gap是什么意思Unit 7 Letter to a B Student课文翻译综合教程二

Unit 7 Letter to a B Student

Your

final

grade

for

the

course

is

B.

A

respectable

grade.

Far

superior

to

the

A's were rare: only two out of twenty-five, as I recall. Whatever our norm is, it has shifted

upward,

with

the

result

that

you

are

probably

disappointed

at

not

doing

better.

I'm

certain that nothing I can say will remove that feeling of disappointment, particularly in a

climate where grades determine eligibility for graduate school and special programs.

Disappointment. It's the stuff bad dreams are made of: dreams of failure, inadequacy,

loss of position and good repute. The essence of success is that there's never enough of it

to go round in a zero-sum game where one person's winning must be offset by another's

losing, one person's joy offset by another's disappointment. You've grown up in a society

where winning is not the most important thing

—

it's the only thing. To lose, to fail, to go

under,

to go broke

—

these

are deadly

sins

in

a world where

prosperity

in

the

present is

seen as a sure sign of salvation in the future. In a different society, your disappointment

might be something you could shrug away. But not in ours.

My

purpose

in

writing

you

is

to

put

your

disappointment

in

perspective

by

considering exactly what your grade means and doesn't mean. I do not propose to argue

here that grades are unimportant. Rather, I hope to show you that your grade, taken at

face value, is apt to be dangerously misleading, both to you and to others.

As

a

symbol

on

your

college

transcript,

your

grade

simply

means

that

you

have

successfully completed a specific course of study, doing so at a certain level of proficiency.

The

level

of

your

proficiency

has

been

determined

by

your

performance

of

rather

conventional

tasks:

taking

tests,

writing

papers

and

reports,

and

so

forth.

Your

performance is generally assumed to correspond to the knowledge you have acquired and

will

retain.

But

this

assumption,

as

we

both

know,

is

questionable;

it

may

well

be

that

you've

actually

gotten

much

more

out

of

the

course

than

your

grade

indicates

—

or

less.

Lacking

more

precise

measurement

tools,

we

must

interpret

your

B

as

a

rather

fuzzy

symbol at best, representing a questionable judgment of your mastery of the subject.

Your grade does not represent a judgment of your basic ability or of your character.

Courage, kindness, wisdom, good humor

—

these are the important characteristics of our

species.

Unfortunately

they

are

not

part

of

our

curriculum.

But

they

are

important:

crucially so, because they are always in short supply. If you value these characteristics in

yourself, you will be valued

—

and far more so than those whose identities are measured

only by little marks on a piece of paper. Your B is a price tag on a garment that is quite

separate from the living, breathing human being underneath.

The

student

as

performer;

the

student

as

human

being.

The

distinction

is

one

we

should always keep in mind. I first learned it years ago when I got out of the service and

went back to college. There were a lot of us then: older than the norm, in a hurry to get

our

degrees

and

move

on,

impatient

with

the

tests

and

rituals

of

academic

life. Not

an

easy group to handle.

One

instructor

handled

us

very

wisely,

it

seems

to

me.

On

Sunday

evenings

in

particular, he would make a point of stopping in at a local bar frequented by many of the

GI-Bill

students.

There

he

would

sit

and

drink,

joke,

and

swap

stories

with

men

in

his

class, men who had but recently put away their uniforms and identities: former platoon

sergeants, bomber pilots, corporals, captains, lieutenants, commanders, majors

—

even a

lieutenant colonel, as I recall. They enjoyed his company greatly, as he theirs. The next

morning he would walk into class and give these same men a test. A hard test. A test on

which he usually flunked about half of them.

Oddly enough, the men whom he flunked did not resent it. Nor did they resent him

for

shifting

suddenly

from

a

friendly

gear

to

a

coercive

one.

Rather,

they

loved

him,

worked harder and harder at his course as the semester moved along, and ended up with

a

good

grasp

of

his

subject

—

The

technique

is

still

rather

difficult

for

me

to

explain;

but

I

believe

it

can

be

described

as

one

in

which

a

clear

distinction

was

made

between

the

student

as

classroom

performer

and

the

student

as

human

being.

A

good

distinction

to

make.

A

distinction

that

should

put

your

B

in

perspective

—

and

your

disappointment.

Perspective.

It

is

important

to

recognize

that

human

beings,

despite

differences

in

class and educational labeling, are fundamentally hewn from the same material and knit

together by common bonds of fear and joy, suffering and achievement. Warfare, sickness,

disasters, public and private

—

these are the larger coordinates of life. To recognize them is

to recognize that social labels are basically irrelevant and misleading. It is true that these

labels are necessary in the functioning of a complex society as a way of letting us know

who should be trusted to do what, with the result that we need to make distinctions on

the basis of grades, degrees, rank, and responsibility. But these distinctions should never

be taken seriously in human terms, either in the way we look at others or in the way we

look at ourselves.

Even

in

achievement

terms,

your

B

label

does

not

mean

that

you

are

permanently

defined as a B achievement person. I'm well aware that B students tend to get B's in the

courses

they

take

later

on,

just

as

A

students

tend

to

get

A's.

But

academic

work

is

a

narrow,

neatly

defined

highway

compared

to

the

unmapped

rolling

country

you

will