Two recently released books offer significant criticisms of the current landscape of higher education. As to what we should do about those problems, the two books propose completely opposed solutions.

Bryan Caplan, a professor of economics at George Mason University, gives away his big idea in his title, “The Case Against Education: Why the Education System Is a Waste of Time and Money.” Caplan argues that the primary value of a college degree is in what it “signals” rather than what people may have learned or experienced.

In Caplan’s view, most education is wasted on the young, who are incapable of appreciating or benefiting freedom education. Caplan’s solution is to “stop using tax dollars to fund education of any kind.” He sees a greater role for vocational or trade education, starting early as children fail to show interest or aptitude (资质) in school subjects, which should primarily focus on the “practical”-not art, music or anything else. Caplan even puts in a good word for child labor as an alternative to the schooling they neither enjoy nor appreciate.

Cathy Davidson, director of the Futures Initiative at the City University of New York, offers a different attitude in “The New Education: How to Revolutionize the University to Prepare Students for a World in Flux (变化).”

Davidson also believes higher education needs to change, but rather than starving it, she advocates for a broad-based “revolution” that attacks the barriers between students and learning, including educational costs, approaches to curriculum, and how we measure and credential (提供证明) students. Davidson has a chapter on “college for everyone”, examining the potential to innovate community colleges to serve as ladders to social mobility.

Education does need to continue to evolve. But it’s Davidson who has a vision for what education could and should be that’s consistent with the traditional values of freedom, opportunity and progress we associate with education. As to which of these two visions we’d like to follow, we have a choice. I hope we choose wisely.

Do you sweat, bite your pencil, and feel butterflies in your stomach as your teacher hands out a test? 【小题1】 It’s natural to feel some stress about taking tests. In fact, sometimes a little stress is a good thing for you.

Here are some tips for taking tests:

Be sure you’ve studied properly. It sounds like a no-brainer (不用动脑的事), but if you’re sure of the information, you’ll have less reason to be worried.

【小题2】 Your memory will be much better if you’ve had enough rest. In a scientific study, people who got enough sleep before taking a math test did better than those who stayed up all night studying.

Read the test through first. Once you have the test paper in front of you, read over the entire test, checking out how long it is. 【小题3】. More importantly, ask the teacher any questions if necessary. Something seems unclear before you start, for example.

Relax. If you can’t think of anything, you will become so nervous. 【小题4】 Of course you can’t get up and move around in the middle of a test, but you can wiggle (扭动) your fingers and toes, take four or five deep breaths, or picture yourself on a beach or some calm place.

These tips should help most people, 【小题5】 If you’re one of them, you may need to talk to a parent or teacher for help.

Art and science may seem like opposite things. One means the creative flow of ideas, and the other means cold, hard data — some people believe. In fact, the two have much in common. Now, a study finds art can help students remember better what they learned in science class.

Mariale Hardiman, an education specialist, noticed that students who used art in the class listened more carefully. They might ask more questions. They might volunteer more ideas. What’s more, students seemed to remember more of what they had been taught when their science lessons had involved art. To prove that, Hardiman teamed up with some researchers and six local schools.

In the experiment, the researchers worked with teachers in 16 fifth-grade classrooms. They provided traditional science lessons and art-focused ones. In a traditional science class, for example, students might read the information from a book aloud. In the art-focused one, they might sing the information instead.

The team randomly assigned(分配) each of the 350 students to either a traditional science class or an art-focused one. Students then learned science using that way for the whole unit — about three weeks. When they changed to a new topic, they also changed to the other type of class. This way, each student had both an art-focused class and a traditional one. Every unit was taught in both ways, to different groups of students. This enabled the researchers to see how students did in both types of classes.

The team found that students who started off in traditional classes performed better after they moved into an art-focused class. But those who started in an art-focused class did well even when they went back to a traditional science class. These students appeared to use some of the art techniques after going back to a traditional class. Classroom teachers reported that many students continued to sketch(画速写) or sing to help remember the information. “It suggests that the arts may help students apply creative ways of learning on their own,” Hardiman said.