"College: What It Was, Is, and Should Be

書評

教師力量的全部秘密

MICHAEL S. ROTH 2012年09月10日

安德魯·德爾班科(Andrew Delbanco)一定是一位偉大的老師。他長期任教於哥倫比亞大學，致力於把他的學生培養成獨立的人，他認識到他們的在校時間應該有助於他們的成長： “徹底的自私可能會阻礙他們擴展同情心，影響他們負起公民的責任。”他跟大多數獻身於教學的教授一樣，興趣不在於告訴本科生該思考什麼，但他確實希望他們 擁有對現狀的懷疑精神和對自然界的好奇心。他告訴我們，大學時光真正該學習的是：“把看上去風馬牛不相及的現象聯繫起來”、從他人的角度看待事物、培養道 德責任感。現如今很多人想要縮減學院歲月，將其改造成順應經濟競爭的培訓期。而在此時，德爾班科提醒讀者，不要忘記民主教育的理想。

在《大學：過去，現在，以及應當怎樣》("College: What It Was, Is, and Should Be")一書中，他追溯了這一理想在英國和美國新教中的根源。在美國，教育從來不只是傳播信息。它一直包含着性格養成——使靈魂離開對自我的關注，轉向群 體。德爾班科引用了愛默生(Emerson)關於這種轉向的敘述：“教師力量的全部秘密在於，相信人是可以改變的。人確實如此。他們希望覺醒。”哪怕是世 俗的老師也在努力“把靈魂喚醒，從她慣常的沉睡中喚醒。”
德爾班科在書中寫道，到19世紀末，對性格培養、持久的“好奇與謙卑”的信奉跟對職業化的信奉產生了尖銳的衝突。大學正在變成綜合性的，這意味着它們將偏向科研。群體讓位給了專家，過去學校只致力於本科生教學，現在要通過發展研究生和專業學校來贏得聲譽。
想獲得大學學位的學生越來越多，人們期望大學能夠提供的專業也增加了，“共同的學習經歷”的夢想褪色了，更受歡迎的是大量可供選擇的課程。現代大學 就是要通過專業化來生產知識，大學獎勵教師的辦法通常是“減輕”他們的教學任務。我們最好的大學擅長把資源分給最多產的研究者，本科生的課程只得到一堆漂 亮話。“只有非常少的學院告訴它們的學生該思考什麼，”德爾班科指出：“大部分學院甚至不願意告訴學生什麼值得思考。”

奇怪的是，在精英大學忽視他們的核心任務的同時，進入大學的競爭卻變得非常瘋狂。學習和性格養成的慾望好像已經激勵不了大學的申請者（或他們的父 母）了，但進入排名最高的大學的慾望卻能夠鼓動他們。挑剔的大學能賦予學生更高的地位，它們的畢業證書被認為會帶來更高的收入。有錢人更有機會顯得符合錄 取條件；有錢人的高中知道如何把簡歷打扮得更漂亮，以及如何提高SAT（學術能力評估測試）分數。在很多大學，所謂的擇優錄取日益成為複製經濟不平等的借 口。德爾班科寫道，階級差異越來越大；有錢人和窮人的“相互了解越來越少”。
這就難怪右翼政客們正在利用人們對高等教育的不滿，雖然他們自己的經濟政策會加深收入的不平等。大學向它們的學生灌輸優越感，變成了強化階層差異的同謀：你能入學是因為你配得上，一旦我們肯定了你的天才，你就有權得到你將來能夠積累的財富。

德爾班科考察了這個可悲的領域，但他知道這還不是全部真相。在過去40年間，許多非常挑剔的大學都強調要培養各種各樣的本科學生，因為它們相信這會給學生帶來更深入的教育經歷。通識教育(Liberal arts education)放棄培養同質的學生，轉而創造這樣的校園：在其中人們能夠從他們的差異中學到東西，同時發現新的交往方式。這跟政治正確或身份政治無 關。它是要讓學生準備好做一個終身學習者，以便畢業後能夠在一個混雜的世界中暢行並有所貢獻。

挑剔的學院和大學應該是培養學生的校園社區，將本科生走出自己的舒適地帶、從最出乎意料的源頭學習的能力達到最大化。為了達成這個目的，同時為了兌 現關於理想的承諾，我們必須維持強勁的資金援助，結束學費的飛漲。欲使大學變得更加上得起、更負責任，我們必須把錢用於學生的學習而不是購買威信。

德爾班科強調，“學院理念的核心洞見之一”是“幫助別人就是幫助自己，使自己獲得使命感，從而克服所有人——無論年輕還是年老——都會有的孤獨和無 所事事心理。”他像約翰·杜威(John Dewey)那樣，知道教育是“一種社會生活方式”，我們通過與他人的合作來學習。他像威廉·詹姆士(William James)那樣，珍視那些“侵略性的學習經歷”，正是這種經歷讓我們得以暢享“生命的果實”。德爾班科寫道，美國學院太重要了，“不能允許它們放棄理 想”。他追溯了這些理想的歷史，凸顯了其價值。跟偉大的老師一樣，他鼓舞我們努力去實現這些理想。

Michael S. Roth是衛斯理大學(Wesleyan University)校長。他最新的著作是《記憶、創傷和歷史：論生活在過去之中》("Memory, Trauma, and History: Essays on Living With the Past")。

本文最初發表於2012年6月10日。

翻譯：貝小戎

 live with 此處翻譯錯誤

 Living With the Past 與過去"和平相處" "共生" (妥協點).....

live with

(1) ⇒(自)1(2) …を受け入れる, に甘んじる live with double-digit inflation二けたのインフレをなんとかしのいでいく.

live with oneself

自尊心［品位］を保つ.




 "College: What It Was, Is, and Should Be
 

Andrew Delbanco Andrew Delbanco, Winner of the 2011 National Humanities Medal Cloth | 2012 | $24.95 / £16.95 | ISBN: 9780691130736 240 pp. | 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 eBook | $24.95 | ISBN: 9781400841578 Where to buy this ebook Google full text of this book:   Play lectures. (3-part public lectures at Princeton University)

Andrew Delbanco on camera

As the commercialization of American higher education accelerates, more and more students are coming to college with the narrow aim of obtaining a preprofessional credential. The traditional four-year college experience--an exploratory time for students to discover their passions and test ideas and values with the help of teachers and peers--is in danger of becoming a thing of the past. In College, prominent cultural critic Andrew Delbanco offers a trenchant defense of such an education, and warns that it is becoming a privilege reserved for the relatively rich. In arguing for what a true college education should be, he demonstrates why making it available to as many young people as possible remains central to America's democratic promise. In a brisk and vivid historical narrative, Delbanco explains how the idea of college arose in the colonial period from the Puritan idea of the gathered church, how it struggled to survive in the nineteenth century in the shadow of the new research universities, and how, in the twentieth century, it slowly opened its doors to women, minorities, and students from low-income families. He describes the unique strengths of America's colleges in our era of globalization and, while recognizing the growing centrality of science, technology, and vocational subjects in the curriculum, he mounts a vigorous defense of a broadly humanistic education for all. Acknowledging the serious financial, intellectual, and ethical challenges that all colleges face today, Delbanco considers what is at stake in the urgent effort to protect these venerable institutions for future generations. Andrew Delbanco is the Mendelson Family Chair of American Studies and the Julian Clarence Levi Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University. His many books include Melville: His World and Work (Vintage), which won the Lionel Trilling Award and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times book prize in biography. He is a recipient of the 2011 National Humanities Medal for his writing that spans the literature of Melville and Emerson to contemporary issues in higher education. Reviews: "At a time when many are trying to reduce the college years to a training period for economic competition, Delbanco reminds readers of the ideal of democratic education. . . . The American college is too important 'to be permitted to give up on its own ideals,' Delbanco writes. He has underscored these ideals by tracing their history. Like a great teacher, he has inspired us to try to live up to them."--Michael S. Roth, New York Times Book Review "The book does have a thesis, but it is not thesis-ridden. It seeks to persuade not by driving a stake into the opponent's position or even paying much attention to it, but by offering us examples of the experience it celebrates. Delbanco's is not an argument for, but a display of, the value of a liberal arts education."--Stanley Fish, New York Times "A lucid, fair, and well-informed account of the problems, and it offers a full-throated defense of the idea that you don't go to college just to get a job. Delbanco's brevity, wit, and curiosity about the past and its lessons for the present give his book a humanity all too rare in the literature on universities."--Anthony Grafton, New York Review of Books "[I]nsightful and rewarding. . . . Delbanco's evocation of these nineteenth-century precedents is of central importance, for they allow him to demonstrate that liberal education, far from being an elite indulgence, is inseparable from our nation's most cherished and deeply rooted democratic precepts. In the face of today's hyper-accelerated, ultra-competitive global society, the preservation of opportunities for self-development and autonomous reflection is a value we underestimate at our peril."--Richard Wolin, The Nation More reviews Table of Contents: Preface xi Introduction 1 Chapter One: What Is College For? 9 Chapter Two: Origins 36 Chapter Three: From College to University 67 Chapter Four: Who Went? Who Goes? Who Pays? 102 Chapter Five: Brave New World 125 Chapter Six: What Is to Be Done? 150 Acknowledgments 179 Notes 183 Index 215