VOA慢速英语2011-- a School, and Its History

Education Report - Saving a School, and Its History

教育报道 - 哈林顿学校承载的历史

This is the VOA Special English Education Report.

这里是美国之音慢速英语教育报道。

The Harrington School is an old one-room schoolhouse in the American state of Georgia. The building has not been used in years. Community leaders and even the local historical society lost hope that it could be saved.

哈林顿学校是美国乔治亚州一间老旧的单间校舍。该校舍已废弃多年。社区领袖乃至当地的历史协会都对保全该校舍失去了希望。

AMY ROBERTS: “They said that the building just wasn’t worth saving, and you could just look at it and tell that it was going to fall any minute, so let’s tear it down.”

艾米·罗伯茨：“他们说该建筑不值得保留，你也就能看看。还说该建筑随时可能倒塌，所以让我们拆除它。”

Amy Roberts has good memories of the school. She attended first grade there in nineteen fifty-three. That was a year before the United States Supreme 1 Court ruled that schools had to be racially integrated. A number of states kept blacks from attending school with whites.

罗伯茨对该学校有着美好的回忆，她于1953年在这里进入一年级。这是美国最高法院裁定学校必须实现种族融合的前一年。（当时）一些州在入学时将黑人与白人隔离。

The Harrington School was built in nineteen twenty-five for black children on St. Simons Island. After the ruling, the children joined white students at St. Simons' other elementary school.

哈林顿学校于1925年为圣西蒙斯岛的黑人儿童而建立。在最高法院裁决后，这些孩子在圣西蒙斯岛其它小学加入了白人学生的行列。

The old schoolhouse continued to be used for social activities and a day care center. By nineteen seventy, however, it was empty. Amy Roberts worried that developers might tear it down. So she started the African-American Heritage Coalition 2 to try to save it.

哈林顿学校的旧校舍继续被用于社会活动和日间托儿所。然而到了二十世纪七十年代，校舍被空置了下来。罗伯茨担心开发商会拆除它，于是她创办了非裔美国人遗产联盟试图保全该校舍。

AMY ROBERTS: “If it’s not done, if it’s not saved, then eventually you would not know that we existed here on St. Simons. Everything of African-American heritage has been torn down.”

罗伯茨：“如果不这样做，如果校舍不被保全，那么最终你不会知道我们在圣西蒙斯岛的存在。所有的非裔美国人遗产都被拆除了。”

In two thousand nine the Harrington School was weeks away from destruction. Then a local historian named Patty Deveau took a closer look. She remembered a movement called the Rosenwald Fund.

2009年哈林顿学校距离被拆除只有数周之遥。随后当地一位名为Patty Deveau的历史学家近距离考察了一番。她想起了一项名为罗森华德基金会（Rosenwald Fund）的社会运动。

Julius Rosenwald was a businessman. In nineteen fifteen he donated money to black communities to build their own schools. Georgia historian Jeanne Cyriaque explains.

朱利叶斯·罗森华德（Julius Rosenwald）是一名商人。1915年他捐出钱给黑人社区修建他们自己的学校。乔治亚历史学家Jeanne Cyriaque解释道。

JEANNE CYRIAQUE: "At the very core of that movement was the involvement of the community, sympathetic whites and philanthropy, merging 3 together to do what today we’d call partnerships 4.”

JEANNE CYRIAQUE：“这项社会运动的核心是社区、富有同情心的白人以及慈善组织的融合。他们融合到一起从事我们今天所说的伙伴关系。”

By the late twenties, the Rosenwald Fund had donated to more than five thousand educational buildings in fifteen states across the South. One-third of rural black children were attending a Rosenwald school.

截止二十世纪后期，罗森华德基金会在美国南部15个州捐建了超过5000栋教学建筑。三分之一的农村黑人儿童就读于罗森华德捐建的学校。

There are no records of whether Harrington was a Rosenwald school. But Jeanne Cyriaque says it represents what the fund was trying to do.

哈林顿学校是否是罗森华德捐建的无据可查。但Jeanne Cyriaque表示，这代表了基金会一直努力的方向。

JEANNE CYRIAQUE: “This particular school kind of embodies 5 to me what was going on with the communities at the time, because in many African-American communities, it was African-American families that gave land for these schools to be built.”

JEANNE CYRIAQUE：“在我看来，这所学校体现出了社区当时的过往。因为在很多非裔美国人社区，是非裔美国家庭为兴建学校提供了土地。”

Now, preservation 6 architects are developing plans to restore the Harrington School. Amy Roberts and others were surprised by what the experts found about the structure.

现在，建筑师正制定修复哈林顿学校的计划。罗伯茨和其他人对专家在检查建筑结构时的发现感到非常惊讶。

AMY ROBERTS: “And they went through it and they talked about how sound it was and how, you know, I mean, they’d never seen anything like this. I mean, it was, like, in great shape!”

罗伯茨：“他们认真检查了该建筑的结构，并谈到了检查结构时的声音。我的意思是，他们从没见过像该校舍一样结构保持完好的建筑。”

注：检查建筑结构一般使用声波探测。

And that's the VOA Special English Education Report. I'm Shirley Griffith.

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Contributing: Philip Graitcer