文字难度：★★★
The 1)tumult over 2)state budgets and 3)collective bargaining rights for public employees has spilled over into resentment toward public school teachers, who are increasingly 4)derided as “5)glorified baby sitters” whose pay exceeds the value of the work they do.
有关国家财政预算和公职人员集体谈判权的争吵愈演愈烈，已经蔓延成对公立学校教师的憎恨，人们嘲笑他们只不过是“光鲜体面的保姆”，称他们的工作价值不足以获得当前的薪金。
But how exactly do we measure the value of a teacher?
但我们应该怎样确切地衡量一位教师的价值呢？
As a writer, I often receive feedback from readers I have never met. But the other day, I received a most unexpected message in response to one of my essays: “I am so proud of you and all you have accomplished. I shared your opinion from 6)The L.A.Times with my family and 7)reminisced about you as my student at Hibbing High School.” It was signed Margaret Leibfried, who was my English teacher—a teacher who appeared at a critical 8)juncture in my life and helped me believe that I could become a writer.
作为一名作家，我经常会收到读者的反馈，却与他们从未谋面。但前不久，我的一篇文章却得到完全出乎我意料的回应：“我为你和你所取得的成就感到骄傲。我与家人很认同你发表在《洛杉矶时报》上的观点，我还回想起当年你还是我的学生，在希宾公立高中就读。”这则信息的署名是玛格丽特·雷布弗雷德，我的英语老师。她在我人生中重要的时刻出现，是她让我相信我可以成为一名作家。
Thirty years ago, in Hibbing, a town in northern 9)Minnesota that is 10)home to the world's largest 11)open-pit iron mine, I entered high school as a 12)bookish 13)introvert made all the more shy because I was the school's only nonwhite student. I always felt in danger of being swept away by 14)a sea of 15)statuesque blond athletes. By 10th grade, I'd developed a 16)Quasimodo-like posture and 17)crabwise walk, hoping to escape being teased as a “18)brain” or a “19)chink,” and then finding being ignored almost equally painful. I spent a lot of time alone, reading and 20)scribbling stories.
希宾是美国明尼苏达州北部的一个小镇，也是世界上最大的露天铁矿所在地。30年前，我在这里上高中。那时候，我书生气十足并且性格内向，由于我是学校里唯一的非白人学生，所以我更加害羞胆怯。学校里遍地都是金发碧眼、轮廓优美的运动型学生，与他们相比，我总害怕自己被淹没在人群之中。到十年级时，我已经学会了加西莫多般的姿势和小心翼翼的走路方式，为的是避免被人嘲笑成“书呆子”或“中国佬”。与此同时，我发现被人忽略的滋味也一样很痛苦。大部分时间，我都是一个人看看书或者胡乱写点东西。
Ms. Leibfried taught American literature and composition grammar, which involved the usual—memorizing vocabulary and 21)diagramming sentences—but also, thrillingly, reading novels. Thrilling to me, that is. Many of my classmates expressed 22)disdain for novels because they were “not real.” For once, I didn't care what they thought. Ms. Leibfried seemed to notice my interest in both reading and writing, and she took the time to 23)draw me out; she even offered reading suggestions, like one of her favorite novels, 24)The Bell Jar.
雷布弗雷德老师教授美国文学和写作语法课程，自然少不了要教授这些课程的惯例内容：背诵词汇和分析句子，但也有令人兴奋的部分：阅读小说。至少对我来说，这是件令人兴奋的事情。因为小说“非真实”，我的许多同学都对其不屑一顾。但这回，我可不在乎他们怎么想。雷布弗雷德老师似乎注意到我对阅读和写作的兴趣，她甚至在课余时间与我交流，还给我提出了阅读建议，例如她向我推荐她最喜欢的一本小说——《钟形罩》。
That year's big 25)project was a book report, to be read aloud to the class. However, Ms. Leibfried took me aside and suggested I do something “a little different.” Instead of a report, I was to pick a passage from a book, memorize it and recite it in front of the class. While I longed for the safety and routine of the report, I was curious how this new assignment might work out. By then obsessed with The Bell Jar, I chose a passage that I thought showed off the 26)protagonist's growing depression as well as Sylvia Plath's 27)sly humor.
那年的课外自修项目是写一篇读书报告，还要在同学们面前朗读。但是雷布弗雷德老师把我叫到一边，建议我弄点“别出心裁的东西”。她建议我不用写读书报告，而是从某本书中选取一段文字，然后在同学们面前背诵出来。虽然我很想写读书报告，因为写读书报告既保险，又可按照例行程序完成，但我又按捺不住对新任务的好奇心。那时，我沉迷于《钟形罩》，于是我选择了其中的一段，认为这段文字能展现主人公日益浓烈的忧郁和作者西尔维娅·普拉斯的狡黠诙谐。
The morning of the presentations, I remember my palms sweating so badly as I walked to the front of the class that I held my hands 28)cupped in prayer formation, so I wouldn't wipe them on my shirt.
我还记得做汇报的那个上午，当我走到全班同学面前时，我的掌心直冒汗，于是，我只好将双手握紧成祈祷状，好让自己别把汗水揩到衬衫上。
I saw the days of the year stretching ahead like a series of bright, white boxes, and separating one box from another was sleep, like a black shade. Only for me, the long perspective of shades that 29)set off one box from the next had suddenly snapped up, and I could see day after day glaring ahead of me like a white, broad, infinitely desolate avenue.
我眼中的日子仿佛一连串雪白明亮的盒子，无穷无尽，绵延不绝，只有宛如黑影的睡眠相间。只是于我而言，这些隔开盒子的长长阴影突然断开，之后日复一日的岁月，在我眼前便成了一束刺眼的强光，如同一条白色宽广又极尽荒凉的大街。
It seemed silly to wash one day when I would only have to wash again the next.
It made me tired just to think of it.
I wanted to do everything 30)once and for all and 31)be through with it.
Dr. Gordon 32)twiddled a silver pencil. “Your mother tells me you are 33)upset.”
如果明天照样还得洗漱，那么今天的洗漱是不是有点可笑。
仅仅是想想这件事情都会让我疲惫不堪。
无论什么事情，我都想一锤定音，一劳永逸。
戈登医生旋弄着手中的银色铅笔，对我说：“你妈妈说你心烦意乱。”
I finished and, to my surprise, the class broke out in applause. “As a writer and a good reader, Marie has picked out a particularly sensitive piece of prose and 34)delivered it beautifully,” Ms. Leibfried said, beaming. I felt, maybe for the first time, confident.
出乎我意料的是，当我背诵完毕，教室里掌声雷动。雷布弗雷德老师笑逐颜开地说：“玛丽是一位作家，也是一位优秀的读者，她挑选了一段特别有表现力的散文，并且诵读得如此优美。”我想，也许那是我生平第一次感到自信。
Ms. Leibfried was followed the next year by Mrs. Borman, quiet, elderly and almost as shy as I was. She surprised everyone when she excused me from her grammar class, saying my time would be spent more 35)productively writing in the library. I took the work seriously, and 36)on a whim submitted an essay I'd come up with to 37)Seventeen magazine. When they published it, it was big news for the high school—it was even announced on the 38)P.A. system. Mrs. Borman wasn't mentioned, nor did she ever take any 39)credit; in her mind she was just doing her job.
第二年，接替雷布弗雷德老师的是博尔曼老师，她上了年纪，寡言少语，几乎跟我一样害羞。她免除了我的语法课，说我利用这个时间在图书馆写作会比上她的课更有成效，这决定让所有人都感到震惊。我很重视这个“任务”，还一时心血来潮，将自己写的一篇文章投给了《十七岁》杂志。这篇文章后来被发表了，成了学校里的大新闻，连校内广播系统都做了相关报道。博尔曼老师并未被提及，她也没为自己邀功；在她看来，她只是在做自己的本职工作而已。
I can now appreciate how much courage it must have taken for those teachers to let me deviate so broadly from the lesson plan. With today's pressure on teachers to “teach to the test,” I wonder if any would or could take the time to 40)coax out the potential in a single, shy student.
现在我能领悟到，那些老师当年让我远远偏离课程计划，这需要多大的勇气啊!如今的教师面临着“应试教育”的压力，我不知道是否还会有老师不惜花时间去挖掘一个孤单而害羞的学生的潜能。
If we want to understand how much teachers are worth, we should remember how much we were formed by our own schooldays. Good teaching helps make productive and fully realized adults—a result that won't show up in each semester's test scores and statistics.
倘若我们想知道教师的价值，就应该想想我们的学生时代对自身的影响和塑造。良好的教育帮助孩子成长为富有创造力、能够充分实现自我的成年人，但这一结果并不会显示在每个学期的测试分数和统计数据中。
That's easy to forget, as budget battles rage and teacher performance is viewed through the cold 41)metrics of the 42)balance sheet. While the love of literature and confidence I gained from Ms. Leibfried's class shaped my career and my life, after only four short years at Hibbing High School, she was laid off because of budget cuts, and never taught again.
由于预算之争甚嚣尘上，而教师的业绩只能通过资产负债表上一些冷冰冰的度量标准来呈现，所以这一点很容易被遗忘。在雷布弗雷德老师的课上，我逐渐爱上了文学并从中获得了自信，这造就了我的职业和生活。然而，雷布弗雷德老师在希宾公立高中教学短短四年之后，便因学校缩减预算而被辞退，从此，她再也没有从事过教学工作。
