自考综合英语二课文

全国高等教育自学考试指定教材 综合英语二(上下) 主编 徐克荣 外语教学与研究出版社

Lesson One

Twelve Things l Wish They Taught at School

Carl Sagan

俗话说：“活到老，学到老。”人的一生就是不断学习、不断丰富和充实自己的过程。青少年阶段，尤其是中学阶段，无疑是学习的最佳时期。中学教育的重点应放在什么地方？美国著名科学家和科普作家萨根批评中学只抓各个学科具体内容的做法，他认为中学要注重对青少年的宏观教育，使他们建立起唯物的世界观和宇宙观，使他们能够正确对待自己，关心周围的世界——人类生存的环境和自己的地球同胞。

1 I attended junior and senior high school, public institutions in New York and New Jersey, just after the Second World War. It seems a long time ago. The facilities and the skills of the teachers were probably well above average for the United States at that time. Since then, I've learned a great deal. One of the most important things I've learned is how much there is to learn, and how much I don't yet know. Sometimes I think how grateful I would be today if I had learned more back then about what really matters. In some respects that education was terribly narrow; the only thing I ever heard in school about Napoleon was that the United States made the Louisiana Purchase from him. (On a planet where some 95% of the inhabitants are not Americans, the only history that was thought worth teaching was American history. ) In spelling, grammar, the fundamentals of math, and other vital subjects, my teachers did a pretty good job. But there's so much else I wish they'd taught us.

2 Perhaps all the deficiencies have since been rectified. It seems to me there are many things (often more a matter of attitude and perception than the simple memorization of facts) that the schools should teach — things that truly would be useful in later life, useful in making a stronger country and a better world, but useful also in making people happier. Human beings enjoy learning. That's one of the few things that we do better than the other species on our planet. Every student should regularly experience the "Aha!" — when something you never understood, or something you never knew was a mystery, becomes clear.

3 So here's my list:

Pick a difficult thing and learn it well.

4