Some people think that it is necessary to punish children so that they can learn the human virtues. What is your opinion?
有人认为为了让儿童学会人类的美德, 惩罚儿童是必要的. 你的观点如何?
作者说明：
本文目的在于培训学生写作逻辑意识，字数明显超过实际应试要求。
范文一 2004-11-30写于北京新东方总部教室，共694单词。
How can children be well educated? A prevailing bias is that punishments are at least one of the effective ways to educate children. The prejudice is based on a false analogy between children and criminals. Its assumption is that punishments serve a function of determent. Punishments, in fact, are to revenge. Even punishments signal, signify, or at least imply the pragmatic value of violence. To punish children is to tell them that they are expected to take the measure of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth”, but this clearly betrays our human virtue for “Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: but I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also”。 Unfortunately, so frequently have we human beings sought to the violence when we ask for the virtue and to the wars when we desire the peace. Superficially it is mere a child education issue, virtually this issue exerts immeasurable influences on human civilization and its various forms of conflicts, confusions, controversies, and contradictions.
Appealing to punishments logically assumes that children’s misbehaviors, delinquencies, or criminals stem, at least partially, from the consciousness of children that their behavior would not harm themselves. However, this will be clearly unable to account for the vandalism prevailing among some slums or ghettoes.
诉诸于惩罚逻辑上假设儿童的过失，错误，甚至疏忽或者罪行至少部分起因于儿童没有意识到其行为后果会伤害自己。然而这种假设无法解释贫民窟中普遍的恶意行为。