Ken Robinson Ted英语演讲: 如何逃出教育的死亡谷(双语)
Ken Robinson概括了使人类生活繁荣的三大关键原则 --而现行的教育文化又如何与其背道而驰。 他以风趣幽默，激动人心的演说告诉我们如何逃出目前教育所面临的「死亡谷」，以及如何以开放的文化氛围培育年轻的一代。
Ken Robinson: How to escape education's death valley
如何逃出教育的死亡谷 中英对照：
Thank you very much.
非常感谢
I moved to America 12 years ago with my wife Terry and our two kids. Actually, truthfully, we moved to Los Angeles -- (Laughter) -- thinking we were moving to America, but anyway, it's a short plane ride from Los Angeles to America.
12年前我移居到美国，同我的妻子泰瑞和两个孩子一起。事实上，说真的，我们只是搬到了洛杉矶，还以为到了美国，不过，从洛杉矶乘飞机到美国，用不了多长时间。
I got here 12 years ago, and when I got here, I was told various things, like, "Americans don't get irony." Have you come across this idea? It's not true. I've traveled the whole length and breadth of this country. I have found no evidence that Americans don't get irony. It's one of those cultural myths, like, "The British are reserved." I don't know why people think this. We've invaded every country we've encountered. (Laughter) But it's not true Americans don't get irony, but I just want you to know that that's what people are saying about you behind your back. You know, so when you leave living rooms in Europe, people say, thankfully, nobody was ironic in your presence.
12年前，我刚来到美国的时候，当地人给我讲了许多东西，像“美国人不懂讽刺。” 你们也有这种想法吗？这很荒谬，我踏遍了美国的山山水水，却从未找到任何证据来证明美国人不懂讽刺， 这属于一种文化迷思。就如同说“英国人很矜持”一样，我真不知道人们为何会这样想，英国曾侵略过每一个与其不期而遇的国度啊。（笑声） 但是说美国人不懂讽刺确实与事实不符 ，其实我只是想令大家知道，别人在背后是怎样谈论你的。在欧洲，你离开客厅时，人们会说，幸好，没人当着你的面讽刺。
But I knew that Americans get irony when I came across that legislation No Child Left Behind. Because whoever thought of that title gets irony, don't they, because -- (Laughter) (Applause) — because it's leaving millions of children behind. Now I can see that's not a very attractive name for legislation: Millions of Children Left Behind. I can see that. What's the plan? Well, we propose to leave millions of children behind, and here's how it's going to work.
在我偶然听说“不让一个孩子掉队”这条立法时，我就知道了美国人是懂得讽刺的。想出这条立法标题的人，就很懂得讽刺，难道不是吗，因为-- （笑声）（掌声） 因为数百万的儿童被撇在后面了，我从中看到的是一个并不招人待见的名号，“数百万的孩子掉队了”，显而易见，具体有什么计划呢？我们提议，把数百万儿童撇到后面，这就是它如何运作的。
And it's working beautifully. In some parts of the country, 60 percent of kids drop out of high school. In the Native American communities, it's 80 percent of kids. If we halved that number, one estimate is it would create a net gain to the U.S. economy over 10 years of nearly a trillion dollars. From an economic point of view, this is good math, isn't it, that we should do this? It actually costs an enormous amount to mop up the damage from the dropout crisis.
而且效果不错，在美国的部分地区，60%的孩子从高中退学；在土著美国人社区，达到80%。 有一种看法是，如果这个数字较少一半，那么在未来的十年里，可以为美国的经济 创造近万亿美元的净利润。从经济角度看，这是一笔好买卖，对吧，但我们应该这样做吗？ 实际上，要大量的投入，才能肃清辍学危机所造成的损害。
But the dropout crisis is just the tip of an iceberg. What it doesn't count are all the kids who are in school but being disengaged from it, who don't enjoy it, who don't get any real benefit from it.
但辍学危机仅仅是冰山一角，没算在内的是那些人在上学，心却辍了学的孩子，他们不喜欢学习，无法真正从中获益。
And the reason is not that we're not spending enough money. America spends more money on education than most other countries. Class sizes are smaller than in many countries. And there are hundreds of initiatives every year to try and improve education. The trouble is, it's all going in the wrong direction. There are three principles on which human life flourishes, and they are contradicted by the culture of education under which most teachers have to labor and most students have to endure.
其原因，不是我们没有投入足够的钱，在教育领域，美国比大多数国家，投入了更多的资金，班级人数也更少。每年都有上千条立法提案，尝试改善教育制度，问题是，我们走错了方向。 有三条法则，可以让我们的生活更加繁荣，而现行的教育文化却与之相抵触，多数教师教得辛苦，学生学的痛苦。
The first is this, that human beings are naturally different and diverse.
第一条法则是，人类，天生彼此千差万别
Can I ask you, how many of you have got children of your own? Okay. Or grandchildren. How about two children or more? Right. And the rest of you have seen such children. (Laughter) Small people wandering about. I will make you a bet, and I am confident that I will win the bet. If you've got two children or more, I bet you they are completely different from each other. Aren't they? Aren't they? (Applause) You would never confuse them, would you? Like, "Which one are you? Remind me. Your mother and I are going to introduce some color-coding system, so we don't get confused."
请问一下，在座各位，多少人有孩子，孙儿辈也算，两个或两个以上的呢？剩下的即使没有孩子也见过别人的孩子。（笑声） 到处都有小孩子 我要跟你们打个赌，我肯定能赌赢。 如果你有两个以上的孩子，我打赌，他们一定是完全不同的个体，不是吗？难道不是吗？（鼓掌） 你绝对不会错认，对不对。你可不会说“你是哪一个，提醒我一下，我和你妈妈要采用些手段 像彩色编码系统，这样我们就不会搞错了。”
Education under No Child Left Behind is based on not diversity but conformity. What schools are encouraged to do is to find out what kids can do across a very narrow spectrum of achievement. One of the effects of No Child Left Behind has been to narrow the focus onto the so-called STEM disciplines. They're very important. I'm not here to argue against science and math. On the contrary, they're necessary but they're not sufficient. A real education has to give equal weight to the arts, the humanities, to physical education. An awful lot of kids, sorry, thank you — (Applause) — One estimate in America currently is that something like 10 percent of kids, getting on that way, are being diagnosed with various conditions under the broad title of attention deficit disorder. ADHD. I'm not saying there's no such thing. I just don't believe it's an epidemic like this. If you sit kids down, hour after hour, doing low-grade clerical work, don't be surprised if they start to fidget, you know? (Laughter) (Applause) Children are not, for the most part, suffering from a psychological condition. They're suffering from childhood. (Laughter) And I know this because I spent my early life as a child. I went through the whole thing. Kids prosper best with a broad curriculum that celebrates their various talents, not just a small range of them. And by the way, the arts aren't just important because they improve math scores. They're important because they speak to parts of children's being which are otherwise untouched.
“不让一个孩子掉队”所提出的教育政策，是基于一致性而非多样性，这种政策是在鼓励校方以成绩的高低，这种狭隘的方式来为儿童的能力定位 。“不让一个孩子掉队”这条立法的一个影响便是，将公众的视线限制在被称作STEM学科的焦点上， [STEM:科学、技术、工程、数学]它们很重要。 我不是驳斥科学和数学的重要性，正相反，它们是必需的，但不是全部。真正的教育应当给予艺术、人文和体育 与STEM同等重要的地位。有太多的学生，对不起，谢谢-（鼓掌声）- 据估计，如今的美国，有大约10%的儿童 被诊断出患有，注意力缺乏症的一些症状，即注意缺陷多动障碍。我不否定有这样的病症存在，只是我不认为这种病会如此盛行。如果你叫孩子坐上几个小时，做低级的文书工作， 他们会不安分，这并不奇怪。 （笑声）（掌声） 大多数的孩子，并没有心理问题，他们只是在忍受童年的煎熬而已，之所以这样讲，是因为我也有过早期的童年生涯，并经历了整个历程。 广泛的课程可以使孩子们取得最出色的成就，可以展示出他们多方面的天分，不局限于小范围，顺便提一下，艺术之所以重要，不只是因为它能够提高数学成绩。 艺术之所以重要，是因为它表述着，孩子们的天性与本质。
The second, thank you — (Applause)
第二条法则，谢谢-（掌声）
The second principle that drives human life flourishing is curiosity. If you can light the spark of curiosity in a child, they will learn without any further assistance, very often. Children are natural learners. It's a real achievement to put that particular ability out, or to stifle it. Curiosity is the engine of achievement. Now the reason I say this is because one of the effects of the current culture here, if I can say so, has been to de-professionalize teachers. There is no system in the world or any school in the country that is better than its teachers. Teachers are the lifeblood of the success of schools. But teaching is a creative profession. Teaching, properly conceived, is not a delivery system. You know, you're not there just to pass on received information. Great teachers do that, but what great teachers also do is mentor, stimulate, provoke, engage. You see, in the end, education is about learning. If there's no learning going on, there's no education going on. And people can spend an awful lot of time discussing education without ever discussing learning. The whole point of education is to get people to learn.
要想生活的朝气蓬勃，第二条法则是，拥有好奇心。如果你能燃起孩子心性的好奇之火，绝大多数，都可以主动学习，无需外援。孩子们天生就会学习，是激发或是扼杀这种天赋 ，对孩子会产生巨大的影响，好奇心是取得成就的能动力。我这么说是因为，如果可以这么说的话，当前的教育文化，影响了教师的专业化程度。无论是世界范围的教育体系 ，还是国家内部的教育机构，都不如优秀的教学团队。教师是学校能否取得成功的命脉，教学是需要创造力的职业教学，要有适当的创作，因为它不是单纯的输出 。教师的工作不仅仅去传递所接收到的信息，优秀的教师的确要这样做，但同时他们还会指导学生的学习。激发学生的兴趣，挑起学生的热情，赢得学生的关注。 看吧，总而言之，教育讲的就是学习，如果没有学习，就谈不上教育。人们花了大量时间去谈教育问题，却从来不讲学习，教育的主旨就是引导人们去学习。
A friend of mine, an old friend -- actually very old, he's dead. (Laughter) That's as old as it gets, I'm afraid. But a wonderful guy he was, wonderful philosopher. He used to talk about the difference between the task and achievement senses of verbs. You know, you can be engaged in the activity of something, but not really be achieving it, like dieting. It's a very good example, you know. There he is. He's dieting. Is he losing any weight? Not really. Teaching is a word like that. You can say, "There's Deborah, she's in room 34, she's teaching." But if nobody's learning anything, she may be engaged in the task of teaching but not actually fulfilling it.
我的一个朋友，是老朋友了--他本身也很老了，已经去世了。（笑声） 恐怕最老也不过如此了，他是个很了不起的人，是位出色的哲学家，他过去常谈到做事与从中获得成就感 。两者之间的不同，有些事你会去做，但不一定有所成就，就好比节食，这是个非常典型的例子，你看他，他最近在节食。他有瘦一些吗？没有啊，教学和节食很像。 你可以说“那就是黛博拉，她在34号教室授课。” 但如果学生没从她那学到任何知识，她就可能只是从事教学这项工作，但并没有真正的完成它。
The role of a teacher is to facilitate learning. That's it. And part of the problem is, I think, that the dominant culture of education has come to focus on not teaching and learning, but testing. Now, testing is important. Standardized tests have a place. But they should not be the dominant culture of education. They should be diagnostic. They should help. (Applause) If I go for a medical examination, I want some standardized tests. I do. You know, I want to know what my cholesterol level is compared to everybody else's on a standard scale. I don't want to be told on some scale my doctor invented in the car.
教师的职责是令学生学习得更容易，就是这样。我想，部分原因是，因为当下的教育文化主要关注的，是考试，而非教学。如今，考试很重要，标准化考试很有影响力 ，但它不应该作为教育文化的主导方向。相反，考试应该用于诊断问题。并且，用于帮助改进。（掌声） 如果我去做个医学检查，我当然要做些常规检查，我想知道，同大众标准值范围相比 我的胆固醇含量在什么水平，我不想参考那些，医生随便编出来的数值。
"Your cholesterol is what I call Level Orange."
“你的胆固醇含量在橙色水平。”
"Really? Is that good?""We don't know."
“真的？是好消息？”“没法判断。”
But all that should support learning. It shouldn't obstruct it, which of course it often does. So in place of curiosity, what we have is a culture of compliance. Our children and teachers are encouraged to follow routine algorithms rather than to excite that power of imagination and curiosity. And the third principle is this: that human life is inherently creative. It's why we all have different résumés. We create our lives, and we can recreate them as we go through them. It's the common currency of being a human being. It's why human culture is so interesting and diverse and dynamic. I mean, other animals may well have imaginations and creativity, but it's not so much in evidence, is it, as ours? I mean, you may have a dog. And your dog may get depressed. You know, but it doesn't listen to Radiohead, does it? (Laughter) And sit staring out the window with a bottle of Jack Daniels. (Laughter)
但这些考试应当对学习有利，不应该像常表现出的，阻挠学习的热情，当前教育的文化核心，不是激发好奇心，而是要求服从，我们的孩子和教师都被鼓励。遵循常规算法， 而不是激发想象力与好奇心。第三条法则是，人的生命具有与生俱来的创造力，这就解释了为什么我们有不同的人生履历，我们创造不同的生活，我们一边经历着一边享受着 。这是作为人类通用的生活模式，这就是为什么人类文化如此有趣、丰富 充满活力，其他动物也可能拥有想象力和创造力，但明显又没那么多。不是吗，难道跟人类一样？ 你可能养了条狗 ，你的狗也有可能情绪低落 但它不会去听收音机头乐队的音乐，不是吗？ （笑声） 它也不会拿着酒瓶坐在窗前凝视远方。（笑声）
And you say, "Would you like to come for a walk?"
你问“要不要出去散散步啊？”
He says, "No, I'm fine. You go. I'll wait. But take pictures."
它回答“不用了，我没事。 你去吧，我在这等你。记得拍照。”
We all create our own lives through this restless process of imagining alternatives and possibilities, and what one of the roles of education is to awaken and develop these powers of creativity. Instead, what we have is a culture of standardization.
我们的生活就建立在这种无休止的经历上，设想着其他的选择，其他的可能，而教育的一个作用，就是唤醒并开发人们的创造力。相反，我们的教育文化是标准定型的。
Now, it doesn't have to be that way. It really doesn't. Finland regularly comes out on top in math, science and reading. Now, we only know that's what they do well at because that's all that's being tested currently. That's one of the problems of the test. They don't look for other things that matter just as much. The thing about work in Finland is this: they don't obsess about those disciplines. They have a very broad approach to education which includes humanities, physical education, the arts.
其实不是非得这样做，不是的，在芬兰，传统优势教学科目有数学、科学以及阅读我们只知道他们在这些方面做得很好。因为这些科目通常都是要考试的，这就是考试引发的一个问题。 人们会忽视同等重要的其他科目。在芬兰教育工作是这样的： 人们并不执著于这些学科，他们的教育很全面，包括人文、体育和艺术领域。
Second, there is no standardized testing in Finland. I mean, there's a bit, but it's not what gets people up in the morning. It's not what keeps them at their desks.
其次，在芬兰没有标准化考试。我是说，几乎没有，即使有也不会是那种叫人要一大早起床，守在桌旁学习才能通过的考试。
And the third thing, and I was at a meeting recently with some people from Finland, actual Finnish people, and somebody from the American system was saying to the people in Finland, "What do you do about the dropout rate in Finland?"
第三，最近我出席了一个会议，对方来自芬兰，是的的确确的芬兰人。一些美国人向芬兰人问道 “在芬兰，你们怎么应对辍学率？”
And they all looked a bit bemused, and said, "Well, we don't have one. Why would you drop out? If people are in trouble, we get to them quite quickly and help them and we support them."
他们当下看起来很困惑，然后说 “我们那没人辍学，为什么要辍学呢？ 如果有人遇到困难，我们会很快的联系他们，帮助他们，甚至支持他们。”
Now people always say, "Well, you know, you can't compare Finland to America."
有人会说“要知道，你不能拿芬兰同美国比。”
No. I think there's a population of around five million in Finland. But you can compare it to a state in America. Many states in America have fewer people in them than that. I mean, I've been to some states in America and I was the only person there. (Laughter) Really. Really. I was asked to lock up when I left. (Laughter)
的确不能，芬兰人口只有大约五百万，但可以拿它同美国的一个州来比较。在美国许多州的人口比芬兰的要少，我去过美国的一些州，那里就我一个人，（笑声） 这是真的。还有人告诉我走之前要锁门 （笑声）
But what all the high-performing systems in the world do is currently what is not evident, sadly, across the systems in America -- I mean, as a whole. One is this: They individualize teaching and learning. They recognize that it's students who are learning and the system has to engage them, their curiosity, their individuality, and their creativity. That's how you get them to learn.
但是世界上所有的高效体系，用在美国身上，很遗憾，通常作用都不明显--作为整体而言。做法之一是，他们将教学个性化，他们认为学生是学习的主体。教育体系要做到吸引他们，引起他们的好奇心，他们的个性以及创造力，这样才能让学生主动学习。
The second is that they attribute a very high status to the teaching profession. They recognize that you can't improve education if you don't pick great people to teach and if you don't keep giving them constant support and professional development. Investing in professional development is not a cost. It's an investment, and every other country that's succeeding well knows that, whether it's Australia, Canada, South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong or Shanghai. They know that to be the case.
第二种做法是，他们为教育行业，造就了崇高的地位，他们意识到要改善教育水平 就要选择优秀的教员，并给予他们不断的支持，以及专业化的发展。投资教育专业的发展不是单纯的花费 它是有收益的，所有在教育方面取得成功的国家都深知这一点 ，无论是澳大利亚、加拿大、韩国、新加坡 香港还是上海，他们知道事实就是这样。
And the third is, they devolve responsibility to the school level for getting the job done. You see, there's a big difference here between going into a mode of command and control in education -- That's what happens in some systems. You know, central governments decide or state governments decide they know best and they're going to tell you what to do. The trouble is that education doesn't go on in the committee rooms of our legislative buildings. It happens in classrooms and schools, and the people who do it are the teachers and the students, and if you remove their discretion, it stops working. You have to put it back to the people. (Applause)
第三种做法是，他们帮助校方知道他们的责任所在，并且要求校方负起他们应有的责任。大家可以看出这与我们教育体系中的指挥和控制模式差异巨大，但这的确是某些教育体系的真实情况。 中央政府或州政府认为，他们是最好的决策者，他们会告诉你做什么，问题是人们不会在立法机构的会议室里进行教学。而是在教室和校园里，讲授者是教师，受教者是学生 。若要夺走他们的决定权，教育体系就无法正常运行，政府必须把决定权交还给人们。（掌声）
There is wonderful work happening in this country. But I have to say it's happening in spite of the dominant culture of education, not because of it. It's like people are sailing into a headwind all the time. And the reason I think is this: that many of the current policies are based on mechanistic conceptions of education. It's like education is an industrial process that can be improved just by having better data, and somewhere in, I think, the back of the mind of some policy makers is this idea that if we fine-tune it well enough, if we just get it right, it will all hum along perfectly into the future. It won't, and it never did.
美国的教育工作还是很出色的，我得承认这一点，尽管在这种教育文化下，却不受其干扰，就像有人总是逆风航行。我认为原因就是，当前的许多政策都是基于对教育的刻板印象 ，他们认为教育就像一种工业流程。只要有了更好的数据便有更好的发展，我想决策者会有这种想法，源于这样一种观点，如果我们将数据调整的足够精确，整个体系在将来都会运转的很好。 其实不会的，永远都不会。
The point is that education is not a mechanical system. It's a human system. It's about people, people who either do want to learn or don't want to learn. Every student who drops out of school has a reason for it which is rooted in their own biography. They may find it boring. They may find it irrelevant. They may find that it's at odds with the life they're living outside of school. There are trends, but the stories are always unique. I was at a meeting recently in Los Angeles of -- they're called alternative education programs. These are programs designed to get kids back into education. They have certain common features. They're very personalized. They have strong support for the teachers, close links with the community and a broad and diverse curriculum, and often programs which involve students outside school as well as inside school. And they work. What's interesting to me is, these are called "alternative education." You know? And all the evidence from around the world is, if we all did that, there'd be no need for the alternative. (Applause)
因为教育不是机械化的系统，它是人性化的，它的主体是人，想学习的人，不想学习的人。每一个辍学的学生都有自己的理由，源于每个人不同的生活经历， 或许是觉得学习很无聊，或许认为学的东西无关紧要，也或者是他们发现这些，与校园以外的生活相矛盾。大潮流始终存在，但每个人独特的故事，同样存在，最近我在洛杉矶参与了一个会议。 被称为可选择的教育方案，策划这些方案的目的是要让孩子重新接受教育，他们有些共同特征，个性化程度高，对教员支持力度大，与社区联系紧密，课程广泛多样化。这些课程方案往往将 校外和校内的学生都包含了进来，而且都很奏效，有趣的是，这些被称作“可选择性教育”。 想想看，环顾世界所有的证据都显示，如果我们都这样做，那就不存在选不选择的问题了。 （掌声）
So I think we have to embrace a different metaphor. We have to recognize that it's a human system, and there are conditions under which people thrive, and conditions under which they don't. We are after all organic creatures, and the culture of the school is absolutely essential. Culture is an organic term, isn't it?
所以我想我们应该采用一种不同的说法，我们应当认识到这是个人性化的体系，在一些环境下人们可以取得成功。有些却不能，毕竟我们都是有机的生命体 ，而校园文化绝对是我们最根本的成长要素，文化也是个有机的术语，不是吗？
Not far from where I live is a place called Death Valley. Death Valley is the hottest, driest place in America, and nothing grows there. Nothing grows there because it doesn't rain. Hence, Death Valley. In the winter of 2004, it rained in Death Valley. Seven inches of rain fell over a very short period. And in the spring of 2005, there was a phenomenon. The whole floor of Death Valley was carpeted in flowers for a while. What it proved is this: that Death Valley isn't dead. It's dormant. Right beneath the surface are these seeds of possibility waiting for the right conditions to come about, and with organic systems, if the conditions are right, life is inevitable. It happens all the time. You take an area, a school, a district, you change the conditions, give people a different sense of possibility, a different set of expectations, a broader range of opportunities, you cherish and value the relationships between teachers and learners, you offer people the discretion to be creative and to innovate in what they do, and schools that were once bereft spring to life.
离我家不远处，有个地方叫死亡谷。死亡谷是全美最热最干旱的地带，在那里没有任何生物可以存活，因为那里从不下雨，所以，它叫做死亡谷。2004年冬天，死亡谷却下起了雨， 短时间内降雨量达七英寸，2005年春天，那里出现这样一种景色，整个死亡谷铺满了鲜花，持续了一段时间 ，这证明了一点：死亡谷并非没有生命，它只是在休眠。地表下潜伏着的种子 待条件成熟便伺机而发。有机系统内，只要有适当的环境，生命的出现不可避免，这是自然规律。 你选择一个地方，一所学校，一个市区，你改变环境，让人们对可能性有了不同的感受 对希望有了不同的期许，机遇也更广泛。你珍惜并重视师生间的情谊，你给予人们自主权来发挥创造力，革新他们的成果，学校里曾一度缺失这种盎然生机。
Great leaders know that. The real role of leadership in education -- and I think it's true at the national level, the state level, at the school level -- is not and should not be command and control. The real role of leadership is climate control, creating a climate of possibility. And if you do that, people will rise to it and achieve things that you completely did not anticipate and couldn't have expected.
卓越的领导者清楚这一点，在教育体系中领导者的真正作用，无论在国家级，州级还是校级上，其真正作用不是也不应是指挥和控制。领导者的真正作用是控制教育的风气， 制造一种充满可能性的倾向，如果你这样做了，人们便会追随，实现你预料不到，也不曾期待过的成果。
There's a wonderful quote from Benjamin Franklin. "There are three sorts of people in the world: Those who are immovable, people who don't get, they don't want to get it, they're going to do anything about it. There are people who are movable, people who see the need for change and are prepared to listen to it. And there are people who move, people who make things happen." And if we can encourage more people, that will be a movement. And if the movement is strong enough, that's, in the best sense of the word, a revolution. And that's what we need.
在此引用本杰明富兰克林的一句格言： “世界上有三种人，第一种人雷打不动，得不到是因为他们不想要，他们力求不变；第二种人伺机而动，他们认识到改变的必要性，准备去做 ；第三种人先发制人，他们主动让事情发生。” 如果我们可以鼓励更多的人去做，那将会成为一场运动，如果这场运动有足够的执行力度，从最好的角度来看，那将会是一场革命， 而这正是我们所需要的。
Thank you very much. (Applause) Thank you very much. (Applause)
谢谢大家 （掌声） 谢谢（掌声）
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