大学跨文化英语 综合教程I Unit 5 The Value of Giving课文翻译

Reading﹠Digesting

The Value of Giving Andree Aelion Brooks

1 There are disadvantages to being advantaged. One is growing up feeling guilty and uncomfortable about the money that you do have. Another is not really comprehending what life is like outside the Garden of Eden. That sort of closed-mindedness is probably responsible for the often arrogant attitude that certain wealthy young people display toward their less fortunate peers. But I think it is wrong to blame the kids or their parents entirely. Many of the parents do not readily concern

themselves with teaching such behavior or feelings because they probably do not easily identify with either the guilt or the closed-mindedness, having grown up themselves under very different circumstances.

2 How, then, to behave? Giving a fortunate child a chance to help others should be as fundamental a part of upbringing as, say, learning chemistry or calculus. Why so? It helps foster a healthy personality by being yet another way for that child to feel valuable. It helps the teenager develop a more passionate outlook. And it genuinely accomplishes some good. Insisting that a small portion of that child’s own money be donated to a charity or a cause is one way. Said Mr. Levy, “I tell parents that an important lesson is learning that the money is not there only for yourself. You have a responsibility toward others.” One idea is to set up a small family charity. Te parents can supply some of the money with the children contributing, too. The amount need not be large. Certainly it does not have to be thousands of dollars. Te family could then meet to discuss and vote upon which organization should get a check that particular month or quarter — and why. Causes could include the local church, a soup kitchen, a conversation center, or cancer or AIDS research. Te children should be required to put in something of their own each month.

3 That has been the way each generation of Rockefellers has been raised. “From the time I was five years old I got an allowance that gradually increased from fifteen cents to five dollars a week,” noted one Rockefeller. “There were three little jewelry boxes. I got fifteen cents to spend, fifteen cents to save, and fifteen cents to give away. Every Christmas my father would sit down with me and we’d decide who I’d give the one in the third box to … it was a real ritual, one of the times we were closest.”

4 If the child prefers to donate the time instead of money, then this might be encouraged, too. Several private-school children told me how good they felt about themselves after they had worked directly on something like this — whether it was a fund-raiser for the school’s scholarship fund or personally making gifs for poor children for Christmas. Certainly it is a way to get teenagers, who tend to be self-centered anyway, a little more interested in others. It also gives them a chance to meet people in other circumstances.

5 Some schools in New York City foster this by making community service a graduation requirement. When a group of teenagers from those schools were interviewed by Te New York Times about their feelings after working in a soup kitchen, all admitted that they had never really felt the direct impact of poverty before. Said one, “You know how sometimes you open the refrigerator and complain there’s

nothing to eat? I’ll never do that again.” A few recognized it was the frst time they had ever had a chance to get to know somebody who was down on his luck. And that changed their feelings quite a bit about the poor. Others said that they hoped that one day they would be in a position to really help. And this would enable them to better understand the needs of others — the beginning, one hopes, of the notion that privilege can put somebody in a position to further social justice. Tough this may all sound arrogant, it is certainly a way to help realize that some of the great satisfactions in life come from giving and doing for others, a concept to which these children rarely appear to be exposed.

6 “There is just so much room in a child’s heart for compassion toward others burdened by problems never actually seen,” writes Robert Coles in Privileged Ones5. “When a moment of re?ection has come or when a crisis has prompted uncertainty, sadness and worry, I have heard these quite fortunate boys and girls remark regretfully upon their own attitudes, their lack of awareness, their all too carefree days.” In other words, a privileged upbringing, unrestrained by reality and an involvement with others, has the capacity to provide yet another blow to low self-esteem because it can make a child feel inadequate when dealing with the “wilder world.”

参考译文

施予的价值

安德烈·艾利翁·布鲁克斯

家境殷实也有不尽如人意之处。一是你在成长过程中会因为已经拥有的财富而感到愧疚和不自在，二是你无法真正了解伊甸园之外的生活究竟是个什么模样。这种思维的闭塞，可能导致某些富有的年轻人在面对不那么走运的同龄人时，摆出一副傲慢的姿态。但我认为，这也不该全怪孩子或他们的父母，因为许多父母从小到大就生活在与其他人不一样的环境中，他们不那么容易体会到这种负罪感或思维的封闭，因而也不会刻意地教给孩子这种傲慢的行为或感觉。

那么，到底该怎么办呢？给幸运的孩子提供机会帮助他人应该成为教育的基本内容，就像学习化学或微积分一样。为什么？因为通过另一种方式让孩子体会到自己的价值，是培养他们健全人格的有效途径。它可以帮助青少年建立更富激情的世界观，而且也确确实实能做成善事。坚持让孩子拿出小部分自己的零花钱捐给慈善事业，是一种途径。莱维先生曾说过：“我告诉家长，让孩子们明白钱不只是属于你一个人的，是非常重要的一课。你有帮助他人的责任。”建立小型家庭慈善基金是一个办法，父母也可以提供一部分资金帮助孩子捐助。钱并不一定要多，当然不需要一下子拿出几千元。全家人可以一起商讨表决某月或某季度该把这笔钱捐给哪个机构，并想清楚为什么要捐给这个机构。捐助对象可以是当地的教堂、施食处、谈话中心、癌症或艾滋病研究中心。应该要求孩子每月都捐出一部分自己的钱。

洛克菲勒家族的每一代人都受过这样的熏陶。 “我从五岁开始，就能每周拿到15美分的零花钱，这个数目逐渐上升到五美元” ，洛克菲勒家族的一名成员说。 “我有三个小珠宝盒， 15美分零花， 15美分储存，还有15美分捐献。每个圣诞节，我父亲都会和我一起坐下来，商量决定第三个盒子里的钱要捐给谁……这已成了一个仪式，是我和父亲最亲密的时光之一。”

如果孩子更愿意用花时间的方式而不是以捐钱的方式帮助他人，那也同样值得鼓励。有几个私立学校的孩子曾告诉我，不论是为学校的奖学金募集资金，还是自己为贫困儿童制作圣诞礼物，在亲手完成这些事情之后，他们都觉得非常自豪。对于更容易陷入自我的青少年

而言，这种方法能够让他们更多地关注他人，让他们有机会接触在不同环境中生活的人。

将参与社区服务作为毕业的一项要求，是纽约市一些学校鼓励孩子帮助他人的办法。《纽约时报》曾采访了来自这些学校的十几岁的孩子，问他们在施食处工作后的感受，孩子们无一例外地承认，自己从未如此真实直接地体会到什么是贫困。一个孩子说：“你知道，有时打开冰箱，你会抱怨冰箱里怎么没有吃的了？以后我再也不会那样了。”有几个孩子承认这

是生平第一次有机会接触潦倒落魄的人，这次经历让他们对穷人的态度大为改观。其他孩子则说，他们希望自己有一天从事能真正帮到他人的工作。这样的经历能让他们更好地理解他人的需求——希望这是一个好的开端，殷实的家境能让人更愿意从事促进社会公正的工作。尽管这听起来有点傲慢，但这无疑是一个途径，可以帮助孩子们明白一个他们可能从未听说过的道理：生活中一些巨大的满足感乃是源于施恩他人。

“孩子们的内心有着巨大的空间去体谅那些不幸的人，即使那些人遭受的苦难孩子们从未真正看到，”罗伯特·科尔斯在《幸运儿》中这样写道。“一旦这些幸运的孩子开始反思，或者某一危机让他们开始感到不安、悲伤、忧虑时，我听到他们对自己的态度、意识的缺乏以及无忧无虑的日子表示懊悔。”换句话说，一个养尊处优的成长经历，既不为现实所困，又不需要依靠他人，会让孩子们脆弱的自尊心遭受打击，因为一旦接触到这个“更野蛮的世界”，他们便会感到无所适从。