Unit1.docx

1、Unit1Text1:From Competence to Commitment Ernest Boyer原文+翻译1.Todays students have ambiguous feelings about their role in the world. They are devoting their energies to what seems most real to them: the pursuit of security, the accumulation of material goods. They are struggling to establish themselve

2、s, but the young people also admitted to confusion: Where should they put their faith in this uncertain age? Undergraduates are searching for identity and meaning and, like the rest of us, they are torn by idealism of service on the one hand, and on the hand, the temptation to retreat into a world t

3、hat never rises above self-interests. (Main Idea of PP1) 当代的大学生对他们在社会中所扮演的角色的认识模糊不清。他们致力于寻求在他们看来似乎是最现实的东西：追求安全保障，追逐物质财富的积累。年轻人努力想使自己成人成才、有所作为，但他们对未来的认识还是很模糊的。处于像他们这样前程未定的年龄阶段，他们该信仰什么?大学生一直在寻找真我的所在，寻找生活的意义。一如芸芸众生的我们，他们也陷入了两难的境地。一方面，他们崇尚奉献于人的理想主义，而另一方面，他们又经不住自身利益的诱惑，陷入利己主义的世界里欲罢不能。2.In the end, the qu

4、ality of the undergraduate experience (= education) is to be measured by the willingness of graduates to be socially and civically engaged. Reinhold Niebuhr once wrote, Man cannot behold except he be committed . He cannot find himself without finding a center beyond himself. The idealism of the unde

5、rgraduate experience must reflect itself in loyalties that transcend self. Is it too much to expect that, even in this hard-edged, competitive age, a college graduate will live with integrity, civility - even compassion? Is it appropriate to hope that the lessons learned in a liberal education will

6、reveal themselves in the humaneness of the graduates relationship with others? 最终而言，大学教育素质的衡量取决于毕业生是否愿意为他们所处的社会和赖以生存的城市作出贡献。尼布尔曾经写道：“一个人只有意识到对社会所负有的责任，他才能够认识到自身的潜力。一个人如果一味地以自我为中心，他将会失去自我。”本科教育必须对这种带有理想主义色彩的观念进行自我深省，使学生超越以自我为中心的观念，以诚相待，服务社会。在这一个竞争激烈残酷的社会，人们期望大学生能报以正直、文明，甚至富有同情心的人格品质去与人竞争，这是否已是一种奢望?人们

7、期望大学的人文教育会有助于培养学生的人际交往能力，如今是否仍然适合?3.Clearly, the college graduate has civic obligations to fulfill. There is urgent need in American teaching to help close the dangerous and growing gap between public policy and public understanding. The information required to think constructively about the agendas

8、 of government seems increasingly beyond our grasp. It is no longer possible, many argue, to resolve complex public issues through citizen participation. How, they ask, can non-specialists debate policy choices of consequence when they do not even know the language? 毫无疑问，大学生应该履行公民的义务。美国的教育必须立刻采取行动，使

9、教育理所当然地承担起弥合公共政策与公众的理解程度之间的极具危险性且在日益加深的沟壑这一职责。那些要求人们积极思考政府的议程并提供富于创意的意见的信息似乎越来越让我们感到事不关己。所以很多人认为想通过公众的参与来解决复杂的公共问题已不再可能行得通。设想，怎么可能让一些非专业人士去讨论必然带来相应后果的政府决策的问题，而他们甚至连语言的使用都存在困难?4.Should the use of nuclear energy be expanded or cut back? Can an adequate supply of water be assured? How can the arms race

10、 be brought under control? What is a safe level of atmospheric pollution? Even the semi-metaphysical questions of when a human life begins and ends have items on the political agenda. 核能的使用应该扩大还是削弱?水资源能保证充足的供应吗?怎样控制军备竞赛?大气污染的安全标准是多少?甚至连人类的起源与灭绝这样近乎玄乎的问题也会被列入政治议事日程。5.Citizens have tried with similar

11、bafflement to follow the debate over Star Wars with its highly technical jargon of deterrence and counter-deterrence. Even what once seemed to be reasonably local matters - zoning regulations, school desegregation, drainage problems public transportation issues, licensing requests from competing cab

12、le television companies-call for specialists who debate technicalities and frequently confuse rather than clarify the issues. And yet the very complexity of public requires more not less information more not less participation. 类似的一头雾水的感觉，公众曾经尝试过。当他们试图弄懂有关“星球大战”的辩论的问题时，那些关于“威慑”与“反威慑”等高科技的专业术语，曾让公众一筹

13、莫展。像地方的区域规划，学校种族隔离制的废除，排水系统的问题，公共交通的治理，以及申请获得正在相互竞争的有线电视公司的许可证等这些曾经看起来只是一些地方性事务的事情，现在也需要专家采解决。这些专家的辩论充满着技术术语，常常使问题变得让人迷惑不解而不会使问题云开雾散，清晰明了。公共生活的复杂性，要求更多而非更少的信息资料；需要更积极而非越来越消极的公众的参与。6.For those who care about government by the people，the decline in public understanding cannot go unchallenged. In a wor

14、ld where human survival is at stake , ignorance is not an acceptable alternative. The full control of policy by specialists with limited perspective is not tolerable. Unless we find better ways to educate ourselves as citizens, unless hard questions are asked and satisfactory answers are offered, we

15、 run risk of making critical decisions, not on the basis of what we know, but on the basis of blind faith in one or another set of professed experts. 对于那些关心“民治政府”的人，公众理解程度的每况愈下是无法接受的。当今世界，人类生存问题吉凶未卜，无知是不可取的。那些目光短浅的专家们制定措施时一手遮天，这也是不可容忍的。作为公民，我们只有找到更好的教育方法，只有提出更棘手的问题，并得到满意的答案，才能在关键的决策时刻承担风险，运用我们所学的知识做

16、出重大决定，否则，我们只能基于盲目地相信一个或几个所谓的专家做出决策。7.What we need today are groups of well-informed, caring individuals who band together in the spirit of community to lean from one another, to participate, as citizens, in the democratic process. 我们的民主社会需要一批受过良好教育关心他人的年轻人群策群力，本着共同的信念，团结在一起，相互学习，参与到社会民主的建设之中。8.We ne

17、ed concerned people who are participants in inquiry, who know how to ask the right questions, who understand the process by which public policy is shaped, and are prepared to make informed discriminating judgments on questions that effect the future. Obviously, no one institution in society can sing

18、le-handedly provides the leadership we require. But we are convinced that the undergraduate college, perhaps more than any other institutions, is obliged to provide the enlightened leadership our nation urgently requires if government by the people is to endure. 民主的社会需要关心民主社会的公众，需要他们成为善于发问的民主参与者，成为知

19、道怎样提出恰如其份的问题的人，知道公共政策的决策形成过程，并能够对那些影响深远的问题做出敏锐的，有见地的判断。诚然，没有哪个社会机构能独立培养我们所需的领导人才，但我们深信，如果“民治政府要有生命力的话，大学相对子其他机构来说，更有责任去培养我们国家所急需的具有宏畴伟略的领导人。9.To fulfill this urgent obligation, the perspective needed is not only national, but also global. Todays students must be informed about people and cultures ot

20、her than their own. Since man has orbited into space, it has become dramatically apparent that we are all custodians of a single planet. In the past half century, our planet has become vastly more crowded, more interdependent, and more unstable. If students do not see beyond themselves and better un

21、derstand their place in our complex world, their capacity to live responsibly will be dangerously diminished. 为了完成这个迫切的使命，年轻人的目光不能仅仅停留在国内，还必须放眼世界。现在的学生不但要对本国的人民与文化了如指掌，而且也应该熟知本国以外的文明。人类的势力范围已涉及到太空，一切变得都很明了，我们都是同一个星球的守护者。在过去的半个世纪中，我们的地球变得越来越拥挤，相互依赖性越来越强，同时也更加变化莫测。如果学生只一味自以为是，不能更好地理解自己在芸芸众生中的地位，那么他们对生

22、活的社会所应承担的责任的能力将慢慢被消磨殆尽，及至危险的境地。10.The world may not yet be a village, but surely our sense of neighborhood must expand. When drought ravages the Sahara, when war in Indo-China creates refugees, neither our compassion nor our analytic intelligence can be bounded by a dotted line on a political map. W

23、e are beginning to understand that hunger and human rights affect alliances as decisively as weapons and treaties. Dwarfing all other concerns, the mushroom cloud hangs ominously over our world consciousness. These realities and the obligations they impose must be understood by every student. 世界或许还没

24、有变成一个小村庄。但可以肯定的是，我们的邻里意识必须加以扩展。当旱灾席卷撒哈拉沙漠，当印度支那战争带来难民潮时，我们的同情心，我们富于分析的智慧都不再受缚于地图上的政治分界线。我们开始知道，饥荒和人权已如同武器条约一样，对人类团结起着决定性的影响。最令人担心的是，蘑菇云已在人类意识里投下了不祥的阴影。这些业已存在的事实及其带来的后果都必须让每个学生了解。11.But during our study we found on campus a disturbing lack of knowledge and even at times a climate of indifference abou

25、t our world. Refugees flow from one country to another, but too few students can point to these great migrations on a map or talk about the famines, wars, or poverty that caused them. Philosophers, statesmen, inventors and artists from around the world enrich our lives, but such individuals and thei

26、r contributions are largely unknown or unremembered. 然而，在研究中，我们发现了一个极其令人担忧的问题：大学校园对诸如此类的社会常识极端缺乏了解，有时，校园甚至弥漫着一种对世事的冷漠与不关心的氛围。当难民如潮水一般从一个国家涌入到另外一个国家时，我们却只有极少数学生能在地图上指出这些难民潮的流向，或是谈论起导致难民潮泛滥而起的饥荒、战争和贫穷等世事。世界各地的哲学家、政治家、发明家和艺术家的丰功伟绩丰富了我们的生活，但他们本人及其贡献却时常不为人知，或是被世人遗忘在角落里。12.While some students have a globa

27、l perspective, the vast majority, although vaguely concerned, are inadequately informed about the interdependent world in which they live. 虽然有一些学生已具备了放眼全球的视角，然而，大多数学生尽管他们对世事的关注忽隐忽现，却对他们赖以生存相互依赖的世界缺乏足够的了解。13.University of Notre Dame campus minister William Toohey wrote recently, The trouble with many

28、 colleagues is that they indulge the nesting instinct by building protected little communities inside their great walls. 圣母玛丽亚大学的学院院长威廉杜黑近期写道：“许多大学教育的问题就在于学校纵容学生们本能地在校园内自筑围城，自我封闭，构筑自己小范围的交往圈，而不去触及学校以外的现实的社会交际。”14.One point emerges with stark clarity from all we have said: Our world has undergone imm

29、ense transformations. It has become a more crowded, more interconnected, more unstable place. A new generation of Americans must be educated for life in this increasingly complex world. If the undergraduate college cannot help students see beyond themselves and better understand the interdependent n

30、ature of our world, each new generation will remain ignorant, and its capacity to live confidently and responsibly will be dangerously diminished. （世界在不断地变化） 综上所述，我们很自然地得出一个结论：世界发生了巨变，世界变得越来越拥挤，相互的联系变得越来越强，同时也更加动荡不安起来。美国的新一代必须学会如何在这个日益复杂的世界里生活。如果大学教育不能帮助学生认识自我，超越自我，不能让他们更好地理解世界相互依存的本质特征，那么新生的一代就会变得无

31、知，他们生活的信心及生活的责任感将慢慢被消磨殆尽，及至危险的境地。15.Throughout our study we were impressed that what todays college is teaching most successfully is competence - competence in meeting schedules, in gathering information, in responding well on tests, in mastering the details of a special field. Today the capacity to

32、 deal successfully with discrete problems is highly prized. And when we asked students about their education, they, almost without exception, spoke about the credits they had earned or the courses they still needed to complete. 通过研究，我们深有感触地认识到当今大学教育最成功之处就是培养学生的综合能力使学生具备依既定计划行事的能力；具备收集资料信息的能力；考尽其能，术业专攻。具有成功地处理好单独问题的能力在今天被认为是值得高度称赞的事情。然而，当我们问及学生们关于他们的大学教育的时候，他们几乎都毫无例外地谈论起他们所获得的学分或是他们仍然需要完成的课程。16.But technical skill, of whatever kind, leaves open essential questions: Education for what purpose? Competence to what end? At a time in life when values should be shaped and personal priorities sh