給夢想插上"勇氣"的翅膀

⊙ By Gabrielle Emanuel

翻譯：思葦

給夢想插上"勇氣"的翅膀

⊙ By Gabrielle Emanuel

翻譯：思葦

提到“未來”與“工作”，你會有種茫然不知所措的感覺嗎？職業規劃對你來說還是個陌生的概念嗎？別擔心，you are not alone ——許多美國學生直到大學畢業還面臨著同樣的問題呢。有這么一位老師挺身而出，希望通過她所倡導的“勇氣課”為更多學生提供打開職業大門的金鑰匙……

This story starts some 20 years ago in a1)downtrodden part of New Orleans. Aimee Eubanks Davis was a brand-new sixth grade teacher. She came to love her students. And as the years passed, she kept in touch, helping them pick the right high school and then the right college. Soon they were thinking about jobs, and some wanted to become teachers themselves.

Aimee: All of a sudden, you’re like, “Oh my goodness!” This is, like, the moment you want…is to see your students, like, living their dreams.

Too often, they were only dreams. Many of her former students didn’t get the jobs. Instead, they got rejection notes.

Aimee: I was2)horrified.

Horrified and confused. Eubanks Davis realized that once her former students got their college diploma, they had no idea what to do, no idea how to get a good first job. These were students who were just as hard-working…

Aimee: Just as talented, just as smart, who were not getting the same looks from the labor market.

So Eubanks Davis made a plan, raised some money and created a3)nonprofit to teach students those skills. There were three principles. First, bring in professionals from the real world. Second, transform the

1) downtrodden [5daJn5tr?d(E)n] adj. 被踐踏的，被蹂躪的

2) horrified [5h?rIfaId] adj. 驚悸的，驚駭的

3) nonprofit [5n?n5pr?fIt] n. 非營利機構classroom into a work environment.

Aimee: Can you operate and manage? Can you do a project plan? Do you know how to effectively communicate?

Third, working with big state schools, Eubanks Davis offered tiny little classes. She called them “Braven.” Each class has one professional and just a handful of students. For these students, this is often the very first time they’ve met someone from the professional world. I visited one of the Braven sites.

Tutor: You have to decide how do you stand when someone else is talking? All that is part of the presentation, so I recorded it so you can see your body language.

These students are learning the skills of a4)consultant. They’ve been given a problem to fix: the student debt load. Next door, there’s another group. They think everything on5)campus should be6)itemized—just pay for the gym, or the student union, or the library. Keep going down the7)hall. Here, the solution involves paying8)tuition gradually over their lifetime. Lots of different solutions, but they seem to agree on one thing.

Student A: Braven is the best course that I’ve taken here.

Student B: It was worth signing up for it, worth staying late.

4) consultant [kEn5sQltEnt] n. 顧問

5) campus [5kAmpEs] n. 校園

6) itemize [5aItEmaIz] v. 詳細列舉

7) hall [hC:l] n. 門廳，過道，走廊

8) tuition [tju:5IF(E)n] n. 學費

It was worth signing up for it, worth staying late.

別看這句話只有短短的十個單詞，我們能從中找到三個非常好用的詞組！首先是be worth doing sth.，意思是“值得（做某事），有（做某事）的價值”；第二個詞組是sign up for sth.，意思是“注冊，選課，報名參加”；第三個詞組是stay late，可以表達“待到很晚，加班，熬夜”等多個意思。這三個詞組在日常生活中隨處可見，如：

l The book is worth reading! （這本書值得一讀?。?/p>

l She has signed up for a secretarial course. （她報讀了秘書課程。）

l He told me to stay late to finish up the report. （他讓我加班把報告寫完。）

這個故事始于二十多年前——艾梅·尤班克斯·戴維斯那時剛當上老師，在美國新奧爾良市一處潦倒破落的片區教六年級。她漸漸與自己的學生建立起深厚的感情。時光荏苒，師生之間一直保持聯絡，她會幫他們選擇合適的高中和大學。很快，學生們要開始考慮就業了，其中有些人還想當老師呢。

艾梅：忽然之間，你有種“噢，天??！”的感覺，這就是你夢寐以求的時刻——看著自己的學生即將美夢成真。

不過在很多時候，美夢僅僅是美夢罷了。許多她教過的學生并沒有被錄用，他們收到的是拒絕信。

艾梅：我很吃驚。

她不僅吃驚，還很困惑。尤班克斯·戴維斯發現，學生們拿到大學文憑后根本不知道自己該從事什么職業，也不知道怎樣才能找到第一份好工作。這些窮孩子與其他人一樣的勤勞肯干……

艾梅：一樣的才華橫溢，一樣的聰明伶俐，勞動力市場卻不會對他們一視同仁。

于是她制定了一個計劃，用籌集到的資金成立了一個給學生們傳授職業技能的非營利機構。該機構有三大原則：首先，將真正的專業人士引入課堂；其次，將教室轉化為工作環境。