201多年7月7日 托福独立写作题目:Which one of the following virtues is most important to share with a young child (5-10 years old)?
1. Being helpful;
2. Being honest;
3. Being well organized. (本文的选择)
[The sample essay has a length of 503 words. If you don’t think you have the time to read it through, you may read certain paragraphs, in which good ideas may strike you.]
The years between the ages of 5 to 10 is a critical period that witnesses children developing life-long virtues. While children are confused since they are still young, parents may be more confused as there may be so many qualities their children need to develop. For example, should children learn be helpful or educated about being honest? In fact, neither is the answer. Organization skills may be the most important.
It would be redundant to emphasize the importance of being honest as a virtue. However, parents or caregivers should be aware that children may be complete truthful, which is certainly undesirable. This is the case of my nephew. His complete honesty under some circumstances puts people in awkward situations, such as his truthful remarks, which may be too honest, about one of his female teachers made the teacher feel bad about her looks. He also revealed many things that is better to be kept secret, such as his parents’ high salaries.
Being helpful is less undesirable, but our efforts may turn out to be disappointments. While we expect children to be helpful, the extra hand may be clumsy since they are too young to be capable, and sadly, they do not even know that. As a result, awkward or even dangerous situations happen. Also, when their inability conflicts with the idea that they want to help, things become completely counterproductive. Having the intent but having no ability is likely to cause frustration. Therefore, it may be better to develop children’s ability to help before develop their aware of being helpful, and the age of 5, or the age of 7 or 10 is not the proper time yet. Unfortunately, this is not the end yet. My nephew, in the supermarket, helps a person with a loaded shopping cart not because of his caring heart but because of his curiosity about the cart.
It thus follows that developing organization skills is preferable. By teaching how to put toys, books and other objects in order, we cultivate children’s sense of space; by teaching how to make plans and timetables, we foster children’s ability to prioritizing; by teaching how to ask their peers to play proper roles in a joint project, we develop children’s managerial skills. None of these would lead to awkward situations mentioned above; instead all of these would benefit children when they enter the later stage of education and when they become adults. As a competent managerial teacher, I supervise a teaching staff of more than 50 people. I can tell that my competence in making effective plans, efficient arrangements, or reasonable assignments of work to staffers is credited to my organization skills developed at a young age.
At this point, we can reach a conclusion. Parents (or teachers) are advised not to instill in young children aged 5 to 10 the awareness of being helpful. Nor should they educate children about being truthful. As a matter of fact, organization skills need to be developed at a tender age more than the two.