注意力的能力。但是他们真正的问题是专心听课比他们认为的要难得多。
Worse still, attending lectures is passive learning, at least for inexperienced listeners. Active learning, in which students write essays or perform experiments and them have their work evaluated by an instructor, is far more beneficial for those who have not yet fully learned how to learn. While it‘s true that techniques of active listening, such as trying to anticipate the speaker‘s next point or taking notes selectively, can enhance the value of a lecture, few students possess such skills at the beginning of their college careers. More commonly, students try to write everything down and even bring tape recorders to class in a clumsy effort to capture every word.
更糟的是，听课是被动学习，至少对没有经验的听众如此。主动学习时学生些文章或做实验，然后由教师评价他们的作业，因此主动学习对那些还没有完全学会如何学习的学生来说益处要大得多。的确，积极听讲的技巧，如设法预测说话人的下一个要点或有选择的记笔记，能够提高听课的价值，但是很少有学生在大学学习的开始阶段就已经掌握了这些技巧。更为常见的是学生试图写下所有的内容，甚至还带着录音机去听课，以这种笨拙的方式来记录每个词。
Students need to question their professors and to have their ideas taken seriously. Only then will they develop the analytical skills required to think intelligently and creatively. Most students learn best by engaging in frequent and even heated debate, not by scribbling down a professor‘s often unsatisfactory summary of complicated issues. They need small discussion classes that demand the common labors of teacher and students rather than classes in which one person, however learned, propounds his or her own ideas.
学生需要向教授提问，也需要别人重视他们的想法。只有这样他们才能开发出聪明的、创造性的思考所必需的分析能力。大多数学生通过参加频繁的、甚至激烈的辩论才会学的更好，而不是通过胡乱记下教授对复杂事件所作出的常常不能令人满意的总结，他们需要小型讨论课，这种课需要教师和学生的共同努力，他们不需要那种让一个人提出自己观点的课堂，无论这个人多么有学识。
The lecture system ultimately harms professors as well. It reduces feedback to a minimum, so that the lecturer can neither judge how well students understand the material nor benefit from their questions or comments. Questions that require the speaker to
clarify obscure points and comments that challenge sloppily constructed arguments are indispensable to scholarship. Without them, the liveliest mind can atrophy. Undergraduates may not be able to make telling contributions very often, but lecturing insulates a professor even from the beginner‘s na?ve question that could have triggered a fruitful line of thought.
讲课制度最终也会危害到教授们。反馈减少到了最低点，因此讲课者既不能判断学生对材料的了解程度，也不能受益于学生的提问或评论。学生要求说话者澄清模糊论点所提出的问题，以及挑战结构松散的论据的评论，这对于学术是必不可少的。没有这些，最活跃的头脑也会萎缩。大学生也许还不能够常常做出显著的贡献，但是讲课把教授同新生天真的问题阻隔开了，而这些问题很可能会引起一系列思考。
If lectures make so little sense, why have they been allowed to continue? Administrators love them, of course. They can cram far more students into a lecture hall than into a discussion class, and for many administrators that is almost the end of the story. But the truth is that faculty members, and even students, conspire with them to keep the lecture system alive and well. Lectures are easier on everyone than debates. Professors can pretend to teach by lecturing just as students can pretend to learn by attending lectures, with no
one the wiser, including the participants. Moreover, if lectures afford some students an opportunity to sit back and let the professor run the show, they offer some professors an irresistible forum for showing off. In a classroom where everyone contributes, students are less able to hide and professors less tempted to engage in intellectual exhibitionism.
如果说讲课如此不同情理，为什么还一直允许继续下去呢？当然是因为教学管理者喜欢了。他们可以把更多的学生塞进演讲厅，而无法把这么多学生塞进讨论班。对许多管理者而言，这基本上就是他们所关心的了。但是，事实上，教师，甚至学生和管理者联合起来使得这一制度继续存在，且运行的很好。对任何人来说，讲课都比辩论容易。教授可以通过讲课假装在教，就像学生可以通过听课假装在学，这一点没有人意识到，包括参与者（指老师和学生）。此外，如果听课给某些学生袖手旁观，而让老师唱主角的机会，这也给一些教授提供了炫耀其才学的不可抗拒的舞台。如果课堂上人人参与，学生就无法躲藏，教授也不太会被吸引去进行学识上的自我表现。
Smaller classes in which students are required to involve themselves in discussion put an end to students‘ passivity. Students become actively involved when forced to question their own ideas as well as their instructor‘s. their listening skills improve dramatically
in the excitement of intellectual give-and-take with their instructors and yellow students. Such interchanges help professors do their job better because they allow them to discover who knows what—before final exams, not after. When exams are given in this type of course, they can require analysis and synthesis from the students, not empty memorization. Classes like this require energy, imagination, and commitment from professors, all of which can be exhausting. But they compel students to share responsibility for their own intellectual growth.
如果班级较小又要求学生参加讨论，这就会消除学生的被动性。学生被迫对他们自己和老师的思想表示怀疑时，他们就变得主动参与了。他们听的技巧在与老师和同学的学术交流所带来的刺激中大大得到提高。这种交替互动能够帮助教师做得更好，因为他们会发现谁知道什么---在期末考试前，而不是之后。这种形式的课程考试要求学生分析和综合，而不是空洞的记忆。这样的课程需要教授们的活力、想象力和投入，所有这些都会令人精疲力竭的。但是，这也使得学生为他们自己 的学术成长分担责任。
Lectures will never entirely disappear from the university scene both because they seem to be economically necessary and because they spring from a long tradition in a setting that values tradition for its own sake. But the lectures too frequently come at the wrong end