综合教程every day's a celebration课文翻译
Read and Explore
阅读与探索
Text B
文章B
It never seems easy to be a positive person while bombarded with bad news every day, yet theauthor finds a special way to do this -- sharing good news every day with his students. And itworks well!
我们每天被大量的坏消息炮轰,很难成为一个积极向上的人,但是文章的作者找到了一个特殊的方式——每天和他的学生分享好消息。并且这个方式起到了很好的作用。
Every Day's a Celebration!
每一天都是一场庆典
By Hal Urban
哈尔·厄本
What are we celebrating today?
我们今天要庆祝什么?
I asked the above question at the beginning of every one of my classes, whether I was teachingkids or adults. Sometimes I asked it a little differently, as in, "Who has good news?" or "Whohas something good to say?" However I worded it, it always meant the same thing. It was a callfor celebrating life, for focusing on what's right and what's good. And it was always fun! It waspart of a life-affirming ritual that started by accident in the 1970-71 school year and continueduntil I stopped classroom teaching in 2001 -- thirty years of celebrating! By a conservativeestimate, I asked one of these questions at the beginning of class about twenty-seven thousandtimes. And every time I asked, I got five or more positive responses. That's a lot of celebrating!
每节课开始时我都会问上面的问题,不管教的是孩子还是成人。有时我会换个稍微不同的问法,比如:“谁有好消息?”或者“谁有些好事要说?”不管怎么措辞,意思总是一样的。这是对赞美生活的一种呼吁,呼吁我们专注于正确与美好。而这总是很有意思!这是一种让人积极面对生活的仪式的一部分,偶然地开始于1970-71学年,一直持续到2001年我停止课堂教学为止——整整三十年的庆祝!保守估算一下,每节课开头我问过其中一个问题约达27,000次。而每次提问,我都能得到五个或以上的肯定回答。还真是庆祝了很多呢!
Believe it or not, this little ritual started as the result of two things that usually have anegative connotation, especially with kids: current events and homework.
信不信由你,这个小小的仪式是因为两件通常带有消极含义的事情引起的:时事和作业。
At the high school level I often taught courses in United States history and in American government. Whenever I taught either of these two subjects, there was a nightly homework assignment in current events. The average high school kid is woefully uninformed about anything unrelated to music, sports, and other forms of entertainment, so reading the actual news section of a newspaper was a completely new experience for most of them.
在高中阶段我经常教授有关美国历史和美国政府的课程。只要教的是这两门课程中的一门,每晚我都会布置时事作业。普通的高中孩子,对与音乐、运动和其他娱乐形式以外的任何东西都无知到可悲的程度,所以阅读报纸上的真实的新闻版面对他们中的绝大多数而言是一种全新的体验。
Within a few weeks they got the hang of it and were actually surprised at their newly developed ability to carry on an intelligent conversation about what was going on in a world they hardly knew. Just as we were settling into our routine, a student's innocent observation jolted me. He said, "You know, Dr. Urban, for being such a positive guy, you sure give a negative homework assignment." Somewhat startled, I replied with, "What do you mean?" He simply stated that most of the news was bad news, and he added, "It's kind of a downer." He had me.
才几个星期的时间,他们就掌握了其中的窍门,还实实在在地为自己新培养的能力感到吃惊,没想到自己能够就一个了解甚少的世界所发生的事情进行智慧的交谈。正当我们开始形成惯例时,一个学生的一句没有恶意的评论让我猛醒。他说,“你知道吗,厄本博士,对你这么一个积极的人而言,布置的这个家庭作业可真算是消极的。”我有点吓住了,答了一句“你什么意思?”他只说绝大多数新闻都是负面消息,然后加了一句,“有点让人沮丧。”这番话一时把我问住了。
We had a long class discussion about this, and I was surprised at how involved the students were. While we had several theories on the reasons for so much bad news, we all agreed on one thing: We needed to receive more good news.
我们在课堂上长时间地讨论了这件事,学生们那么积极参与,让我很吃惊。对于负面消息如此之多这一情况我们有好几个不同的解释,不过我们全都赞同一件事:我们需要更多的好消息。
This is something I mulled over for quite some time. I was requiring my students to read all this bad news and at the same time jeopardizing my reputation with many of them as "Mr. Positive."
这是我反复思考了相当一段时间的事。我是在要求学生阅读这一切的负面消息,同时也是在败坏我在很多学生心目中作为“积极先生”的名声。
I was now more determined than ever to prove to my students that there was something to celebrate every day and to work a daily dose of good news into our learning environment. So the next day at the beginning of class I asked, "What are we celebrating today?" They thought I meant that it was some day of historical significance, and they should know it. So I said, "Let me ask it a different way: Who has good news? Who has something good to say?" Since this was the first time I'd started class that way, they were a bit mystified. I said, "Since you're having such a hard time finding good news in the newspaper, let's see if we can find some in our own lives." They thought it was a great way to start class, and it developed into something that had a profound and lasting impact on both my students and me.
于是我比以往更加坚定地要向学生证明:每天都有值得赞美庆祝的事,我还要往我们的学习氛围里每天都注入一些好的消息。因此第二天一上课我就问:“我们今天要庆祝什么?”他们都觉得我的意思是那天是某个有历史意义的日子,而他们应该知道这个日子。于是我说:“那我换一种问法吧:谁有好消息?谁有好事要说?”这是我第一次用这样的方式作开场白,所以他们都有些困惑。我说:“既然你们在报纸上找好消息那么难,那我们就看看能不能在生活中找到一些。”他们觉得这是一种很棒的开场方式,后来这就发展成为对我和我的学生们都具有深刻持久影响的一件事情。
Over the years of doing this, we heard just about every bit of good news possible. Some were small things, some were huge things. But most important was that my students learned to look for the good in everyday life and then to share it with others. This simple little ritual also had a buildup effect. Each day we added to the good news of the previous day, and so on. And each day my students increased their awareness of all the good news going on around them all the time. They looked for it, they found it, and they celebrated it by sharing it with others.
多年来,我们听到的好消息简直包罗万象。有些是小事情,有些是大事件,但最重要的是,学生们学会了去寻找日常生活中存在的好的东西,并与别人分享。这个简单的小仪式还有一个累积的效应。我们每天都在前一天的好消息上增加更多的好消息,以此类推。学生们对身边发生的好消息日益关注。他们去寻找,他们找到了,他们用与别人分享的方式来庆祝它。
Over the years I added three more choices as ways to celebrate the day. My students could share something or someone they were thankful for. We called this "perpetual good news." Another option was to say something complimentary about a classmate, and the last one was to share something funny -- as long as it was clean. They have implications for all of us —at school, within our families, in the workplace, among friends, everywhere.
这么多年中,我增加了三种选择用来庆祝当天。学生们可以分享他们所感激的事或人。我们把它叫做“永久的好消息”。另一个选择是就班上某位同学说些赞美的话。最后一个是分享有趣的事——只要是正派的就行。他们涉及所有的人——在学校、在家里、在工作场所、和朋友一起,无处不在。
Since this little ritual of celebration was so popular with my high school students, I thought I'd try it with my adults at the university. My fears that they might be too hardened by life and cynical were quickly allayed. They absolutely loved it and had even more good news than the kids did. Several of these people were in management positions, and they said they liked the idea so much that they'd started opening their regular meetings in much the same way. Their employees also loved it.
因为这个庆祝的小仪式深受高中学生欢迎,我想我可以在大学里的那些成年学生身上也试试。我原本担心他们可能会因为生活而变得太过冷酷无情、愤世嫉俗,但我的担心很快消除了。他们无疑很喜欢,甚至比高中的孩子们有更多的好消息。这些人当中有好几个都在管理位置,他们说太喜欢这个主意了,他们用几乎相同的方式来做例会的开场白。他们的员工也很喜欢。
As enjoyable as it was to hear good news at least five times a day, I originally had no idea that it would have such a lasting impact on all of us. At the end of that first year of celebrating at the beginning of every class, I received some surprising and valuable feedback on my final exams. Part One of the test was a comprehensive review on all the subject matter covered during the semester and was done in class. Part Two was a take-home exam and allowed the students to express themselves more fully about their learning experiences. These were the instructions: "What are the three things you learned in this class that were of the most value to you? Why? Write one page on each topic."
每天至少听到五个好消息固然是令人开心的,不过我一开始根本没想到这会给我们所有人产生如此长远的影响。在每节课开始时赞美生活的第一年结束的时候,我在期末考试时收到了一些让人吃惊的宝贵反馈。试卷的第一部分是综合评述本学期涉及的所有主题,当场完成。第二部分是场外考试,允许学生更完整地描述自己的学习经历。题目是这样的:“对你而言,你从这门课里所学到的最有价值的是哪三样东西?为什么?每个主题请用一页纸加以阐述。”