第十一届“21世纪杯”全国英语演讲比赛亚军吴相臣演讲稿
2011-12-18 15:34阅读：
第十一届“21世纪杯”全国英语演讲比赛亚军——吴相臣 天津师范大学
Our Future: the Garden of One Flower or Many
Flowers
I have a friend who just started his career as a teacher in
a primary school. Weeks ago, he asked me to raise a topic for his
mid-term composition test. I was curious why he chose me to give a
topic, because he is a teacher himself. He said that he wanted
something the students can really show their different ideas.
Without thinking, I told him to let his students write about what
they would do if they were given one million US dollars. My friend
left with satisfaction, and I fell into my old
memories.
It reminded me of my old days in primary school. We were
learning to do narration in the fifth grade's Chinese class. Our
teacher required us to write a composition with the topic 'My Most
Unforgettable Day' with our real experience.
When
papers came back, half of the students wrote about the first day
they came to school. The rest of the compositions were all about
picking money on the streets and giving it to policemen, or helping
a blind man cross the street. Of course I was among them. But I
remember very clearly, that one student, only one student gave
something different. He wrote about the day that he first kissed a
girl. I read his composition. After all these years, I can't recite
every word, but I dare to say, that even Shakespeare, may not be
able to write as equally good when he was 11 years old. The
composition was written out of real experience and genuine
emotions. Contrary to those fake stories, it sounds real and
natural. But the kid was scored zero. Our teacher thought the
content was unhealthy, I'm sure you know the meaning of this
Chinglish word 'unhealthy'.
That was 15 years ago. When you read those compositions,
and you feel that half of our population is blind, so all those
kids could have a chance to help a blind man cross the street, and
every one of us has a hole in our pocket, so all those kids could
have a chance to pick up the lost money and give it to
policemen.
A few days ago, my friend sent me an e-mail of all the
copies of his students' compositions. I have to say, I was sadly
disillusioned.
Among those papers 40% said that they wanted to donate the
money to people in poverty, so their children can go to school. The
rest compositions are much more alike. Some wanted to support the
panda protection project, some wanted to buy books to enlarge their
knowledge. One student even said that he would like to spend his
one million dollars on the effort to cure AIDS. I was more
astonished to find that a ten- year-old child knew what AIDS really
is.
We all have been kids, and we knew what we had once wanted.
But, there was no composition about spending the money on video
games, nice clothes, chocolates, ice-creams and expensive toys.
Like 15 years ago, students won't tell the truth of their
hearts.
It has always been our dream to open our children's hearts.
We encourage them to describe their dreams, and acted as if we are
ready to accept their thoughts. But the fact is that, children are
scared by the zero marked on their papers. They are trained to say
what we want to hear.
People compare children to flowers of tomorrow. And parents
dream about the scenery that roses, tulips, daffodils flourish in
the future. But down the road we are going on, in the future, or
the future of future, only one kind of flower can be found. And
that's the flower we like most.
