2014.08.10

 

教育的反思

Rethink our view of Education

當你在世界各地旅行，你會驚訝地發現：這世界各地的教育系統都有同樣的科目和階級制度，不管你去哪裡都是這樣。你以為會有所不同，但真的沒有差別。最高階的學科是數學和語文，接著是人文社會科目，而藝術則是墊底的科目。到處都是一樣。而且每個教育體系中的藝術課程，也都有同樣的階級制，美術和音樂課程在學校永遠比戲劇和舞蹈課程重要，地球上沒有一個教育系統，每天教小孩子跳舞，就像教數學一樣，為什麼？為什麼不呢？我覺得這很重要。我認為數學非常重要，但舞蹈也是。如果被允許，孩子們無時無刻不在跳舞，我們都是這樣。我們都有肢體，不是嗎？我錯過了甚麼嗎？

這一切的背後真相是，當小孩開始成長，我們的教育重心大量移至腰部以上，然後著重在頭部，並且沒有左右均衡。如果你觀察這個教育制度，當個局外人，然後問：公立教育目的是甚麼？我想你的結論會是- 如果你以結果論，誰能在這種制度下成功？誰是乖乖牌，從不犯錯？誰累積了最多獎，誰是贏家？我想你會得到這樣的結論，全球公立教育的目的只是製造大學教授，難道不是嗎？他們是那群高分畢業的人。但你知道，我們不應將他們視為人類成功的最高指標，那只是一種生活方式，就只是一種不同的生活方式。

你仔細思考就會發現，全世界公立教育系統都只是為進入大學之門鋪路，而結果造成許多有天分，有創意的，聰明學生自我否定，因為他們的專長在學校，不被重視，還可能被罰。我認為我們不能再這樣繼續下去，因為當我還是學生的時候，有一張大學文憑，就有工作。你要是沒工作，那是因為你自己不想要。但是現在有大學文憑的小孩只能繼續回家打電動，因為以前大學畢業可以做的工作，現在得要碩士才行，而該碩士的工作，現在得要博士才搶得到。這是一個文憑膨脹的過程，這顯示整的教育結構正在我們腳下改變，我們必須徹底重新思考我們對智力的看法。

 

When you travel around the world, you discover: every education system on earth has the same hierarchy of subjects. Every one. Doesn’t matter where you go. You’d think it would be otherwise, but it isn’t. At the top are mathematics and languages, then humanities, and the bottom are the arts. Everywhere on Earth. And in pretty much every system too, there’s a hierarchy within the arts. Art and music are normally given a higher status in schools than drama and dance. There isn’t an education system on the planet that teaches dance every day to children the way we teach them mathematics. Why? Why not? I think this is rather important. I think math is very important, but so is dance. Children dance all the time is they’re allowed to , we all do. We all have bodies, don’t we? Did I miss a meeting?

Truthfully, what happens is, as children grow up, we start to educate them progressively from the waist up. And then we focus on their heads. And slightly to one side. If you were to visit education, as an alien, and say” What’s it for, public education?” I think you’d have to conclude- if you look at the output, who really succeeds by this, who does everything that they should, who gets all the brownie points, who are the winners, I think you’d have to conclude the whole purpose of public education throughout the world is to produce university professors. Isn’t it? They’re the people who come out the top. But you know, we shouldn’t hold them up as the high-water mark of all human achievement. They’re just a form of life, another form of life.

If you think of it, the whole system of public education around the world is a protracted process of university entrance. And the consequence is that many highly talented, brilliant, creative people think they’re not, because the thing they were good at school wasn’t valued, or was actually stigmatized. And I think we can’t afford to go on that way. Because when I was a student, if you had a degree, you had a job. If you didn’t have a job it’s because you didn’t want one. But now kids with degrees are often heading home to carry on playing video games, because you need an MA where the previous job required a BA and now you need a PhD for the other. It’s a process of academic inflation. And in indicates the whole structure of education is shifting beneath our feet. We need to radically rethink our view of intelligence.