(中英)现代散文:粉笔生涯 My Teaching Career

My Teaching Career

粉笔生涯

◎ Xie Bingying

◎　谢冰莹

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.

开学了①，寂寞的教室，突然热闹起来。一到晚上，满院②子电灯辉煌，嘹亮的读书声非常悦耳。整天和一群年轻的孩子在一块，自己也好像年轻了许多③。上课的时候，难免要装出一副老师的面孔骗一骗孩子们④；一到下课，便现出真面目来了。我和她们一同散步，一同谈笑，讲故事给她们听；常常就寝铃摇了，还有躲在我房子里玩的学生。只要她们不妨碍功课，我是欢喜她们来玩的，为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 conventions⑬, they grumbled. "She's so stand-offish towards us boys."

“老师有封建思想⑤，她不和我们男生玩。”

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!"

直到后来我帮助他们编了个《曙光》文艺周刊，登在《厦门日报》，不怕麻烦地替他们修改，编排，这才使他们知道：“呵，原来老师对我们并没有两条心。”

The kids are just lovely. They are naïve, 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.

孩子们是可爱的，他们天真，坦白，热情，心里想到什么就说什么，没有丝毫虚伪⑥，没有丝毫勉强。我爱他们，我愿永远和他们在一起生活。

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,

这时，使我回忆起北平的生活来了：记得安徽中学，曾有两个最顽皮的学生，他们有时把黑板刷子悬在天花板上；有时把花生壳装在我的口袋里；还有一次写四个大字“孩子先生”在黑板上⑦，明明在讥讽我是个孩子⑧，等到我责备他们时，却改变了口吻⑨：

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

“老师⑩，我们是说您是孩子的先生，并不是说您是孩子。”

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.

其实，说来惭愧，那时学生里面，有好几个是比我年纪大的；也许因为我自己也像个孩子，所以和他们相处得很好。那时他们研究文艺的空气特别浓厚，我还记得有一位叫做仇振远，小说写得非常之好。后来，校长说我只教学生写语体文太不像话⑪，有意叫我走，于是我便提出辞职。学生们听到了这个消息就拼命挽留我；因为我的关系，他们还闹了一场风波⑫，振远和其他的几位同学，居然被开除了。这件事一直到现在回想起来，我还觉得对不住他们。

《粉笔生涯》是谢冰莹写于1932年的一篇散文。当时她在福建的厦门中学教书。文章记述了作者从教的片断经历，充分反映了她当老师时的敬业精神和对青年学生的深厚感情。