SJA每周新闻--聆听周围的声音

October 29, 2018

Hearing the Voices Around Us
聆听周围的声音

I hate running. Ever since my childhood, I have not been very good at it, and it has been hard work to run anything other than a sprint. I love playing basketball, or any other game actually, but I hate to run. So when I choose to go for a run, now that my knees don’t allow me to play basketball at full speed, I need extra encouragement to get out there for any length of time. To help me through, I put in my ear buds and lose myself in the music. I can then enter a self-imposed state of isolation and let my mind wander. It helps the run go by more quickly, and it even helps me come up with solutions to problems, but it also has its drawbacks.

我讨厌跑步。从我小时候起，我就不太擅长，除了短跑冲刺之外，跑步是一件很辛苦的事情。我喜欢打篮球，或者其他任何运动，但我讨厌跑步。我的膝盖不允许我以全速奔跑来打篮球，所以我才会选择跑步，但我需要又额外的鼓励来坚持任意长时间的跑步。为了能够坚持到底，我戴上耳塞沉浸在音乐中。然后，我可以进入一个自我隔离的状态，让我的思绪徘徊到千里之外。这样能助我跑得更快，甚至能帮我想出解决问题的方法，但同时它也有它的缺点。

I was reminded of these drawbacks when I heard about a student who, with ear buds in and music cranking, did not hear our crossing guard Katie Valdez yell at him to stop at the crosswalk. If you have ever heard Katie control the crosswalk with her verbal commands, you know that he had to be deep in his own world in order to miss her high-volume, “Hold up!”. His self-imposed oblivion almost put him in a dangerous spot. This situation highlighted the fact that our technology not only helps us create our own aural environments (and now with virtual reality, our own visual ones, too), but by closing us off from our natural and communal environments, put us in danger in more ways than one.

当我听说一个学生戴着耳塞，跟着音乐一起摇摆，而没有听到路口警卫Katie Valdez冲他大喊来让他在人行道上停下时，我意识到了戴耳塞听音乐的缺点。如果你见过Katie用她的话语来管理人行横道，你就知道他沉浸在多么忘我的世界里，竟然没有听到她的高声呼喊：“停住！”。他的忘我状态几乎把他置于危险的境地。这就突显了这样一个事实，即我们如今的技术不仅能帮我们创建自己以为的听觉环境（现在还有虚拟现实，自己以为的视觉环境），而且也把我们与自然环境和公共环境隔绝开来，使得我们处于多重危险之中。

I spoke about this danger in Fuller Hall this past week, and I was tempted to do so through a satire, exposing the folly of closing ourselves off from the world and making us oblivious to our surroundings, especially when we are surrounded by amazing people and are only together for roughly seven hours a day. But then I decided not to turn to satire because I didn’t want the message to get missed amidst the humor. That oblivious young man almost got seriously hurt, and I had a broader message to deliver—one based on my own realization of what our aural isolation, even when chosen for good reasons, causes us to sacrifice in our daily lives.

我上周在Fuller大厅谈到过这种危险性，我曾试图通过讽刺的方式来揭露把自己与周围环境隔绝的愚蠢行为，尤其周围都是一天相处时间仅约七个小时的优秀的人们。但后来我决定不借助于讽刺的方式，因为我不想让大家只关注幽默而忽略了重要信息。那个忘我的年轻人差点受了重伤，在这里我要传达一个更宽泛的信息——就算是有特殊原因需要进行自我听觉隔离的行为，也会对我们的日常生活有一定的影响。

This message is at the center of the story of one particular day’s run. As I set out to run on the bike path, I found I had left my earbuds behind, and I resigned myself to having to walk instead of run (there was no way I was running without my music!). As I walked, I noticed the various sounds coming from the transfer station, from the highway, and from the side streets along the path, but then I became aware of the smaller and more beautiful sounds of the birds. There were so many of them, and I had never heard them on my previous runs! As I walked, I tried to focus on each new one, and as I walked further down the path and away from town, I heard even more. Lost in the bird song, I found myself having walked farther than I planned, and so I turned back, only to discover another voice all together.

当我准备在自行车道上跑步时，我发现我忘记带耳塞了，我只好步行而不是跑步（没有音乐让我跑步是不可能的！）当我步行的时候，我听到了来自换乘站、高速公路、小路旁的街道传来的各种声音，后来我又听到了鸟儿发出的更细更悦耳的声音。这些声音太多了，我以前从来没听到过！我试着把注意力集中在每一个新的声音上，当我沿着小路往前走，不断远离城镇时，我听到了更多声音。迷失在鸟儿的歌声中，我发现自己计划中走得更远，于是我转身回去，却发现所有的声音全都混在了一起。

As I neared town, I encountered a family with a young child skipping down the path. As she skipped, she sang—just nonsense words and in a tune of her own making, but beautiful nonetheless. It occurred to me that had I been running, particularly with my ear buds in, I would have missed this song and the joy it brought me. I also realized there was a small voice inside me that told me that this kind of music is all around me if I listen. I would have missed that, too, had I been plugged in.

当我接近城镇时，我遇到一家人，其中一个小孩在路上蹦蹦跳跳的。当她跳跃的时候，嘴里还在唱着歌--只是没有意义的歌词和她自创的曲调，但仍然很动听。我突然想到，如果我戴着耳塞一直奔跑，我肯定会错过这首歌和它带给我的快乐。我也听到心里有一个小小的声音在说：如果我认真聆听的话，周围全都是这种音乐。当然如果我的耳朵被堵住的话，我也会错过的。

With these two events in mind, I asked those gathered in Fuller to refrain from using ear buds for the time we are together. Carleton researcher Tom Everett has studied the use of headphones and ear buds, and while he reports that they have been useful tools in protecting us from oppressively noisy environments, he also reports that they have isolated us from one another. Likewise, Amy Clements-Cortes of the University of Toronto sees this technology as damaging our ability to communicate with each other and even decreasing the natural curiosity that draws children to interact. Carleton reporter Kate Hawkins has reported that teens know this too. One student she interviewed said, “Wearing them in any kind of social situation is kind of stand-offish. It’s saying that my music is more important than whatever you have to say.”

鉴于这两件事，我建议大家聚在一起的时候不要用耳塞。卡尔顿大学的研究员Tom Everett研究了耳机和耳塞的用途，虽然他的研究报告说耳机和耳塞是保护我们免受恶劣嘈杂环境影响的有用工具，但他也说了耳机和耳塞会把我们彼此隔离开来。同样，多伦多大学的Amy Clements-Cortes认为这种技术减弱了我们相互之间沟通的能力，甚至降低了吸引儿童互动的自然好奇心。卡尔顿大学的记者Kate Hawkins报道称，现在的青少年也清楚地知道这一点。她采访的一位学生说：“在任何社交场合都戴着耳塞是一种很不友好的行为，意思好像在说我的音乐比你说的任何事都重要。”

At a time when people in our society seem to have a hard time listening to each other, when we take the natural environment around us for granted, when we are tempted to enter our own echo chambers, we should at least reclaim some of the time we spend together and put the ear buds away. As I told the people gathered for Chapel in Fuller, I want our school days to be that kind of time together. I believe that one of the best parts of an Academy education is to experience people and ideas from around the world. We did not necessarily plan to be here together in this place at this time for however many days or years, but here we are—with the world right here to listen to and to learn from. Let’s not any of us waste this opportunity to treasure the beautiful voices around us.

在我们生活的社会中，当我们不能够相互倾听时，当我们把周围的自然环境屏蔽时，当我们沉浸在自己的世界里时，我们真的应该把耳塞收起来，找回一起度过的岁月。正如我告诉Fuller礼堂内聚集的人们那样，我希望我们的学院时光是大家聚在一起活动、学习。我相信最好的学院教育方式之一是与来自世界各地的人们和谐相处，彼此交流互动。我们并没有约定这个时间相聚在这里，但我们现在就在这里，与世界各地的朋友们一起倾听和学习。我们都不要浪费聆听身边美好声音的机会。

The Hilltopper Restaurant has been very busy since opening earlier this month. Make a reservation today by calling 748-8965 and we'll save you a seat. View the menu here.

Hilltopper餐厅自十月初开业以来非常繁忙。

Students learned about C-SPAN and their role in covering the government on the company's special bus when it visited campus as part of C-SPAN's 50 Capitals Tour.

当C-SPAN公司的“50州之旅”其中一站来到圣约翰学院时，学生们认真了解C-SPAN以及他们在公司专车中的职责。

Dance students have been working with guest instructors John Gardner and Amanda McKerrow for the past couple weeks.

舞蹈学生过去几周与客座教师John Gardner和Amanda McKerrow一起合作。

Students in Ms. Scavitto's World Civilizations class used some of the school's new virtual reality Oculus Go's to "travel" to the Palace at Versailles without ever leaving Colby Hall.  

Scavitto女士的世界文明史学生在Colby大厅内使用学校新型虚拟现实技术Oculus Go's就可以“参观游览”Versailles皇宫。

Boys' soccer beat Brattleboro 4-0 on Friday to advance to the semi-finals tomorrow when they host Essex. Game time is 3:00. The game will be carried live on nsnsports.net. The photos from Friday's game are here.

周五，男子足球4-0战胜Brattleboro，进入周六主场为Essex的半决赛。比赛时间3点，将会通过 nsnsports.net 直播。

Field hockey downed LI 3-1 to advance to the semi-finals today at UVM where they will face Windsor. Game time is 3:30. Photos from the LI game are here.

曲棍球以3-1击败LI进入与Windsor对抗的半决赛，比赛时间为下午3点30分。

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