Well, what Id like to do is to reform education. I want to change how schools and universities teach people, and what they teach in particular. I think that were very good nowadays at teaching practical subjects like 1)accountancy and 2) microbiology. What were still very bad at doing is instructing young people systematically in many of the challenges of daily life; how to have relationships, how to bring up children, how to manage ones anxieties and ambitions, how to face mortality. These things are not systematically addressed in the education system. So, in my ideal world, Id have regular classes in which the works of culture of humanity—literature, plays, works of art—are used as 3)conduits to 4)contemplating some of the large and important questions, and wed stop treating self-help, as I might call it, as something that is merely for idiots, and see it as something that all of us have to 5)wrestle with in order to have any chance of leading a good life. So thats my plan for a new kind of education system.
我想做的是改革教育。我要改變學校和大學教育的方式,尤其是教學內容。我認為我們如今在教授會計學、微生物學等實用學科方面已經做得很好,而我們仍然做得不夠好的是沒有系統地指導年輕人如何面對日常生活中的各種挑戰:如何處理好人際關系,如何養育子女,如何應對焦慮和抱負,如何面對死亡。這些教學內容都沒有在教育制度中作出系統的闡述。因此,在我理想的世界中,人類文化的結晶——文學、戲劇、藝術作品都會是(學生們的)必修課,以作為(幫助他們)思考人生中一些重大問題的渠道。同時,我們不再把“自救”看作只有傻子才會做的事,而是把它看作為了擁有美好生活而必須全力以赴的事。那么這就是我計劃中新的教學體制。