本帖最后由 aspire5000 于 2014-8-29 09:30 编辑
这篇文章来自很多年前买的一本英语名篇佳作背诵100篇，里面有很多教育理念觉得很好，所以一个字一个字敲上来，与大家共同学习。
Pain and Growth
Looking back over my life, it seems to me that I have learned the most when I felt the greatest pain. My mother's death, for example, made me more profoundly aware of the beauty in nature. My capacity for finding joy in the most ordinary events(watching flower open, leaves turning red, a bird taking a bath) seems to deepen each time I live through great sorrow. Death makes life more precious; frustration makes success more fulfilling, failure makes the next accomplishment more meaningful.
In order to feel deeply it is necessary to feel everything. It is impossible to choose. You can't really know how great is your sense of joy at a baby's birth or your satisfaction at succeeding at a hard job unless you are also deeply aware of the anguish of separation and the pain of failure. It's through the capacity to feel that we discover ourselves and others and explore the potential for a full, significant life.
This is an especially crucial issue for parents. Our natural inclination is to try to protect children from pain. We have the mistaken notion that if a child is happy we are doing a good job; if a child is sad we are failing as parents. But giving children the message that happy is good and sad is terrible decreases their capacity to explore the full range of human experiences.
Children need to understand that suffering, frustration and failure are not only inevitable but helpful. The parent who took a simple puzzle away from a four-year old—because " he gets too upset and frustrated when he can't get it right immediately," —did the child a great disservice. Children need to experience such feelings as they grow up; it helps them to develop the patience, persistence and ability to cope that they'll need when a scientific experiment fails, or a low grade is received after diligent study. There is nothing so terrible about failing and feeling pain; what hurts in the long run is not trying because of the fear of pain.
回首往事，我觉得最痛苦的经历似乎给了我最大的启迪。比方说，母亲的去世让我更加深切地体会到大自然的美好。每经受一次大的痛苦，我在寻常事物中发现愉悦的能力（观赏花儿开放，叶儿变红，鸟儿沐浴）就增加一分。死亡使得生命格外珍贵；挫折使得成功更加完满；失败使得下一次成就更有意义。
要想感受深切，就须感受一切；有所选择地感受是不可能的。你没有深切体会到分娩的阵痛，又哪能真正领悟到新生命诞生时的巨大喜悦？你没有深切体会到失败的痛楚，又哪能真正领悟到成功完成一项艰巨工作之后的满足？我们在感受之中发现自己和他人，探索完满而有意义的生活的可能性。
这尤其是父母面临的一个严峻问题。做家长的总是情不自禁地竭力避免让孩子受苦。我们错误地认为，只要孩子高兴，家长就算尽了职，而孩子不开心家长就是失职了。但是，让孩子感知幸福即好、不幸即糟这一讯息，削弱了他们全面发掘人生经验的能力。
孩子们应该懂得，痛苦、挫折和失败非但不可避免，而且非常有益。父母拿走四岁孩子手中的智力玩具，唯恐“他一时做不好就会灰心丧气”， 这无异于害了孩子。孩子们在成长过程中需要这样的情感经历，这种经历有助于培养孩子的耐心、毅力和能力，让他们将来在科学实验失败的时候，在经过努力学习仍取得低分的时候，都能处之泰然。失败和痛苦并不十分可怕；归根结底，真正有害的是因为惧怕痛苦而拒绝尝试。