(中英)現(xiàn)代散文:粉筆生涯 My Teaching Career

My Teaching Career

粉筆生涯

◎ Xie Bingying

◎　謝冰瑩

School has started after the vacation. The quiet classrooms have suddenly begun to buzz with activity. At night, the whole school compound is ablaze with lights and rings with the pleasant sound of students reading their lessons aloud. Mixing with the kids all day long has made me feel like many, many years younger. Though I'm often obliged to meet my class assuming a grave teacher-like countenance, I'll again be my true self as soon as class is over. I'll go for a stroll with some girl students, chat gaily with them or tell them stories. Often, after the going-to-bed bell has rung, some of them will continue to enjoy themselves by hiding in my room. I, however, welcome their visit as long as it does not interfere with their studies. But my close contact with many girls has aroused a feeling of jealousy among the boy students.

開學(xué)了①，寂寞的教室，突然熱鬧起來。一到晚上，滿院②子電燈輝煌，嘹亮的讀書聲非常悅耳。整天和一群年輕的孩子在一塊，自己也好像年輕了許多③。上課的時候，難免要裝出一副老師的面孔騙一騙孩子們④；一到下課，便現(xiàn)出真面目來了。我和她們一同散步，一同談笑，講故事給她們聽；常常就寢鈴搖了，還有躲在我房子里玩的學(xué)生。只要她們不妨礙功課，我是歡喜她們來玩的，為了和我接近的大都是女孩，于是惹起那些男生的嫉妒：

Our teacher's a slave to old conventions?, they grumbled. "She's so stand-offish towards us boys."

“老師有封建思想⑤，她不和我們男生玩?！?

Their displeasure lasted until I helped them with the publication of Aurora, a weekly literary supplement in The Xiamen Daily. I took great pains to polish and arrange their articles. They exclaimed, "Ah, our teacher's after all of one mind with us boys!"

直到后來我?guī)椭麄兙幜藗€《曙光》文藝周刊，登在《廈門日報》，不怕麻煩地替他們修改，編排，這才使他們知道：“呵，原來老師對我們并沒有兩條心。”

The kids are just lovely. They are na?ve, candid and cordial. They speak straight from the heart, without the slightest insincerity or reluctance. I love them dearly and wish I could be with them forever.

孩子們是可愛的，他們天真，坦白，熱情，心里想到什么就說什么，沒有絲毫虛偽⑥，沒有絲毫勉強。我愛他們，我愿永遠和他們在一起生活。

All that has brought back to my mind memories of my life in Peiping where I used to teach at Anhui Middle School. Over there, two very naughty students sometimes went so far as to hang my blackboard eraser high up under the ceiling or fill my pockets with peanut shells. Once they chalked up four big characters on the blackboard meaning "Child Teacher", obviously a dig at me being so young. However, when I took them to task, they tried to explain it away by saying,

這時，使我回憶起北平的生活來了：記得安徽中學(xué)，曾有兩個最頑皮的學(xué)生，他們有時把黑板刷子懸在天花板上；有時把花生殼裝在我的口袋里；還有一次寫四個大字“孩子先生”在黑板上⑦，明明在譏諷我是個孩子⑧，等到我責(zé)備他們時，卻改變了口吻⑨：

Ma'am, we mean that you're a teacher of us children, not that you yourself are a child.

“老師⑩，我們是說您是孩子的先生，并不是說您是孩子?！?

As a matter of fact, to my great embarrassment, quite a few of my students then were older than I. But, since I behaved so much like a child, I got along very well with them. I remember that one student, named Qiu Zhenyuan, was particularly good at writing stories. Later, when I learned that the headmaster had the intention to dismiss me on the pretext that I had been making the grave mistake of calling on the students to use vernacular rather than classical Chinese for composition writing, I readily handed in my resignation on my own initiative. The students, on hearing the news, tried desperately to urge me to stay on, and even kicked up a school disturbance for my sake. Consequently, Qiu Zhenyuan and several other students were expelled from school. Today, whenever I recall the incident, I cannot help feeling deeply sorry for them.

其實，說來慚愧，那時學(xué)生里面，有好幾個是比我年紀(jì)大的；也許因為我自己也像個孩子，所以和他們相處得很好。那時他們研究文藝的空氣特別濃厚，我還記得有一位叫做仇振遠，小說寫得非常之好。后來，校長說我只教學(xué)生寫語體文太不像話?，有意叫我走，于是我便提出辭職。學(xué)生們聽到了這個消息就拼命挽留我；因為我的關(guān)系，他們還鬧了一場風(fēng)波?，振遠和其他的幾位同學(xué)，居然被開除了。這件事一直到現(xiàn)在回想起來，我還覺得對不住他們。

《粉筆生涯》是謝冰瑩寫于1932年的一篇散文。當(dāng)時她在福建的廈門中學(xué)教書。文章記述了作者從教的片斷經(jīng)歷，充分反映了她當(dāng)老師時的敬業(yè)精神和對青年學(xué)生的深厚感情。