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新浪首页 > 新浪教育 > 《英语沙龙》 > 志愿工作的意义 让世界变得更美好

志愿工作的意义 让世界变得更美好
http://www.sina.com.cn 2004/03/02 08:31  英语沙龙

  按:美国哥伦比亚大学教授迈克尔.佩蒂斯莱清华大学经济管理学院任教已将近两年。英语沙龙(阅读版)从2004年1月号开始,将特辟“纽约客专栏”,请佩蒂斯先生谈谈他在中国的所见所闻,所感所思。佩蒂斯先生以独到的眼光和富有个性的见解平说我们生活中平常却不平凡的事,让我们对这些事有了新的认识。此外,读者们还可以通过电子邮件michael@pettiis.com与佩蒂斯先生进行沟通,把你想知道,想了解或是困惑你的问题告诉他。

  At Columbia University, where I taught economics for many years before coming to China, most of my students spent a great deal of time in volunteer work. They taught poor children in the local neighborhoods, they visited the elderly in hospitals and at home and helped them with their shopping, they worked to preserve historic sites and places of beauty, they cleaned up waste dumps, they prepared food for the hungry, they created and ran student newspapers, they organized concerts and artistic events, they acted as translators for migrant workers, they formed political pressure groups, they raised money to combat AIDS, malaria, and other diseases, and so on.

  As part of that tradition I do volunteer work here in Beijing, just as I did in New York, but I find that my students at Tsinghua University and at other schools in Beijing are much less involved in volunteering then I had expected. In part, of course, this reflects the heavier workload in Chinese schools, which leaves less time for outside activities. But I think there is more to it than just this. I think it also reflects a very different system, in which volunteer work for students here is usually organized or sponsored by government, schools, or other official groups, rather than by the students themselves. This means that many students here in Beijing think of volunteering as something that must be done to please teachers, bosses, or other figures of authority, rather than because of a desire to address a problem about which they have thought very deeply.

  This is unfortunate. I think it would be better both for them and for society if Chinese students took the initiative to decide what kinds of problems or issues they felt to be of importance, and then played a more active role in organizing the work. There are many reasons why this would be good. The most obvious reason, of course, is that we all have obligations towards our society, and volunteer work is one way of repaying this obligation.

  But there are at least two other important reasons for doing volunteer work. The first is that you can learn a lot about yourself and about your abilities by organizing, taking on responsibilities, deciding on objectives, and fulfilling them. When you work closely with others who are less fortunate than you, or when you set a local goal and work to accomplish it, you see directly how your actions can affect the world around you.

  This is an important lesson. Many of my students here work very hard, but their attitude towards their work is not always a healthy one. They do the work not because they love it or feel that it is exciting but rather because it is expected of them, and they will get rewarded (or at least not punished) if they do it. With charitable work there is no explicit reward. You work because you have goals, and in the end the only judge of your work is yourself. This changes the way you think about work and about your responsibilities to yourself and others. It also forces you to think about what you are doing and the best way to accomplish your objectives. You are no longer simply doing something because your teacher or your boss told you to do it.

  The second important reason for charitable work is that it changes your relationship with your society. Sometimes I feel that many of the people I meet here don't really appreciate the greatness of China and the excitement of the process through which it is currently living. The Chinese are well-known for being nationalistic, but sometimes I think this nationalism has more to do with distrust of foreigners than with love of country. Many of my friends and students simply do not know very much about their own country, and often seem unhappy with or embarrassed by certain aspects of China.

  I think that if they had spent more time engaged in activities outside of school and family such as doing volunteer work, they would feel very differently. For example, if you help the children of migrant workers with their education, you will quickly realize that poor migrant workers should not be seen as an embarrassment to Beijing. On the contrary, they are a great strength, and their stories are part of a huge and dramatic experiment that China is undergoing. In a small way by working with migrant children you can help make the experiment a success.

  To take another example, when you spend time taking care of old people, who have lived during a very turbulent part of Chinese history, you will discover that the dry and boring stories in your history books actually describe very important events that had an enormous impact on the lives of people that came before you. You will realize how future events can have just as big an impact on your life and those of your friends and family.

  Volunteer work does not have to focus only on helping the poor and disadvantaged. When you help preserve a small and neglected monument that is part of Beijing history, you take possession of your city and begin to love it more deeply. You realize what it means to be a Beijinger, and you begin to see your life in your city as part of a long and wonderful history. Or when you start a small local newspaper written by you and your friends and whose copies are sold or even given away free, for example a simple newspaper to discuss the music that you love (in America, we call these newspapers "zines"), you learn how providing a forum for discussion can unite a group of people and have a direct impact on the way they think and act.

  If you are interested in volunteer work you don't have to wait for your school, your teachers, or officials on television to tell you what to do. The best volunteer work is work that you decide for yourself and organize with your friends. The best projects are those that you think are truly important to you, no matter how small and insignificant they may seem to society as a whole. By deciding what you want to do, and doing it, you benefit not only your society but also yourself, and you and your friends can take control of some part of the life around you and change it for the better.

  By Michael Pettis

志愿工作的意义 让世界变得更美好

  来中国之前,我在哥伦比亚大学讲授经济学多年,我的学生多数要花大量时间做志愿工作。他们给附近地区的贫困孩子上课;走访在医院和住家中的老年人,帮他们购物;为保护历史遗址及自然景观出力;清扫垃圾;为饥饿的人准备食物;创办学生报纸;组织音乐会与艺术活动;为移民劳工充当翻译,成立政治压力团体;为防治艾滋病、疟疾及其他疾病募捐,等等。

  来北京后,我沿袭着这一传统,依然像在纽约那样做志愿工作,但我发现我在清华及北京其他学校的学生远未如我想像中那样多地去参与志愿工作。当然,这部分地反映出中国学校学生课业重,因而很少有校外活动时间的状况。但我认为原因不止于此,它也反映出了很不相同的体制。学生志愿工作在中国通常不是由学生自己,而是由政府、学校或其他官方团体组织。这意味着,很多北京的学生认为志愿工作是为了取悦老师、老板或其他当权人士而必须去做的,并非出于要去、解决某个深刻思考过的问题的意愿。

  这是不幸的。我认为,如果中国学生主动选择自己认为重要的问题或事情,然后以更为积极的姿态参与组织志愿工作,这将对自身和社会都是有益的。之所以这样说的原因有很多。当然,最显而易见的原因是,我们大家对社会都负有义务,志愿工作是我们履行义务的一种方式。

  可是,至少还有另外两个重要的原因。第一,通过组织活动、承担责任、确立目标并加以实现,你能够增加对自己和自身能力的了解。当你同那些没有你那么幸运的人们密切合作的时候,或者当你制定一个要在本地实施的目标并努力去完成的时候,你会直接地感受到你的行为对周围世界产生的影响。

  这是很重要的一课。我在北京的学生多数工作很努力,但他们对工作的态度却往往并不健康。他们选择自己的工作,并不是出于对工作的热爱或者缘于其挑战性,而是因为要顺从别人的期望,并能从中获益(至少不会受到责罚)。慈善工作没有明确的收益。你去做因为你有目标,最终评判你工作的人就是你自己。这会改变你对工作和对自身与他人所负责任的看法。它也会迫使你思索自身的工作与实现自己目标的最佳途径。你将不再仅仅根据老师或老板的指令行事。

  第二个重要的原因是慈善工作会改变你与社会的关系。我有时候有这样的感觉,我在这里碰到的很多人并不真正看重中国的伟大和目前中国发生的变革所带来的兴奋。中国人以爱国著称,但有时我认为这种爱国情感不是体现在对国家的热爱上,而是更多地体现在对外国人的不信任上。我的很多朋友和学生甚至对自己的国家缺乏足够了解,因此他们经常对中国的某些方面感到不满或尴尬。

  我认为,如果他们更多地参与到诸如志愿工作等校外及家庭外的活动中,他们会有非常不同的感受。譬如,通过帮助外地民工教育其子女,你会很快认识到贫苦的外地民工不应该被视为北京的尴尬。相反,他们是一股强大的力量;这些民工的经历正是中国目前巨大变革的一部分。通过帮助外地民工孩子这样一种小小的方式,你可以为促成这种变革而贡献力量。

  再举一个例子,通过花时间照料那些经历过中国历史上动荡年代的老年人,你会发现历史书中干瘪枯燥的史实所描述的实际上是非常重要的历史事件,它们对你面前的老人的生活产生过巨大的影响。你会认识到未来发生的事件对你及朋友与家人的生活也将产生同样巨大的影响。

  志愿工作并非仅仅局限在帮助贫困的弱势群体上。当你参与到保护一个被人遗忘但却承载着北京历史的小小遗址中时,你在了解这座城市,并且开始更加深挚地热爱它。你会认识到作为一名北京人意味着什么,你开始将自己在北京的生活视为其悠久而绚烂历史的一部分。当你创办一份由你自己及朋友撰文的地方小报并销售或无偿发送时,譬如一份探讨你们喜欢的音乐的小报纸(在美国,我们称之为“××爱好者报”),你会了解到通过提供这样的一个论坛,你可以把很多人团结在一起,并且可以直接影响他们的言行。

  如果你对志愿工作感兴趣,不必等待你的学校、教师或电视媒体上的政府官员告诉你干些什么。最好的志愿工作是你自己选择然后与朋友一起组织的工作。最好的活动是你认为对自己重要的活动,尽管它们对整个社会可能显得有些非常微不足道。通过选择自己想做的工作并加以实施,你将不仅令社会而且令你自己从中受益,你和朋友们将部分地影响周围的世界,从而使它变得更加美好。

  纵向东 译




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