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Teaching Freedom 《街头日记》：战胜命运的自由写手

课文朗读

课文讲解

繁體中文譯本

You’ve probably never heard Erin Gruwell, but she is one extraordinary teacher. Born in California in 1969, she attended the University of California, Irvine, where she won the Distinguish Alumni Award. She went on to earn a master’s degree from California State University Long Beach, where she was again honored as a distinguished alumna of the School of Education. Her training there included a year of student teaching at Woodrow Wilson High School in Long Beach, California.

你可能从没听说过艾琳．古薇尔这个人，不过她可是一位非常杰出的老师。古薇尔出生于1969年的美国加州，就读于加州大学尔湾分校，并荣获该校的杰出校友奖。而后古薇尔继续攻读加州州立大学长堤分校的硕士学位，再次获得其教育学院的杰出校友奖。她在学校的训练包含于加州长堤伍德罗威尔逊高中为期一年的教学实习。

Wilson High was a tough school in a bad neighborhood, the kind of place where hardly anyone cared about the students. In turn, they didn’t care about their studies, or each other. When one of the teens in Gruwell’s class drew an ugly, racist picture of a black classmate, Gruwell compared it to images that the Nazis used against the Jews during the Holocaust. However, the history lesson was lost on her students – only one even knew what the Holocaust was. Shocked, Gruwell quickly decided to change the curriculum of the class to include human stories of tolerance and respect for others. She showed movies, bought books with her own money, and invited guest speakers. By the end of the year, her students knew a bit more about history, and themselves.

威尔逊高中是位在糟糕地区的一所暴力事件充斥的高中，就是那种几乎没有人关心学生的地方；相应地，学生们也不在乎自己的学业或是其他同学。古薇尔班上有个青少年把黑人同学画成一张丑陋且具种族歧视的图画，古薇尔就将这张画比喻为二次世界大战大屠杀事件中，纳粹党用来反对犹太人的图画。然而她的学生们却对于该历史事件一点概念也没有，甚至可以说只有一位学生知道大屠杀事件是什么。讶异之余，古薇尔很快决定改变课程的安排，排入人类相互包容与尊重的故事。古薇尔播放电影、自掏腰包买书，并邀请客座讲者。那年结束之前，她的学生对历史和他们自己稍微多了解了一点。

But these unusual steps were just the beginning for Gruwell. The next year, she would return to Wilson High School as a full-time teacher responsible for a new class of freshmen, with even bigger problems.

然而，对古薇尔来说，这些与众不同的方法只是个开始。来年，她将回到威尔逊高中担任全职老师，负责一个有着更大问题的高一新生班。

Vocabulary

单词发音

alumna [əˋlʌmnə] n. 女校友

neighborhood [ˋnebɚ͵hʊd] n. 邻近地区 a district or area with distinctive characteristics

racist [ˋresɪst] n. 种族主义者 discriminatory especially on the basis of race or religion

Holocaust [ˋhɑlə͵kɔst] n.（二次大战时纳粹对犹太人的）大屠杀

even [ˋivən] adv.（加强语气）甚至 exactly; precisely

curriculum [kəˋrɪkjələm] n.（一门）课程

tolerance [ˋtɑlərəns] n. 宽容

freshman [ˋfrɛʃmən] n.（大学等的）一年级生，新生

Idiom

片语发音

in turn 轮流地；相应地 on the other hand

compare someone or something to someone or something 把....比喻为...  to liken people or things to other people or things; to say that some people or things have the same qualities as other people or things

be lost on someone 对…不起作用, 不能引起…的注意 not understood by someone

课文朗读

课文讲解

When Gruwell stepped into her new class that fall, it was tougher than she ever imagined. Most of the students lived difficult, dangerous lives. Many had been shot at, and some had scars from fighting and abuse. None of them seemed very interested in studying. But as they matter-of-factly shared their stories, Gruwell got an idea.

那年秋天，在古薇尔踏进她的新班级时，这个班级比她想象中还要糟糕。几乎所有学生都过着艰苦、危险的日子，很多人都曾中枪，有些人身上还有因打架或是受虐留下的疤痕，没有人看起来对学习很有兴趣。不过，当他们不带情感地分享各自的故事时，古薇尔兴起了一个念头。

She decides to share two books about other teenagers surrounded by violence. Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl, which describes the experiences of Anne Frank and her Jewish family as they hid from the Nazi during World War II, and Zlata’s Diary: A Child’s Life in Sarajevo, which tells the story of a young girl hiding from ethnic and religious violence during the Bosnian War in the early 1990s.

古薇尔决定分享两本关于青少年在暴力环境下生活的读物：《安妮日记》，描述安妮．法兰克和她犹太家人在二次世界大战期间躲避纳粹党的经历；另一本是《莎拉塔的围城日记：萨拉热窝烽火录》，讲述一个年轻女孩在90年代早期的波斯尼亚战争中，躲避种族和宗教暴力的故事。

Inspired by these stories, the students began keeping diaries of their own, writing about the serious problems they faced every day: drug use, physical and mental abuse, trouble at school. Many of these problems had their roots in race.

受到这些故事鼓舞的学生们开始写日记，纪录他们每天面临的严重问题，像是服用毒品、身体和心理上受虐、在学校遇到的麻烦等等，其中很多问题都根源于种族。

Most of the time, black, white, and Hispanic students were deeply suspicious of each other. Since the diaries were anonymous, however, the races of the writers didn’t matter; students read everything, and discovered that they really weren’t so different after all. Over time, the class grew closer, and they began calling themselves the Freedom Writers, after activists who had fought for equal rights for blacks in the 1960s. But writing was just the beginning of their journey.

大部分的时间，黑人、白人和西班牙学生都对此怀有强烈的戒心。不过因为日记都是匿名的，所以作者属于什么种族无关紧要。学生阅读所有的日记，并发现他们之间其实并没有那么不同。随着时间的推移，整个班级变得越来越紧密，他们开始自称为「自由写手」，这个名字源自60年代为黑人争取自由的激进份子。然而，写作只是他们旅程的开始而已。

Vocabulary

单词发音

abuse [əˋbjus] n. 虐待; 滥用

matter-of-factly [͵mætərəfˋfæktlɪ] adv. 实事求是地，切合实际地；就事论事地 straightforward or unemotional

Sarajevo [͵særəˋjevo] 萨拉热窝（玻兹尼亚泽哥维那共和国首都）

ethnic [ˋɛθnɪk] adj. 种族（上）的

root [rut] n. 根源，来源；根由 origin or derivation, esp as a source of growth, vitality, or existence

Hispanic [hɪsˋpænɪk] adj. 西班牙的 of or relating to Spain or Spanish-speaking Latin America

suspicious [səˋspɪʃəs] adj. 猜疑的，疑心的

anonymous [əˋnɑnəməs] adj. 匿名的

activist [ˋæktəvɪst] n. 激进主义分子

Idiom

片语发音

keep a diary 写日记

over time 随着时间的过去  through the period or duration of time

课文朗读

课文讲解

Building on the success of their diaries, Gruwell and her students invited Miep Gies, the Dutch woman who had sheltered the Frank family, to visit them in California. They also wrote many letters to Zlata Filipovic, the author of Zlata’s Diary: A Child’s Life in Sarajevo. Moved by their words, she spent five days with the class discussing their experiences.

在日记写作成功的基础上，古薇尔和她的学生邀庇护法兰克一家的荷兰人──梅普．吉斯女士到加州拜访他们。古薇尔的学生们也写了很多封信给《莎拉塔的围城日记：萨拉热窝烽火录》的作者莎拉塔．菲力波维克。菲力波维克受到他们的文字所感动，花了五天时间和全班同学讨论他们的经历。

By then it was clear that the Freedom Writers were becoming something special. In 1997, they took a trip to Washington D.C., where they visited the Holocaust Museum and presented their work to the Secretary of Education. In 1998, they received the Spirit of Anne Frank Award. And in the summer of 1999, they finally realized their dream, as they traveled to the house in Amsterdam where Anne Frank had lived secretly, and several concentration camps like the one where she died. On the same trip, they also visited Filipovic in Sarajevo, Bosnia.

到那个时候，自由写手的确已经变得相当特别。在1997年，他们前往华盛顿特区旅行，参访了犹太大屠杀纪念馆，并向教育部呈递他们的作品。在1998年，他们荣获了安妮．法兰克精神奖；他们更在1999年夏天实现了梦想，来到安妮．法兰克在阿姆斯特丹秘密居住的房子，还参访了几座集中营，像是法兰克临死前待的那座。在这段旅程里，他们也拜访了住在波斯尼亚萨拉热窝的菲力波维克。

The remarkable story of the Freedom Writers was recorded in a book by Gruwell called the Freedom Writers Diary, which was published in 1999. It quickly became a bestseller, and in 2007, it was also made into a movie. 

古薇尔将「自由写手」非凡的故事，收录在1999年出版的《街头日记》一书中，这本书很快就成为畅销书，并于2007年拍摄成电影。

And what happened to the Freedom Writers themselves, the students who once seemed destined to fail? Every one of them graduated from high school, and many even went on to college. They are living proof that words can change the world.

至于那些曾经看似注定会失败的自由写手们后续发展如何？他们每个人都从高中毕业，其中很多人甚至去念了大学。文字的力量能改变世界，自由写手们就是有力的证明。

－by Dmitri Detwyler

Vocabulary

单词发音

remarkable [rɪˋmɑrkəb!] adj. 非凡的；卓越的

publish [ˋpʌblɪʃ] v. 出版；发行

bestseller [ˌbest'ˋsɛlɚ] n. 畅销书

destine [ˋdɛstən] v. 注定

The Freedom Writers Erin Gruwell with Zlata Filipovich

Don't forget Sarajevo

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum - Insider Perks Museum Video

Anne Frank: The diary of a young girl (Book Trailer)

more videos: 

2013 - Amsterdam's Top Attractions - The Anne Frank House

Freedom Writers Trailer