拓展 · 论电视技术和教育
Television and Education
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Television is a method of communication. It is about as revolutionary as the invention of printing. Neither printing nor television is in itself an idea, or power, or good or bad. They are simply methods by which ideas and experiences can be communicated faster to more people. It is perhaps because the characteristics of television, which determine what it can best communicate, are so different from those of printing, that professional educationists were reluctant for so long to interest themselves in the newer method.
Printing and television are certainly alike in that both are costly to the producers of the communication and relatively cheap to the receiver. They are both, therefore, mass media which depend upon reaching great numbers. But whereas the printed word, being relatively permanent, can communicate to numbers of like minds over centuries, television is relatively ephemeral and communicates, using both pictures and words, to millions of unlike minds at the same moment in time. Moreover television appeals not only to those who can read but to those who can't.
Professional educationists, accustomed to communication through words, and highly valuing reading and the quality of the like minds reachable through books, saw television, in its early years, not only as a rival for attention but as an enemy of the good. Some ten years ago a friend said to me: "We in Oxford may be old fashioned and fuddy-duddy, but most of us think that television is actively detrimental." Even that great pioneer of teaching by radio, the late Mary Somerville, had no faith in television. "It won't last," she said to me. "It's a flash in the pan." And many in the world of education no doubt hoped that this was true.
The situation has now altered. It is clear that television is no flash in the pan. So educationists all over the world are trying to get access to its "power", often by attempting to use traditional methods of academic teaching to inculcate, through television, the ideas and attitudes in which they devotedly believe. But one of the characteristics of television is that it has no power other than that created by the wish of people to watch it. If nobody watches it, then television has no power.
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整篇课文
Television is a method of communication. It is about as revolutionary as the invention of printing. Neither printing nor television is in itself an idea, or power, or good or bad. They are simply methods by which ideas and experiences can be communicated faster to more people. It is perhaps because the characteristics of television, which determine what it can best communicate, are so different from those of printing, that professional educationists were reluctant for so long to interest themselves in the newer method.
Printing and television are certainly alike in that both are costly to the producers of the communication and relatively cheap to the receiver. They are both, therefore, mass media which depend upon reaching great numbers. But whereas the printed word, being relatively permanent, can communicate to numbers of like minds over centuries, television is relatively ephemeral and communicates, using both pictures and words, to millions of unlike minds at the same moment in time. Moreover television appeals not only to those who can read but to those who can't.
Professional educationists, accustomed to communication through words, and highly valuing reading and the quality of the like minds reachable through books, saw television, in its early years, not only as a rival for attention but as an enemy of the good. Some ten years ago a friend said to me: "We in Oxford may be old fashioned and fuddy-duddy, but most of us think that television is actively detrimental." Even that great pioneer of teaching by radio, the late Mary Somerville, had no faith in television. "It won't last," she said to me. "It's a flash in the pan." And many in the world of education no doubt hoped that this was true.
The situation has now altered. It is clear that television is no flash in the pan. So educationists all over the world are trying to get access to its "power", often by attempting to use traditional methods of academic teaching to inculcate, through television, the ideas and attitudes in which they devotedly believe. But one of the characteristics of television is that it has no power other than that created by the wish of people to watch it. If nobody watches it, then television has no power.
电视是一种传播手段，其革命性大致可与印刷术的发明相比。印刷术和电视本身都不是思想，也不是力量，无所谓善恶。它们只是让思想和经验更快地传给更多人的方法。电视的特点，决定了它最适合传播什么；而这些特点又与印刷术大不相同。也许正因如此，专业教育工作者长期不愿关注这种较新的传播手段。
印刷和电视确实有相似之处：对传播内容的制作者来说，两者成本都很高；对接收者来说，却相对便宜。因此，它们都是依靠覆盖大量受众的大众媒体。不过，印成文字的内容较为持久，能够跨越几个世纪，与许多志趣相投的人交流；电视则稍纵即逝，在同一时刻，通过画面和语言，把内容传给数百万想法各异的人。此外，电视不仅吸引识字的人，也吸引不识字的人。
专业教育工作者习惯通过文字交流，十分重视阅读，也看重那些能通过书籍联系起来、志趣相投的读者的素养。因此，在电视问世初期，他们不仅把它看作争夺注意力的对手，也把它视为美好事物的敌人。大约十年前，一位朋友对我说：“我们牛津人也许守旧、迂腐，但多数人都认为，电视确实有害。”就连已故的广播教学先驱玛丽·萨默维尔，也不相信电视会有前途。她曾对我说：“它长不了，不过是昙花一现。”教育界的许多人无疑也盼着她说得对。
如今，情况变了。电视显然不是昙花一现。因此，世界各地的教育工作者都想利用它的“力量”，往往试图沿用传统的课堂教学方法，通过电视灌输自己深信不疑的观念和态度。但电视有一个特点：它的力量完全来自人们愿意观看；除此之外，它别无力量。没人看，电视也就没有力量。
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译文依据整理稿，由本站按中文表达重新校订；解析据吴应时整理资料及首轮审校稿；词伙与练习提示为本站学习设计。原PDF第242—246页，2022年2月第2版。