不知道大家看没看过这个让所有老师都会内心地震的热搜——#逐渐变成家长信任的样子#。热门帖子里，网友晒出了自己当老师前和当老师后的照片，差距之大，不能说完全不像，可以说是毫无关系。爱因斯坦说：坐在心爱的姑娘身旁，1小时感觉像10分钟，坐在炎热的火炉旁，10分钟感觉像过了1个小时。眼看自己逐渐变成家长信任的样子，只能独自在无人处缅怀自己稍纵即逝的青春。问题来了，为什么当老师老得那么快？教师这个职业会让人更年轻还是更衰老？牛津威廉姆斯勋爵学校的Stephen Petty 通过观察自身经历发现，当老师的确会使人衰老，但仅限于前几年，等熬过这几年，当老师的人反而显得更年轻。As a new teacher, Stephen Petty felt that he aged rapidly – but now he feels younger than non-teaching friends作为一名新老师，斯蒂芬·佩蒂曾觉得自己衰老得很快——但现在他觉得自己比不教书的朋友年轻了。“Clerks, operatives and teachers are the shortest-lived of all,” according to a report in Scientific American. 根据《科学美国人》的一份报告显示，“文员、技工和教师是所有人中寿命最短的”。This breakingnews is, admittedly, from an 1858 edition of the magazine. It was further revealed that teachers tended to set off for the great staffroom in the sky at the ripe old age of around 30 to 35.诚然，这是一条来自该杂志1858年的突发新闻。这篇文章还进一步透露了，老师们倾向在30到35岁左右的成熟年龄，辞去教职工作。Many teachers today might well feel a connection with those predecessors(前任). We might reflect on the stresses and strains of the past year, or on the approaching term of high-stakes marking and grading, or on the prospect of another few months of teaching in ventilated(通风的) classrooms, with steamed-up glasses and inaudible masked children.如今许多老师也可能会与那些前辈有同样的感受。我们可能在反思过去一年的压力和过度劳累，或者想想即将到来的充满高风险阅卷与评级的新学期，或者想起在通风的教室里，戴着起雾的眼镜，给左耳朵进右耳朵出的戴着口罩的孩子再教几个月的情景。However, some brighter and more recent news has also reached us from America. A report in 2019 found that teachers there now have the longest life expectancy of all public employees. According to the Society of Actuaries, female teachers now typically live to be 90 years old, while male teachers live until the age of 88. 然而，一些更有希望的、更新的消息也从美国传到了我们这里。2019年的一份报告发现，目前，美国教师是所有公职人员中平均寿命最长的。根据精算师协会的数据显示，如今的女教师通常能活到90岁，而男教师能活到88岁。Does teaching make us feel older or younger than other professions?
Assuming that the life of a teacher in America has never been vastly different from that experienced in the UK, this seems to be an impressive improvement on those 1858 findings. 假设美国老师的生活与英国老师的生活从没有巨大的差距，这个发现似乎对1858年那篇文章来说，似乎是骄人的改善。We are now living nearly three times longer than we did in 1858. At this rate, some teachers next century are still going to be going strong when they are well beyond 200 years old.人类现在的寿命几乎是1858年的三倍。以这个比率，下个世纪的部分老师在200多岁的时候会仍然健康强壮。Though I am less concerned here with the question of teacher longevity. I am more interested to know if teaching generally makes us feel older or younger than we would feel in other jobs, mentally and physically. 虽然我不太关心老师的长寿问题。我更感兴趣的是，教学通常让我们感觉自己比从事其他工作的人更老还是更年轻，无论是精神上还是身体上。I can only speak from personal experience, obviously, but I feel that I aged much more quickly than my friends in other jobs in the first few years of our various careers. But after that - and I know this may sound a bit odd - I think my ageing seemed to slow down relative to theirs. By “slowed down” I don’t mean in some weird Picture of Dorian Gray way, where friends would contemplate (注视) my never-changing fresh face and flowing locks with awe and astonishment. Just in other, less visual ways. 显然，我只能从个人经历说起，但我觉得，在我当老师的最初几年里，我比从事其他工作的朋友们衰老得多。但在那之后——我知道这听起来可能有点奇怪——我觉得我的衰老速度似乎相对于我的朋友们慢了下来。我说的“放缓”并不是指以类似于奇怪的《道林·格雷的画像》的方式，而是朋友们惊讶地注释我永不改变的精神饱满的面孔和飘逸的头发。只是视觉冲击没有特别强烈。And I certainly did not feel younger than them at first. In my first couple of years of teaching, I think I aged about 10 years. I grappled (应对困境) unsuccessfully with classroom control and time management. The challenges felt huge, the work endless. I can well understandwhy so many give up teaching at that early stage.一开始，我当然没觉得自己比朋友们年轻。在我教书的头几年，我觉得自己老了差不多10岁。我在课堂控制和时间管理方面都没有成功。每天面对巨大的挑战和无穷无尽的工作。我很能理解为什么这么多人在早期阶段就辞去了教职。At that time, whenever I met up with old non-teaching friends, I sensed how much more youth, zest (强烈的兴趣) and vitality (活力) they still seemed to retain (保持，保留). With a couple of old school friends who had also become teachers, less so. 那时候，每当我遇到不教书的老朋友时，我都能感觉到他们似乎还保留着些许青春、热情和活力。和几个同样当老师的老同学在一起，情况就不那么糟了。But while teaching remained an ongoing (持续存在的) challenge, I do think that my subsequent acquiring of experience, confidence and a degree of expertise (专门技能) meant that my sense of ageing began to slow, while theirs began to accelerate. 但是，虽然教学仍然是一个持续的挑战，但我真的觉得，我随后获得的经验、信心和一定程度的专业既能意味着我的衰老感开始减缓，而不教书的朋友的衰老感开始加速。Though the demands of the job still remained considerable, the horizon began to brighten for me. I started to feel that the job was actually helping me to grow and flourish at last, after previously causing me to wilt (变得萎靡不振) and wither (衰弱). 尽管这份工作的要求仍然很高，但对我来说，地平线开始露出曙光。我开始觉得这份工作在之前让我萎靡不振和衰弱之后，最终帮我获得成长和幸福。I began to feel rejuvenated (变年轻) by all those creative, energizing and inspiring young people, and by the countless brilliant, supportive and enterprising colleagues. (Though, yes, the odd pupil and colleague has still been an ageing influence - let’s not get too carried away.) 我开始感到焕然一新，因为身边有富有创造力、充满活力和鼓舞人心的学生，和无数才华横溢、给予我帮助和富有进取心的同事。（不过，是的，奇怪的学生和同事仍然是让人衰老的因素——让我们不要太得意忘形。）But for all the job’s stresses and strains, I think teaching has aged me less and less rapidly as I have got older, relative to people I know in other jobs. 尽管这份工作压力很大，我认为相对于我认识人来说，随着年龄的增长，教书使我衰老的速度越来越慢。![]()
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