Education Report - For Some Teens, a Busy Life Takes Fun Out of High School
教育报道 - 繁重学业使高中生丧失学习兴趣
This is the VOA Special English Education Report.
这里是美国之音慢速英语教育报道。
For years the University of California, Los Angeles, has done a national survey of first-year college students. Some of the questions in the Freshman Survey relate to emotional health and stress. Last year, twenty-nine percent said they often felt "overwhelmed" by all they had to do in their last year of high school. That was two percentage points higher than the year before.
数年来，美国加州大学洛杉矶分校进行了一项大一新生的全国性调查。这项新生调查中的一些问题涉及情绪健康和压力。去年，29%的受访者表示，他们经常在高中最后一年感觉自己“不堪重负。”这比前一年的调查高出了2个百分点。
There was a big difference between men and women. Almost forty percent of women reported feeling that level of stress, compared to just eighteen percent of men.
男生和女生在这项调查中存在很大区别。近40%的女生表示自己感觉不堪重负，而男生仅有18%。
Deborah Stipek is dean of the School of Education at Stanford University in California. She says a lot of students are under too much pressure from parents and schools.
德博拉·斯蒂佩克（Deborah Stipek）是加州斯坦福大学教育学院院长。她表示，很多学生承受了太多来自家长和学校的压力。
DEBORAH STIPEK: "They are not enjoying what can be the incredible satisfaction of learning and developing understandings and skills. Leaning can be an adventure. But instead of an adventure, it’s really about the test, it’s about the college application."
斯蒂佩克：“他们并没有享受到学习和发展技能过程中那种难以置信的满足感。学习本是一种探索，但他们的学习只和考试、大学申请有关。”
Professor Stipek recently wrote about this issue in the journal Science. She used the example of her own daughter in high school. Her daughter has taken advancement placement, or AP, courses in French to earn credit toward college. She told her mother she would be happy to never speak French again.
斯蒂佩克最近在《科学》杂志上写到了这个问题。她以正在读高中的女儿为例。她的女儿参加了法语预修课程以获得大学学分，她告诉母亲，如果再也不用学法语就太好了。
DEBORAH STIPEK: "I think that revealed the real basic problem, which is the AP courses that she was taking in French were not about learning French, not about being able to communicate with a different culture, or to travel, or to have a skill that could be useful in life. It was about getting a score on an AP test that would help her get into the college of her choice.”
斯蒂佩克：“我认为这揭示了这样一个最基本的问题，她参加法语预修课程并非为了学习法语，了解不同文化，出门旅游，或掌握一门有用技能，而只是为了获得高分进入心仪的大学。”
Professor Stipek says high schools should listen to their students.
斯蒂佩克表示，高中学校应该多倾听学生们的意见。
DEBORAH STIPEK: "One of the things that schools are doing that we’re working with is doing yearly surveys of students to find out what their sources of stress and anxiety [are], and get their ideas on what the school can do, what kinds of policies can be supportive of them. And this has been actually amazing, because we’ve gone into schools where they say 'This isn’t a problem.' And then they do a survey of the students, and they are just blown away by what they get back from the students when the students are actually asked."
斯蒂佩克：“我们和这些高中学校共同进行的工作之一，就是对学生进行年度调查，找出他们压力和焦虑的来源，并在学校应该怎么做，什么样的政策能够帮助他们这些方面获得学生们的想法。这真的是非常惊人的，因为我们遇到过有的学校表示，‘这完全不是问题。’然后他们对学生进行调查，并被从学生中得到的调查结果所征服。”
In two thousand nine, a documentary film looked at the pressure on many students to succeed in school and in lives busy with activities and homework. The film is called "Race to Nowhere."
2009年，一部纪录片关注了许多想要在学生和生活中取得成功的学生们忙于各类活动和家庭作业所承受的压力。这部影片名为《无目标的竞赛》(Race to Nowhere)。
STUDENTS: "If you were dedicating your whole life to your grades, you have to be smart. And you have to be involved in the arts. I have soccer practice every day. Plus the homework on top of that. Produce, produce, produce. It's impossible. I couldn't cope."
学生们：“如果你把毕生精力都投入到成绩上，你必须很聪明，你必须要接触艺术。我每天都要练习踢球，此外还有大量作业要做。一直学习是不可能的，我无法承受。”
Deborak Stipek says the film shows that many students today are not experiencing the joys of learning.
斯蒂佩克表示，这部影片反映出，今天很多学生都无法感受到学习的乐趣。
DEBORAK STIPEK: "I was interviewed in it, as many others were, and I think the most compelling interviews were of the students. These are students who felt under enormous pressure to perform, and I want to underscore the word 'perform,' as opposed to 'learn.'"
斯蒂佩克：“我就此接受了采访，和其他许多人一样，我认为对学生们的采访最有说服力。学生们受到巨大压力要求他们表现很好，我想强调是'表现很好'，而不是'学得很好'。”
She says the hardest lesson for society may be that young people will grow up lacking interest in learning.
她表示，对社会最大的教训可能是，年轻人长大后将会缺乏学习兴趣。
And that’s the VOA Special English Education Report. Tell us about life for students where you are. We invite your comments at voaspecialenglish.com or on Facebook and Twitter at VOA Learning English. I’m Christopher Cruise.
___
Contributing: Rosanne Skirble
|