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2011年三段对话/独白1.JoAnn: Don, you have been a strong advocate for teacher and student rights; you wrote about the politics of education in Testing Is Not Teaching(2002). How have things changed since you first wrote about writing in the1970s?Don: In my report to the Ford Foundation in 1976, I documented how the government f unded no research in the teaching of writing. It was appalling how little opportunity there was to research the second R. I actually got the first grant from the government in 1978for my study in Atkinson, New Hampshire. There was also a cover story by Newsweek with the title, “Why Johnny Can’t.” That was around 1977,as I recall. So there was a burst of energy for writing in the early 80s. The National-writing Project expanded dramatically,and there was more research money for studying writing. Even Ronald Reagan allowed funds to go to writing and its improvement; I was on his panel for excellence. I’ve learned that Ame rican educator sand the government can maintain focus on a subject area for only so long. In the early 90s and continuing to the present, testing and accountability have become a major focus. They have become almost like curricula in their own right. They steal the focus from learning and—more particularly—from writing.JoAnn: What impact have federal mandates had on our schools? What has this meant for the teaching of writing? Don: Testing and the emphasis on reading have stolen large blocks of time from writing. Writing requires human power and time to evaluate whatever is submitted. Reading, on the other hand, is much cheaper to assess. The No Child Left Behind Act is all about reading. The authors of the bill didn't realize just how much writing creates a different reader. Writing is the making of reading. People who construct things know far better how to take those things apart.[The federal mandates want us to believe that] it is much more important to find out if children are good receivers of informa tion, rather than good senders of information. In short,we don’t want their ideas, but we do want to know if they can get the right answer about the information they should understand. In sum, from a political standpoint,we don’t really want to know if the y can write with a voice that has idea sand facts to support those ideas.JoAnn: What can teachers do when they find they have less time for writing?Don: Teachers should band together asking lots of questions, both orally and in writing. They need to ask questions like:? How important is writing in relation to reading?? Do you think it is equally important for children to know how to send information, as well as to receive it?? Do you think writing is a medium for learning to think? Why or why not?? Do we, in fact, want our children to be thinkers who come up with original ideas? If so, how can we assess that?? Most professional writers read,interview, make outlines, take notes, and then write. Why is it that children are denied the very tools and opportunities that professional writers use when taking tests or following test prompts?To show how important the medium of writing is, we should put our questions in writing, then call for an appointment to have good dialogue with administrators, and policy makers. Of course, we need to have dialogue among ourselves about these matters first. Donald Graves(Continued from page 1)[The federal mandates want us to believe that] it is much more-important to find out if children are good receivers of information,rather than good senders of information. In short, we don't want their ideas, but we do want to know if they can get the right answer about the information they should understand.2.The epitome of a Victorian gentleman, Frederick Selous was a hunter, naturalist and conservationist who explored vast areas of Southern Africa and made valuable biological observations.Frederick Courtenay Selous was born in 1851 to a London StockExchange official and a poet who loved adventure. From an early age, he had a fascination with David Livingstone, the great British explorer who had made his name exploring navigable rivers in Southern Africa. At the age of nine, he was saidto have been found sleeping in a nightshirt on the floor of his boarding school, Rugby, and when asked what he was doing there replied, "One day I am going to be a hunter in Africa, and I am just hardening myself to sleep on the ground."Selous first visited Southern Africa in 1871, and then spent the next 20 years exploring and hunting between the Transvaal and the Congo Basin.As one of few white men to travel in the African interior at the time, Selous was instrumental in opening up Southern Africa for Cecil Rhodes and the British, negotiating with many of the great indigenous leaders. He documented the progress of the gold industry of Mashunaland (now Zimbabwe), and invited US President Theodore Roosevelt on a hunting expedition that was to effectively kick-start the safari industry for travellers who wanted to follow in Roosevelt's footsteps.Selous published nine books in all, recounting his expeditions and adventures, of which A Hunter's Wanderings in Africa, Sunshine and Storm in Rhodesia and African Nature Notes and Reminiscences are the best known.Selous epitomised the Victorian image of the 'great white hunter'. However, he was also an enthusiastic naturalist and conservationist at a time when such interests were considered unfashionable. While his fellow hunters rested during the afternoon heat, Selous would be out with his net catching butterflies and taking detailed notes. His precise observations provide a valuable historical record, and today the British Museum houses hundreds of his specimens.3.Laura Wood: First of all, I really enjoyed your book. You are one of the robotics pioneers, and so I was very excited to find out that at last you were writing a trade book to give readers a firsthand description of how robotics has been developing and where it is going. What prompted you to write a book now?Rodney Brooks: There is a confluence of three things happening in robotics right now that I thought were worth describing to the world. First, the sort of work we did on simple mobile autonomous robots back in the '80s has now been refined and developed in corporate research labs so that is starting to hit the consumer market -- just as the first personal computers started to appear in 1978 or so, now the first generation of home robots, robot toys, lawn mowers, and floor cleaners are starting to be sold through retail outlets. Second, more recent work in university research labs has led to robots that are able to interact with humans in such lifelike ways that they illuminate the question of whether we are anything more than machines and whether we will soon be able to build sentient machines. And third, robotic technology is now being implanted in people to compensate for losses caused by diseases, and we find ourselves on the threshold of roboticizing our own bodies. Since I have been involved in aspects of all of these developments, I thought I had some interesting perspectives to share with readers.Laura Wood: I have to say that in particular I have been interested in the notion of embodiment -- that these artificial creatures are physical beings interacting in the real world -- and how that relates to ideas of robots learning and evolving in ways akin to biological evolution. I also enjoyed your discussion of the possibility of machines such as these becoming conscious at some point. If human consciousness arises out of physical processes, then we cannot say a priori that machines will never gain some type of "machine consciousness." Frankly, I do believe that such artificial persons, if they come to be, should have rights. Rodney Brooks: While I think this is a question we will need to address in the future, I think we will have some marginally simpler ethical issues to deal with in the shorter term -- over the next 10 to 20 years. We will be building robots much simpler than humans but perhaps as complex in some ways as insects or simple vertebrates. Under what conditions should we extend our ethical treatment of such animals to these robots -- what will it take to convince us that they are alive? Concurrently with that issue we will also be adopting more and more technology into our bodies -- what sorts of technology will be "fair" and what sorts "unfair"? For instance, in 20 years will we insist that teenagers switch off their brain-implanted wireless Internet connections while they take the SATs, or will we expect every student to have one, just as today we expect them all to havetheir own calculator?Laura Wood: When I was at the MIT A.I. lab, I had the opportunity to spend some time with Cog and Kismet. I managed to get Cog to hold my hand, and when I was playing with Kismet, his current graduate student thanked me for keeping him entertained. I told her a story about how when I was moving apartments I had packed a Furby into one of the boxes. I think the movers were a little disturbed when this tiny voice started protesting "I'm bored!" I started to get this vision of robots who need at least some attention from us -- much the way pets do. Will programmers need to consider how much time people will spend with their robots when creating these interacting machines?Rodney Brooks: I have been involved in developing robotic toys at iRobot Corporation, a company I cofounded back in 1990. We developed My Real Baby, which was marketed by Hasbro. MRB has an emotional system that makes for interesting play experiences for children -- the toy responds differently to the same sorts of stimulus, depending on what mood it is in. It is of course interesting to design such systems as toys, but a more interesting question is whether more complex robots will have "emotional lives," not for their entertainment or play value but as a way of providing regulation of their activities. Animals and humans have evolved with emotional systems playing just such roles. We may end up building emotional systems into our robots so that people can both understand them and influence the robots in the same ways that they influence each other.Laura Wood: I often found you making points in the book that I had wondered about when reading other books on future technology. I got a chuckle out of your observation that people freezing their heads make an assumption that future generations would want to revive dozens (hundreds?) of late-20th- and early-21st-century humans. You conclude in your book that technology seems to be heading in the direction of incorporating machine elements (implants, prosthetics, and so on) into human bodies. Do you anticipate that this will happen so gradually that society won't really be aware that we're turning into cyborgs until a significant percentage of the population is already part machine?Rodney Brooks: That is exactly what I think will happen. Like many technologies, this one is going to sneak up on us. We all know people with hip replacements, and we may know people who have cochlear implants. More and more people are going to get implants to handle more and more diseases, ranging from Parkinson's to blindness. And more and more people will have prosthetic devices to compensate for stroke damage. Before too long, people are going to start having implants to augment themselves, not just repair damage. More and more people will be part flesh and part machine.Laura Wood: Is there anything else you would like to add?Rodney Brooks: While there is an optimistic interpretation of all these technologies, I think there are a lot of ethical issues that we will all have to face over the next 10 to 20 years. It behooves us all to understand what is happening so that together we can decide, as a species, just how we want these technologies to be deployed.Section II Use of English(15 minutes)Read the following text and fill each of the numbered spaces with ONE suitable word．Write your．answers on ANSWER SHEET l．If you are buying a property in France，whether for a permanent or a holiday home，it is important to open a French bank account．Although it is possible to exist on traveller’s cheques，Eurocheques and credit cards(31) ＿issued＿＿by British banks，the(32) ＿fees＿＿for these(33) ＿services＿＿can be expensive．The simplest way to pay regular(34) ＿bills＿＿，such as electricity，gas or telephone，(35) ＿particularly＿＿when you are not in residence，is by direct debit(a sum withdrawn from an account)from your French account．To (36) ＿open＿＿a current account，you will need to(37) ＿show＿＿your passport and birth(38) ＿certificate＿＿and to provide your address in the United Kingdom．You will be issued with a cheque book within weeks of opening the account．In France it is illegal to be overdrawn．All accounts must be operated(39) ＿in＿＿credit．However，there are no (40) ＿bank＿＿charges．Note that cheques(41) ＿take＿＿longer to clear in France than in Britain，and call only be stopped(42) ＿if＿＿stolen or lost．The easiest way to(43) ＿transfer＿＿money from a British bank account to a French(44) ＿one＿＿is by bank transfer．You simply provide your British bank with the name，address and(45) ＿number＿＿0f your French bank ac—count．The procedure takes about a week and(46) ＿costs＿＿between￡5 and￡413 for each transaction，(47) ＿depending＿＿on your British bank。