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At the high school level I often taught courses in United States history and in American government. Whenever I taught either of these two subjects, there was a nightly homework assignment in current events. The average high school kid is woefully uninformed about anything unrelated to music, sports, and other forms of entertainment, so reading the actual news section of a newspaper was a completely new experience for most of them.
在高中阶段我经常教授有关美国历史和美国政府的课程。只要教的是这两门课程中的一门，每晚我都会布置时事作业。普通的高中孩子，对与音乐、运动和其他娱乐形式以外的任何东西都无知到可悲的程度，所以阅读报纸上的真实的新闻版面对他们中的绝大多数而言是一种全新的体验。
Within a few weeks they got the hang of it and were actually surprised at their newly developed ability to carry on an intelligent conversation about what was going on in a world they hardly knew. Just as we were settling into our routine, a student's innocent observation jolted me. He said, "You know, Dr. Urban, for being such a positive guy, you sure give a negative homework assignment." Somewhat startled, I replied with, "What do you mean?" He simply stated that most of the news was bad news, and he added, "It's kind of a downer." He had me.
才几个星期的时间，他们就掌握了其中的窍门，还实实在在地为自己新培养的能力感到吃惊，没想到自己能够就一个了解甚少的世界所发生的事情进行智慧的交谈。正当我们开始形成惯例时，一个学生的一句没有恶意的评论让我猛醒。他说，“你知道吗，厄本博士，对你这么一个积极的人而言，布置的这个家庭作业可真算是消极的。”我有点吓住了，答了一句“你什么意思？”他只说绝大多数新闻都是负面消息，然后加了一句，“有点让人沮丧。”这番话一时把我问住了。
We had a long class discussion about this, and I was surprised at how involved the students were. While we had several theories on the reasons for so much bad news, we all agreed on one thing: We needed to receive more good news.
我们在课堂上长时间地讨论了这件事，学生们那么积极参与，让我很吃惊。对于负面消息如此之多这一情况我们有好几个不同的解释，不过我们全都赞同一件事：我们需要更多的好消息。
