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Passage 3
An invisible border divides those arguing for computers in the classroom on the behalf of students’ career prospects and those arguing for computers in the classroom for broader reasons of radical educational reform. Very few writers on the subject have explored this distinction—indeed, contradiction—which goes to the heart of what is wrong with the campaign to put computers in the classroom.
An education that aims at getting a student a certain kind of job is a technical education, justified for reasons radically different from why education is universally required by law. It is not simply to raise everyone’s job prospects that all children are legally required to attend school into their teens. Rather, we have a certain conception of the American citizen, a character who is incomplete if he cannot competently assess how his livelihood and happiness are affected by things outside of himself. But this was not always the case; before it was legally required for all children to attend school until a certain age, it was widely accepted that some were just not equipped by nature to pursue this kind of education. With optimism characteristic of all industrialized countries, we came to accept that everyone is fit to be educated. Computereducation advocates forsake this optimistic notion for a pessimism that betrays their otherwise cheery outlook. Banking on the confusion between educational and vocational reasons for bringing computers into schools, computered advocates often emphasize the job prospects of graduates over their educational achievement.
There are some good arguments for a technical education given the right kind of student. Many European schools introduce the concept of professional training early on in order to make sure children are properly equipped for the professions they want to join. It is, however, presumptuous to insist that there will only be so many jobs for so many scientists, so many businessmen, so many accountants. Besides, this is unlikely to produce the needed number of every kind of professional in a country as large as ours and where the economy is spread over so many states and involves so many international corporations.
But, for a small group of students, professional training might be the way to go since welldeveloped skills, all other factors being equal, can be the difference between having a job and not. Of course, the basics of using any computer these days are very simple. It does not take a lifelong acquaintance to pick up various software programs. If one wanted to become a computer engineer, that is, of course, an entirely different story. Basic computer skills take—at the very longest—a couple of months to learn. In any case, basic computer skills are only complementary to the host of real skills that are necessary to becoming any kind of professional. It should be observed, of course, that no school, vocational or not, is helped by a confusion over its purpose.
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这篇文章似乎是讨论了关于计算机是否进教室的争论。
指出首先要明确的是计算机进教室到底是为了通识教育还是职业教育，很多人对这两种教育是混淆的，而计算机的拥护者们常常更鼓吹其对职业的帮助，实际上是对计算机通识教育感到悲观的表现。
然后举例子说欧洲有关于职业教育的讨论，让儿童尽早接受职业教育确定未来的职业，但对其能否很好地匹配社会对各职业的需求量表示怀疑。
最后给了个台阶下，说计算机的通识教育不会划分很长时间，学一学对于未来的具体职业是有好处的。 但是一定要对计算机进教室的目的思考清楚，其到底是为了哪一种教育。