評論
打印
Occasionally—for you will need some help in fleshing out the answers—you may have to prod your professors to see if they take the text at hand to be true. And you will have to be tough if the professor mocks you for uttering a sincere question instead of keeping matters easy for all concerned by staying detached and analytical. (Detached analysis has a place—but, in the end, you've got to speak from the heart and pose the question of truth.) You'll be the one who pesters your teachers. You'll ask your history teacher about whether there is a design to our history, whether we're progressing or declining, or whether, in the words of a fine recent play, The History Boys, history's "just one fuckin' thing after another."
時不時地——為了得到更加完善的答案，你們需要一些幫助——你們可能需要要求教授核對他們手里的文本是否正確；假如那位教授嘲弄你，因為你問了一個嚴肅的問題而不讓有關的人都太平，那你就必須要堅強，保持你超然的、分析的態(tài)度。你們要成為打破砂鍋問到底的人，你們要問歷史老師歷史是否有定式可循，我們是在前進還是在倒退，或者用最近的一部好劇——《歷史系男生》的臺詞來說， 就是“歷史不過是該死的覓重復”。
The whole business is scary, of course. What if you arrive at college devoted to premed, sure that nothing will make you and your family happier than a life as a physician, only to discover that elementary school teaching is where your heart is?
當然，讀大學可能是一件可怕的事情。萬一你們來到學校全心投入醫(yī)學預科的學習，確信除了成為醫(yī)生外沒有任何事能讓你們和你們的家庭更幸福，結果卻發(fā)現(xiàn)自己真正心屬的是小學老師怎么辦？
You might learn that you're not meant to be a doctor at all. Of course, given your intellect and discipline, you can still probably be one. And society will help you. Society has a cornucopia of resources to encourage you in doing what society needs done but that you don't much like doing and are not cut out to do.
你們可能會明白自己并不一定要成為博士，當然，根據(jù)你們的智力和約束力，你們?nèi)匀挥锌赡艹蔀椴┦俊６疑鐣椭銈儯鐣写罅康馁Y源激勵你們做社會需要你們做的事，而事實上你們并不喜歡，也并不適合。
Education is about finding out what form of work for you is close to being play—work you do so easily that it restores you as you go. Randall Jarrell once said that if he were a rich man, he would pay money to teach poetry to students. (I would, too, for what it's worth.) In saying that, he (like my father) hinted in the direction of a profound and true theory of learning.
教育就是要發(fā)現(xiàn)你們最樂在其中的工作形式——無須太費力就能完成，并且可以讓你們恢復自我的工作。蘭德爾·賈雷爾曾經(jīng)說過，如果他變得富有，他愿意自己出錢去教學生詩歌。（不管值不值，我也愿意。）他的話(和我父親的一樣），指明了一個深刻的、其正的理論學習方向。
