游说讲演

Susan著 小哭译

上个月，ELA老师威尔基女士没有给我们布置什么具有挑战性的作业，我们主要就是阅读了鲍伊写的小故事和准备周测验。但是上周，她终于给我们布置了一项艰巨的任务——游说讲演。

当我第一次听到这个任务时，并没想到这事儿会花费那么长的时间。这不过是一个讲演而已，对吧？我擅长讲演。可是最后我发现这事儿远比我想像的困难。我一直难以决定选个什么主题去游说别人（我可以选世界上存在的任何一个主题）。如果没有主题，我就没法去准备讲演。感谢上帝，最后我总算是在截止日的前一个晚上选定了一个主题。当我做完规划开始写稿子时，已经非常晚了，所以最后没有时间去练习。当第二天开始上ELA课时，我祈求好运降临，向上帝祷告，求威尔基女士那天不要叫到我。

结果我无需担忧。那天我们没有讲演，因为老师要赶因为大雪两天没上学而落下的其它功课。讲演被推到了下一天。第二天我认真地准备了，于是我希望她第一个就叫我上去以便赶紧了结这一桩事儿。每当某人的讲演结束时，我都紧张地等待着她叫到我的名字。最后都白紧张了，因为那天没有叫到我。

终于在上周五，我被叫到做讲演。我简短地说了为什么买投影仪比买电视机好，试着慢慢地讲，让讲演听起来很自然。我想我做得不错。不是最好的，因为我还是讲得有点太快；但也不是最糟的。然后，全班问了我几个问题和并对我的讲演进行了一些评论，从他们的评论中我可以看出，他们多数人被我的讲演说服了。

不像有几个同学的那样，我的讲演主题不是最严肃的那类。一个女生给出了是否应该允许同性恋结婚的精彩讲演。她是这样开头的：“想像一下你正全身心地爱着某个人。现在，想像一下，你们不能在一起，不能结婚……”即使根据我的信仰，我认为同性恋结婚是错误的，我还是认为她的讲演真的打动了我，我甚至同意她给出的很多观点。另一个女生做了一个充满激情的讲演，内容是有关死刑以及死刑是如何地错误的。她重复多遍的一个杀死谋杀者的话是：“那让我们比他们更好吗？”在这一点上我完全同意她的话。她讲得这么好，所以我很惊讶于还是有几个同学支持死刑。

还有一些其它的讲演不怎么打动人，但还是很重要（好吧，对我来讲重要）。它们听起来很牵强。有几个在逻辑上有错误，或者没有明确的观点，但是它们都教会了我一些什么新的东西。例如，一个关于我们不应该有作业的讲演，让我了解了（统计上地）做更多作业的学生并不比做更少作业的学生会取得更好的成绩。亚历克斯在他的讲演中真的给出了很好的论据，但是最后，我不得不反对他，因为作业还有一个重要的作用：作业帮助我们练习在学校所学的技能。我知道我有多么地讨厌做作业，但是如果我不做作业，我就不可能把数学或科学课学好。所以，问题不是我们是否应该做作业，而是我们应该做多少。

另一个同学谈到了不做作业，但是相应地，他建议延长在校时间去练习我们在学校学过的知识。我并不同意他的观点，但那是一个不错的讲演。有人给出了一个很好的反战的讲演，我同意这个想法，虽然我认为那永远也不会真正实现。有人说到了不用课本改用平板电脑。再说一遍，想法很好，但很难实现。一个非常有趣儿的讲演是关于为什么美国应该同意大麻合法化，这个讲演也是由一个叫做亚历克斯的同学给出的。我觉得他讲得非常好并且很有说服力，充满了令人震惊的事实，反驳了很多常见的关于毒品的理解。虽然我开始的立场是“不同意”，听了亚历克斯的讲演后，绝对变成了“同意”！

一个女生做了为什么我们应该穿校服的讲演。虽然我同意她的逻辑，但就是无法容忍我们都穿着校服的样子。我接受不了每一个人与别人看起来都一模一样。想像一下不得不穿着校服到学校……嗯，太痛苦了。那剥夺了个性，更重要的是：人们看见的不是我，而是随便哪一个HMS的八年级女生而已。她的讲演一点也没有说服我。另一个女生想要每一个人在滑雪时都戴头盔。我同意她的观点，从她的讲演中我学到了很多关于滑雪的知识。另一个也叫亚历克斯的同学（我们班有三个亚历克斯，三个凯特和两个朱利娅），做了一个关于为什么大学运动员应该挣工资的讲演。我一点也不了解他提到的那些关于运动的术语，所以听完他的讲演，我非常地困惑。

上完课后，显然威尔基女士从我们的讲演题目中获得了很多快乐，她这样总结道：“这个班级希望同性恋婚姻以及吸食大麻合法化，不想做作业，不愿意杀人，想穿校服和滑雪时戴头盔？”我们听了都在小声地笑。我很惊讶于我们所选择的题目。还有几个同学没有讲，所以我认定他们肯定得在下周一完成。我等不了了！现在我已经讲完了我自己的，于是我很激动于剩下的同学将要讲些什么另外的趣事儿。

【小哭介绍背景】这个小文的信息量不小。Susan一直习惯于介绍她自己，不怎么说别人，也许是她的个性吧，她不喜欢“八卦”。要说守秘密，她可是极佳的人选。一个朋友曾经寄着Susan的这一点表扬她，说是“喜欢不八的少女”：）不过这篇作文里，她没怎么介绍自己，而是对全班的游说讲演进行了概括式的介绍，也让我开了眼界。原来他们的ELA班这么活跃啊！而他们老师的小结更是体现了威尔基女士那种假假地“严肃”下的搞笑风格。Susan说，某些人的观点，老师硬是给套在了全班上，好像全班都支持那些观点似的：）

我介绍一点Susan作业的情况吧。她一直找不到题目，我想过支持一下，可是没有到最后一分钟，加上我也没有特别适合的题目，就没有伸手。所以最后一晚晚饭后，她说准备给全班介绍一下投影仪时，我想可能是爸爸出手了。等到讲完的那一天，一回家她就兴奋地说，讲演的题目选得好！同学们基本上都被说服了。晚上说她在网上查的电视机的价钱明显地偏低了，问爸爸是为什么。于是两人就网购时的那些选项讨论了一番。嗯，挺好，Susan这明显地开始“食人间烟火”了嘛。她说她的开场白是让家有电视机的举手，结果全班都举了，然后她就说我们家没有电视机……讲完就有同学跟她讨论细节。有一个反对意见她觉得非常地没有道理，反对者说是投影仪用的幕布容易被毁坏，于是我们都说那电视机屏幕就更容易被毁坏了：）听她的意思，同学们大部分被说服了，但是也不会马上回家把电视换成投影仪。和其它同学的题目相比，她的主题太“普通”了，完全没有“领袖”风范。不过我们说她以后可以替投影仪厂商打广告了：）我说爸爸的题目选得真好，她告诉我，这个题目不是爸爸帮的忙，是她自己想出来的！嗯，那可真不错，值得表扬。

后来Susan就着大麻合法化，和爸爸讨论了许久。主要是说不管反对与否，交易其实都是存在着的。那是合法化由政府管理起来，收入也是政府支配呢？还是非法化由黑市来控制呢？Susan明显地支持合法化，因为这样管理得比较规范，不容易出现意外和不控制事件。我在旁边听着，心想，这和嫖娼与赌博都是类似的，但是我没吱声。听着他们讨论挺享受，比参与还开心。之前她曾经写过一篇关于禁酒的小文，也是类似的道理，本来我觉得那小文没有什么特色就放在一边了，现在看来值得哪天有空也翻译出来发表，这些文章环环相扣呢。

Susan关于校服的观点我到是挺意外的。她曾经在国内的国际学校呆过两年多，天天也都是穿校服的。不只是穿校服，女生的头发都必须得剪到齐耳，她那时从来也没有表示过任何异议。就算是小学一年级在公校，那时也得买校服啊！只不过是每周有一天“家服日”而已。我还记得初来美国时，发现竟然不用买校服，着实开心了一阵子，省钱了！现在小宝的私校也是规定必须得着校服的，但是小宝他们幼儿班除外。其实我是挺喜欢看着孩子们穿校服的。我的出发点和Susan不同，我觉得统一的着装会最小化家庭背景的差异。孩子们攀比的东西，能少一样就少一样好。至少对于现在的我来讲，少承受一份经济压力就好过多承受一份。

关于体育运动方面主题的讲演，Susan竟然会听不懂！其实听不懂我也理解，只是觉得没见Susan想去弄懂挺奇怪的。我觉得孩子们五花八门的话题正是美国多元化生活的一个缩影。如同我的一朋友昨天晚上跟我的交流，要让孩子看到不同的世界，这样才能学会包容和尊重。我想Susan虽然对此笔墨不多，可是她内心里应该是明白她的弱项在哪里的。她听都没听明白，当然就无法参与那个话题的讨论了。对于那么爱辩论的她来讲，这应是一个小小的冲击。这应该会提醒她，这个世界上有那么多不同的人和事儿，她所了解的是那么地有限、又有限……

Persuasive Speeches

For the past month, my ELA teacher, Ms. Wilkie, has not assigned any challenging homework: mainly we just had to read short stories by Poe and study for the weekly tests. This past week, she finally gave us a hard task—persuasive speeches.

When I first heard about it, I didn’t think it was going to take that long. It was just a speech, right? And I’m good at speeches. It turned out to be harder than I had thought. I had a difficult time deciding on a topic to persuade people about (I could decide on any topic in the world), and without a topic, I couldn’t start my speech. Thanks to God, I finally managed to decide on a topic the night before the speech was due. It was getting really late when I finished planning and writing my speech, so I didn’t have time to practice. When ELA class started the next day, I was crossing my fingers and praying to God that Ms. Wilkie would not call on me to go that day.

It turned out my worrying was for nothing. We didn’t have speeches that day, due to the fact that we had two snow days and needed to catch up on other things. The speeches got pushed back to the next day. I was pretty prepared the next day, and I hoped she would pick me to go first so I could get over it. Every time someone else’s speech ended, I would wait nervously for her to call on me. That nervousness also turned out to be for nothing, because I wasn’t picked that day.

Finally, on Friday, I was picked to present my speech. I gave my quick speech about why purchasing a projector is better than purchasing a TV, trying to sound natural and talk slowly. I think I did okay. Not the best, because I still talked a little too fast, but not the worst either. Later, the class had a few questions and comments for me, and from their comments, I could see most of them were persuaded by my speech.

My speech wasn’t on the most serious of topics, unlike the speeches of a few fellow classmates. One girl gave a wonderful speech about why gay marriage should be allowed. She started out with the words: “Imagine loving someone with all your heart. And now, imagine not being able to be with them, not being able to marry them….” Even though, according to my religion, I believe gay marriage is wrong, I still think her speech was really moving and even agree with a lot of the points she made. Another girl did an emotional speech about the death penalty and how it’s wrong. A phrase she repeated a lot about killing murderers was: “Does that make us any better than them?” I completely agree with her on that one. Her speech was so good that I was shocked there were still a few kids who supported the death penalty.

There were some other speeches that weren’t as moving, but were still very important (well, important to me). They were very entertainly to listen to. A few of them were flawed in their logic, or didn’t adress a specific point, but they all taught me something new. For example, in one speech about why we shouldn’t have homework, I learned that (statistically) kids who do more homework do not have better test scores than kids who do less homework. Alex made really good points in that speech, but in the end, I had to dissagree with him, because homework does have one big use: it helps us practice the skills that we learn in school. I know that, as much as I hate homework, I would not be as good at math or science if I don’t do the homework for them. So, it’s not a matter of whether we should do it or not, but how much we should do.

Another kid also talked about getting rid of homework, but along with that, he suggested longer school days to practice the things we learn in school. I don’t really agree with that, but it was a good speech. Someone gave a really good anti-war speech, an

d I agree with the concept, although I think we’ll never actually be able to achieve that. Someone talked about getting rid of textbooks and using tablets instead. Again, it’s a nice concept, but hard to actually achieve. One very interesting speech was about why America should legalize marijuana. This speech was also given by a kid named Alex. I found his speech to be very good and very convincing, full of shocking facts that disproved many common beliefs about that drug. Although my stance was “no” before, after hearing Alex’s speech, it has definitely changed into a “yes”!

A girl did a speech about why we should wear school uniforms. Though I agree with her logic, I just can’t stand how uniformed we would all look. I despise looking the same as everybody else. Just imagining having to wear a uniform for school….ugh. That would be hell. It gets rid of individuality and most importantly: instead of people seeing Susan Cao, they would see just another 8^th grade girl from Hinsdale Middle School. Her speech didn’t convince me anything. Another girl wanted everyone to wear helmets while skiing. I agree with her, and from her speech, I learned a lot about skiing. Somebody else, also named Alex (we have three Alex’s in our class, three Kate’s, and two Julia’s), did a speech about why college players should get paid. I had no idea what most of the sports terms he said meant, so after his speech, I was very confused.

When class ended, Ms. Wilkie was very amused by our choice of topics. She said something like: “So this class wants to legalize gay marriage, smoke marijuana, not do homework, stop killing people, and wear school uniforms and ski helmets?” We had a good chuckle at that. I was surprised by our choice of topics. A few people didn’t present yet, so I assume they’ll have to do it on Monday. I can’t wait! Now that I’ve gotten my own speech over, I’m excited to about what other interesting things the rest of the class have to say.