记者 何转弟

5月8日晚上七点，第三场外教讲座“Growing up in America”在丽泽楼B104如期举行，本次主讲人是来自外国语学院的外籍教师Ms. Cecily Hurst。同行的还有Ms.Cecily Hurst四个活力四射的孩子。

首先，Ms. Cecily Hurst向大家介绍她那四个活泼可爱的孩子。她说，因为她的孩子很喜欢参加各种各样的课外活动，所以她花费在孩子们课外活动上的开支会比较大。可是她表示，这一切都是值得的，因为没有东西比发展孩子们的兴趣更重要。接着她以她的孩子的校园生活为例，向同学们展示美国小学生的校园生活。在介绍美国校园生活的过程中，她感慨道，其实她的孩子很幸运。首先是因为他们家离学校很近，在美国，有53%的孩子因为家离学校比较远，因此不得不要坐3个小时的校车才能到达学校。其次，他们有机会去享受好的校园生活，去发展他们的爱好。因为即使在美国那样发达的国家也同样存在教育上的两极分化，富有的家庭可以送他们的孩子去好的学校，接受好的教育，而贫穷的家庭只能送他们的孩子到一些不太好的学校，勉强学一点知识。更糟糕的是，在这么一个民主的国度里，歧视依然存在，Ms. Cecily Hurst表示，在美国里相比起白人，只有少数的黑人能拿到学位。说完孩子们的校园生活，Ms. Cecily Hurst就跟同学们聊了一些他们家庭生活的状况，她坦白道，他们一家都是素食主义者，但是在波兰，蔬菜类的东西却很贵，可幸运的是，他们那边的农民市场上的有机蔬菜卖给农民时会比较便宜，而且他们所居住的地方政府实行了“food stamps”这么一个食物补助计划，因而他们的负担也相对会减轻一点。

在提问问题的环节里，同学们的热情相当高涨，Ms. Cecily Hurst和她的四个孩子也相当乐意为同学们解答一系列的疑问。即使讲座结束了，同学们还久久不愿离去，围着Ms. Cecily Hurst和她的孩子继续提问。

The Lecture: Growing up in America

By HE Zhuandi

A lecture, named Growing up in America, was given by Ms. Cecily Hurst who brought her four children in Lize B104 at 7 p.m. on Wednesday night , May 8.

At the beginning of lecture, Ms. Cecily Hurst introduced her children and said her children loved taking part in various activities after school. Thus, the expense of extracurricular activities accounted for a large proportion of the whole expense of her family. However, she deemed all of it is worthy in developing children’s hobby. And then she took her children as examples to demonstrate the school life of America. She said her children were fortunate on the grounds that their house was near the school, so they spent little time on the way to school. However, there were 53% of the American children who had to spend a long time, even for 3 hours, on the yellow school bus. What’ s worse, even in such a developed country, the polarization of education gap still existed. Some poor families even could not afford their children to go to school, she told students. Compared with the white, only a few of black could get degrees in the college in America on account of skin color, social status, income etc. In addition, Ms. Cecily Hurst also talked about her own family. She said, vegetables cost a lot in Portland, especially to her family because they were vegetarians. Fortunately they could buy cheap organic vegetables from Portland Farmers Market, and thanks to Food Stamp, a food aid program issued by local government, their burden was eased to some extent.

In the Question & Answer session, the students were really active and they learned a lot about American’s local life in this lecture.