失当的美国精英教育被遗忘的荒地

2014-09-24 17:41:04来源：可可英语

　　The way to select students into the elite colleges is not through any mysterious peering intoapplicants’ souls, Pinker continues. Students should be selected on the basis of standardizedtest scores:the S.A.T.’s. If colleges admitted kids with the highest scores and companies hiredapplicants with the highest scores, Pinker writes, “many of the perversities of the currentsystem would vanish overnight.”

　　选拔学生进入精英学府的过程，并不是对申请者的灵魂的神秘审视，平克接着说。对学生的选拔应该基于标准化考试的分数，也就是SAT的成绩。如果大学录取了分数最高的孩子，企业录用了分数最高的应聘者，平克写道，“当前制度的许多反常之处就会迅速消失。”

　　What we have before us then, is three distinct purposes for a university: the commercialpurpose (starting a career), Pinker’s cognitive purpose (acquiring information and learninghow to think) and Deresiewicz’s moral purpose (building an integrated self).

　　因此，我们面对的是大学教育的三个不同目的：商业目的(为职业发展做准备)、平克所说的认知目的(获得信息并学会思考)，以及德雷谢维奇的道德目的(塑造完整的自我)。

　　Over a century ago, most university administrators and faculty members would have said themoral purpose is the most important. As Mary Woolley, the president of Mount Holyoke, put it, “Character is the main object of education.” The most prominent Harvard psychologyprofessor then, William James, wrote essays on the structure of the morally significant life.Such a life, he wrote, is organized around a self-imposed, heroic ideal and is pursued throughendurance, courage, fidelity and struggle.

　　一个多世纪前，多数大学管理者和教职员工会说，道德目的最重要。正如曼荷莲学院(Mount HolyokeCollege)院长玛丽·伍利(Mary Woolley)所说，“教育的主要对象是品格。”当时非常著名的哈佛大学心理学教授威廉·詹姆斯(William James)在多篇文章中谈论了在道德方面有所建树的人生的构成。他写道，这样的一生，是围绕着一个自愿承担的崇高理想建立起来的，是通过耐力、勇气、忠诚和奋斗实现的。

　　Today, people at these elite institutions have the same moral aspirations. Everybody knows themeritocratic system has lost its mind. Everybody — administrators, admissions officers, facultyand students — knows that the pressures of the résumé race are out of control.

　　如今，精英学院的人们有同样的道德追求。所有人都知道精英管理的系统已经失去了理智。所有人——管理者、招生负责人、教职员工和学生们——都知道，履历竞赛的压力已经失控。

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