完整的教育——这些学校要培育完整的人
As I would like to keep in touch with all the schools in India, Brockwood Park in England, the Oak Grove School at Ojai, California, I propose to write and send a letter every fortnight to them all for as long as is possible. It is naturally difficult to keep in touch with them all personally, so, if I may, I would very much like to write these letters so as to convey what the schools should be, to convey to all the people who are responsible for them, that these schools are not only to be excellent academically but much more. They are to be concerned with the cultivation of the total human being. These centres of education must help the student and the educator to flower naturally. The flowering is really very important, otherwise the education becomes merely a mechanical process orientated to a career, to some kind of profession. Career and profession, as society now exists, is inevitable, but if we lay all our emphasis on that then the freedom to flower will gradually wither. We have laid far too much emphasis on examinations and getting good degrees. That is not the main purpose for which these schools were founded, which does not mean that academically the student will be inferior. On the contrary, with the flowering of the teacher as well as the student, career and profession will take their right place.
因为我想和印度的学校，英国的布洛克伍德公园学校，以及位于加利福尼亚欧亥的橡树林学校保持联系，我打算尽可能每两周写一封信给他们。要亲自和他们所有人保持联系当然会比较困难，所以如果可能的话，我非常希望通过这些信来传达，学校应该是什么样的，并且告诉所有那些对学校负有责任的人，这些学校不仅要在学业上非常出色，而且要比这多得多。他们要关心对整个人的培养。这些教育中心必须帮助学生和教师自然地绽放。绽放是很重要的，否则教育就会仅仅成为适应工作或某种职业的机械过程。作为目前的社会现实，工作和职业是必要的，但是如果我们过于强调这一点，那么自由之花就会逐渐枯萎。我们已经过于强调考试和成绩了，那不是建立这些学校的主要目的。这并不意味着学生的学业应该被削弱，恰恰相反，随着学生和教师的绽放，工作和职业将获得它们合适的位置。
Society, the culture in which we live, encourages and demands that the student must be orientated towards a job and physical security. This has been the constant pressure of all societies; career first and everything else secondary. That is, money first and the complex ways of our daily life second. We are trying to reverse this process because man cannot be happy with money only. When money becomes the dominant factor in life there is imbalance in our daily activity. So,if I may, I would like all the educators to understand this very seriously and see its full significance. If the educator understands the importance of this, and in his own life has given it its proper place, then he can help the student who is compelled by his parents and society to make a career the most important thing. So I would like with this first letter to emphasize this point and to maintain at all times in these schools a way of life that cultivates the total human being.
社会，以及我们所处的文化，要求学生必须努力获取一份工作，以得到物质上的保障。这一直是所有社会持续不变的压力：职业第一，其它一切退居其次。也就是说，金钱第一，我们复杂的日常生活退居其次。我们在试图扭转这种局面，因为人只靠金钱是无法幸福的。一旦金钱成为生活中的主导因素，我们的日常生活就会出现失衡。我希望教师们能够真切地感受到这一点，并看到它全部的意义。如果教师能够理解它的重要性，并在自己的生活中给予它适当的位置，那么他就能够帮助那些被家长和社会强迫，将职业作为头等大事的学生了。所以，我想强调这点——在这些学校里始终要坚持一种培养完整的人的生活方式。
As most of our education is the acquisition of knowledge, it is making us more and more mechanical; our minds are functioning along narrow grooves, whether it be scientific, philosophic, religious, business or technological knowledge that we are acquiring. Our ways of life, both at home and outside it, and our specializing in a particular career, are making our minds more and more narrow, limited and incomplete. All this leads to a mechanistic way of life, a mental standardization, and so gradually the State, even a democratic State, dictates what we should become. Most thoughtful people are naturally aware of this but unfortunately they seem to accept it and live with it. So this has become a danger to freedom.
我们的教育主要是为了获取知识，这正在让我们变得越来越机械。无论是在科学、哲学、宗教、商业方面，还是在我们正在获取的技术知识上，我们的心都在沿着狭窄的轨道运行。无论在家里还是在外面，或者从事某种专门化的职业，我们的生活方式都在让我们的心变得越来越狭隘、局限和不完整。所有这一切导致了一种机械的生活方式，一种心智的模式化，于是逐渐地，国家，甚至民主国家，也在规定我们应该成为什么。大多数善于思考的人当然会意识到这一点，但不幸的是，他们似乎都接受并且容忍了这一点。这已经成为对自由的一种威胁。
Freedom is a very complex issue and to understand the complexity of it the flowering of the mind is necessary. Each one will naturally give a different definition of the flowering of man depending on his culture, on his so-called education, experience, religious superstition - that is, on his conditioning. Here we are not dealing with opinion or prejudice, but rather with a non-verbal understanding of the implications and consequences of the flowering of the mind. This flowering is the total unfoldment and cultivation of our minds, our hearts and our physical well-being. That is, to live in complete harmony in which there is no opposition or contradiction between them. The flowering of the mind can take place only when there is clear perception, objective, non-personal, unburdened by any kind of imposition upon it. It is not what to think but how to think clearly. We have been for centuries, through propaganda and so on, encouraged in what to think. Most modern education is that and not the investigation of the whole movement of thought. The flowering implies freedom; like any plant it requires freedom to grow.
自由是一个非常复杂的问题，要了解如此复杂的东西，心灵的绽放是必要的。当然，每个人会依据他的文化、教育背景、经验、宗教迷信——即他受到的局限，来给“心灵绽放”下不同的定义。在这里我们不是要谈论看法或偏见，而是要在非语言层面去领悟“心灵绽放”的内涵和意义。这种绽放是我们的理智、情感和健全的身体的全面发展和培养，也就是活在完全和谐中，没有对立或矛盾。只有在我们的感知是清晰的、客观的、非个人化的，没有被强加任何的负担时，心灵的绽放才会发生。这不是“思考什么”的问题，而是如何清晰地思考的问题。许多世纪以来，我们总是被宣传之类的东西鼓动着去“思考什么”。大多数的现代教育都是如此，而不是对整个思想活动的探究。绽放意味着自由，植物的生长需要自由。
We will deal with this in every letter in different ways during the coming year: with the awakening of the heart, which is not sentimental, romantic or imaginary, but of goodness which is born out of affection and love; and with the cultivation of the body, the right kind of food, proper exercise, which will bring about deep sensitivity. When these three are in complete harmony - that is, the mind, the heart and the body, then the flowering comes naturally, easily and in excellence. This is our job as educators, our responsibility, and teaching is the greatest profession in life.
我们将会在每一封信中论述这些主题，包括“心灵的觉醒”，它不是多愁善感的、浪漫的或想象的，而是出于友爱与善意；包括身体的培养，合理的膳食，适度的运动，这将会带来深深的敏感性。当理智、情感和身体三者处于完全的和谐时，心灵的绽放就会自然地、不费力地、完美地到来。作为教师，这是我们的工作和责任，而教育是人世间最伟大的职业。
绿草园翻译工作室 |
发表于 2010-8-4 20:55
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