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【学习园地 英语精读】
Why do you teach? My friend asked the question when I told him that
I didn\'t want to be considered for an administrative position. He was puz-
zled that I did not want what was obviously a \"step up\" toward what all
Americans are taught to want when they grow up: money and power.
5 Certainly I don\'t teach because teaching is easy for me. Teaehing is the
most difficult of the various ways I have attempted to earn my living me-
chanic, carpenter, writer. For me, teaching is a red-eye, sweaty-palin,
sinking-stomach profession.Red-eye,because I never feel ready to teach no
matter how late I stay up preparing. Sweaty-palm, because I\'m always ner-
10 vous before I enter the classroom, sure that I will be found out for the
fool that I am. Sinking-stomach, because I leave the classroom an hour
later convinced that I was even more boring than usual.
Nor do I teach because I think I know answers, or because I have
knowledge I feel compelled to share. Sometimes I am amazed that my stu-
15 dents actually take notes on what I say in class !
Why, then, do I teach?
I teach because I like the pace of the academic calendar. June, July,
and August offer an opportunity for reflection, research, and writing.
I teach because teaching is a profession built on change. When the ma-
20 terial is the same, I change - and, more important, my students change.
I teach because I like the freedom to make my own mistakes, to learn
my own lessons, to stimulate myself and my students. As a teacher, I\'m
my own boss. If I want my freshmen to learn to write by creating their
own textbook, who is to say I can\'t? Such courses may be huge failures,
25 but we can all learn from failures.
I teach because I like to ask questions that students must struggle to
answer. The world is full of right answers to bad questions.While teach-
ing, I sometimes find good questions.
I teach because I enjoy finding ways of getting myself and my students
30 out of the ivory tower and into the real world. I once taught a course called
\"Self-Reliance in a Technological Society.\" My 15 students read Emerson,
Thoreau, and Huxley. They kept diaries. They wrote term papers.
But we also set up a corporation, borrowed money, purchased a run-
down house and practiced self-reliance by renovating it. At the end of the
35 semester, we sold the house, repaid our loan, paid our taxes,and distribut-
ed the profits among the group.
So teaching gives me pace, and variety, and challenge, and the oppor-
tunity to keep on learning.
I have left out, however, the most important reasons why I teach.
40 One is Vicky. My first doctoral student, Vicky was an energetic stu-
dent who labored at her dissertation on a little-known l4th century poet.
She wrote articles and sent them off to learned journals. She did it all
her-self, with an occasional nudge from me.But I was there when she finished
her dissertation, learned that her articles were accepted, got a job and won
45 a fellowship to Harvard working on a book developing ideas she\'d first
had as my student.
Another reason is George, who started as an engineering student, then
switched to English because he decided he liked people better than things.
There is Jeanne, who left college, but was brought back by her class-
50 mates because they wanted her to see the end of the self-reliance house pro-
ject. I was there when she came back. I was there when she told me that
she later became interested in the urban poor and went on to become a
civil rights lawyer.
There is Jacqui, a cleaning woman who knows more by intuition than
55 most of us learn by analysis. Jacqui has decided to finish high school
and go to college.
These are the real reasons I teach, these people who grow and change
in front of me. Being a teacher is being present at the creation, when
the clay begins to breathe.
60 A \"promotion\" out of teaching would give me money and power. But I
have money. I get paid to do what I enjoy: reading, talking with people,
and asking questions like, \"What is the point of being rich?\"
And I have power. I have the power to nudge, to fan sparks, to sug-
gest books, to point out a pathway. What other power matters?
65 But teaching offers saomething besides money and power: it offers love.
Not only the love of learning and of books and ideas,but also the love that
a teacher feels for that rare student who walks into a teacher\'s life and
be-gins to breathe. Perhaps love is the wrong word: magic might be better.
I teach because, being around people who are beginning to breathe, I
70 occasionally find myself catching my breath with them.
New Words
step(-)up n. promotion; increase in size,speed,etc.
mechanic / n. skilled workman, esp. one who uses or
repairs machines and tools 机械工; 机修工
convince / vt. make (sb.) feel certain; cause (sb.) to realize
compel / vt. force (sb. or sth. to do sth.)
reflection / n. careful thinking; consideration 深思;考虑
reflect /vi.
stlmulate / vt. encourage; excite 刺激;激励
ivory towsr/ n. place or condition of retreat from the
world of action into a world of ideas
and dueams象牙塔
self-reliance/ n. ability to do things and make decisions
by oneself 依靠自己;自力更生
releance/ n. trust,confidence; dependence 信赖;信心; 依靠
ruri-dowrn / a. old and broken or in bad condition
renovate / vt. restore (old buildings,oil paintings,etc.)
to a former, better state 修复,修整
repay/ vt. pay back (money, etc.)
doctoral/ a. having to do with the university degree
of doctor 博士的
energetic / a. vigorous 精力充沛的
dissertation / n. (学位)论文
learned / a. showing or requiring much knowledge 博学的
journal / n. magazine or daily newspaper 杂志;日报
nudge / n. (fig.) words, actions or feelings that stimulate 启示
vt. push or touch slightly, esp. with the
elbow to attract attention; (fig.) stimulate
fellowship / n. position or a sum of money granted to
a person for advanced study or research
研究员职位;研究员薪金
urban / a. of a town or city
intuition / n. (power of) the immediate understanding of
truths, events, facts without reasoning
直觉
clay / n. 粘土
pathway/ n. path
Phrases & Expressions
stay up not go to bed until af ter the usual time
不睡觉,熬夜
take notes 记笔记
build on base on; use as a base for further
development
keep a diary 记日记
leave out fail to mention or include; omit
send off post; dispatch
work at/on give one\'s attention to doing or trying to do
catch one\'s breath rest and get back one\'s normal breath, as
after run- ning; stop breathing for a moment
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