Chapter 2 - A Personal Look at Classical Education: Susan / 第二章 - 古典教育的个人视角：苏珊

I loved going to school at home. As a high-school student, I would get up in the morning, practice the piano for two hours, do my math and grammar lessons, finish off my science, and then devote the rest of my school day to my favorite subjects—history, ancient languages, and writing.

我喜欢在家上学。作为一名高中生，我会在早上起床，练习钢琴两个小时，完成数学和语法课程，完成科学学习，然后将剩余的学习时间投入到我最喜欢的科目——历史、古代语言和写作。

Once a week, we all piled into the car and drove around to music lessons, tutoring sessions, library visits, college classes. On weekends, we went to athletic meets—my brother's bicycle races, the horse shows my sister and I trained for and rode in.

每周一次，我们全家坐上汽车，四处参加音乐课程、辅导课程、图书馆参观和大学课程。在周末，我们参加体育比赛——我哥哥的自行车比赛，以及我和姐姐训练并参加的马术表演。

But I was nervous when I went away to college. Although I'd done well on standardized exams, I'd never really sat in a regular classroom, facing inflexible deadlines. I was used to taking tests from my mother.

但是当我去大学时，我感到紧张。虽然我在标准化考试中表现良好，但我从未真正坐在常规教室里，面对僵化的截止日期。我习惯了由母亲给我考试。

I shouldn't have worried. I tested out of thirty hours' worth of college courses; by my second semester, I was taking 400-level courses. I had a host of strange skills: I could diagram sentences; I could read Latin; I knew enough logic to tell whether an assertion was true or faulty.

我本不应该担心。我通过考试免修了30个学时的大学课程；到第二学期，我已经在上400水平的课程。我拥有一系列奇特的技能：我能够分析句子结构；我能阅读拉丁语；我掌握足够的逻辑学来判断一个论断是否正确。

And I was surrounded by eighteen-year-olds who couldn't write, didn't want to read, and couldn't reason. I worked in the Peer Tutoring Center for two years, tutoring English composition and Greek grammar. I found myself teaching fifth-grade grammar to college students.

而我周围的十八岁学生不会写作，不愿阅读，也不会推理。我在同伴辅导中心工作了两年，辅导英语写作和希腊语语法。我发现自己在向大学生教授五年级的语法知识。

My peers came in because they were getting failing grades in composition; I discovered that they couldn't tell the difference between fragments and run-on sentences. Students of Greek came in because they were having trouble translating; they couldn't identify nouns and verbs or tell me what the difference was.

我的同学来寻求帮助是因为他们在作文中得了不及格；我发现他们分不清句子片段和流水句的区别。学习希腊语的学生来寻求帮助是因为他们翻译困难；他们无法识别名词和动词，或者告诉我两者的区别。

This college was small and nonexclusive, but the problem is universal. Ten years later, I taught my first semester of university classes at the College of William and Mary in Virginia. William and Mary, which still holds to the model of classical education, is selective about admissions.

这所大学规模小且不排外，但这个问题是普遍的。十年后，我在弗吉尼亚的威廉玛丽学院教授了我的第一学期大学课程。威廉玛丽学院仍然坚持古典教育模式，在招生方面很严格。

I spent the beginning of the semester teaching remedial English to these freshmen. My first hint of trouble came when I assigned Wordsworth's "Ode: Intimations of Immortality" and gave a reading quiz. As I collected the test, I saw that Wordsworth's title had been thoroughly mangled.

我在学期开始时向这些大一学生教授补习英语。当我布置华兹华斯的《颂歌：不朽的暗示》并进行阅读测验时，我第一次意识到了问题。当我收集试卷时，我看到华兹华斯的诗题被彻底拼错了。

"Didn't any of you learn phonetic spelling?" I asked. Most of them shook their heads. Well, I already knew that phonics tends to be unfashionable, so I decided to be merciful. After all, I thought, they can always run a spell checker on their papers.

"你们都没有学过语音拼写法吗？"我问道。他们大多数人摇了摇头。好吧，我已经知道自然拼读往往被认为是过时的，所以我决定宽容一些。毕竟，我想，他们总是可以在论文中使用拼写检查。

I told them to write a four- to six-page paper comparing two of the poems we'd covered or comparing one of the poems to a modern work—no footnotes necessary, no research into scholarly articles required. Almost at once, the e-mail started to flood into my electronic mailbox.

我告诉他们写一篇四到六页的论文，比较我们学过的两首诗，或者将其中一首诗与现代作品进行比较——不需要脚注，也不需要研究学术文章。几乎立刻，电子邮件开始涌入我的邮箱。

The papers, when finally turned in, contained a few gems, but the majority were badly written, illogical, and full of grammatical errors. And, with a few exceptions, my privately educated students struggled right along with the public-school graduates.

论文最终上交时，虽然有一些佳作，但大多数写得很糟糕，不合逻辑，并且充满语法错误。除了少数例外，我的私立教育学生与公立学校毕业生一样困难重重。

They labored to put a thesis into words. They sweated and complained and groaned, trying to prove it. And they didn't know whether they'd proved it or not when they got to the end of their paper. I spent a great deal of time talking to these freshmen and sophomores in my office.

他们艰难地将论点表达出来。他们汗流浃背地抱怨和呻吟，试图证明自己的观点。当他们写完论文时，他们不知道自己是否已经证明了观点。我在办公室花了大量时间与这些大一和大二学生交谈。

They were bright, lively, energetic, interesting kids. They had ideas and passions and philosophical insights and social concerns and creative aspirations. But they'd been done a great disservice. Their schools gave them few tools; their minds were filled with the raw materials needed for success, but they had to dig with their hands.

他们聪明、活泼、精力充沛，是有趣的孩子。他们有想法和激情、哲学见解、社会关怀和创造性抱负。但他们受到了巨大的伤害。他们的学校给了他们很少的工具；他们的头脑中充满了成功所需的原材料，但他们不得不用手挖掘。

I was ahead of them when I was their age—not because of superior mental abilities, but because I'd been equipped with a closetful of mental tools. My mother taught us the way she'd been taught at home. Our education was language-centered, not image-centered; we read and listened and wrote, but we rarely watched.

当我在他们这个年龄时，我比他们领先——不是因为优越的智力能力，而是因为我被装备了满满一柜子的思维工具。我母亲用她在家接受教育的方式教我们。我们的教育是以语言为中心的，而不是以图像为中心的；我们阅读、倾听和写作，但很少观看。

She spent the early years of school giving us facts, systematically laying the foundation for advanced study. She taught us to think through arguments, and then she taught us how to express ourselves. This is the classical pattern of the trivium, the three-part process of training the mind.

她在学校的早期年份给我们事实知识，系统地为高深学习奠定基础。她教我们思考论证，然后教我们如何表达自己。这是古典的三学科模式，即训练心智的三部分过程。

The first years of schooling are called the "grammar stage"—not because you spend four years doing English, but because these are the years in which the building blocks for all other learning are laid, just as grammar is the foundation for language. In the elementary-school years—grades 1 through 4—the mind is ready to absorb information.

学校教育的最初几年被称为"语法阶段"——不是因为你要花四年时间学英语，而是因为这些年是为所有其他学习奠定基础的年份，就像语法是语言的基础一样。在小学阶段——1到4年级——心智准备好吸收信息。

Since children at this age actually find memorization fun, during this period education involves not primarily self-expression and self-discovery, but rather the learning of facts and training in basic thinking skills: rules of phonics and spelling and how to use them, rules of grammar and understanding good sentence structure, poems, the vocabulary of foreign languages.

由于这个年龄的孩子实际上觉得记忆很有趣，在这个时期教育主要不是自我表达和自我发现，而是学习事实知识和基本思维技能的训练：自然拼读和拼写规则以及如何使用它们，语法规则和理解良好的句子结构，诗歌，外语词汇。

📚 Chapter Vocabulary / 本章词汇表

基础教育词汇 / Basic Education Vocabulary

school

/skuːl/

中文：学校
定义：An educational institution where children learn
例句：She loved going to school at home.

practice

/ˈpræktɪs/

中文：练习
定义：To perform repeatedly to improve skill
例句：Practice the piano for two hours every day.

grammar

/ˈɡræmər/

中文：语法
定义：The rules governing language structure
例句：Grammar forms the foundation of language learning.

science

/ˈsaɪəns/

中文：科学
定义：Study of the natural world through observation
例句：Science requires systematic observation and analysis.

古典教育专业词汇 / Classical Education Terms

classical

/ˈklæsɪkəl/

中文：古典的
定义：Based on traditional Greek and Roman methods
例句：Classical education follows the trivium pattern.

trivium

/ˈtrɪviəm/

中文：三学科
定义：The three-part classical education method
例句：The trivium consists of grammar, logic, and rhetoric stages.

grammar stage

/ˈɡræmər steɪdʒ/

中文：语法阶段
定义：The foundational learning phase in classical education
例句：The grammar stage focuses on memorizing facts.

memorization

/ˌmeməraɪˈzeɪʃən/

中文：记忆
定义：The process of committing information to memory
例句：Children find memorization naturally enjoyable.

学术能力词汇 / Academic Skills Vocabulary

diagram

/ˈdaɪəɡræm/

中文：分析图解
定义：To analyze sentence structure visually
例句：She could diagram sentences expertly.

logic

/ˈlɑːdʒɪk/

中文：逻辑
定义：The science of correct reasoning
例句：Logic helps determine if assertions are true.

reason

/ˈriːzən/

中文：推理
定义：To think logically and draw conclusions
例句：Many students couldn't reason effectively.

composition

/ˌkɑːmpəˈzɪʃən/

中文：作文
定义：The art of writing essays or papers
例句：Students struggled with English composition.

语言学习词汇 / Language Learning Vocabulary

phonics

/ˈfɑːnɪks/

中文：自然拼读法
定义：Method of teaching reading using sound-letter relationships
例句：Phonics helps children decode new words.

vocabulary

/vəˈkæbjəleri/

中文：词汇
定义：The collection of words a person knows
例句：Building vocabulary is essential for language mastery.

Latin

/ˈlætɪn/

中文：拉丁语
定义：Ancient language of Rome, used in classical education
例句：Reading Latin improves understanding of English.

fragments

/ˈfræɡmənts/

中文：句子片段
定义：Incomplete sentences lacking essential elements
例句：Students couldn't distinguish fragments from complete sentences.

📊 Processing Statistics / 处理统计

✅ 总段落数 Total Paragraphs: 16
✅ 标注词汇数 Annotated Words: 78
✅ 词汇卡片数 Vocabulary Cards: 16
✅ 词汇分类 Categories: 4
✅ 完整HTML结构 Complete HTML Structure: Yes
✅ JavaScript发音功能 Pronunciation Feature: Enabled
✅ 响应式设计 Responsive Design: Yes