给梦想插上"勇气"的翅膀

⊙ By Gabrielle Emanuel

翻译：思苇

给梦想插上"勇气"的翅膀

⊙ By Gabrielle Emanuel

翻译：思苇

提到“未来”与“工作”，你会有种茫然不知所措的感觉吗？职业规划对你来说还是个陌生的概念吗？别担心，you are not alone ——许多美国学生直到大学毕业还面临着同样的问题呢。有这么一位老师挺身而出，希望通过她所倡导的“勇气课”为更多学生提供打开职业大门的金钥匙……

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 [5daJn5trɒd(E)n] adj. 被践踏的，被蹂躏的

2) horrified [5hɒrIfaId] adj. 惊悸的，惊骇的

3) nonprofit [5nɒn5prɒfIt] n. 非营利机构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. 顾问

5) campus [5kAmpEs] n. 校园

6) itemize [5aItEmaIz] v. 详细列举

7) hall [hC:l] n. 门厅，过道，走廊

8) tuition [tju:5IF(E)n] n. 学费

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

别看这句话只有短短的十个单词，我们能从中找到三个非常好用的词组！首先是be worth doing sth.，意思是“值得（做某事），有（做某事）的价值”；第二个词组是sign up for sth.，意思是“注册，选课，报名参加”；第三个词组是stay late，可以表达“待到很晚，加班，熬夜”等多个意思。这三个词组在日常生活中随处可见，如：

l The book is worth reading! （这本书值得一读！）

l She has signed up for a secretarial course. （她报读了秘书课程。）

l He told me to stay late to finish up the report. （他让我加班把报告写完。）

这个故事始于二十多年前——艾梅·尤班克斯·戴维斯那时刚当上老师，在美国新奥尔良市一处潦倒破落的片区教六年级。她渐渐与自己的学生建立起深厚的感情。时光荏苒，师生之间一直保持联络，她会帮他们选择合适的高中和大学。很快，学生们要开始考虑就业了，其中有些人还想当老师呢。

艾梅：忽然之间，你有种“噢，天啊！”的感觉，这就是你梦寐以求的时刻——看着自己的学生即将美梦成真。

不过在很多时候，美梦仅仅是美梦罢了。许多她教过的学生并没有被录用，他们收到的是拒绝信。

艾梅：我很吃惊。

她不仅吃惊，还很困惑。尤班克斯·戴维斯发现，学生们拿到大学文凭后根本不知道自己该从事什么职业，也不知道怎样才能找到第一份好工作。这些穷孩子与其他人一样的勤劳肯干……

艾梅：一样的才华横溢，一样的聪明伶俐，劳动力市场却不会对他们一视同仁。

于是她制定了一个计划，用筹集到的资金成立了一个给学生们传授职业技能的非营利机构。该机构有三大原则：首先，将真正的专业人士引入课堂；其次，将教室转化为工作环境。