9月8号是每年美国所有学校统一开课的日子。在2009年的那一天,奥巴马总统来到弗吉尼亚州的维克菲尔德中学,通过电视给全国的学生们进行了一次精彩的演讲。以下是他的演讲稿,里面有很多相当精彩的语段,而且文章的遣词造句都比较容易,非常适合我们去研读与学习。今天我们就来一起学习一下!
Hello, everybody! Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. All
right, everybody go ahead and have a seat. How is everybody doing
today? (Applause.) How about Tim Spicer? (Applause.) I am here with
students at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. And we've
got students tuning in from all across America, from kindergarten
through 12th grade. And I am just so glad that all could join us
today. And I want to thank Wakefield for being such an outstanding
host. Give yourselves a big round of applause. (Applause.)
I know that
for many of you, today is the first day of school. And for those of
you in kindergarten, or starting middle or high school, it's your
first day in a new school, so it's understandable if you're a
little nervous. I imagine there are some seniors out there who are
feeling pretty good right now -- (applause) -- with just one more
year to go. And no matter what grade you're in, some of you are
probably wishing it were still summer and you could've stayed in
bed just a little bit longer this morning.
I know that
feeling. When I was young, my family lived overseas. I lived in
Indonesia for a few years. And my mother, she didn't have the money
to send me where all the American kids went to school, but she
thought it was important for me to keep up with an American
education. So she decided to teach me extra lessons herself, Monday
through Friday. But because she had to go to work, the only time
she could do it was at 4:30 in the morning.
Now, as you
might imagine, I wasn't too happy about getting up that early. And
a lot of times, I'd fall asleep right there at the kitchen table.
But whenever I'd complain, my mother would just give me one of
those looks and she'd say, "This is no picnic for me either,
buster." (Laughter.)
(以上三段,在开场白之后,奥巴马通过举自己在年少时被妈妈强迫早起读书的例子,来勉励学生们刻苦勤奋地学习。显得平易近人,也很有感染力。)
So I know
that some of you are still adjusting to being back at school. But
I'm here today because I have something important to discuss with
you. I'm here because I want to talk with you about your education
and what's expected of all of you in this new school year.
Now, I've
given a lot of speeches about education. And I've talked about
responsibility a lot. I've talked about teachers' responsibility
for inspiring students and pushing you to learn. I've talked about
your parents' responsibility for making sure you stay on track, and
you get your homework done, and don't spend every waking hour in
front of the TV or with the Xbox. I've talked a lot about your
government's responsibility for setting high standards, and
supporting teachers and principals, and turning around schools that
aren't working, where students aren't getting the opportunities
that they deserve.
But at the
end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most
supportive parents, the best schools in the world -- and none of it
will make a difference, none of it will matter unless all of you
fulfill your responsibilities, unless you show up to those schools,
unless you pay attention to those teachers, unless you listen to
your parents and grandparents and other adults and put in the hard
work it takes to succeed. That's what I want to focus on today: the
responsibility each of you has for your education.
(用精彩的排比句引出本次演讲的核心词:“责任”。)
I want to
start with the responsibility you have to yourself. Every single
one of you has something that you're good at. Every single one of
you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to
yourself to discover what that is. That's the opportunity an
education can provide.
Maybe you
could be a great writer -- maybe even good enough to write a book
or articles in a newspaper -- but you might not know it until you
write that English paper -- that English class paper that's
assigned to you. Maybe you could be an innovator or an inventor --
maybe even good enough to come up with the next iPhone or the new
medicine or vaccine -- but you might not know it until you do your
project for your science class. Maybe you could be a mayor or a
senator or a Supreme Court justice -- but you might not know that
until you join student government or the debate team.
And no
matter what you want to do with your life, I guarantee that you'll
need an education to do it. You want to be a doctor, or a teacher,
or a police officer? You want to be a nurse or an architect, a
lawyer or a member of our military? You're going to need a good
education for every single one of those careers. You cannot drop
out of school and just drop into a good job. You've got to train
for it and work for it and learn for it.
And this
isn't just important for your own life and your own future. What
you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future
of this country. The future of America depends on you.
What you're learning in school today
will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest
challenges in the future.
You'll need
the knowledge and problem-solving skills you learn in science and
math to cure diseases like cancer and AIDS, and to develop new
energy technologies and protect our environment. You'll need the
insights and critical-thinking skills you gain in history and
social studies to fight poverty and homelessness, crime and
discrimination, and make our nation more fair and more free. You'll
need the creativity and ingenuity you develop in all your classes
to build new companies that will create new jobs and boost our
economy.
We need
every single one of you to develop your talents and your skills and
your intellect so you can help us old folks solve our most
difficult problems. If you don't do that -- if you quit on school
-- you're not just quitting on yourself, you're quitting on your
country.
(强调教育对个人成才实现抱负跟国家的前途命运都是息息相关的。)
Now, I know
it's not always easy to do well in school. I know a lot of you have
challenges in your lives right now that can make it hard to focus
on your schoolwork.
I get it. I
know what it's like. My father left my family when I was two years
old, and I was raised by a single mom who had to work and who
struggled at times to pay the bills and wasn't always able to give
us the things that other kids had. There were times when I missed
having a father in my life. There were times when I was lonely and
I felt like I didn't fit in.
So I wasn't
always as focused as I should have been on school, and I did some
things I'm not proud of, and I got in more trouble than I should
have. And my life could have easily taken a turn for the
worse.
But I was --
I was lucky. I got a lot of second chances, and I had the
opportunity to go to college and law school and follow my dreams.
My wife, our First Lady Michelle Obama, she has a similar story.
Neither of her parents had gone to college, and they didn't have a
lot of money. But they worked hard, and she worked hard, so that
she could go to the best schools in this country.
Some of you
might not have those advantages. Maybe you don't have adults in
your life who give you the support that you need. Maybe someone in
your family has lost their job and there's not enough money to go
around. Maybe you live in a neighborhood where you don't feel safe,
or have friends who are pressuring you to do things you know aren't
right.
But at the
end of the day, the circumstances of your life -- what you look
like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you've got
going on at home -- none of that is an excuse for neglecting your
homework or having a bad attitude in school. That's no excuse for
talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of
school. There is no excuse for not trying.
Where you
are right now doesn't have to determine where you'll end up. No
one's written your destiny for you, because here in America, you
write your own destiny. You make your own future.
That's what
young people like you are doing every day, all across
America.
Young people
like Jazmin Perez, from Roma, Texas. Jazmin didn't speak English
when she first started school. Neither of her parents had gone to
college. But she worked hard, earned good grades, and got a
scholarship to Brown University -- is now in graduate school,
studying public health, on her way to becoming Dr. Jazmin
Perez.
I'm thinking
about Andoni Schultz, from Los Altos, California, who's fought
brain cancer since he was three. He's had to endure all sorts of
treatments and surgeries, one of which affected his memory, so it
took him much longer -- hundreds of extra hours -- to do his
schoolwork. But he never fell behind. He's headed to college this
fall.
And then
there's Shantell Steve, from my hometown of Chicago, Illinois. Even
when bouncing from foster home to foster home in the toughest
neighborhoods in the city, she managed to get a job at a local
health care center, start a program to keep young people out of
gangs, and she's on track to graduate high school with honors and
go on to college.
And Jazmin,
Andoni, and Shantell aren't any different from any of you. They
face challenges in their lives just like you do. In some cases
they've got it a lot worse off than many of you. But they
refused to give up. They chose to take responsibility for their
lives, for their education, and set goals for themselves. And I
expect all of you to do the same.
(举出不同人物的事例,强调成功不能过分依赖外部的与先天的条件,需要靠自己一点一滴、不离不弃的努力与奋斗。)
That's why
today I'm calling on each of you to set your own goals for your
education -- and do everything you can to meet them. Your goal can
be something as simple as doing all your homework, paying attention
in class, or spending some time each day reading a book. Maybe
you'll decide to get involved in an extracurricular activity, or
volunteer in your community. Maybe you'll decide to stand up for
kids who are being teased or bullied because of who they are or how
they look, because you believe, like I do, that all young people
deserve a safe environment to study and learn. Maybe you'll decide
to take better care of yourself so you can be more ready to learn.
And along those lines, by the way, I hope all of you are washing
your hands a lot, and that you stay home from school when you don't
feel well, so we can keep people from getting the flu this fall and
winter.
But whatever
you resolve to do, I want you to commit to it. I want you to really
work at it.
I know that
sometimes you get that sense from TV that you can be rich and
successful without any hard work -- that your ticket to success is
through rapping or basketball or being a reality TV star. Chances
are you're not going to be any of those things.
The truth
is, being successful is hard. You won't love every subject that
you study. You won't click with every teacher that you have. Not
every homework assignment will seem completely relevant to your
life right at this minute. And you won't necessarily succeed at
everything the first time you try.
That's okay.
Some of the most successful people in the world are the ones who've
had the most failures. J.K. Rowling's -- who wrote Harry Potter --
her first Harry Potter book was rejected 12 times before it was
finally published. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school
basketball team. He lost hundreds of games and missed thousands of
shots during his career. But he once said, "I have failed over and
over and over again in my life. And that's why I succeed."
These
people succeeded because they understood that you can't let your
failures define you -- you have to let your failures teach you. You
have to let them show you what to do differently the next time.
So if you get into trouble, that doesn't mean you're a
troublemaker, it means you need to try harder to act right. If you
get a bad grade, that doesn't mean you're stupid, it just means you
need to spend more time studying.
No one's
born being good at all things. You become good at things through
hard work. You're not a varsity athlete the first time you play a
new sport. You don't hit every note the first time you sing a song.
You've got to practice. The same principle applies to your
schoolwork. You might have to do a math problem a few times before
you get it right. You might have to read something a few times
before you understand it. You definitely have to do a few drafts of
a paper before it's good enough to hand in.
Don't be
afraid to ask questions. Don't be afraid to ask for help when you
need it. I do that every day. Asking for help isn't a sign of
weakness, it's a sign of strength because it shows you have the
courage to admit when you don't know something, and that then
allows you to learn something new. So find an adult that you
trust -- a parent, a grandparent or teacher, a coach or a counselor
-- and ask them to help you stay on track to meet your
goals.
(说明失败并不可怕,正好相反,失败越多,离成功就越近。)
And even
when you're struggling, even when you're discouraged, and you feel
like other people have given up on you, don't ever give up on
yourself, because when you give up on yourself, you
give up on your country.
The story of America isn't about people who quit when things got
tough. It's about people who kept going, who tried harder, who
loved their country too much to do anything less than their
best.
It's the
story of students who sat where you sit 250 years ago, and went on
to wage a revolution and they founded this nation. Young people.
Students who sat where you sit 75 years ago who overcame a
Depression and won a world war; who fought for civil rights and put
a man on the moon. Students who sat where you sit 20 years ago who
founded Google and Twitter and Facebook and changed the way we
communicate with each other.
(把成功上升到国家与人民的层面上,用以积极学生们努力创造出一番成就。)
So today, I want to ask all of you, what's your contribution going
to be? What problems are you going to solve? What discoveries will
you make? What will a President who comes here in 20 or 50 or 100
years say about what all of you did for this country?
Now, your
families, your teachers, and I are doing everything we can to make
sure you have the education you need to answer these questions. I'm
working hard to fix up your classrooms and get you the books and
the equipment and the computers you need to learn. But you've got
to do your part, too. So I expect all of you to get serious this
year. I expect you to put your best effort into everything you do.
I expect great things from each of you. So don't let us down. Don't
let your family down or your country down. Most of all, don't
let yourself down. Make us all proud.
(最重要的,是不要让自己对自己感到失望。)
Thank you very much,
everybody. God bless you. God bless America. Thank you.
(Applause.)
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