如今大學教授還有什麼意義

IN the coming weeks, two million Americans will earn a bachelor’s degree and either join the work force or head to graduate school. They will be joyous that day, and they will remember fondly the schools they attended. But as this unique chapter of life closes and they reflect on campus events, one primary part of higher education will fall low on the ladder of meaningful contacts: the professors.

在未來幾周裏，二百萬美國人將獲得學士學位，之後，他們要麼參加工作，要麼去讀研究生。畢業日將是他們快樂的一天，他們也會思念他們讀過的學校。但是，隨着人生這一獨特篇章的結束，畢業生開始反思校園生活，高等教育的一個主要部分將在有意義的校園接觸排名中名落孫山，那就是教授。

That’s what students say. Oh, they’re quite content with their teachers; after all, Most students receive sure approval. In 1960, only 15 percent of grades were in the “A” range, but now the rate is 43 percent, making “A” the most common grade by far.

那是學生們的說法。噢，他們對自己的教授很滿意；畢竟，大多數學生都得到了肯定的認可。1960年，只有15％的成績屬於“A”的範圍，而現在的比例是43％，使“A”成爲遠高於其他分數的最常見成績。

Faculty members’ attitudes are kindly, too. In one national survey, 61 percent of students said that professors frequently treated them “like a colleague/peer,” while only 8 percent heard frequent “negative feedback about their academic work.” More than half leave the graduation ceremony believing that they are “well prepared” in speaking, writing, critical thinking and decision-making.

教授們的態度也很親切。在一項全國調查中，有61％的學生人說教授經常把他們“像同事/同行”那樣對待，只有8％的學生經常得到對“他們學習的負面反饋”。有超過半數的學生在畢業典禮結束時認爲他們在公開發言、寫作、批判性思維和做決策上受到“充分的培養”。

But while they’re content with teachers, students aren’t much interested in them as thinkers and mentors. They enroll in courses and complete assignments, but further engagement is minimal.

不過，雖然對教授們頗爲滿意，但學生們對教授作爲思考者和導師的角色並不怎麼感興趣。他們選教授的課，完成作業，但進一步的接觸極少。

One measure of interest in what professors believe, what wisdom they possess apart from the content of the course, is interaction outside of class. It’s often during incidental conversations held after the bell rings and away from the demands of the syllabus that the transfer of insight begins and a student’s emulation grows. Students email teachers all the time — why walk across campus when you can fire a note from your room? — but those queries are too curt for genuine mentoring. We need face time.

對教授有什麼信仰、他們除了授課外還擁有什麼智慧感興趣的標誌之一，是課堂外的互動。通常是在下課鈴聲響了之後，與教學大綱的要求無關的地方，洞察力的傳授纔開始，學生的效仿才形成。雖然學生動不動就給教授發電子郵件——當你能從宿舍房間裏輕而易舉地發個短信時，幹嗎要從校園的一頭走到另一頭呢？——但這種詢問從真正指導的角度來看太簡短了。我們需要面對面的時間。

Here, though, are the meager numbers. For a majority of undergraduates, beyond the two and a half hours per week in class, contact ranges from negligible to nonexistent. In their first year, 33 percent of students report that they never talk with professors outside of class, while 42 percent do so only sometimes. Seniors lower that disengagement rate only a bit, with 25 percent never talking to professors, and 40 percent sometimes.

但是，正是這方面的數字很糟糕。對於大多數本科生來說，除了每週兩個半小時的課堂時間，與教授接觸的時間從可忽略不計到不存在。在大學的第一年，有33％學生報告說，他們從未在課堂之外與教授說過話，有42％的學生只是偶爾這樣做。大四的學生中與教授完全沒有接觸的比率略低一點，有25％的學生從來沒和教授說過話，40％的學生有時和教授說話。

It hasn’t always been this way. “I revered many of my teachers,” Todd Gitlin said when we met at the New York Public Library last month. He’s a respected professor of journalism and sociology at Columbia, but in the 1960s he was a fiery working-class kid at Harvard before becoming president of Students for a Democratic Society.

並不是從來都這樣。當我們上個月在紐約公共圖書館見面時，託德·吉特林(Todd Gitlin)說，“我尊敬我的許多老師。”吉特林是哥倫比亞大學新聞系和社會學系的一位受人尊敬的教授，但在20世紀60年代，他是哈佛的一名來自工薪階層的激進學生，後來當了學生組織“學生民主社會”(Students for a Democratic Society)的會長。

I asked if student unrest back then included disregard of the faculty. Not at all, he said. Nobody targeted professors. Militants attacked the administration for betraying what the best professors embodied, the free inquisitive space of the Ivory Tower.

我問他，當時的學潮是否包括對教授的蔑視。他說，一點都沒有。沒有人有針對教授。激進學生攻擊了行政部門，因爲管理者背叛了教授所代表的最好東西，那就是象牙塔裏的自由探索空間。

I saw the same thing in my time at the University of California, Los Angeles, in the early 1980s, when you couldn’t walk down the row of faculty offices without stepping over the outstretched legs of English majors lining up for consultations. First-year classes could be as large as 400, but by junior year you settled into a field and got to know a few professors well enough to chat with them regularly, and at length. We knew, and they knew, that these moments were the heart of liberal education.

我在加州大學洛杉磯分校(University of California, Los Angeles)就讀時也看到了同樣的情況，那是在20世紀80年代初，那時候，當你從成排的教授辦公室門前走過時，會不得不從在門外排隊等待與教授進行磋商的英語專業學生伸出的腿中間邁過。大一的課可能大到有400個學生，但到了大三，你已選好了專業，足夠好地認識了幾個教授，能經常與他們聊天，而且是長聊。我們知道，他們也知道，這樣的時刻纔是人文教育的核心所在。

In our hunger for guidance, we were ordinary. The American Freshman Survey, which has followed students since 1966, proves the point. One prompt in the questionnaire asks entering freshmen about “objectives considered to be essential or very important.” In 1967, 86 percent of respondents checked “developing a meaningful philosophy of life,” more than double the number who said “being very well off financially.”

在對指導的渴望方面，我們都是普通人。從1966年開始追蹤學生情況的美國大學新生調查(American Freshman Survey)證明了這一點。問卷中的一個問題，問剛入學的大一學生“認爲至關重要或非常重要的目標是什麼”。在1967年，86%的受訪者選擇了“形成有意義的人生觀”，是選“在經濟上非常富足”的人的兩倍多。

Naturally, students looked to professors for moral and worldly understanding. Since then, though, finding meaning and making money have traded places. The first has plummeted to 45 percent; the second has soared to 82 percent.

自然，學生指望從教授那裏得到道德和世俗方面的感悟。但從那時候起，尋找意義和賺錢就互換了位置。選第一個的比例跌至45%，而選第二個的比例飆升至82%。

I returned to U.C.L.A. on a mild afternoon in February and found the hallways quiet and dim. Dozens of 20-year-olds strolled and chattered on the quad outside, but in the English department, only one in eight doors was open, and barely a half dozen of the department’s 1,400 majors waited for a chance to speak.

2月一個暖和的下午，我回到加州大學洛杉磯分校，發現走廊裏非常安靜，一片昏暗。幾十名20歲的年輕人在外面的四方院裏散步聊天，但在英語系，只有八分之一的門開着，並且在該系1400名學生中，等着有機會和教授交談的還不到五六個人。

When college is more about career than ideas, when paycheck matters more than wisdom, the role of professors changes. We may be 50-year-olds at the front of the room with decades of reading, writing, travel, archives or labs under our belts, with 80 courses taught, but students don’t lie in bed mulling over what we said. They have no urge to become disciples.

當學校更多的是關乎職業而非理念，當薪水比智慧更重要時，教授的角色變了。在教室前面的我們可能50歲了，有幾十年的閱讀、寫作、旅行和在檔案館或實驗室研究的經歷，教過80門課程，但學生不會躺在牀上琢磨我們說的東西。他們沒有成爲信徒的慾望。

Sadly, professors pressed for research time don’t want them, either. As a result, most undergraduates never know that stage of development when a learned mind enthralled them and they progressed toward a fuller identity through admiration of and struggle with a role model.

悲哀的是，缺乏研究時間的教授也不想讓他們成爲信徒。結果，大部分本科生永遠都不知道有這樣一個發展階段：博學者令他們着迷，他們會通過對某個榜樣的仰慕及與那個榜樣的鬥爭，形成更完整的人格。

Since the early 2000s, I have made students visit my office every other week with a rough draft of an essay. We appraise and revise the prose, sentence by sentence. I ask for a clearer idea or a better verb; I circle a misplaced modifier and wait as they make the fix.

從本世紀初開始，我就讓學生每隔一週帶上文章初稿來我的辦公室一趟。我們會逐句逐句地評價和修改文章。我要求他們有更清晰的想法，或是想到一個更好的動詞。我會圈出用錯的修飾語，等他們自己修改。

As I wait, I sympathize: So many things distract them — the gym, text messages, rush week — and often campus culture treats them as customers, not pupils. Student evaluations and paint us as service providers. Years ago at Emory University, where I work, a campus-life dean addressed new students with a terrible message: Don’t go too far into coursework — there’s so much more to do here! And yet, I find, my writing sessions help diminish those distractions, and by the third meeting students have a new attitude. This is a teacher who rejects my worst and esteems my best thoughts and words, they say to themselves.

等待時，我心生同情：讓他們分心的事情太多了——健身、短信、社團活動——而且校園文化通常把他們當做消費者，而非學生。學生評估和給教授打分的網站把我們描繪成了服務供應商。多年前，在我任教的埃默裏大學(Emory University)，一位分管校園生活的院長在對新生講話時傳遞了一個糟糕的訊息：不要過多地糾纏於作業，在這裏有很多事情可以做！但我發現，我的寫作講習會有助於減少讓學生分心的事情。到第三次見面時，學生們就有了新的態度。他們對自己說，這個老師會駁回我最差的表現，尊重我最上乘的想法和文字。

You can’t become a moral authority if you rarely challenge students in class and engage them beyond it. If we professors do not do that, the course is not an induction of eager minds into an enlarging vision. It is a requirement to fulfill. Only our assistance with assignments matters. When it comes to students, we shall have only one authority: the grades we give. We become not a fearsome mind or a moral light, a role model or inspiration. We become accreditors.

如果很少在課堂上質疑學生，也很少在課外和他們接觸，就無法成爲道德上的權威。如果我們教授不這麼做，課程就不會引導充滿求知慾的學生拓展自己的視野。它會變成要去滿足的要求。屆時只有我們的作業指導會有意義。對於學生，我們只在一個方面堪稱權威：給出的成績。我們變得不再是令人生畏的智者，或道德標杆、榜樣、靈感啓發者。我們變成了認證提供者。