全新版大学英语综合教程-1-Unit8-课文正文电子书及翻译

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Benjamin Stein weaves a tale to bring home to young Americans the need to change the way they think about education. Read it and see whether you think it holds any lessons for us as well.

本杰明·斯坦编了一个故事，以使美国青年彻底认识他们必须改变对教育的态度。读一读这个故事，看看你是否认为它对我们大家同样也有教育意义。

Fable of the Lazy Teenager

Benjamin Stein

1 One day last fall, I ran out of file folders and went to the drugstore to buy more. I put a handful of folders on the counter and asked a teenage salesgirl how much they cost. \don't know,\ 关于懒散少年的寓言故事

本杰明·斯坦

去年一个秋日，我文件夹用完了，便去杂货店买。我拿了一大把文件夹搁在柜台上，问一个十几岁的售货员多少钱。“不知道，”她回答说，“反正单价12美分。”

2 I counted the folders. \ 我数了数文件夹。“二十三个，单价12美分，总共2.76美金，不含税，”我说。

3 \ “你心算的？”她惊奇地问道，“你怎么会算出来的？”

4 \ “靠魔力，” 我说。

5 \ “真的？” 她问。

6 No modestly educated adult can fail to be upset by such an experience. While our children seem better-natured than ever, they are so ignorant ─ and so ignorant of their ignorance ─ that they frighten me. In a class of 60 seniors at a private college where I recently taught, not one student could write a short paper without misspellings. Not one. 略受教育的成年人没有谁不会为这样的经历难过。虽然我们的孩子似乎比以往任何时候都要温厚和气，他们却如此无知 —— 对自己的无知状况也如此无知 —— 以至使我感到可怕。在我最近任教的一所私立大学，一个六十人的四年级班上，没有一个学生写短文时不犯拼写错误。没有一个学生例外。

7 But this is just a tiny slice of the problem. The ability to perform even the simplest calculations is only a memory among many students I see, and their knowledge of world history or geography is nonexistent.

但这只是问题的一小部分。在我所见过的许多学生中，再也没有过去学生都有的哪怕