【正文】
課給某些學生袖手旁觀,而讓老師唱主角的機會,這也給一些教授提供了炫耀其才學的不可抗拒的舞臺。如果課堂上人人參與,學生就無法躲藏,教授也不太會被吸引去進行學識上的自我表現(xiàn)。Smaller classes in which students are required to involve themselves in discussion put an end to students’ passivity. Students bee actively involved when forced to question their own ideas as well as their instructor’s. their listening skills improve dramatically in the excitement of intellectual giveandtake with their instructors and yellow students. Such interchanges help professors do their job better because they allow them to discover who knows what—before final exams, not after. When exams are given in this type of course, they can require analysis and synthesis from the students, not empty memorization. Classes like this require energy, imagination, and mitment from professors, all of which can be exhausting. But they pel students to share responsibility for their own intellectual growth.如果班級較小又要求學生參加討論,這就會消除學生的被動性。學生被迫對他們自己和老師的思想表示懷疑時,他們就變得主動參與了。他們聽的技巧在與老師和同學的學術交流所帶來的刺激中大大得到提高。這種交替互動能夠幫助教師做得更好,因為他們會發(fā)現(xiàn)誰知道什么在期末考試前,而不是之后。這種形式的課程考試要求學生分析和綜合,而不是空洞的記憶。這樣的課程需要教授們的活力、想象力和投入,所有這些都會令人精疲力竭的。但是,這也使得學生為他們自己 的學術成長分擔責任。Lectures will never entirely disappear from the university scene both because they seem to be economically necessary and because they spring from a long tradition in a setting that values tradition for its own sake. But the lectures too frequently e at the wrong end of the students’ educational careers—during the first two years, when they most need close, even individual, instruction. If lecture classes were restrictod to juniors and seniors, who are less in need of scholarly nurturing and more able to prepare work on their own, they would be far less destructive of students’ interests and enthusiasms than the present system. After all, students much learn to listen before they can listen to learn.講課這一方式不會完全從大學消失。一是因為講課似乎從經(jīng)濟角度考慮是必需的,二是講課起源于悠久的傳統(tǒng),而且人們又把傳統(tǒng)本身看得很重。但是,講課通常出現(xiàn)在學生接受教育生涯的錯誤的那一端在大學的第一和第二年。那時他們最需要密切是甚至是針對個體的輔導。如果講課這一形式局限于三、四年級的學生,則對學生的興趣和熱情的破壞力會比目前的制度小得多,因為三、四年級的學生不太需要學科上的指導與幫助,而且更有能力自己制定學習計劃。畢竟,學生在能夠從聽講課中學到知識之前必須先學會去聽。