这是儿子十一岁上六年级开学时写的一篇课堂作业。作业在四十分钟内完成。那时应该是他人生的低谷，因为那年他姐姐去上大学了，艾伦独自从美国回上海时，心里是空的。虽然整篇短文都不提姐姐的事情，但这是他写这篇文章时的背景。
2015年6月·阿姆斯特丹·梵高博物馆
回忆随想
- 狄艾伦 （11岁）
- 2015.8.21
学校不仅是一个学习、交友或好玩的地方。在某些情况下，学校是一个给你带来终生回忆的地方。不过，你的所有终生回忆不可能都充满着开心打闹。恰恰相反，其实很多回忆都是让人伤心难过的时刻，譬如当你们班养的宠物死了，或者由于对方一位球员进球使得自己的球队输掉赛季的最后一场比赛。人生的记忆真是形形色色。有喜怒哀乐，有紧张兴奋。有各种心情会被记忆尘封而又被永远怀念。
多数小孩都觉得学校像个监狱，每天关你七个小时，再把你放回你自己那个安全的家。有些孩子每天早上醒来都这么想，不过他们一进那座“监狱”，却又觉得像是回家了，而且他们被跟他们感同身受的人包围着。然后他们就想，“也许今天将是不错的一天” 。其实有时会，有时不会，你是很难控制自己的心情的。我们的心情会根据各种情况作出自己的选择。很多小孩坐在课堂里不视一切人和事，有时看窗外，有时瞪着墙，思绪远离现实，直到他们回过神来，找回思路，他们完全忘却身在何处。这在学生当中是很常见的事情。
很多小孩从不记得课堂里教的东西。留在脑海里的往往是那些学到的人生大课，譬如从如何报复一个朋友到如何交到一个朋友。无论具体情况怎样，你更可能记得一些和学习无关的大事，而不是那些有关学习的无关紧要的话题。所以，学校不是一个只制造毫无益处的记忆或永远也用不到的信息的地方，其实它会给你很多人生享用无穷的回忆。
翻译：湘伟
Memoir Essay
Name: Alan Deutsch
Date: 8/21/2015
School is more than just a place to learn, meet new friends, or have fun. In some cases school is where your lifelong memories are born. However, it is unlikely that all of your lifelong memories contain fun and frolic. Many of them, on the contrary, contain sad moments, like when the class pet passed away, or even when someone scored on your team which led to losing the season's final match. Life is filled with memories containing genres of all the sort. Sad, angry, happy, excited, nervous. There are all different types of emotions sealed away to be referred to forever.
Most kids may think of school as a prison holding you there for seven hours before releasing you back to your safe private home. Some kids wake up thinking that way every day, but as soon as they arrive to the so called “prison,” they start to feel at home, and that they are surrounded by people they can actually relate to. Then they start to think “Maybe today will be a good day.” Sometimes it is, other times not, you can't always control your emotions. Our emotions choose themselves depending on the situation. A lot of kids sit in class ignoring everyone and everything while looking out the window or even at the walls, drifting away from reality. Until they come back to their senses and try to focus on whatever they were doing before, they completely forget where they are. This is the case for many students.
A lot of kids never remember most of the content that is taught in classes. The stuff that really sticks with you are the lessons you learn from getting revenge on a friend to trying to get a friend at all. No matter what the case, it is more likely that you'll remember big non-academic stuff other than small specific academic subjects. That is why school is not just a place to make memories of no benefits or information that you'll probably never use again, but actually a place filled with memories that you'll put to good use for the rest of your life.
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