以及最后一组，在生理反应上与踌躇紧张者一致，但却像无畏的跳伞者一样行动、最终跳下舱口的人。
These last Dr. Rachman deemed courageous, defining courage as "behavioral approach in spite of the experience of fear." By that expansive definition, courage becomes democratized and demilitarized, the property of any wallflower who manages to give the convention speech, or the math phobe who decides to take calculus.
其中最后一组被拉赫曼博士视为勇敢，即"弃恐惧体验于不顾的行为方式"。按照这种扩展性定义，勇气变得民主化和非军事化，它是任何一位设法进行提名演讲的局外人的专属，或者是一位对数学恐惧的人决定去学微积分。
Through interviews with some 320 children aged 8 to 13, Peter Muris of Erasmus University Rotterdam and his colleagues found that children also equate courage with the conquering of ones fears, and more than 70 percent of the respondents claimed they had performed one or more brave acts, including rescuing a little brother whod fallen in the swimming pool, saving a cat from a tree, biking home through the woods at night, and stealing money from ones mothers purse — yes, that will make the heart race, all right.
通过对大概320位年龄在8岁到3岁之间的小孩的采访，鹿特丹大学（Erasmus University Rotterdam）的彼得·缪里斯（Peter Muris）及其同事发现，孩子们也把克服恐惧等同视为勇敢的表现，超过70%的调查对象声称自己进行了一或多项勇敢的行为，包括搭救跌落泳池的小弟弟，拯救树上的一个小猫咪，晚上穿越树林骑车回家，以及从妈妈钱包里偷东西——是的，这些都会令心跳加速，好吧。
Joel Berger, a biologist with the Wildlife Conservation Society and the University of Montana, also distinguishes between animals that behave boldly for lack of experience — like mockingbirds unfamiliar with humans that will alight on the rim of a persons cup to take a drink — and those that are aware of a danger but proceed in the face of it.
乔尔·博格（Joel Berger），野生动物保护协会及蒙大拿大学的一位生物学家，也把缺乏经验而行为大胆的动物区分出来——像不熟悉人类的嘲鸟会飞落到某人杯子的边缘喝上一口——而那些意识到危险的则会弃之不顾继续飞行。
He cited the time he and his colleagues had immobilized a young bison in preparation for taking blood samples, and when they returned, an unrelated adult male bison was standing guard over the yearling, refusing to let the scientists approach.
他举了一个例子，某次自己和同事固定住一头年轻的野牛，准备采血样，当他们回来的时候，一头不相干的成年雄性野牛却守卫在小牛的周围，拒绝让科学家靠近。
"He knew that he could be attacked by us, and there was no genetic kinship involved," said Dr. Berger. "Courage may be a human construct, but Id call this a courageous, even heroic act."
"它知道自己有可能被我们攻击，而且它们之间也没有遗传的亲缘关系"，博格说："勇敢也许是人类行为，但是我会把这一举动称为有胆量、甚至是英勇行为"。
Seeking to capture the sensation of courage in real time, Yadin Dudai, a neurobiologist at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, and his colleagues scanned the brains of people with a known phobia toward snakes as they were confronted with a live, large, harmless but indubitably serpentine corn snake.
为了能实时捕捉到勇敢的体验，以色列雷霍沃特魏茨曼科学研究所的也丁·杜代（Yadin Dudai）及其同事，在一个放有一条大型的、活体的、无害的但是的确是蛇无疑的玉米锦蛇的现场扫描了一位已知对蛇有恐惧感的人的大脑。
Lying in the scanner, the subjects could choose either to allow a box holding the snake to come closer, or to keep it away. As reported last June in the journal Neuron, the participants who squelched their terror and pressed the "snake approach" button showed activation of a brain region called the subgenual anterior cingulate cortex.
躺在扫描仪里，受试者可以选择让装有蛇的箱体靠近自己，或把它拿开。根据去年6月《神经元》杂志的报导，克服了自己恐惧感、按下"让蛇靠近"按钮的受试者，在一个被称为亚属前扣带皮质的大脑区域发现有活动。
Located toward the front of the brain, the structure has been implicated in depression and, intriguingly, altruistic behavior, and is thought to help negotiate between emotion and cognition, impulse and calculation.
该结构位于大脑的前部，与抑郁、魅力及利他行为有关联，被认为是在情感和认知、冲动和考量之间起到帮助的部分。
The thumb-size bundle of neurons acknowledges the yellow belly within but then moves to stanch its quivering power. And it does this in large part by dialing down the activity of the amygdala, long known as the brains central headquarters of fear.
这个拇指大小的神经元束能认知内在的懦弱，但是随后会转移到平息颤抖的能量。它会在很大程度上降低黄杏体的活动，长久以来那都被认为是恐惧的中枢。
For the serious cowards among us, the chronic need to conquer fear can get tedious. Why not just skip the anterior cingulate reveille and muzzle the brains fear response for good? The story of SM, a 44-year-old woman whose rare genetic condition has selectively destroyed the brains twinned set of amygdala, shows the clear downside of a life without fear.
对于我们当中具有严重胆怯的人来说，习惯性的克服恐惧的需要会变得乏味起来。何不干脆一劳永逸地无视大脑前扣带的起床号，让大脑对恐惧的反应缄默呢？那个SM的故事，一位患有罕见遗传病的44岁女人选择性地破坏其大脑孪生杏黄体集之后的结果，表明了缺乏恐惧的生活的明显缺陷。
As Justin Feinstein, a clinical neuropsychologist at the University of Iowa, and his colleagues describe in Current Biology, the otherwise normal SM is incapable of being spooked.
正如衣阿华大学的临床神经心理学家贾斯汀·范士丹（Justin Feinstein）及其同事在《当代生物学》杂志中所描述的那样，在其他方面正常的SM对受惊吓已无反应。
She claimed to fear snakes and spiders, and maybe she did in her pre-disease childhood, but when the researchers took her to an exotic pet store, they were astonished to see that not only did she not avoid the snakes and spiders, she was desperate to hold them close.
她宣称害怕蛇和蜘蛛，也许她在患病前的儿童时期的确如此，但是当她被研究人员带到一个国外的宠物店的时候，他们惊奇地发现，她不仅不回避蛇和蜘蛛，而且还拼命抓起它们套近乎。
The researchers took SM to a haunted house, and she laughed at the scary parts and blithely made the monster-suited employees jump. She was shown clips from famous horror films like "The Silence of Lambs" and "Halloween," and she showed no flickers of fright.
研究人员把SM带到鬼屋，她却冲着可怕的地方大笑，还快活地让穿着怪物服装的工作人员乱跳不已。给她看著名的恐怖片像《沉默的羔羊》和《万圣节》的电影剪辑时，她都没有表现出丝毫的恐惧感。
This fearlessness may be fine in the safety of ones living room, but it turns out that SM makes her own horror films in real life. She walks through bad neighborhoods alone at night, approaches shady strangers without guile, and has been repeatedly threatened with death.
这种大无畏也许在一个人的客厅里面是安全的，但是事实证明，SM在现实生活中制造了她自己的恐怖电影。她晚上独自一人穿过其恶邻的屋子，毫不保留地接近名声不好的陌生人，并以多次受到死亡的威胁。
"We have an individual whos constantly putting herself into harms way," said Mr. Feinstein. "If we had a million SMs walking around, the world would be a total mess."
"这里我们看到了一个不断将自己置身于伤害方式的个体"，范士丹先生说："如果我们周围有一百万个SM在游荡的话，整个世界都将变得一团糟"。
The bad calls would keep coming, and the rocking chairs never stop.
捣蛋鬼电话仍在不断打进来，而摇摇椅则永远也不会停止摇摆。
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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”.
[英语作文写作的需要背诵的部分
篇2：生活需要勇气600字
全文共 621 字
+ 加入清单生活需要成功的喜悦，生活需要挫折苦痛，生活需要欢乐的笑声……生活更需要奔向前方的勇气。
那一次，我和二伯一起去游泳馆游泳。我一看到游泳池就迫不及待地套上救生圈向浅水池奔去。刚要下水，二伯走过来，拍拍我肩膀，对我说：“小子(昵称)，这么大还游浅水池，套上救生圈，上深水池去。”我听后，心想：“虽然套上救生圈，但如果一不一小心，还可能有危险……”二伯好像明白我的心思：“有二伯在，怕什么?男子汉要有勇气。”我将信将疑地下了深水池。
刚游了一会儿，我心上的石头算是放了下来。哪知又有“险情”，二伯游过来说：“嘿，过来，二伯教你游泳，把救生圈摘掉。”我怕得嘴直抖。二伯严肃地说：“要有勇气呀!要有勇气呀!男子汉大丈夫的话，该大胆。男孩子嘛，就要会游泳。”经过一番心理教育，我脱下了救生圈。二伯一巴掌把我的头压进水里。“呼，呀，呼”，我的嘴直冒泡。我心想：“要有勇气，才能战胜困难。”我凭着这个信念坚持了一分多钟。二伯终于放手，笑着说：“小子真棒!”
接着，二伯让我由他的手扶着游泳。我想了想：“好像很危险，但不这样我不管怎样也学不会游泳呀?嗯，来就来吧，旁边还有救生员。但救生员个个面黄肌瘦，能行吗?不还有二伯吗?”“好!”二伯扶着我的身子游了起来，起初我还很怕，但二伯对我说：“你只胆大心细，有十足的勇气往前，保证你行。”我听后，心中的怕已抛到了九霄云外。
想起我刚才害怕的样子，我惭愧……
生活需要勇气。它能克服困难，它能消灭害怕的心理，它能让你自信十足。
篇3：成长需要勇气
全文共 575 字
+ 加入清单留不住岁月的脚步，留不住儿时的童真，我跟着似水流年的岁月慢慢长大。一路收获，一路成长……
还记得小时候跌倒的情景吗?
那天风和日丽，我在家门口玩耍，突然不小心摔了一跤，磕破了膝盖。妈妈闻讯赶来，左看右看没有找到可以打骂的东西。妈妈说：“坏风儿，坏风儿害得宝贝摔跟头”我扑哧一声笑了，“妈妈，今天没有风。是我自己不小心摔倒的。”妈妈抬头看看天，是呀，天气闷热的连丝风都没有。妈妈没有说什么，她只是抚摸着我的头笑了。我忍受着疼痛，鼓起勇气站起来。
成长，需要勇气。跌倒了要有勇气站起来，犯错误了要有勇于承担错误的勇气。
转眼间，我快小学毕业了。在人生前行的路上，我们或许迷茫，不知所措。被一个个岔路口所迷惑，那将是对我们的考验。选择一条荆棘丛生崎岖不平的小路，还是选择一条通往光明之路的康庄大道?有勇气去选择，就要有勇气服输。不过没有彻底的失败，也没有完全的成功。一切还是需要一种坚持与坚强。我们还是要经过无数的黎明，无数的黑暗。但黎明之后是光明，黑暗之后是光明。
成长，需要勇气。面对挫折一笑而过，“一切都是瞬息，一切都将过去;而那过去了的，就会成为亲切的怀恋”
成长的路上，充满挑战，充满刺激与惊险。你是否能化险为夷?前方的路是未知的，或许黑暗，但我们不要为之放弃，有勇气把握自己的人生，有勇气挑战自己。
成长，需要勇气。磕磕绊绊的经历会让我们的阅历更加丰富精彩。
篇4：描写成长需要勇气的初中
全文共 948 字
+ 加入清单“我的字典里没有不可能!” "There is no impossible in my dictionary!"
记得两百多年前，当法国士兵站在巍峨的阿尔比斯山下，望着漫天风雪瑟瑟发抖时，拿破仑坚定地说出了这句流传百世的豪语。而后世的画家将当时的他描绘成了一个身跨白马，身着战袍的领袖。画中，马儿扬起前蹄向高山嘶鸣，奋然前行，英雄驾于马上，驰骋着勇气，右手指向天顶，指挥者大军前行，又仿佛是在向天空宣战。
如今几百年过去了，当人们瞻仰英雄时，只感慨拿破仑的传奇人生和其创下的丰功伟绩，但又有多少人知道面对百万将士的抱怨和反对，他是以怎样的信心和勇气去创造一个所谓的“奇迹”?
若是当年拿破仑选择将士们的决定，放弃翻越阿尔卑斯山这项不可能完成的任务，今天又是什么样?多少人面对选择时，往往都听从前任的劝告，认为这是先代的经验，但却从未想过，这些经验也是无数次实践后才得出的结论。那么，你为什么不愿意去试一下?
当你失败时，你会比别人收获更多的疼痛，所以你比别人更加懂得吸取教训;当你成功时，无数人会以你为榜样，打破陈旧，走向新的领域。因此，面对难以预料的前路，众人的叹息不能说明前方多远，那只是失败者和懦者的叹息，成功的人才不会陪着他们望洋兴叹，那些翻过高山、越过深海的人仅仅是多了点勇气。
当法国士兵翻过高山，站在山的另一端时，人们把拿破仑视如神人。面对崎岖的山路、陡峭的斜壁，一不小心就是万丈深渊在迎接自己，加上冬天的北风和暴雪，这座山成了禁区，翻过它只是自寻死路。然而事实胜过一切解释，当拿破仑走过一生的回忆后，这也许只是他生命中的一件小事而已。往往在别人眼里仿佛做不到的事，兴许是他们压根就没做过。
百年后的今天，科技发达，许许多多的往日艰险也随时间变得不值一提，但人性却从未变过。当我们再次面临麻烦，仍有着“走为上策”的必杀技。我们从未面对过困难，只是从老人口中听说过“困难”是一个什么样的怪物，它总守在成功的前面，像一座大山，威势难挡。于是，有人想出了绕路的办法，一遇上“困难”就绕路，花去了十几甚至几十倍的时间却仍未找到通路。
那我们就一辈子在绕路吗?
不，有更简单的方法，就是把自己变成勇者，任何胆小鬼面前的鬼怪都会成为勇气的试金石，因为对于常人而言，那是高不可攀的山，而对勇者来说，那只是块石头。
篇5：青春需要勇气
全文共 722 字
+ 加入清单青春是一只刚扬起风帆的希望之舟，行驶在危机四伏的大海上，小舟随时可能会碰上暗礁，也有可能被海浪打翻，而勇气，就是这只小舟必不可少的水手，他一次次地指挥小舟，修补小舟，在茫茫大海上航行着。
——题记
对于青春时期的我们来说，勇气是必不可少的，我们常常因多种原因躲避迎面而来的各种机会。春天是短暂的，许多机会都无法再次拥有，而重要的是放开手脚，用勇气去征服那一个个不可失，失不来的机会。
就拿我的个人经历来说吧!
初中生活的学生会是每个学子的梦想进入的集体，成为一名干事不但可以结交更多的朋友，还可以增加自己的管理经验，反正同学们都有这个那个的理由想要加入学生会。而机会来了的时候你能好好的把握吗?
机会来了!那时我初二，班里要有人去学生会竞选，有多少人想要的名额，很幸运地砸在了我的头上。
可是到了会场才发现，只有几百人在这里面，而且更是有几位老师坐在前面，从小没上过台的我一下子蒙住了。“你走吧，别在这上面出丑了!”但倔脾气的我又怎么会走呢?我不能把这机会给浪费了，心中平添出一股勇气来，我坐到座位上，开始默默地读起稿子来。下一个就是我了，我强作镇定“别慌别慌!”我心里暗念道，我慢慢地走上讲台：“大家好，我是来自……”我一上台反而不那么紧张了，台下有李老师，他微笑地看着我，我就更加勇敢了，大声的说着：“谢谢大家。”我流利的说完了，长吁一口气，迈着轻松的步子走出了会场。
如今身为部长的我时不时会听到同届的同学说：“哎，如果当初我有勇气站上去，说不定……”
总是这样，在选择过后人们才会去渴望另一种结果，而机会却已经不在了。青春也是如此，要有勇气才能把握时机!
那名为青春的小舟有一天会是沉入海底的，而小舟在储存的珍宝和他的勇气。我会好好的利用，上下一艘的船。
篇6：生命需要勇气
全文共 514 字
+ 加入清单每当我看到那些在风雨中昂首挺胸的花草，我就会告诉自己要好好珍惜生命，要像它们一样有勇气战胜困难，使生命充满光彩。
树，砍断枝条还能再生;草，烧了还能再长。悬崖上的一棵松树茁壮生长着，不需要谁来施肥，也不需要谁来灌溉。一粒种子，可以掀翻压着它的石块，顽强地向上生长……
植物是那么珍惜生命，不放弃一点儿生存的机会，它们凭着勇气克服重重困难，努力地生长，尽管它们也许长得并不茂盛，但这种毅力和勇气不得不让我佩服。
我们人类也应该这样，遇到任何困难都要勇敢地面对，只要我们努力地去做，再大的挫折都不怕。可是在生活中，很多人一遇到困难就逃避。前段时间我就在报纸上看到，有一个大学生，家里很穷，国家帮助他上了大学，但他在学校因受了一点小小的挫折就跳楼自杀了。他这样做既辜负了父母的期望，又辜负了国家对他的关心。连一粒种子都能不屈向上，推翻比自己重几百倍的石头，向上生长，他怎么就那么懦弱，不热爱生命呢?如果我是他的话，我会勇敢地去面对生活，克服困难。不是有句话说“不经历风雨，怎能见彩虹”吗?不管遇到什么事，我们都应该勇敢地去面对。
每当我看到那些在风雨中昂首挺胸的花草，我就会告诉自己要好好珍惜生命，要像它们一样有勇气战胜困难，使生命充满光彩。
篇7：我们需要勇气中学生话题
全文共 971 字
+ 加入清单在家闲来无事百度了下“勇气”二字的含义。一是指拥有勇往直前的气魄，即不逃避;二是指拥有敢想敢干毫不畏惧的气概，即不退缩。 I have nothing to do with the word "courage" at home.The first is to have the courage to go forward, that is, not escape; the second is to have the spirit that dares to dare to do, that is, not shrinking.
“勇气”二字要是安放在我身上，绝对是不合身。女孩嘛~总是怕这怕那的，有时还会大惊小怪“啊，啊”的叫几声。尤其是我，极其害怕动物，任何活的动物。所以，更害怕蜈蚣这类毒物了。
小时候跟着奶奶一起在乡下住，但我却一点儿也不野，是一个实在的乖小女孩。一天傍晚回家，看见平时粗声粗气的奶奶此时却躺在床上，一只手臂包裹着厚厚的纱布。看到这场景，我瞬间就哭成了泪人。才知道，原来奶奶的手被一只很大很大的蜈蚣咬伤了。看着奶奶鼓鼓地手，本来平时应该是敲在我的头上的手，现在却软软的垂放在床上。我不禁“怒”从中来，誓要把那个“凶手”伸之以法，就地处决，为我奶奶伸张正义。
机会终于来了。那是一个午后，我正蹲在门口玩几根草玩得不亦乐乎。忽然看见门缝里有一个长长的东西正慢慢地伸出来。我知道，那就是我等待已久地“仇人”。我连忙从井边拾起一块砖头，紧紧地拿在手上，继续蹲在原位，身子有点微微发抖，眼睛却死死地盯着那个“仇人”，蓄势待发。一见那身影完全暴露在我面前，我赶忙拿起砖头一拍，哈哈，死了!又多拍了几下，直到它扁了我才停下。这时，我的脚已经软了一半了。
可那蜈蚣即使死了，我也不敢对它的尸体如何。我高兴地喊奶奶来看，奶奶惊讶地看着我手中的砖头，问我：“你平时见到一只蟑螂都要绕路走，怎么敢打死蜈蚣啦?不怕被咬啊!”我骄傲地挥了挥手里的砖头，说：“奶奶，我这是给你报仇啊，我不怕。”奶奶嘿嘿地笑着，拿起扫把一挥就把蜈蚣扫到草堆里去了。说：“啊妹真勇敢啊!都能保护奶奶了。”
是啊，只要有勇气，哪怕是面对再恐惧的东西，也不会退缩、逃避。有了勇气，再付之以行动，就能进化成勇敢了。
电视剧《将军》的主题曲中有一句歌词：“人生只要有勇气，天下无敌。”
篇8：生活需要勇气作文
全文共 771 字
+ 加入清单有人说，生活需要善意的微笑；有人说，生活需要温暖的友情；有人说，生活需要真诚的鼓励。这些固然重要，但我认为生活更需要无畏的勇气。
那是“六一”的前几天，妈妈收到了老师发来的一条微信：“准备‘六一’致辞的演讲稿，两天后评比。”笑容在我的脸上绽开，我飞快地抽出纸和笔，坐在桌前，奋笔疾书起来，很快，演讲稿便新鲜出炉了。我一遍又一遍地朗读着，练习着……
两天很快地过去了，老师叫上我和另外两个同学，到她办公室一个一个读给她听。眼看就要轮到我了。看到前面两位同学出色的表现，我勇气大减。他们讲得那么好，我能行吗？这么想着，我的思绪突然短路了，竟然想不起演讲稿的第一句话了。天哪，怎么办？惊慌之余，我开始退缩。“下一个。”随着老师的催促，我感到又羞又恼，不由得后退了一步，默默地垂下了自己的脑袋，恨不得到哆啦A梦的百宝袋里拿一件隐形衣穿上。“没事儿，来罢。”老师不依不饶。“快想！快想！”我在心里不断地呐喊着，可越是这样，我的脑袋就越是一片空白，原先写好背好的台词，那一刻就像水蒸气在高温下突然被蒸发了似的，在我的脑海里消失得无影无踪。
“来吧。”老师第三次发令了。我越发慌乱了，一颗心脏像是要跳出来一样，脸色早已涨成了猪肝色。就在这样“危急”的情况下，我痛苦地说出了一句令自己、老师都惊讶不已的话：“我还没准备好！”话一说出口，我便愣住了，而老师听了，对我摇摇头，失望地走开了。我看到，她的眼睛中饱含着失望和不解。
“六一”如期而至，看着另一位同学在台上激情澎湃地演讲着，我后悔极了，后悔自己没有勇气参加评比，从而与这次上台的机会失之交臂。
是啊，在我们的人生旅途上，必然会遇到许许多多的坎坷。试想，如果我们连面对的勇气都没有，那怎么迈过人生路上的一个个坎？是的，鼓起勇气，这世上就没有过不去的坎；是的，鼓起勇气，才能迎来更多的机会；是的，我们的生活需要勇气！
篇9：生活，需要勇气
全文共 481 字
+ 加入清单这一学期，轮到我们班上台领操了，为了能上主席台领操，我就暗下决心，自己一定要走上台，当一名最棒的领操员，我就在课余时间刻苦的练习，最后经过几次筛选，老师让我上台领操，我太高兴了。
第二天，我兴致勃勃的来到学校，坚苦的熬过了第一节课，第二节课。终于到了我可以展示自己的时间了。
我的心里既高兴，又紧张，高兴的是自己终于可以在全校师生面前大展身手了，可害怕的是自己出差错，给班级抹黑。到了上台的时候，我更加紧张了，心里像十五个吊桶打水——七上八下，我看着台下几十多双小眼睛，我心里像有只小兔子来回蹦……这时课间操音乐响了起来，我像往常一样做，慢慢的，我的心里平静下来，逐渐进入状态。这时，我又开始做小白船，我跟随音乐节奏舞动起来，不快不慢，发展得很正常，脸上充满了微笑，每一个动作都充满自信。很快，紧张的几分钟结束了，我心里太高兴了。说真的，平时感到枯燥，乏味的体操音乐，今天也变得优雅，动听，悦耳了，好像专门为我今天领操而谱写的。我太得意了，在走廊里扭着屁股，哦耶，我真是太厉害了。
篇10：我们需要勇气
全文共 662 字
+ 加入清单“别说你一无所有。因为，你至少还有勇气活下去。”这句话是着名科学家霍金说的。人总是需要勇敢面对某些人与事物。鼓起勇气法征服，往往迎刃而解。是的，我们的确需要勇气!
《这个世界差点没有奥巴马》讲述的是一个真实的事件：炎炎夏日，奥巴马的父亲带着一家人来酒吧消暑。在这片种族歧视还存在着的领土上，一位白人醉汉朝笑并辱骂奥巴马一家为“野猪群”。在这种情况下，奥巴马的父亲并没有与其产生争执，而是心平气和地与其讲起一番理来，这醉汉最后竟惭愧地拿出钱来向奥巴马的父亲赔礼道歉——奥巴马的父亲面对白人醉汉，面对种族歧视没有退缩，勇气使他克服了这一切困难。
“有心杀贼，无力回天，死得其所，快哉!快哉!”这一短语是戊戌六君子中谭嗣同临死前所吟诵的。从公车上书到百日维新最后到断头台!谭嗣同似乎不知道什么是死。当康有为梁启超在为“留得清山在，不怕没柴烧”逃往国外时，他却甘愿为这场变法抛头颅洒热血，甘愿做第一位为变法流血牺牲的人。面对强权压迫，面对死亡威胁谭嗣同从不低头。无所畏惧的他终将为这场变法而流芳百世，他那十分的勇气也终将成为他孤傲的精神品质!
湖北荆州长江大学，又一次成为人们谈论的焦点。“大学生救小学生，老人救大学生。”在这场救生命与死亡拼搏的过程中，长江大学大一的三位学生用自己花季般的生命挽回了两位小学生稚嫩的生命。当面对死亡的威胁，面对暗涌的恐惧时。是勇气使他们奋不顾身，是勇气使他们成为又一位英雄典范!
勇气是力量眼，是希望：也是动力的源泉：更是精神的支柱，生命的脊梁!当一种种勇气出现时，我们终将会明白一个道理——我们需要勇气!
篇11：描写成长需要勇气的初中
全文共 1105 字
+ 加入清单时光如白驹过隙一般飞快流逝，来不及回头张望，就要匆匆前行。在面对前方未知的道路不免会失落、迷茫，但只要心中怀有一份勇敢，便不会彷徨。 Time passes quickly like a white horse, so too late to look back, you have to move forward in a hurry.In the face of the unknown road in front of it, you will inevitably lose and confused, but as long as you have a bravery in your heart, you will not be embarrassed.
那是一次月考过后，那次我遭受了前所未有的打击。我呆坐在座位上，一声不吭，眼前是一张不堪入目的成绩单，那血红的分数深深地刺痛着我的心。我努力的止住在眼眶打转的泪水，但还是有一滴泪落在了卷子上，浸湿了那血红的分数。一直到放学的铃声响起，我才木然地攥着成绩单踏上归途。
在路上，我抬起头，渴望寻找到一丝灿烂的阳光，却只能看到一层层黑压压的乌云笼罩着天空——阳光被遮住了。回想起我以前的经历，那是一段交织着苦难和酸涩的历程，在这段路上行走，总是会跌倒。即使当为又一次爬起，也只是意味着将要再次倒下罢了。想起这些，我似乎是绝望了。
直到听见“淅淅沥沥”的雨，我才发觉自己已经在雨中站了很久了，却浑然不知，于是连忙找了个避雨的处所。雨渐渐大了起来，我看见远处的松柏在狂风中瑟瑟发抖，梧桐的叶子被暴雨匆匆打落。
偶然间，我注意到路旁有几朵不知名的野花在风雨中摇曳。面对风雨它们显得十分弱小，却完全没有被这场突如其来的风雨给吓倒。它们沉着、冷静的应对，无所畏惧，在那残缺的花瓣上分明写着一股巨大的勇气。无论暴风雨多么猖狂，它也无法击败这几株微不足道的野花啊!
终于，风停了，雨停了，然而那几朵小花却依然挺立，我顿时感叹它们的坚毅与顽强。霎那间，我也仿佛明白了什么——是啊!花儿不能主宰风雨的到来，但它们却有搏击狂风暴雨的勇气，因为勇气它们才会在风雨中傲然挺立。而我不也正应该如此吗?挫折的到来也许会很突然，它绝不会因为你的停滞而怜悯你。在生活中我们必然会遇到挫折，我们虽然不能掌控它，但我们还能做的，就是勇敢地去接受、去面对，在挫折面前傲然挺立。
我抬头仰望勇气天空，那份久违的阳光终于穿透了乌云，将金色的光芒铺洒在我前方的道路上，前方的天边也出现一道美丽的彩虹。我放眼望去，初一的路已不再漫长，因为我的心中多了一分力量，那就是勇敢。怀着这份力量，我不再怅然，不再彷徨。
篇12：生命需要勇气小学三年级作文
全文共 375 字
+ 加入清单树，被砍了还能在长。草，被踩了还能在生。荒芜的戈壁滩上的白杨树，茁壮成长着，不需要肥料，不需要灌溉。
植物是多么珍惜生命，不会放弃一点生存的机会，它们凭着勇气克服着各种困难，努力爆发着、生长着。尽管它们长得不茂盛，但这种勇气不得不让人佩服。
我们人类也应该这样，遇到难题都不怕。可是在生活中，很多人不敢面对，或遇到困难就逃避。就像；上课时，自己明明知道答案，却又不敢举手。一遇到难题不思考，就放弃。前段时间我看到报纸上，有一名大学生，家里很穷，国家资助他上学，但这位大学生在学校受到一点小小的挫折就跳楼自杀。他这样做不仅辜负了父母对他的期望，又辜负了国家对他的关心。连一颗种子都比他坚强，每天不屈向上，****石头，向上生长。为什么这位大学生这么不热爱生命呢?如果是我，会努力爆发心中的愤怒，勇敢地面对一次次的困难，冲向重点。
篇13：生活需要勇气中学生主题
全文共 699 字
+ 加入清单勇气到底是什么?这个问题困扰了我很长一段时间，是面对权威的敢于质疑?又或是别人有困难时的义无反顾?那节音乐课上，我终于豁然开朗，明白了什么才是真正的勇气。
那节课是自我介绍。他坐在第一排，几步就走上了讲台，平时的他不怎么讲话，大家不约而同地鼓起了掌，他拖沓着脚步走上讲台，似乎并不怎么乐意，刚走到就开始唱歌了：“团结就是力量，团结就是力量!”虽然只有短短的两句，但他的声音洪亮如钟，身体不大，却给人以强烈的冲击感。
当我们正准备为他鼓掌时，却看见他两步并作一步地跑回座位上，把头埋在臂弯内，轻声哭了起来，同时还用拳头不住地捶着桌面，那样子，像是陷入深渊却无法自拔，像是快被吞噬又无力逃脱，叫谁看了都有一种心痛的感觉。当时我心中尚有不解：不过是唱两句歌而已，至于吗?可是
后来，他的同桌告诉我那天中午他刚被老师批评了，本来就不怎么想唱歌的他唱了歌后情绪就爆发了。我真的很难想象，一个人刚经历了心灵的低谷，是如何做心理斗争，如何鼓起勇气支撑自己在众目睽睽之下做自己不擅长的事情的，如果是我的话，想必连站起来的勇气都不会有的罢。
而他本是个内向的人，遇到这样的事，连我这个外向的人都很难有勇气，可他却支持自己做了出来，那不是轻而易举的事，他可能为此甚至做了一下午的心理斗争才会做出上台的决定，这样勇敢的性格不正是我们所要学的吗?
现在回想起他站起来的那一个瞬间，心中也仍是思潮起伏、排山倒海，或许，那就是勇气，而他才真正叫做英雄罢。
他站起来的那个瞬间，我看到了汹涌澎湃的潮水，听见了激烈高昂的号音，那不是一个年仅十二三岁的孩子，而是喊着响亮冲锋号的千军万马，那是勇气，是刚强!
那一刻，我想，我似乎明白了什么是勇气。
篇14：生活需要勇气初二作文600字
全文共 702 字
+ 加入清单勇气，是一把解开新技能的钥匙;勇气，是助你走向成功的途径。“万事俱备，只欠东风”欠得可能就是勇气。
一天，天气甚好，天很蓝，云很白，阳光明媚，鸟儿在欢唱。这样的好天气哪能错过!爸爸带着我们一家出门游玩——灵江源森林公园。一路上我们欢声笑语，欣赏路边的美丽风景，不一会儿便到了目的地。爬山还算轻松，可玻璃栈道这一关我感到害怕、惊恐。我的脸色苍白，迟迟不敢迈出第一步——因为我恐高。我的心怦怦地跳，我的脚瑟瑟地抖，我的鼻哼哼地翕动着，我的紧张无处安放。
爸爸拍拍我的肩，示意我坐到他的旁边去。我坐了下来，爸爸看着我，语重心长地说：“其实，这次出来玩是爸爸有意安排的。爸爸知道你怕高，到这里来游玩的目的就是想让你克服恐高。”他指着旁边的小草，继续对我说：“你知道吗，一颗小草想要从泥土里长出来，是需要很大的勇气的。
它知道自己在生长过程中或许会因为碰到石头而折断嫩芽;也许会被生活在地上的昆虫、动物啄食;也许在就要钻出土壤的那一刻停止了生命;又也许出土后会被冷风冷雨虐待，但它却还是义无反顾地努力生长着。一颗小草尚且还如此不畏艰难努力生长，我们人类还需要怕什么呢，你说对不对?”说完，爸爸笑笑，起身往前走了。
“嗯!我明白了，爸爸是让我学习小草的勇气，锻炼自己，克服恐高!”
我站起身来，向玻璃栈道走去。“呼”我迈出了第一步，眼睛直视前方，一鼓作气，继续向前。我成功了!我征服了玻璃栈道，我克服了恐高。
此时，我抬头望天，我发现天似乎变得更蓝了，蓝得让人赏心悦目;云似乎更白了，白得高雅，白得纯洁;太阳笑眯眯地看着我，阳光撒在我身上，暖洋洋的。
生活需要勇气，只要有勇气去尝试，去克服，我们总能成功越过困难，到达胜利的彼岸。
篇15：生活需要勇气
全文共 522 字
+ 加入清单是呀！在生活中处处都需要勇气，勇气也无处不在。例如5、12汶川大地震，有许多本来已经成功逃生的人，却又鼓起勇气，重新冲回那些摇摇欲坠，随时都有可能坍塌的为危楼，矮墙等危险地区去救其他的人。结果几乎都是牺牲了自己，救出了别人。他们真是令人敬佩呀。他们这一种舍己为人的精神和勇气值得我们敬佩。
在这一次大地震中，有许多的幸存者们都被废墟给掩埋了。可是，他们却凭着顽强的毅力活了下来。是什么让他们有这么大的毅力。是勇气！是勇气让他们如此勇敢的面对死神。是勇气让他们创造了一个又一个的生命奇迹：不吃不喝的度过了101小时，103小时，136小时157小时，203小时。勇气，有多么大的力量呀！又有许多被埋的幸存者临危不惧，如那个“可乐男孩”的一句“叔叔，我要喝可乐”逗乐了整个为这场大灾难而感到悲伤的中国；敬礼男孩的一个敬礼，也体现出了人们的勇敢。正是这种勇气，鼓励着去与死神一争高低，坚强的活下去。
在这一场大灾难过后，有许许多多的灾区同胞们失去了亲人，朋友。一个个原本幸福的家庭变得支离破碎。数二十多万幸存下来的灾区同胞们无家可归，只好和家人们生活在一个小小的帐篷里。面对着生活上的困难，他们用生活的勇气解决，努力建造更加美好的明天！
生活需要勇气！作文
篇16：我需要勇气
全文共 575 字
+ 加入清单每当我无所事事的时候，我最喜欢做的一件事便是-观察同学们了。在大家的身上，我看见了许多人人易犯的通病，也学到了许多待人处事的道理，而其中影响我最深的便是——勇气。
有一句话说：“勇敢不是不害怕，而是明明害怕仍勇于面对。”从前的我，是个优柔寡断、没有主见又胆小的人，但在一位同学身上，我看到的勇气的重要。一直以来，我最害怕的就是别人的眼光了，因此每次一上台，便会手脚发颤、全身僵硬，一百分的准备总是只能表现出八十分。但自从我遇见她后，我从她大方从容的态度，自信而坚定的眼神中亲身体悟到“勇气”的力量，也从此立定了我改变自己的决心。
自信满分的她一直是个发光体，灿烂的招牌笑容、清澄如水的大眼睛便是她的注册商标，表面上的她就像天生不畏惧众人的眼光，在大家的注视下反而如鱼得水。但深入认识她后，我发现她其实是个不爱出风头、不爱表现的女生，在人前优秀的表现也非与生俱来的，这一切的关键全在于她过人的勇气，满满的勇气将平凡的容颜妆点得闪耀耀人，满满的勇气为她平凡的一举一动增添了无敌的魅力，满满的勇气更抚平了她镇定之下暗潮汹涌的紧张。从她身上我深刻体认勇气带来的改变，也让我能一步步改变自己更臻完美。
在她身上我发现勇气无穷的力量。勇气便是自信的源头，拥有勇气将使人可以克服障碍，拥有勇气将使我不恐惧他人的目光，拥有勇气更将使我成为一个魅力无限、自信满分的亮丽存在!
篇17：成功需要勇气
全文共 672 字
+ 加入清单有一次，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。
篇18：生活需要勇气_400字
全文共 436 字
+ 加入清单冯骥才的《花的勇气》，让我明白了生命的意味是勇气，也让我想起了很久以前的一件事。
那是一个阳光明媚的下午，我兴高采烈地走在回家的路上。突然，我发现，在路边的水沟里，有许多小蚂蚁在与一只凶狠的蜈蚣作斗争。蜈蚣用力甩着头，将那些试图靠近的蚂蚁甩到一边。蚂蚁被甩到一边后，顽强地爬起来，飞快地向蜈蚣那边爬去!就这样，眨眼之间，数十只蚂蚁被蜈蚣打伤了，但它们挣扎着，极力想从地上站起来，缓慢地向蜈蚣爬去。这样，一轮又一轮，一波又一波，数百只蚂蚁组成了一支“打不死的军队”，向蜈蚣涌来。蜈蚣在蚂蚁堆里滚来滚去。顿时，数十只蚂蚁被蜈蚣轻而易举地碾死了。蚂蚁们退缩了吗?不，没有。又有许多勇猛的蚂蚁涌过来，补上死去蚂蚁的位置。蜈蚣的力量终究是有限的，它已经筋疲力尽了，已经寡不敌众了，已经无法力挽狂澜了。稍不留神，片刻之间，就被潮水般的蚂蚁淹没了。
这一刻，我才真正明白：每个生命都一样，但是，生命的价值取决于自己。哪怕你没有强健的体魄，只要你有勇气，敢于面对生活，生命的价值就会大大提高。
篇19：成长需要勇气
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+ 加入清单“一生有一种大海的气魄，岁月一”将它无情地翻过，把乾坤藏在我心中的一刻就注定我比大男儿本色。
这首歌词是歌颂请圣祖爱新觉罗·玄烨的一生伟大功绩。也就是康熙帝他六岁登基十六岁亲政!亲政之后，便除敖拜平准噶尔，收复台湾创造了伟大的政绩史称千古一帝，如果没有长时间的磨励，他也不会有坚强的毅力和勇气。
勇气这个词大家一定不会陌生在成长的过程中这是一个人不可缺少的东、西代表着坚强，代表着勇于挑战的精神，有勇气并不代表出风头，并不代表在大庭广众之下有勇气去哗尔现实
想这些对勇气的理向都是错误的，只有敢于面对困难，挑战困难战胜困难才是勇气。
我们成长中的青少年在学校的不也是一样吗?你面对一道道数学难题，几何证明题你不会的话你可能会放弃如果一个人他有一股勇气，一股毅力那么他就会做下去，爱因斯坦曾说过：“一个只有一个理想而勇于去实现的人比一个有一个个理想而不去实现的人要好得多。”同样也是这个道理就拿“神六飞船”来说科学家的遇到一个个困难一个个险阻他们并没有放弃他们打起精神鼓起勇气凭着惊人的毅力战胜了下去，就谈“俊龙英雄海胜好汉来说他们在地下练空中工作面对的困难有些是常人难以想困难他们不也凭着自己的那股勇气战胜了困难吗?”
其实不是现在的人才勇气，很久以前的原始人，不也有种勇气吗?如果没有一个人脚着地走路那么现在会怎么样呢，当人们过着茹毛血的生活有一个原始人走着勇气去吃一口熟食会怎样呢?
勇气这个词有的人一生都在寻寻觅觅，而有的人生来就惧有的。
亲爱的朋友们与我有着共同语言的朋友们请你们要牢记这一点，爱拼才会赢，只要你有勇气那为何不去拼一拼闯一闯呢。
篇20：爱需要勇气
全文共 734 字
+ 加入清单萧瑟的秋风带走了几片枯叶，凋零在无人的巷口，是那么的凄凉。不知道今夜过后又会有多少枯叶离开树的怀抱，又有多少眼泪随之滑落。
你的泪水如同风化的古陶破碎在我的心头。如同鸡尾酒一样，半杯心痛配几滴无助。空间的距离使我无法去擦干你的泪水，时间的距离使我触碰不到你的脸颊。多希望时间就此停止，让你的泪水不再打湿时光的锦缎。
总是为了一句话，沉醉其中，却因为一点小事，让无助再次萦绕我的心脏。心痛的感觉眩晕着眼睛，如同麻木的心跳，是否洁净的泪水可以唤醒那份心动?为什么不愿意去尝试迈出那一步呢?你还在害怕什么?你还在等待什么?这世上还有什么可以阻挡时间的步伐，禁锢爱的心跳?
每个人活着都有自己的使命，每个人都有自己独特的气质，每个人都会有。恰巧，你那份我无法用词汇描述的气质，吸引了我，牵动了我的心跳。是我的不好，没有管住自己的心跳，跳进了你的天空，没有管住自己的步伐，迈入了你的世界。既来之，则安之，我盲目的相信我会感动你的麻木，而这种奇怪的感觉，是我自信的源头。为了你我还有什么做不到的么?为了有你的世界，我情愿放弃我的世界，不顾及那些闲言碎语，只为了有你的世界，因为我知道，有你的世界才精彩。
今夜的我许下了一份承诺，我不相信承诺，我也不愿意承诺，可我还是作出了属于我的承诺。我愿意独自承担那股勇气，那份责任，只为了你。因为你很好，你在我心里是唯一的完美，我愿意用我的残生呵护你的余生，以一个医生的角色出现，医治你的伤痕。
我对不起你的劝告，我还是依然选择继续去用我仅存的语言，去滋润你的心灵，奢望你可以为我驻足。你还在害怕什么，让时间见证我的真心，让幸福见证你的勇气，好么?
终于做了这个决定，别人怎么说我不理，只要你也一样的肯定，爱真的需要勇气，我们都需要勇气，去相信会在一起。