2007年NPR美国国家公共电台一月-Just Like Pastrami

（单词翻译）

Welcome to This I Believe, an NPR series presenting the personal philosophies of remarkable¹ men and women from all walks of life.

I believe in figuring out of my own way to do things.
I believe in the power of numbers.
I believe in Barbecue.
Well, I believe in friendliness².
I believe in mankind.
This I Believe.

On Mondays we bring you our series This I Believe. For New Year’s Day, we turn to Lee Shulman. He is president of the Carnegie Foundation for the advancement³ of teaching in Palo Alto, California. Lee Shulman works to improve teaching at all levels from grade school to medical school. Here’s our series curator independent producer Jay Allison.

On a day when many people are making resolutions, Lee Shulman, educator and son of a delicatessen owner proclaims a belief that some may have just chosen to swear off. He says one particular high cholesterol⁴ item on the never-again list just needs to be more broadly understood and appreciated. Here’s Lee Shulman with his essay for This I Believe.

I believe in pastrami, well marbled pastrami, hot, thinly sliced, piled on fresh rye bread with dark mustard and crisp dill pickle⁵. I believe the pastrami is a metaphor⁶ for a well-lived life, for a well-designed institution, and even for healthy relationships. Pastrami is marbled rather than layered. Its parts, the lean and the fat are mixed together rather than neatly⁷ separated. Too much of life is lived by adding layers that don’t really connect with one another.

When I was about 12, my parents bought a small Jewish delicatessen on the northwest side of Chicago. And that's where I learnt about pastrami. I worked at the counter and I learnt the differences between well-marbled and merely layered meats. My Dad would explain to me that some customers wanted him to slice away all of the fat on a brisket. And then they’d come back the next day to complain that the meat wasn’t juicy. He’d sigh and explain that without marbling they’d never get what they wanted. I’ve seen the wisdom of my Dad’s inside over time.

When I started teaching college my mentors⁹ warned me against having any interest in my students’ lives outside the classroom. In my first month on the job I taught a 500-student class. One day a young woman came to my office to tell me she wouldn’t be able to complete all the course requirements. It turned out her husband had been killed in a car accident the month before. She was a 19-year-old widow. I then began to wonder about the other 499 students. Their stories may not have been as extreme but I would have been a fool to think that their lives wouldn’t have an impact on the classroom. Learning and living were marbled in my students’ lives, not layered.

To teach, advise, and mentor⁸ them, I needed to be sensitive and aware of their tragedies and celebrations, their ambitions and their anxieties. Separate layers are much easier to trim from the brisket. Separate layers are much easier to build, to schedule, and to design. But I believe that marbling demands that we work with the messy world, people, relationships and obligations in their full rich complexity¹⁰. The diet mavens inform us that marbling can be dangerous for our health. But as an educator I’m willing, even obligated to take that risk. I want to marble habits of mind, habits of practice, and habits of the heart with my students, just like pastrami.

Lee Shulman with his essay for This I Believe. Metaphors¹¹ aside, Shulman says about actual pastrami that he still goes to considerable length to get the good stuff.

We invite everyone to take part in our series to find out more and see what thousands of others have written. Visit our website NPR.org. For This I Believe, I’m Jay Allison.

Next Monday on All Things Considered, an essay from Memphis listener Melinda Shelf on the belief that gets her through the holidays.

Support for This I Believe comes from Capella University.

This I Believe is produced for NPR by This I Believe Incorporated and Atlantic Public Media. For more essays in the series, please visit NPR.org/thisibelieve.

Support for NPR podcasts comes from Acura featuring the completely redesigned 3000 horsepower MDX. More information is available at Acura.com.
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delicatessen
熟食店
swear off
发誓戒除
pastrami
smoked beef that contains a lot of spices
marble
To mottle and streak¹² (paper, for example) with colors and veins¹³ in imitation of marble.
使…具有大理石花纹：用类似于大理石的颜色和条纹（如在纸上）弄上斑纹和条纹
rye
裸麦, 黑麦, 绅士, 吉普赛绅士
dill
莳萝：产于欧亚的一种芳香型草本植物（莳萝） ，长有纤细分裂的叶子和成伞形花序的小黄花簇
brisket
The ribs¹⁴ and meat taken from the chest of an animal.
动物胸部的肋骨和肉
maven
<美口>专家,内行
podcast
A podcast is a media file that is distributed by subscription (paid or unpaid) over the Internet using syndication
MDX
The MDX is the first crossover SUV to have third-row seating