Lucky creative writing students in a University of Pennsylvania seminar will be able to earn academic credit for wasting time on the Internet next spring. The class, appropriately titled “Wasting Time on the Internet,” will require its students to spend the three-hour weekly sessions dividing their attention between the world of the Internet and the classroom.
明年春天，賓夕法尼亞大學(xué)研討會(huì)上幸運(yùn)的創(chuàng)意寫(xiě)作的學(xué)生可以從“浪費(fèi)時(shí)間上網(wǎng)”上獲得學(xué)分。這個(gè)取名為“浪費(fèi)時(shí)間在網(wǎng)上”的班級(jí)要求，他們的學(xué)生花三個(gè)小時(shí)每周將注意力從班級(jí)里轉(zhuǎn)到網(wǎng)絡(luò)世界。

The instructor, Kenneth Goldsmith, tells The Washington Post that he will strictly enforce “a state of distraction” among the students — exactly the sort of thing he and virtually every other professor on Earth spends time trying to eliminate from their classes.
導(dǎo)師肯尼斯·戈德史密斯告訴《華盛頓郵報(bào)》，他會(huì)嚴(yán)格逼迫學(xué)生執(zhí)行“分心的狀態(tài)”——恰恰是那種地球上其他的教授告誡學(xué)生萬(wàn)萬(wàn)不可做的事情。

The purpose, Goldsmith says, is to have the students write something good at the end of the course, as a result of all that forced distraction. Goldsmith says he hopes the distraction will place his students “into a digital or electronic twilight,” similar to the state of consciousness between dreaming and waking that was so prized by the Surrealists.
戈德史密斯說(shuō)，其目的就是讓學(xué)生在強(qiáng)制分心的情況下，能在課程結(jié)束時(shí)寫(xiě)出好文章。戈德史密斯說(shuō)，他希望分心能讓他的學(xué)生置地于“一個(gè)數(shù)碼的，或是說(shuō)電子的朦朧狀態(tài)，”和超現(xiàn)實(shí)主義學(xué)家十分重視的夢(mèng)與醒之間的意識(shí)狀態(tài)很相似。

Goldsmith seems to be hoping that forcing students to actively engage in what is usually seen as a bad classroom habit will make them “not want to do that” in other settings. Goldsmith’s highest hope for the class is that students will walk away better from the experience, “having theorized what they haven’t already theorized.”
戈德史密斯似乎是希望逼迫學(xué)生積極參與這個(gè)“壞習(xí)慣班級(jí)”能讓他們?cè)谄渌胤健安辉傧脒@么做了”。 戈德史密斯最希望通過(guò)這個(gè)班級(jí)，學(xué)生們從這次經(jīng)驗(yàn)教訓(xùn)里變得更好了，“會(huì)建立出出他們沒(méi)想過(guò)的理論?！?/div>

Of course, not everyone will agree that encouraging young, impressionable minds to divide their attention among a phone, a laptop and a professor is worth the Ivy League tuition. For his part, Goldsmith says he has yet to hear substantial negative criticism of his new course idea, noting that undergraduate education often makes space for ideas and experiments one wouldn’t otherwise get to try.
當(dāng)然了，不是每個(gè)人都會(huì)同意讓這些年輕的，極易受影響的頭腦把注意力分散到手機(jī)，筆記本電腦上去，而且這個(gè)課能讓上常春藤盟校的學(xué)費(fèi)花有所值。從這點(diǎn)上來(lái)說(shuō)，戈德史密斯說(shuō)他已經(jīng)聽(tīng)到了大量對(duì)他這門新課的負(fù)面批評(píng)，大學(xué)本科教育常常為不能實(shí)現(xiàn)的想法和實(shí)驗(yàn)提供空間。

“Creative writing and art is the place where you get to try out…things that might seem a little bit outrageous,” he says. “Isn’t that what an undergraduate education is, really? It sounds like a perfect undergraduate class to me.”
“創(chuàng)意寫(xiě)作和繪畫(huà)是你要去嘗試的部分……事情發(fā)展可能看起來(lái)有一點(diǎn)讓人吃驚，”他說(shuō)。“這不是大學(xué)本科教育該有的嗎，是嗎？對(duì)我來(lái)說(shuō)這是最棒的本科課程。”