我第一次接触“Liberal Education(自由教育,又称通才教育)”这个概念是在念大三时上的《美国文化》这门课上。美国大学奉行的Liberal Education旨在培养学生全面发展,不以“专业学习”为目标,而其中,“哲学”方面的学习被摆在了很重要的位置。有人说,哲学是科学中的科学,虽然哲学不能取代科学,但它却指导了科学。哲学讨论的不止是“我是谁”、“人是什么”这些问题,它还要人们学会如何思考,而这也是埃及开罗的美国大学希望其学生掌握的能力。 ——Mac
When Rafik Gindy graduated from high school, he knew he wanted to become an engineer. So he enrolled at the American University in Cairo and prepared to 1)immerse himself in math and science.
But the university had a different idea.
Mr. Gindy knew what he wanted to be, but did not exactly know who he was. That was what the university wanted him to think about, in a class called The Human Quest: Exploring the Big Questions.
“I thought identity was just your name, your culture, but now I know it’s really complex,” said Mr. Gindy, a 2)slender freshman who shook his head at that 3)revelation.
Who am I?
What does it mean to be human?
拉菲克·金迪高中毕业时就清楚自己想成为一名工程师。于是,他入读位于埃及开罗的美国大学,并准备沉浸在数学和科学的天地里。
但这所大学所秉承的理念却与众不同。
金迪清楚自己的理想,但没能清楚地认识自己。而这就是这所大学在《人类的探求:重大问题之探索》这门课要他思考的一个问题。
“我原以为‘身份’仅指你的姓名与文化,但现在我知道它真是个复杂的东西,”金迪说。他是一名身材修长的大一新生,对于这种“新体验”,他摇了摇头。
我是谁?
作为“人”,这意味着什么?
These are the kinds of questions posed to undergraduate students entering this 90-year-old university during what the president, David D. Arnold, called a first year of “4)disorientation.” During disorientation, the students—85 percent of them Egyptians—are taught to learn in ways quite 5)at odds with the traditional method of teaching in this country, where instructors lecture, students memorize and tests are exercises in 6)regurgitation.
“It’s different here because there is room for people to express themselves,” said Manar Mohsen, a junior majoring in political science and journalism. “It is not that simple outside, where it is more about 7)conformity.”
In Egypt, education is based on the concept of 8)rote learning, and creativity in the classroom is often discouraged. Students at Cairo University say they memorize and recite, never analyze and 9)hypothesize.
American University is a private, elite school, although university officials sometimes 10)recoil at the elite label. Yet, the school is expensive and so is generally out of reach for all but the wealthiest families and a handful of scholarship students. Tuition and fees for Egyptian students run about $19,600 a year, a 11)princely sum in a country where about half the population lives on about $2 a day.
The campus 12)exudes 13)affluence. Students joke about the “14)Gucci 15)corridor,” a spot where 16)well-coiffed students gather each afternoon. There is no cafeteria, only expensive fast-food 17)stands.
在本科生进校的第一年,也就是校长大卫·D·阿诺德形容的“迷惑年”,这所有90年历史的大学向他们提出了这类问题。在这充满迷惑的一年里,该校针对学生们(85%为埃及人)所采取的教育方式与埃及国内的传统教育方式极为不同。埃及的传统教育方式无非就是教师授课,学生死记硬背,考试内容无非就是重复那些平时的习题。
“这所学校很不同,因为人们在这里有表达自己意见的空间。”就读政治学和新闻学专业的大三学生曼那·莫森说道,“在外面,想自由表达意见并不容易,更多时候,外面强调的是服从。”
在埃及,教育是基于“机械学习”这个理念,而创新在课堂上是不提倡的。开罗大学的学生们说他们一味死记硬背,从不需做分析和作假设性的猜想。
美国大学是一所私立精英学校,尽管该校领导有时不怎么愿意接受“精英”这个标签。然而,该校学费昂贵,因此除了极为富有的家庭和少数获得该校奖学金的学生以外,一般的学生都支付不起。埃及学生一年的学费大约是19600美元(约13.72万元),这在一个半数人每天大约花销只是2美元的国家里可是笔巨大的开支。
校园里处处彰显富贵景象。学生们戏谑某个地方为“古琦走廊”——衣着光鲜的学生们每个下午的聚集地。这里没有饭堂,只有收费昂贵的快餐店。
“We are all rich and spoiled,” said one student, upset that more of her classmates were not more politically aware. But in some respects, the elite label is a strength. American University plays a central role as a sort of intellectual 18)boot camp for young people who will become leaders in government and the economy.
“If we teach the elite to be good citizens, that’s not a bad thing,” Ms. Anderson said.
Nabil Fahmy, the former longtime ambassador to the United States, said that over his nine years in Washington, at least 40 percent of the embassy staff was made up of American University graduates, as was he.
The university was founded in 1919 by a group of 19)Presbyterian 20)missionaries. Over the years it has grown, and now serves 5,000 undergraduates on an architecturally 21)inspiring, if geographically isolated, $400 million, 260-acre campus in a suburb called 22)New Cairo. The location redefined the university, just as the university was beginning to redefine itself as a first-rate university rather than a 23)finishing school for Egypt’s elite. But as the school has grown, so has a conflict within the university itself: can it change its mission while retaining its 24)liberal arts core and preserving classes like the Big Questions?
Some say it needs to move away from that way of thinking.
“我们都是娇生惯养的有钱子弟,”一个学生说道。班上大多同学不大关心政治,这让她感觉沮丧。但从某些方面来看,“精英”这个标签是种优势。对于那些将成为政界和商界领头羊的年轻人来说,美国大学扮演着培养“新兵智力训练营”这样一种重要角色。
“如果我们教育那些精英分子成为优良公民,那就不是件坏事。”安德森女士说道。
纳比尔·法赫米是前任驻美大使,在职时间很长。他说在驻华盛顿的9年间,他所在的大使馆里有至少40%的工作人员都毕业于美国大学,他本人也是。
美国大学是由一群长老会的传教士于1919年创立的。此后的几十年间,它不断发展,如今在校本科生已达5000名。该校地处偏僻的埃及郊区新开罗,占地260英亩(约105.2168万平方米),建筑风格独特,所获投资达4亿美元(约28亿元)。其地理位置使得该校对自身重新定位,正如该校正开始将自己定位为一流的大学,而非只为埃及精英分子而设的贵族学校。但随着该校的发展,校内也引发了一场论战:它能否在保留其人文教育核心地位以及诸如《人生的重大问题》这类课程的同时,转变其使命呢?
有人表示它需要摒弃这种想法。
“We are moving more and more into professional schools, like business, engineering, sciences,” said Mr. Fahmy, the former ambassador, who is the founding dean of a new school of global affairs and public policy.
“The challenge we have now is we have moved from a small college that thought it was a university, to a university that has to change its thinking from being a small college,” he said, defining a view that is 25)anathema to some others on campus.
There are other pressures, too, coming from a society that holds engineers in such high esteem, that the profession is also a 26)courtesy title, like doctor.
“The humanities in general, and philosophy specifically, are seen as either 27)frivolous or, at the very least, not financially 28)prudent, by many of the very people who seek what makes A.U.C. unique,” said Nathaniel Bowditch, an assistant professor of philosophy. Dr. Bowditch argued that “learning how to think rather than what to think prepares a person for all professions,” and that without that “the academy becomes nothing more than a trade school.”
For now, the university leadership says it remains committed to its core mission, and will continue to ensure that incoming Egyptian students relearn how to learn, officials here said. “We want our students to be imaginative in their fields,” Ms. Anderson said.
So for the time being, at least, the Big Questions class remains safe, which seems to suit the students just fine.
“I took the course because my brother took it two years ago,” said Mr. Gindy, the freshman construction engineering major. “I like how it explained things we never knew, like how the world began.”
“我们在商业、工程学和科学等学科的教学方面越来越专业,”前任驻美大使法赫米先生说道。他创建了全球事务及公共政治学学院,并担任该学院的院长。
“目前,我们的挑战在于,过去作为小小的一所学院,我们以为自己是一所综合性大学,如今它已从一个小学院转变为一所综合性大学,它得转变原来的小学院思维模式,”他阐述了这样一种愿景,但学校里的一些人却对此深恶痛绝。
该校还面临着其他一些压力,这些压力来源于这样一个社会——工程师备受敬重,这一职业也成了一种尊称,跟“医生”一样。
“许多探究‘开罗美国大学’特色所在的人要不觉得大部分的人文学科都无关紧要,特别是哲学,要不就觉得花钱在这些东西上不太审慎,”该校哲学系助教纳撒尼尔·伯蒂奇说。这位博士争辩道:“学习如何思考而非思考什么,这能为一个人从事各行各业做好准备,”而这种思考能力的缺失将导致“一所高校沦为一所培训学校。”
该校的领导们说,目前,该校仍秉承其核心使命,并将继续保证入读的埃及学生能重新学习如何去学习。“我们希望我们的学生能在其领域发挥想象力,”安德森女士说道。
所以,就目前而言,至少《人生的重大问题》这门课仍能保住,而这门课似乎也很合学生的口味。
“我选这门课是因为我哥哥两年前也修了这门课,”建筑工程学专业大一新生金迪说。“我喜欢它阐述那些我们从不了解的事物时所用的方式,例如世界是如何形成的。”
