Teaching is the most difficult of the various ways I have attempted to earn my living: mechanic, carpenter, writer. 我做过各种各样的工作，籍以谋生：机修工、木工、作家，教书是其中最难的一行。

For me, teaching is a red-eye, sweaty-palm, sinking-stomach profession. 对我来说，教书是个会令人熬红眼睛、手掌出汗、精神沮丧的职业。

Red-eye, because I never feel ready to teach no matter how late I stay up preparing. 说熬红眼睛，这是因为我晚上无论备课备到多晚，总觉得备得还不充分。

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. 说手掌出汗，这是因为我跨进教室之前总是非常紧张，自认为学生一定会发觉原来我是个傻瓜蛋。

Sinking-stomach, because I leave the classroom an hour later convinced that I was even more boring than usual. 说精神沮丧，这是因为我1小时后走出教室时，确信这堂课上得比平常还要平淡无味。

Nor do I teach because I think I know answers, or because I have knowledge I feel compelled to share. 我之所以教书，也不是因为我认为自己能够解答问题，或者因为我有满腹学问，觉得非与别人分享不可。

Sometimes I am amazed that my students actually take notes on what I say in class! 有时我感到很惊异，学生竟真的把我课上讲的东西做了笔记!

Why, then, do I teach? 这样说来，我为什么还要教书呢?

I teach because I like the pace of the academic calendar. June, July, and August offer an opportunity for reflection, research and writing. 我教书，是因为我喜爱校历的步调。6月、7月和8月提供了一个供思考、研究和创作的机会。 I teach because teaching is a profession built on change. When the material is the same, I change —— and, more important, my students change. 我教书，是因为教学是建立在“变化”这一基础上的职业。教材还是原来的教材，但我自身却变化了--更重要的是，我的学生变化了。

I teach because I like the freedom to make my own mistakes, to learn my own lessons, to stimulate myself and my students. 我教书，是因为我喜欢有让自己犯错误的自由，有让自己吸取教训的自由，有激励自己和激励学生的自由。 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? 作为教师，我可以自行做主。如果我想要求一年级学生通过自行编写课本的办法来学习写作，谁能说我不可以那样做呢?

Such courses may be huge failures, but we can all learn from failures. 这样的课程也许会彻底失败，但我们都可以从失败的尝试中获得教益。

I teach because I like to ask questions that students must struggle to answer. 我教书，是因为我喜欢向学生提出必须绞尽脑汁才能回答的问题。

The world is full of right answers to bad questions. While teaching, I sometimes find good questions. 我们这个世界有无穷无尽的正确答案来对付拙劣的问题。何况我在教学过程中有时也会想到一些出色的问题。

I teach because I enjoy finding ways of getting myself and my students out of the ivory tower and into the real world. 我教

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书，是因为我喜欢想方设法使自己和我的学生从象牙塔里走出来，步入现实世界。

I once taught a course called \They kept diaries. They wrote term papers. 我曾经开过一门叫做“在工业技术社会里如何自力更生”的课程。我教的15位学生读了爱默生、梭洛和赫胥黎的作品，记了日记，还写了学期论文。

But we also set up a corporation, borrowed money, purchased a run-down house and practiced self-reliance by renovating it. 但除此而外，我们还办起一个公司，借钱买下一所破旧的房屋，通过对这一建筑物的整修翻新，我们就自力更生这一课题进行了一次实践活动。

At the end of the semester, we sold the house, repaid our loan, paid our taxes, and distributed the profits among the group. 在期末我们把房子卖掉，还清贷款，缴了税，余下的收益分给了参加实践的学生。

So teaching gives me pace, and variety, and challenge, and the opportunity to keep on learning. 所以说，教学使我的工作进程有了规律，使我的生活变得丰富多彩，教学向我提出了挑战，也给了我不断学习的机会。

I have left out, however, the most important reasons why I teach. 不过，我要教书的最重要的几个原因还没有讲到呢。 One is Vicky. My first doctoral student, Vicky was an energetic student who labored at her dissertation on a little-known 14th century poet. 其中一个原因与维基有关。维基是我的第一个博士生。她精力充沛，孜孜不倦地撰写她那篇论述14世纪一位不知名诗人的学位论文。

She wrote articles and sent them off to learned journals. She did it all herself, with an occasional nudge from me. 她写过一些文章，寄给了学术刊物。这一切都由她独立完成，我偶尔从旁略加指点。

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. 我亲眼看到了她完成论文，看到了她得悉自己的文章被采用，亲眼目睹她找到了工作并获得了在哈佛大学当研究员的职位，著书论述她在做我学生时萌发的思想。

Another reason is George, who started as an engineering student, then switched to English because he decided he liked people better than things. 另一个原因与乔治有关。他开始学的是工程学，后来他深信自己爱人胜过爱物，所以改学英语。

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. 还有珍妮。她中途辍学，但是她的同学把她拉了回来，因为他们想让她看到自力更生整修旧房子这一项目的结果。

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. 我亲眼看到她回来了。我亲耳听到她对我说，她后来对城市贫民产生了兴趣，继而成了捍卫公民权的律师。

There is Jacqui, a cleaning woman who knows more by intuition than most of us learn by analysis. 还要提一提清洁女工杰基。她凭直觉了解的事情比我们多数人通过分析弄清的东西还要多。

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Jacqui has decided to finish high school and go to college. 杰基已经决定读完中学，然后还要上大学。

These are the real reasons I teach, these people who grow and change in front of me. 这些在我眼前成长、变化的人，便是我要当教师的真正原因。

Being a teacher is being present at the creation, when the clay begins to breathe. 当一名教师意味着是创造的见证人，他目睹人体开始呼吸，开始了生命。

A \“升职了”，不再教书了，也许会给我带来金钱和权力。

I get paid to do what I enjoy: reading, talking with people, and asking question like, \可是我现在也有钱。我拿了薪金去做自己乐意做的事：读书、交谈、提问，比如问：“做个富翁有什么意思呢?” 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? 我现在还有权呢。我有权启迪，有权激发才智，有权开出书目，有权指点迷津。还有其他什么权力更值得考虑呢?

But teaching offers something besides money and power: it offers love. 但教书还会带来金钱和权力以外的东西：那便是爱。

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. 不仅是爱学习、爱书本、爱思想，而且还有老师对出类拔萃的学生的爱。这样的学生走进了老师的生活，老师自己也开始成长了。

Perhaps love is the wrong word: magic might be better. “爱”这个字也许用得不恰当：用“魔力”可能更为贴切。 I teach because, being around people who are beginning to breathe, I occasionally find myself catching my breath with them. 我教书，是因为在与开始成长的学生朝夕相处时，我有时感到自己也和他们一起开始成长了。

NEW WORDS administrative

a. of the management of affairs 行政的，管理的 administration

n. 管理（部门），行政（机关） puzzle

vt. fill with doubt and confusion 使迷惑 step (-) up

n. promotion; increase in size, speed, etc. mechanic

n. skilled workman, esp. one who uses or repairs machines and tools 机械工；机修工

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sweaty

a. covered with sweat, sweating palm a. 手掌 profession

n. occupation, esp. one requiring special training, such as law, medicine, or teaching convince

vt. make (sb.) feel certain; cause (sb.) to realize compel

vt. force (sb. or sth. to do sth.) pace

n. rate or speed of development, or in walking, etc. 速度；步速 calendar n. 日程表，日历 opportunity

n. favourable occasion or chance reflection

n. careful thinking; consideration 深思；考虑

reflect vi.反射；细想 stimulate

vt. encourage; excite 刺激；激励 freshman

n. student in his first year at a college or university failure

n. a person, attempt, or thing that fails; lack of success ivory n. 象牙 ivory tower

n. place or condition of retreat from the world of action into a world of ideas and dreams 象牙塔 self-reliance

n. ability to do things and make decisions by oneself 依靠自己；自力更生

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