2013年自考英语（二）课文译文：美国教育的变化

美国教育的变化

　　The biggest "infrastructure" challenge for the United States in the next decade is not the billions needed for railroads, highways and energy. It is the American school system, from kindergarten through the Ph.D. program and the postgraduate education of adults. And it requires something far scarcer than money -- thinking and risk-taking.

　　在下一个十年中，美国所遇到的最大的“基础结构”的挑战并不是花费几十亿美元用于铁路、公路和能源，而是美国的教育制度――从幼儿园到博士的培养计划以及成人的教育。这需要的是比金钱更宝贵的东西――思考和冒险。

　　The challenge is not one of expansion. On the contrary, the rapid growth in enrollment over the last 40 years has come to an end. By 1978, more than 93 percent of young people entering the labor force had at least an eighth-grade education. So even if the birthrate should rise somewhat, little expansion is possible for elementary and secondary school enrollments.

　　这种挑战不是推广教育的挑战;相反的情况是过去40年里入学人数的快速增长已经结束。到1978年，进入劳动大军的93%以上的青年人都至少受过8年教育。所以，即使人口出生率有所上升，小学和中学的入学人数也只是小幅度的增长。

　　The last 30 years of social upheaval are also over. Busing will continue to be a highly emotional issue in a good many large cities. And there will still be efforts to use schools to bring women into fields such as engineering that have traditionally been considered "male." But this shift has already been accomplished in many fields: half or more of the accounting students in graduate schools of business, for example, are now women. As for most other social issues, the country will no longer try to use schools to bring about social reform. It's becoming increasingly clear to policy makers that schools cannot solve all the problems of the larger community.

　　过去30年的社会动荡已经结束。用校车接送学生在许多大城市里仍将是一个带有高度感情色彩的问题。人们还将继续努力通过学校教育让妇女进军一些传统上被认为是属于“男性”的领域，如工程领域。但这种转换在许多领域已经完成。例如，现在在商学院会计专业的学生中，半数或半数以上的是女生。至于大部分别的社会问题，国家不会再利用学校来带动社会变革。决策者们愈加清晰：学校不能解决事关较大社会范围的全部问题。

　　Instead, the battle cry for the '90s will be the demand for performance and accountability. For 30 years, employers have been hiring graduates for their degrees rather than their abilities; employment, pay and often even promotion have depended on one's diploma. Now many major employers are beginning to demand more than the completion of school. Some of the major banks, for example, are studying the possibility of entrance examinations that would test the knowledge and abilities of graduates applying for jobs.

　　相反，90年代的强烈呼声将是要求工作表现和能承担责任。30年来，雇主们雇佣毕业生时只考虑学位而不是他们的能力;就业、薪水、甚至是提升常取决于文凭。现在，许多大雇主已经开始不仅仅看重完成学业。例如，一些大银行正在研究进行求职考试的可行性以便测试毕业生的知识和能力。

　　Students and parents, too, will demand greater accountability from schools, on all levels. It will be increasingly common to go to law against school districts and colleges for awarding degrees without imparting the skills that are supposed to go along with them. And many young people are already switching to practical "hard" subjects. Caring little about the so-called "youth culture" and the media, they have been shifting from psychology into medicine, from sociology into accounting and from black studies into computer programming.

　　学生和家长也对各类学校提出了更高的要求。将学区和学院告到法庭，因为它们只授予学位而没有传授学位所要求的技能，这种情况将会越来越多。许多年轻人已经开始转向实用的“硬件”课程，他们很少关心所谓的“青年文化”和媒体报道，已经从心理学转向医学，从社会学转到会计学，从黑人研究转向计算机程序设计。

　　Demand for education is actually going up, not down. What is going down, and fairly fast, is demand for traditional education in traditional schools.

　　对于教育的需要事实上是在上升而不是在下降。正在下降而且下降得相当快的是对传统学校的传统教育的需求。

　　Indeed, the fastest growing industry in America today may be the continuing professional education of highly schooled adults. Much of it takes place outside the education establishment -- through companies, hospitals and government departments that run courses for managerial and professional employees; or through management associations and trade associations. In the meantime, any number of private enterprises are organizing courses, producing training films and tapes and otherwise taking advantage of growth opportunities that universities shy away from.

　　实际上，当今美国增长最快的产业可能是已上了不少学的成年人的继续职业教育。这种教育大多是在教育机构进行的，通过公司、医院和政府部门进行的，这些单位为其聘用的管理人员和专业人员开设课程，或者通过管理协会或行业协会进行。与此同时，许多私人企业安排课程，制作用于培训的电影和磁带，并以其他方式利用着各种增长的机会，而这些机会是大学避而不用的。

　　The demand for continuing education does not take the form that most observers, including this writer, originally expected -- namely, "Great Books" classes for adults wanting to learn about the humanities, the arts, the "life of the mind." We face instead a growing demand for advanced professional education: in engineering and medicine, in accounting and journalism, in law and in administration and management.

　　对继续教育的要求不是采取大多数观察者、包括本文作者原来预期的形式――即给想了解人文学科、艺术和心理的活动的成年人用“大部头书”上课。相反，我们面对的是对高级职业教育提出的日益增长的要求。如在工程和医疗、会计和新闻、法律和行政管理及经营方面。

　　Yet the adults who come back for such studies also demand what teachers of professional subjects are so rarely able to supply: a humanistic perspective that can integrate advanced professional and technical knowledge into a broader universe of experience and learning. Since these new students also need unconventional hours -- evenings, weekends or high-intensity courses that stuff a term's work into two weeks ?their demands for learning bring a vague but real threat to the school establishment.

　　然而，重返学校进行这类学习的成年人所要求的东西，却是专业课的老师几乎不能提供的：一种能把先进的专业技术知识汇集到经验和学识的更广阔的普遍体系中的人文主义的观点。由于这些学生需要利用业余时间学习，如晚上、周未或者说把一学期的内容浓缩成两周的高强度的课程――他们对知识的需求给学校体制带来不易察觉但却真实的威胁。

　　The greatest challenge to education is likely to come from our new opportunities for diversity. We now have the chance to apply the basic findings of psychological, developmental and educational research over the last 100 years: namely, that no one educational method fits all children.

　　教育的最大挑战很可能源于我们对多样性选择的新机遇之中。我们现在可以应用过去100年中心理、发展教育等方面研究的成果，但任何一种教育方法不可能适合所有的儿童。

　　Almost all children are capable of attaining the same standards within a reasonable period of time. All but a few babies, for instance, learn to walk by the age of two and to talk by the age of three, but no two get there quite the same way.

　　几乎所有的儿童都能够在一个合理的时间内达到同样的水平。例如，除了极个别婴儿外，所有的孩子两岁学会走路，三岁会说话，但决没有两个孩子会按照完全一样的步骤获得这两种技能。

　　So too at higher levels. Some children learn best by rote, in structured environments with high certainty and strict discipline. Others gain success in the less structured "permissive" atmosphere of a "progressive” school. Some adults learn out of books, some learn by doing, some learn best by listening. Some students need prescribed daily doses of information; others need challenge and a high degree of responsibility for the design of their own work. But for too long, teachers have insisted that there is one best way to teach and learn, even though they have disagreed about what that way is.

　　在更高一级的水平上也是如此。一些孩子最适宜在非常稳定、纪律严明和规程严谨的环境中，靠死记硬背学习;而另一些孩子则能够在“进步的”学校里那种规程不甚严格的“随意”气氛中取得成功。有些成年人学习依靠书本，另一些人则靠动手，还有一些人靠听。因此学生规定出每天获取的信息量;而另外一些学生需要挑战性的压力，需要给自己的学习规划提出高标准的要求。但是长久以来，教师们坚持认为有一种最好的学习方法，尽管他们对于这种方法仍然各持己见。

　　A century ago, the greatest majority of Americans lived in communities so small that only one one-room schoolhouse was within walking distance of small children. Then there had to be "one right method" for everybody to learn.

　　100年前，绝大多数美国人居住在狭小的社区中，这社区小到只有一间校舍，连很小的孩子都可以步行上学。那时，也只能有“一种正确的方法”来让学生学习。

　　Today the great majority of pupils in the United States (and all developed countries) live in big cities with such density that there can easily be three or four elementary schools -- as well as secondary schools within each child's walking or bicycling distance. This enables students and their parents to choose between alternative routes to learning offered by competing schools.

　　现在，在美国(和其他发达国家)大部分的小学生都生活在人口稠密的大城市中。在这些城市中，每个孩子步行或骑自行车的距离内，非常容易地也可以找到三四所小学或中学。几所学校相互竞争使得学生和家长们可以择校就学。

　　Indeed, competition and choice are already beginning to infiltrate the school system. Private schools and colleges have shown an unusual ability to survive and develop during a period of rising costs and dropping enrollments elsewhere. All this presents, of course, a true threat to the public school establishment. But economics, student needs and our new understanding of how people learn are bound to break the traditional education monopoly just as trucks and airplanes broke the monopoly of the railroads, and computers and "chips" are breaking the telephone monopoly.

　　的确，竞争和选择已经开始参透到学校体制中，在别的学校费用上涨、入学人数下降之时，私立学校和学院却呈现出非凡的生存和发展能力。这对公立教育体制构成了真正的威胁。但正如卡车和飞机打破了铁路的垄断，计算机和“芯片”打破了电话的垄断一样，经济条件、学生需要和我们对于学习过程的新的认识，肯定会打破传统教育的垄断。

　　In the next 10 or 15 years we will almost certainly see strong pressures to make schools responsible for thinking through what kind of learning methods are appropriate for each child. We will almost certainly see great pressure, from parents and students alike, for result-focused education and for accountability in meeting objectives set for individual students. The continuing professional education of highly educated adults will become a third tier in addition to undergraduate and professional or graduate work. Above all, attention will shift back to schools and education as the central capital investment and infrastructure of a “knowledge society.”

　　在今后的10～15年中，我们肯定会看到：强大的压力能迫使学校去思考并找出适用于每个孩子的学习方法。我们肯定也会看到来自学生和家长方面的压力：他们要求重结果型的教育，要求学校要为达到给每个学生制定的目标负起责任来。在本科教育、专职和研究生教育之后还要有高学历成人的继续专职教育，这是第三种教育。毕竟，注意力将转回学校和教育上，把它们看作“知识社会”的重要的基本投资和基础结构。

?2013年7月各省市自考成绩查询入口汇总

?各地10月自考时间

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