2020年9月23日08:36:26
摘要
如果你從零開始，想幫助孩子成為有貢獻、全面發展的社會成員，你會發明這個計劃嗎？肯定不會。其他人都沒有。幾乎沒有其他人。
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If you were starting from scratch, and wanted to help children become contributing, well-rounded members of society, would you have invented this plan? Surely not. Nobody else did. Well, almost nobody else.
如果你從零開始，想幫助孩子成為有貢獻、全面發展的社會成員，你會發明這個計劃嗎？肯定不會。其他人都沒有。幾乎沒有其他人。
All around the world, students attend schools which have an astonishing degree of similarity.
在世界各地，學生上的學校有著驚人的相似程度。
• Children are required to attend.
•要求兒童參加。
• It runs from kindergarten to grade 12.
•從幼兒園到12年級。
• Students are divided by age, not by what they need or want to learn, nor by what they've already learned.
•按年齡劃分，學生不需要，也不想學什麼。
• The teacher is the authority. The children provide heads which the teacher is supposed to fill.
•教師是權威。孩子們提供老師應該填充的頭。
• There is little or no opportunity for students to explore a subject in depth, to develop a passion, to hone a skill.
•學生很少或根本沒有機會深入探究某一學科，培養激情，磨練技能。
• There's an hour for one subject, then an hour for another.
•一個主題有一個小時，另一個主題有一個小時。
• Teachers are considered qualified if, and only if, they have the required certificate.
•教師只有在具備所需證書的情況下才被視為合格教師。
• Whether they can teach well is irrelevant.
•他們能否教好並不重要。
• Whether they love or hate children is irrelevant.
•他們是愛孩子還是恨孩子無關緊要。
• Whether childhood is a happy time for anybody, is irrelevant. That's not on the spreadsheet.
•對於任何人來說，童年是否是一段快樂的時光，與此無關。電子表格上沒有。
• Curriculum is fixed, and taught at a fixed rate, even if that doesn't work for some students… even if it doesn't work for anybody at all.
•課程是固定的，並且以固定的速度教授，即使這對某些學生不起作用……即使對任何人都不起作用。
• It centers around a standardized curriculum and lesson plans, not real-life experiences.
•它以標準化課程和課程計劃為中心，而不是現實生活中的體驗。
• Students and teachers alike believe that the main purpose of school is preparing students to pass the exam.
•學生和教師都認為學校的主要目的是讓學生通過考試。
Whether in colonial Madagascar of 1908 (above) or 1920s America (below), public schools have evolved in remarkably similar ways.
無論是1908年的馬達加斯加殖民地(上圖)還是20世紀20年代的美國(下圖) ，公立學校的發展方式都驚人地相似。
If you were starting from scratch, and wanted to help children become contributing, well-rounded members of society, would you have invented this plan? Surely not. Nobody else did. Well, almost nobody else.
如果你從零開始，想幫助孩子們成為有貢獻的、全面發展的社會成員，你會發明這個計劃嗎？當然不是。其他人都沒有。好吧，幾乎沒有其他人。
For many centuries, the favorite pastime of European rulers was invading one another to win more territory.
幾個世紀以來，歐洲統治者最喜歡的消遣就是互相侵略以獲取更多的領土。
King Frederick William III of Prussia encountered a problem: Most of his troops were farmers who had been drafted to serve him. When the enemy shot at them, they had an annoying tendency to go home to their family and farm. He wouldn't win more land with that army! He wanted soldiers who, if ordered to make a suicidal charge, would blindly obey — not soldiers who might shoot their captain and go home.
腓特烈·威廉三世遇到了一個問題: 他的大部分軍隊都是被徵來為他服務的農民。當敵人向他們射擊時，他們有一種惱人的傾向，就是回到自己的家和農場。他不可能用那支軍隊贏得更多的土地！他希望士兵們在接到自殺衝鋒的命令時盲目服從，而不是開槍打死自己的上尉然後回家的士兵。
To create them, Prussia instituted a system of schools that focused on making students respect and obey the authority figure — a teacher. (1)
為了創造這些機會，普魯士建立了一套學校體系，重點是讓學生尊重和服從權威人物——教師。 (1)
When young men arrived for their first day in uniform, they already knew how to stand in a straight line. Prussia became a military powerhouse. It expanded its territory, and today we call it Germany.
當年輕人穿上製服的第一天來到這裡時，他們已經知道如何站成一條直線。普魯士成為了一個軍事強國。它擴張了自己的領土，今天我們稱之為德國。
But the king couldn't tell parents, "Send us your children so we can teach them to be cannon fodder." Schools also taught reading and arithmetic. History does not tell us if the primary goal was to mold obedient soldiers or obedient citizens. Prussia got both. Students did not, however, learn to think independently. The teacher had the answer; the students' job was to memorize it.
但是國王不能告訴父母，"把你們的孩子送來，我們可以教他們當炮灰。"學校也教閱讀和算術。歷史沒有告訴我們，主要目標是塑造服從的士兵還是服從的公民。普魯士兩樣都得到了。然而，學生並沒有學會獨立思考。老師有答案，學生的工作就是記住它。
This, alone, would have been enough to persuade other rulers to adopt what became known as the Prussian System. Soon another incentive appeared: The Industrial Revolution.
僅此一點，就足以說服其他統治者採用後來被稱為普魯士體系的製度。很快另一個動機出現了: 工業革命。
Previously, most Europeans lived in the countryside and worked for themselves — typically as farmers, shopkeepers, blacksmiths, or carpenters.
以前，大多數歐洲人生活在農村，為自己工作ーー通常是當農民、店主、鐵匠或木匠。
The invention of the steam engine changed all that. Within a few decades, urban factories sprang up. Farmers — sometimes seeking a better life, other times forced off their land — moved to the city. But they weren't reliable factory workers.
蒸汽機的發明改變了這一切。幾十年間，城市工廠如雨後春筍般湧現出來。農民ーー有時為了尋求更好的生活，有時被迫離開他們的土地ーー搬到了城市。但他們不是可靠的工廠工人。
Owners needed workers who would show up on time, follow orders, and accept boredom as their fate in life. Prussian-style schools churned them out.
老闆們需要那些按時上班、服從命令、接受無聊是他們生活命運的工人。普魯士式的學校造就了他們。
More support came from a different direction. Horace Mann, an American reformer, thought the Prussian school system could improve the lives of poor people in the United States. He got Massachusetts to adopt it and other states soon followed.
更多的支持來自不同的方向。美國改革家 Horace Mann 認為普魯士的學校制度可以改善美國窮人的生活。他讓馬薩諸塞州採納了這一法案，其他州也很快採納了這一法案。
European nations introduced the Prussian system in their colonies. It created the docile, low-level workforce that they needed, while appearing to benefit the local population.
歐洲各國在其殖民地引進了普魯士制度。它創造了他們所需要的溫順、低層次的勞動力，同時似乎造福了當地人民。
In most countries today, school enrollment has increased but the Prussian system still predominates.
在今天的大多數國家，入學率有所增加，但普魯士制度仍占主導地位。
Today, further support for this Prussian system comes from a new source: The education industry. A vast network — administrators, teachers, and government officials; textbook and curriculum publishers; teacher training colleges; aid workers in developing countries; and the inevitable consultants — all derive their income from the public school system that has evolved.
今天，對這種普魯士制度的進一步支持來自一個新的來源: 教育產業。一個龐大的網絡ーー行政人員、教師和政府官員、教科書和課程出版商、師範學院、發展中國家的援助工作者，以及不可避免的諮詢顧問ーー都從不斷演變的公立學校系統中獲得收入。
Many of them genuinely care about children and education. But they also care about their income and job security. That shapes their thinking, and limits their enthusiasm for deep change.
他們中的許多人真正關心孩子和教育。但他們也關心自己的收入和工作保障。這就塑造了他們的思想，限制了他們對深刻變革的熱情。
And so here we are today, with a model of schooling intended to mold soldiers who wouldn't run away when the enemy started shooting, and which evolved to meet the needs of factory owners, but also to make everyone feel good about sending their children into it. The origins of this system are still in evidence.
所以今天我們在這裡，用一種教育模式來塑造士兵，當敵人開始射擊時，他們不會逃跑，這種模式進化來滿足工廠主的需要，同時也讓每個人對把自己的孩子送進工廠感到高興。這個制度的起源仍然很明顯。
This year the Global Partnership for Education, a Western NGO that has spent $6 billion to influence school policies in developing regions, proudly announced its latest grants with this photo of schoolgirls marching in lockstep. (The boys, in back, aren't so enthusiastic about the lockstep thing.) (2)
今年，全球教育夥伴關係---- 一個西方的非政府組織，花費了60億美元來影響發展中地區的學校政策---- 自豪地宣布了它最新的撥款，這張照片上的女學生步調一致地遊行。 (後排的男孩子們對步調一致的事情不是很熱心。)(2)
A never-ending stream of critics, in the global South and North alike, see plainly that the system doesn't work, and think this is so obvious, it shouldn't be hard to improve it.
在全球範圍內，無論是南方國家還是北方國家，無休止的批評聲浪都清楚地看到這個系統不起作用，並認為這是顯而易見的，改善它應該不難。
But the system does work — for many people. Not only those in the education industry, but also for the global elite. And so, it continues to thrive. Even if children do not.
但是這個系統確實對很多人有效。不僅是那些教育行業的人，還有全球的精英。因此，它繼續蓬勃發展。即使孩子們沒有。
What can YOU do?
你能做什麼？
My goal here has been to give a brief history of the school model that has spread to much of the world. There were schools long before this, but the earliest schools focused on learning. This system does not.
我在這裡的目的是簡要介紹已經傳播到世界許多地方的學校模式的歷史。在這之前很久就有學校了，但是最早的學校專注於學習。這個系統沒有。
If this is what you've got, and you want to change it, I can't tell you what to do. Too many people are already trying to run it from afar! But I'll suggest a starting point:
如果這就是你所擁有的，而你想要改變它，我不能告訴你該怎麼做。太多的人已經試圖從遠處運行它！但是我會提出一個起點:
Set a goal to talk with five people in the next three days — family, friends, other parents, government officials — about this. Ask what they think. Discuss your ideas.
設定一個目標，在接下來的三天裡與五個人——家人、朋友、其他父母、政府官員——討論這個問題。問問他們的想法。討論你的想法。
If you do this, I'd love to hear what comes of it, either as a comment (below) or a reply to the Tweet on 17 Sept. 2020 (at @k_colonialism) that has brought many people to this page.
如果你這麼做了，我很想听聽你的看法，無論是評論(見下文) ，還是回复2020年9月17日的推文(@k _ 殖民主義) ，這讓很多人來到了這個頁面。
And of course, we welcome links to this page on social media or your website. If you found this informative, your friends and followers are likely to, as well.
當然，我們歡迎在社交媒體或你的網站上鍊接到這個頁面。如果你發現這個信息量很大，你的朋友和追隨者也會這麼認為。
By Sasha Alyson
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