美国目前的教育体系有什么问题?（四）

Aiyaz Uddin
What is wrong with the current education system in the US?
The US education system is failing students. It is too focused on standardized testing and memorization, and not enough on critical thinking, creativity, and problem-solving. This is leading to a generation of students who are ill-prepared for the challenges of the 21st-century workforce.
The education system is also not doing enough to teach students about the present reality in which we live. Students need to be taught about the challenges of climate change, inequality, and globalization. They also need to be taught how to think critically about the information they are bombarded with on a daily basis.
I believe that students need to take action to demand a better education. They should speak out against standardized testing and the focus on memorization. They should also demand that their schools offer more courses on critical thinking, creativity, and problem-solving.

美国目前的教育体系出了什么问题？
美国的教育体系正在让学生失望。它过于注重标准化的测试和记忆，而对培养批判性思维、创造力和解决问题方面的能力不够。这导致这一代学生对21世纪劳动力的挑战准备不足。
教育系统在教育学生了解我们生活的现实方面也做得不够。学生们需要了解气候变化、不平等和全球化的挑战。他们还需要学会如何就每天被轰炸的信息进行批判性地思考。
我认为学生们需要采取行动来要求更好的教育。他们应该公开反对标准化测试和注重记忆的做法。他们还应该要求学校提供更多关于增强批判性思维、创造力和解决问题方面能力的课程。
原创翻译：龙腾网 https://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处

We need to change the way we educate our children. We need to focus on developing their critical thinking skills, their creativity, and their ability to solve problems. We also need to teach them about the present reality in which we live and the challenges that they will face.
Education in the US is failing to teach students what they need to know to succeed in the present reality. Instead, it is churning out students who are knowledgeable but not kind or compassionate, and who are seen as products to be used by society. This is a problem that has been going on for years, and it is time for students to take action and demand a better education.

我们需要改变教育孩子的方式。我们需要专注于培养他们的批判性思维能力、创造力和解决问题的能力。我们还需要向他们介绍我们目前生活的现实以及他们将面临的挑战。
美国的教育未能教会学生在当前现实中取得成功所需的知识。相反，它正在培养出知识渊博但不善良或缺乏同情心的学生，他们被视为为社会使用的产品。这是一个多年来一直存在的问题，现在是学生采取行动并要求得到更好教育的时候了。

Our education system is more focused on producing diplomas than on educating creative and knowledgeable individuals. This is a problem, and we+ need to change the way we educate our children so that they can succeed in the 21st century. We need to help them develop their critical thinking skills, creativity, and problem-solving abilities, and we need to make education more affordable so that they don't graduate with a mountain of debt.
If our education system produces educational certificates rather than educated and knowledgeable minds, then something is wrong with the system.
“A person’s ability is gauged not by his education or degree but rather by his depth of understanding of what exists in the phenomenal existence.”
Thank you!

我们的教育体系更注重生产证书，而不是培养有创造力和知识渊博的个人。这是一个问题，我们需要改变教育孩子的方式，让他们在21世纪取得成功。我们需要帮助他们发展批判性思维技能、创造力和解决问题的能力，我们需要让他们负担得起教育，这样他们毕业时就不会背负堆积如山的债务。
如果我们的教育体系产生的是学历证书，而不是受过教育和知识渊博的人才，那么这个体系就出了问题。
“衡量一个人能力的标准不是他的教育程度或学位，而是他对现象存在的理解深度。”
非常感谢。

Laura Wrzeski
What's wrong with education in America?
By that I mean that many of the parents of many of the kids have not bothered to do much parenting of their children. These un-or-under-parented kids show up in school with huge disadvantages. They have not been taught basic age-appropriate interpersonal skills. They haven’t had a good night’s sleep. They are marinated, 24/7 in media; TV, gaming, pop music, much of it inappropriate content for children. They haven’t got a single book in the house and have never had an adult read to them. Their lives at home are too often chaotic or even abusive. Many come from single-parent homes. They are fed fast food, junk, soda and maybe some hot dogs …These days many kindergartners have not even been potty-trained, believe it or not. Teachers, of course, have to do their best for these kids even though the greater needs of disadvantaged and very often disruptive kids mean that kids who are better-behaved and ready to learn are not going to get the attention they need to realize their fullest potential…Especially if/when classrooms are large. Everybody loses.

美国的教育出了什么问题？
我的意思是，很多孩子的父母并没有费心去养育他们的孩子。这些没有受到足够关爱或监护的孩子在学校里有着巨大的劣势。他们没有被教导与年龄相适应的基本人际交往技能。他们晚上睡得不好。它们全天候浸泡在媒体、电视、游戏、流行音乐中，其中大部分内容都不适合儿童观看。他们家里没有一本书，也从来没有成年人给他们读过书。他们在家里的生活经常是混乱的，甚至是受虐待的，许多人来自单亲家庭。他们吃快餐、垃圾食品、苏打水，也许还有一些热狗，信不信由你，如今许多幼儿园的孩子甚至还没有接受过如厕训练。当然，老师们必须为这些孩子尽最大努力，不过弱势群体和经常捣乱的孩子的需求更大，这意味着那些表现更好、准备好学习的孩子不会得到他们需要的关注，以实现他们最大的潜力，尤其是当教室很大的时候，每个人都遭受损失。

Why do teachers not speak out much about the real reason American public schools are not doing a satisfactory job of educating so many of our kids? BECAUSE THERE IS NOTHING ANYONE CAN DO ABOUT IT. So far no one has found any way to force inadequate parents to be good parents. Most of the time if a parent is actually abusing or neglecting a kid, the authorities have laws and interventions aimed at helping…But most of these underprivileged, disadvantaged kids aren’t abused or neglected to a degree that would qualify for an intervention. These kids are truly loved but parents are caught up in their own drama, working a couple of minimum-wage part time jobs, they are not willing to give up their gaming or TV and they are not willing to make their kids turn off the noise and go to bed on time. You’d be surprised at how much most of these parents actually do know about how important it is to get a kid fed some decent food, read to a child, get them to bed on time…They all seem to know what’s best for a kid but it’s just too much trouble because they feel too overwhelmed by their everyday lives…or something.

为什么教师们很少说出美国公立学校在教育这么多孩子方面做得不令人满意的真正原因？因为任何人对此都无能为力。到目前为止，还没有人找到任何方法来强迫不合格的父母成为好父母。大多数情况下，如果父母真的虐待或忽视了孩子，当局会制定法律和干预措施，旨在提供帮助……但这些贫困、弱势的孩子大多没有受到虐待或忽视，没有达到需要干预的程度。这些孩子真的被爱着，但父母们沉浸在自己的戏剧中，做着几份最低工资的兼职工作，他们不愿意放弃他们的游戏或电视，也不愿意让他们的孩子屏蔽掉噪音，按时睡觉。你会惊讶地发现，这些父母中的大多数实际上知道给孩子吃一些像样的食物、给孩子读书、让他们按时睡觉是多么重要………他们似乎都知道什么对孩子最好，但这太麻烦了，因为他们觉得自己被日常生活或者其他什么压得喘不过气来。

In this current fashion of concern with “helicopter parents”, the truth is that there are far fewer over-involved parents who have burdened their kids with huge expectations and micro-managed schedules compared to great numbers of parents who are in no way abusive or even neglectful, but are, for whatever reason, not willing or able to send kids to school who are ready to learn.

在当前对“过度保护孩子、过分干涉孩子生活的父母”的关注中，事实是，在孩子身上寄予巨大期望，并进行微观管理计划的这类过度参与的父母很少，相比之下，许多父母也不会虐待甚至忽视孩子，但出于某种原因，他们不愿意或不能把准备好学习的孩子送到学校。

Jay Horowitz
What is wrong with the current education system in the US?
Two things that seem to be glaring weaknesses of our education system. One is a failure to provide students with a basic understanding of our constitution. It’s not that every student needs to be a constitutional scholar, but they should at least understand the responsibilities of each branch of our government. They should also understand the inalienable rights of all citizens, and the struggles of certain groups, throughout our history to assure themselves of those rights. The second is an honest teaching of our history. Almost every nation has been cruel to one group or another, within their own country. The US has accomplished a lot of great things during our experiment in democracy, but we have also done things that we can regret. It will only make us greater to acknowledge that.

美国目前的教育体系出了什么问题？
有两件事似乎是我们教育体系的明显弱点。一个是未能让学生对我们的宪法作一个基本的了解。这并不是说每个学生都需要成为宪法学者，但他们至少应该了解我们政府每个部门的责任。他们还应该了解所有公民不可剥夺的权利，以及在我们历史上某些群体为确保自己享有这些权利而进行的斗争。第二是诚实地教导我们的历史。几乎每一个国家都对自己国内的某一群体或另一群体残忍过。在我们的民主实验中，美国取得了很多伟大的成就，但我们也做了一些让我们后悔的事情。承认这一点完全会让我们更伟大。

Michelle Rhee
I once had the privilege of having dinner with Warren Buffett, and he put it better than I could. He said it would be easy to solve the problems in public education today. I had recently taken on the job of chancellor of the Washington, DC Public Schools, and asked him to please tell me so I could do it!
"Make private schools illegal," he said, "and assign every child to a public school by random lottery." Think about this. If suddenly CEOs' children, diplomats' children, and the children of our nation's leaders were attending schools across DC, I guarantee we would never see a faster moving of resources from one end of the city to the other. I also guarantee we would soon have a system of high quality schools in which every child would get an excellent education.
Now, I don't think he meant we really should make private schools illegal. But it's important to me to remember this is all about will. It's not that we don't know the best practices for education. We just have not yet built a significant collective will enough to put all students first in the policies and practices governing public education in this country.

我曾经有幸与沃伦·巴菲特共进晚餐，他说得比我好。他说，今天解决公共教育中的问题很容易。我最近担任了华盛顿特区公立学校的校长一职，请他告诉我，这样我就可以做到了！
“将私立学校定为非法学校，”他说，“并通过随机抽签的方式将每个孩子分配到公立学校。”想想这个：如果突然间ceo的孩子、外交官的孩子、国家领导人的孩子都在华盛顿特区上学，我保证我们永远不会看到资源从城市的一端更快地转移到另一端。我还保证，我们很快就会有一个高质量的学校体系，让每个孩子都能得到良好的教育。
现在，我不认为他的意思是我们真的应该把私立学校定为非法性质的学校。但对我来说，重要的是要记住这一切都取决于意志。这并不是说我们不知道教育的最佳实践，我们只是还没有建立一个重要的集体意志，足以在管理这个国家公共教育的政策和实践中把所有学生放在首位。
原创翻译：龙腾网 https://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处

Matthew Bates
The foundations upon which public education in the United States was built upon have eroded in many places, and the building above those disappearing pillars is crumbling, taking down other parts of the building… the parts that still have a solid foundation… with it.
Public education began with the ideas that:
Parents would be involved in their child’s education.
Parents would be supportive of teachers and schools.
Students would be respectful towards their teachers.
Few students would end up going to college.

美国公共教育赖以建立的基础在许多地方已经受到侵蚀，那些消失的柱子上方的建筑物正在坍塌，摧毁了建筑物的其他部分，摧毁了那些仍然有坚实基础的部分。
公共教育最初的理念是:
父母将参与孩子的教育。
家长会支持老师和学校。
学生们会尊重他们的老师。
很少有学生最终会去上大学。
原创翻译：龙腾网 https://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处

Most students would finish school at age 18 and go straight into the workforce.
Schools were primarily academic centers, with some sports thrown in after school.
Schools would be primarily funded and run at the local level, thus making them more responsive to the wishes of the taxpayers who are actually paying for them and sending their children there.
Students whose bad behaviors distracted from their classmates’ education would be removed from the classroom.
Students who did not meet academic requirements for advancement to the next grade level wouldn’t be advanced to the next grade level.
Those foundations are still holding firm in some school districts. But, in many other school districts, those foundations have disappeared.

大多数学生会在18岁时完成学业，然后直接进入职场。
学校主要是学术中心，放学后还有一些体育活动。
学校将主要由地方一级资助和运营，从而使它们更能响应纳税人的意愿，而纳税人实际上是在为这些学校买单，并把他们的孩子送到这些学校。
存在会影响同学学习的不良行为的学生将被开除。
没有达到升入下一年级学业要求的学生将不能升入下一年级。
这些基础在一些学区仍然稳固。但是，在许多其他学区，这些基础已经不复存了。

The more of those foundations a school district no longer has, the more problems that school district is going to have and, usually, the worse results that school district will have. Want to find the worst school districts in the U.S.? Just look for the school districts where the opposite of each of those statements on the list above is true. Schools with a lot of:
Uninvolved parents.
Adversarial parents.
Students who don’t respect their teachers or schools.
The expectation that most students will go to college.
The lack of good jobs for people who don’t go to college.

一个学区失去的这些基础越多，该学区面临的问题就越多，通常情况下，该学区的结果也会越糟糕。想知道美国最差的学区吗?只需要寻找那些与上述陈述相反的学区就可以了，这些学校存在诸多下列现象：
放牛吃草型父母
具有对抗性的父母。
不尊重老师或不尊重学校的学生。
大多数学生期望去上大学。
没有上过大学的人找不到好工作。

Schools that function primarily as social service centers (providing free meals, free birth control, free counseling, etc…).
Schools that are primarily funded via state and federal funds, and are primarily concerned with the wishes of politicians and bureaucrats, not the parents who send their children to the school.
Schools that refuse to remove from the classroom students with behavior or other issues that distract from their classmates’ education.
Schools that pass along all students, no matter their ability levels.
Of everything on that list, the first one is the biggest problem in education in the U.S., and the most difficult problem to overcome: parents who aren’t doing their job in raising their own children.

学校主要作为社会服务中心（提供免费膳食、免费节育、免费咨询等）。
学校主要由州和联邦基金资助，主要关注政治家和官僚的意愿，而不是关注送孩子上学的家长的意愿。
学校拒绝将有行为或其他问题的学生从课堂上赶走，这会分散学校教育同学的注意力。
无论学生的能力水平如何，学校都会让他们顺利进入下一学年。
在上面列出的所有问题中，第一个是美国教育中最大的问题，也是最难克服的问题:父母在抚养自己的孩子方面没有尽到自己的责任。

Brandon Ross
Kids need to play and explore. We put 3–4 years old in a public school under the guise of education. But that has no long-term education benefits.
We use preschools and kindergarten schools as de facto daycare centers. Very, very expensive daycare.
And when kids should be trying to explore the world around them and form good social relationships and attachments with people in their lives, we put them in places where they cannot do that.
Placing 30 four-year olds in a room and expecting them to understand how to behave is really bizarre. That is not how human beings learn, play, socialize, or emulate behavior. That is an intentional recipe for poor socialization, misbehavior, and emotional trauma.

孩子们需要玩耍和探索。我们以教育的名义把3-4岁的孩子送到公立学校。但长期而言，这对教育没有长期的好处。
我们使用幼托和幼儿园作为事实上的日托中心，日托是非常非常贵
当孩子们应该尝试探索他们周围的世界，在他们的生活中与人建立良好的社会关系和依恋时，我们却把他们安置在他们本不该待的地方。
把30个四岁的孩子放在一个房间里，期望他们去了解如何表现，这真的很奇怪。这不是人类学习、玩耍、社交或模仿行为的方式。这是故意造成不良社交、行为不当和情感创伤的原因。

It’s borderline abusive. But, we treat it as totally normal. Many places are still pushing for mandatory, public pre-school. The argument for it? “Well, parents have to work.” Again, it’s daycare.
That’s dark and crazy.
Something else that I think is pretty dark?
There is always a clamoring for school funding. There is never enough money for schools! … Even though, in most states, it is an absolutely mind-boggling amount of money goes to schools. I mean, it is HUGE.
And public teachers are always at the forefront, saying how they need more school funding. Because teachers are consistently underpaid.

这是近乎虐待。但是，我们认为这是完全正常的。许多地方仍在推行强制性的公立学前教育。支持它的理由是什么?“嗯，父母必须工作。”再说一次，这是日托。
这太恐怖了，太疯狂了。
还有什么东西我觉得很恐怖？
总是有要求资助学校的呼声，学校的钱永远不够用!尽管在大多数州，花在学校上的钱绝对多得令人难以置信。我的意思是，那是笔巨款。
公立学校的教师总是站在最前面，说他们需要更多的学校资金。因为教师的工资一直很低。

But the truth is, teacher salaries have remained pretty stagnant. Arguably, total compensation is decreasing with revisions to retirement plans.
It really does seem that teachers have not caught on that they’re just pawns in a game to get more money… for other people. And that their pay is never going to substantially increase.
I once proposed a state-level trial program, in which a voucher for 80% of the money ear-marked to each student would be paid directly to the teachers. Whew! Guess who hated that? Teachers.

但事实是，教师的工资一直停滞不前。可以论证的是，随着退休计划的修订，总薪酬正在减少。
老师们似乎真的没有意识到，他们只是为别人赚更多钱的游戏中的棋子，他们的工资永远不会大幅增加。
我曾经提出过一个州级的试点项目，其中指定给每个学生的资金的80%将直接支付给教师。唷!猜猜谁讨厌这个计划?是老师。