英译汉 3

The Good Mind Is Flexible (Excerpt)

By Edgar Dale

For many years we have talked about education in a changing society but have

done little to educate for uncertainty. Perhaps the best insurance we can offer for this

uncertainty is the presence of a good mind. To develop a good mind the student must

learn how to learn and develop a taste for learning. The world of tomorrow needs

flexible individuals, intelligently mobile individuals, individuals who can land on

their feet when their jobs become technologically obsolete, individuals who can cope

with the unexpected.

To educate for flexibility we must distinguish between training and education. To

train is to emphasize fixed responses, to stress immediate goals to the neglect of

long-term growth. To educate, however, is to foster limitless growth, lifelong learning,

to develop the good mind.

Mark Twain’s story about the cat is in order here. He said that a cat that jumps

onto a hot stove will never jump on a hot stove again. Nor, he added, will she ever

jump on a cold one. The cat can be trained but, contrary to what cat-lovers may say,

cannot be educated.

The person educated for flexibility will see the world in a fresh, inventive way.

Such a person is not chained to the immediate, the customary, the habitual, not

dependent or someone else to plan the route and show how to get there. Such persons

will chart their own course.

To develop the flexible person with the good mind we must favor those learning

experiences that have high transfer value to carried life situations. We must learn how

to teach skills, attitudes, and concepts so that they not only meet current needs but can

be generalized to future needs as well.

Education for flexibility will certainly include guidance in the fine arts. If we

accept Dewq’s definition of art as “the intensification of the ordinary,” then the

teacher’s task is to help learners turn the commonplace into the creative. Mel Strawn

of Antioch College described this approach to learning as “a heightening of the

individual’s perceptual awareness, an intensification of his sense of form. He sees

more and comprehends more of what he sees.”

An inescapable element in education for flexibility is an attitude favorable to

change. This is hard to develop. It requires faith in oneself and in the future. Insecure

people dread change. They walk backwards into the future, clinging anxiously and

defensively to the past.

Often such people think they don’t amount to much. They do not accept

themselves and consequently do not accept others. Thus they remain either negative

or emotionally immature in their outlook toward the future. Lacing insight into their

own feelings of inadequacy and unimportance, they shrink their world to meager and

manageable proportions. They may wish to be more flexible, more open-minded, but

they do not feel up to it.

What can the school and college do to build an attitude more favorable to

unprejudiced examination of new ideas? Certainly they can and must develop the self-confidence of students, build them up with repeated success instead of constant

failure. They can develop a group atmosphere friendly to and supportive of change.

Schools and colleges can help students admire what is admirable, become acquainted

with heroic men and women who changed the world. They can provide continuing

guidance in how to become a real person, on who has faith in the future, who has a

good mind of his own.

To meet the striking social changes of the future, continuing education is a

necessity, Emerson put it this way: “The things taught in colleges and schools are not

an education, but a means of education.” And Seneca noted that “you should keep on

learning as long as you’re ignorant.”

The flexibly educated person knows that today’s fact may be tomorrow’s fallacy.

He agrees with Alfred North whitehead that “Knowledge does not keep any better

than fish” and accepts his warning against “the aimless accumulation of precise

knowledge, inert and unutilized.”

The test of a modern society capable of meeting change with accelerated

evolution instead of revolution does not lie in asking, “Is everybody happy? ” but

rather, “Is everybody learning?” To be learning is not only a condition for survival; it

is also the basis for being richly alive.

男子多半自私。他的人生观中有一基本认识，即宇宙一切均是为了他的舒适而安排下来的。除了在做事赚钱的时候不得不忍气吞声的向人奴颜婢膝外，他总是要做出一副老爷相。他的家是他的国度，他在家里称王。他除了为赚钱而吃苦努力外，他是一个“伊比鸠派”，他要享受。他高兴的时候，孩子可以骑在他的颈上，他引颈受骑；他可以像狗似的满地爬；他不高兴时，他看着谁都不顺眼；在外面受了闷气，回到家里来加倍的发作。他不知道女人的苦处。女人对于他的殷勤委曲，在他看来，就如同犬守户、鸡司晨一样稀松平常，都是自然现象。他说他爱女人，其实他不是爱，他是享受女人。他不问他给了别人多少，但是他要在别人身上尽量榨取。他觉得他对女人最大的恩惠，便是把赚来的钱全部或一部拿回家来，但是当他把一卷卷的钞票从衣袋里掏出来的时候，他的脸上的表情是骄傲的成分多，亲爱的成分少，好像是在说：“看我！你行么？我这样待你，你多幸运！” 他若是感觉到这里不复是他的乐园，他便有多样的借口不回到家里来。他到处云游，他另辟乐园。他有聚餐会，他有酒会，他有桥会，他有书社画会棋会，他有夜会，最不济的还有个茶馆。他的享乐的方法太多。假如轮回之说不假，下世侥幸依然投胎为人，很少男人情愿下世做女人的。他总觉得这一世生为男身，而享受未足，下一世要继续努力。