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悦读•教师节特稿｜我为什么当老师（双语）
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我为什么当老师 By Peter G. Beidler 文/皮特·G.贝德勒译/张白桦
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 puzzled 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.你为什么当老师？我告诉朋友我不想做行政人员，他大惑不解，问了我这个问题。所有美国人接受的教育都是长大后要追求金钱和权力，做行政人员显然是向这个目标“迈进了一步”，而我却不想。
Certainly I don’t teach because teaching is easy for me. Teaching is the most difficult of the various ways I have attempted to earn my living: mechanic, carpenter, writer. For me, teaching is a red-eye, sweaty-palm, 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 nervous 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.我当老师自然不是因为教书对我来说易如反掌。在我尝试过的几种谋生行当——当机械师、木匠和作家中，当老师是最难的。对我来说，当老师就意味着红红的眼睛、汗津津的手心和沉甸甸的心。红红的眼睛是因为不论我熬夜备课到几点，上课前还是会觉得准备得不够充分。汗津津的手心是因为我进教室前总是忐忑不安，觉得自己一定会现眼出丑。沉甸甸的心是因为一小时后我离开教室时就会觉得自己这次讲得比平时还要枯燥。
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 students actually take notes on what I say in class!我当老师也不是因为我善于答疑解惑，不是因为我知识渊博以至非得与人分享不可。有时候，看到学生上我的课记笔记，我还很吃惊呢！
Why, then, do I teach?那么，我为什么偏偏当老师呢？
I teach because I like the pace of the academic calendar. June, July, and August offer an opportunity for reflection, research and writing.我当老师是因为我喜欢学校的节奏。六月、七月和八月这三个假期提供了反思、研究和写作的机会。
I teach because teaching is a profession built on change. When the material is the same, I change — and, more important, my students change.我当老师是因为老师是一个构建在变化之上的职业。教科书还是原来的教科书，我却变了——更重要的是，我的学生也变了。
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, but we can all learn from failures.我当老师是因为我希望有犯错误的自由、吸取教训的自由、激励自己和学生的自由。作为一个教师，我的地盘我做主。假如我要新生通过自己编课本学习写作，谁又能管得着？这样的课程也许会彻底失败，不过我们都能从失败中习得知识。
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 teaching, I sometimes find good questions.我当老师是因为我喜欢向学生提问，那些问题需要他们绞尽脑汁才能答出来。这个世界到处都是蹩脚问题的正确答案。在教书的过程中，我有时会发现高明的问题。
I teach because I enjoy finding ways of getting myself and my students 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.我当老师是因为我可以找到让自己和学生们走出象牙塔、进入现实世界的途径。我曾经教过一门名叫“在技术社会自立”的课程。我的15个学生读爱默生、梭罗和赫胥黎的作品。他们坚持记日记。他们写学期论文。
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 semester, we sold the house, repaid our loan, paid our taxes, and distributed the profits among the group.此外，我们还创建了一个公司，贷款买了一幢破旧的房子，通过整修房子锻炼自立的能力。期末，我们把房子卖掉，还了贷款，纳了税，小组成员还分了红。
So teaching gives me pace, and variety, and challenge, and the opportunity to keep on learning.所以，当老师给我的生活带来了节奏、多样化和挑战，以及不断学习的机会。
I have left out, however, the most important reasons why I teach.哦，我漏掉了我当老师最重要的原因。
One is Vicky. My first doctoral student, Vicky was an energetic student who labored at her dissertation on a little-known 14th century poet. She wrote articles and sent them off to learned journals. She did it all herself, 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 a fellowship to Harvard working on a book developing ideas she’d first had as my student.一个原因是维姬。维姬是我带的第一个博士生，她精力充沛，殚精竭虑地撰写一篇长篇学术论文，详细分析一位寂寂无名的14世纪诗人。她撰写文章，往学术期刊投递。她独立完成这一切，我只是偶尔督促督促。可是，她完成论文的时候、得知投稿录用的时候、找到工作的时候、获得研究员职位到哈佛把她做我学生时所萌发的思想写进书里的时候，我都在场。
Another reason is George, who started as an engineering student, then switched to English because he decided he liked people better than things.另一个原因是乔治。他开始是学工程的，后来转到了英语专业，因为他觉得自己还是爱人胜过爱物。
There is Jeanne, who left college, but was brought back by her classmates because they wanted her to see the end of the self-reliance house project. 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.还有珍妮。珍妮一度辍学，可是她的同学把她拉了回来，就是希望她看到那个自力更生整修房屋计划的结果。她回来的时候，我在场。她后来对城市贫民问题产生了兴趣，继而当上了民权律师——这都是她亲口告诉我的。
There is Jacqui, a cleaning woman who knows more by intuition than most of us learn by analysis. Jacqui has decided to finish high school and go to college.还有雅基。雅基是一个保洁员，她凭直觉知道的东西比我们大多数人凭分析知道的还要多。雅基决定完成高中学业后进大学深造。
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.这些人就是我选择当老师的真正原因，我见证了他们的成长和变化。当老师就是亲临创造的现场，聆听泥土的第一声呼吸。
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?”不当老师可能得到的“晋升”会带给我金钱和权力。可我现在有钱。我挣钱做自己喜欢的事：读书，与人交谈，问诸如“致富的意义是什么？”之类的问题。
And I have power. I have the power to nudge, to fan sparks, to suggest books, to point out a pathway. What other power matters?我也有权力。我有权去启迪、去激发才智、去开列书目、去指点迷津。其他权力哪有这样的权力影响重大？
But teaching offers something 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 begins to breathe. Perhaps love is the wrong word: magic might be better.此外，当老师还会带来超越金钱和权力的东西——爱。不仅仅是对学习、书籍和思想的爱，还有当出类拔萃的学生走进老师生活开始呼吸成长的时候，老师所感受到的对学生的爱。也许用“爱”这个词并不合适，“魔力”可能更恰当。
I teach because, being around people who are beginning to breathe, I occasionally find myself catching my breath with them.我当老师是因为，在开始呼吸成长的人身边，我不时会发觉自己与他们同呼吸、共成长。
译者简介 张白桦，女，中国比较文学学会翻译研究会理事、上海翻译家协会会员、内蒙古工业大学副教授、硕士生导师，出版编著译1200万字。
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