[老外直言]:何时留学我之见(3)

    互联网除了能让人读到国外主要报纸之外，其实并不是青少年理想的阅读材料的来源。网上是有不少有价值、有意思的内容，但它们漂荡在无聊琐碎、杂七杂八、废物垃圾的信息海洋中。有启发性的书和杂志是孩子所需要的，例如，订一份美国的《国家地理杂志》；而对于偏爱自然科 学的孩子则可以订《科学美国人》， 
    这样会使英文读写能力正在上升的青少年有大量的扩大视野的文章可读。
　　遗憾的是，据我所知，北京还没有一个可以让孩子们用来培养英文阅读兴趣的通用型英文图书馆。王府井外文书店三楼提供的书当然很有价值，但这座城市的确很缺乏一家像在香港能找到的那种真正的英文书店。因此，父母就必须自己担负起责任，确保孩子从国外回来后还能继续读到好的英文读物。
    对于中国的父母们，我从来就理解不了的一点是他们对此事忽视的程度。一个成年人出国了，他在国内有聪明的儿子或女儿，或侄子（侄女），或孙子（孙女），这个成年人会专程去一家不错的书店为那个孩子挑三四本引人入胜的英文书吗？
　　到底为什么不呢？
　　如果一个聪明的中国孩子只在老师要求时读老师规定的书，那么他将成长为学校的奴隶，依赖于控制他的母体。难道这就是教育所应有的含义吗？
　　Apart from the access it offers to major foreign newspapers, the internet is not an ideal source of reading material for adolescents. There is much of great value and interest on line, but bobbing in a vast ocean of trivia, irrelevancies and garbage. Stimulating books and magazines are what the young person needs. For example, a subscription to the NationalGeographic Magazine or, for the scientifically inclined, the ScientificAmerican, will keep teenagers with a rising level of literacy in English abundantly supplied with horizon-widening articles.
　　Sad to say, Beijing does not, so far as I know, have a general-purpose English library that Chinese kids can use to build a taste for reading in English. The offerings on the third floor of the Foreign Language Bookstore on Wangfujing are certainly valuable, but this city very much lacks a true English bookstore of the sort found in Hongkong. Parents must therefore take it upon themselves to see that children returning from abroad continue to have access to good reading material in English.
　　One thing I have never understood about Chinese parents is the extent to which they will neglect this. A Chinese adult goes abroad; at home there is a bright son or daughter or niece or nephew or grandchild. Does the adult take a swing①through a good bookstore and pick out three or four fascinating books for that child?
　　Why on earth not?
　　If a bright Chinese child reads only what his teachers dictate when his teachers dictate it, then that the child will grow up to be a creature of the school, dependent on a matrix of control. Is that what education should mean?