¡°A nation should require all its students to study the same national curriculum until they enter college rather than allow schools in different parts of the nation to determine which academic courses to offer¡±

n today¡¯s world, where the notion that education should be designed to fit each individual is more prevalent than ever, a statement similar as the one above, which claim that pre-college education should be based on a nation-wide uniform curriculum seems somewhat inappropriate-the existence of individual difference seems justification enough for different schools to have the right of deciding the configuration of curriculum on their own. Yet a careful examination on the relation between education and the very difference may enable us to see some merit under the ¡°uniform curriculum¡± idea.

Let us first ask what we mean by "individual difference". By this, we mean actually two aspects: the difference in "mind", in the way in which one tends to acquire and process various information£¬ and the difference in "value", in the criteria of what are desirable and what to pursue. The most optimal case--both for an individual and for the society--is that everyone has his "mind" and "...