危險:別再跟窮孩子說書中自有黃金屋

A 12th-grader wrote a college admissions essay about wanting to pursue a career in oceanography. Let’s call her Isabella. A few months ago, we edited it in my classroom during lunch. The writing was good, but plenty of 17-year-olds fantasize about swimming with whales. Her essay was distinctive for another reason: Her career goals were not the highlight of the essay. They were just a means of framing her statement of purpose, something surprisingly few personal statements actually get around to making.

一名12年級的高中學生寫了一篇申請大學的文章，描述她想要從事與海洋學相關的職業。我們就叫她伊莎貝拉好了。幾個月前，我們利用午餐時間在我的教室對文章進行了潤色。文章寫的不錯，但充滿了17歲少女的幻想，比如與鯨魚結伴遨遊。她的文章與衆不同的另一個原因是：她的職業目標不是這篇文章的重點，只是完成她目的陳述的表達手法，這點很令人驚訝，因爲事實上很少用這種方式寫個人陳述。

The essay’s core concerned the rhetoric that educators had used to motivate her and her peers—other minority students from low-income communities. She’d been encouraged to think of college foremost as a path to socioeconomic mobility. Since elementary school, teachers had rhapsodized about the opportunities that four years of higher education could unlock. Administrators had rattled off statistics about the gulf in earnings between college graduates and those with only high-school diplomas. She’d been told to think about her family, their hopes for her, what they hadn’t had and what she could have if she remained diligent. She’d been promised that good grades and a ticket to a good college would lead to a good job, one that would guarantee her financial independence and enable her to give back to those hard-working people who had placed their faith in her.

文章的核心是圍繞教育工作者的一些言論，他們一直用這些言論激勵她和她的同齡人——來自低收入社區的少數民族學生。不斷有人給她洗腦，上大學是第一位的，是改善社會經濟地位的坦途。從上小學開始，老師就極力宣揚四年的大學生活能打開機遇的大門。學校領導能飛快地列舉出各種統計數據，說明大學畢業生和只有高中文憑的那些人在收入方面的巨大差距。總是有人對她說，想想你的家人，想想他們寄予的厚望，如果能一直努力讀書就會得到父輩無法擁有的東西。只要成績好，拿到頂尖大學的錄取通知書，保證就會有個好工作，有了好工作，不僅自己經濟上能夠獨立而且還有能力回報親友，這些人一直努力工作並且對她充滿信心。

Thankfully, Isabella decried this characterization as shortsighted and simplistic. My guess is that only students like her ever have to hear it.

值得慶幸的是，伊莎貝拉批評這類說辭是目光短淺和頭腦簡單。我猜大概只有像她這樣的學生纔會聽到這些。

The black and Latino kids I teach live in Inglewood and West Adams in Los Angeles. Their parents are house-cleaners, truck drivers, and non-union carpenters. When administrators, counselors, and teachers repeat again and again that a college degree will alleviate economic hardship, they don’t mean to suggest that there is no other point to higher education. Yet by focusing on this one potential benefit, educators risk distracting them from the others, emphasizing the value of the fruits of their academic labor and skipping past the importance of the labor itself. The message is that intellectual curiosity plays second fiddle to financial security.

我教的那些非洲裔和拉美裔學生都住在洛杉磯的英格爾伍德和西亞當斯。他們父母從事的工作是清潔工、卡車司機和非工會的木匠。當校長、輔導員和老師一次又一次地重複着，有了大學文憑會改善經濟窘迫的情況，他們並不是指高等教育除了這點就沒別的用處了。但是當只專注在獲取這種潛在利益時，教育工作者們讓學生注意不到別的事物，他們強調知識累積後成果的價值卻忽略了知識累積本身的重要性。這種做法傳遞的消息是，求知慾排在經濟保障之後。

While Isabella’s essay acknowledged her lack of economic advantages and portrayed with sensitivity her parents’ struggles, she was eager to focus first on nurturing her intellectual passion. She detailed how her curiosity about sea urchins and other marine life had led to a passion she wants to sustain through college and a subsequent career. College will ferry her to her intellectual destiny, not a financial windfall. She’ll make her life’s work what she wants to do, not just what she is able do.

雖然伊莎貝拉的文章承認她沒有經濟優勢也敏感地描繪了她父母生活的困頓，但她盼望能將重心首先放在培養自己的求知慾上。她詳細講述了對海膽等海洋生物的好奇，這種好奇激發了她對海洋生物學的熱情，她希望能在未來的大學生活和隨後的職業生涯中一直保持這份熱情。大學會把她送到知識海洋的彼岸，而不是送來意外的橫財。她要讓自己畢生的職業是她想要去做的，而不是她能去做的。

My students are understandably preoccupied with money. They don’t have the privilege to not worry about it. They fantasize about what their future wealth will permit them to enjoy. They dream about specific models of cars in certain colors and gargantuan houses in particular neighborhoods and opulent meals at their favorite restaurants any time they wish. Many swoon over the East Coast liberal arts colleges they visit on the special trips that my school is thoughtful enough to arrange. Colleges like Swarthmore and Haverford fly students like Isabella out during college applications season. A few are accepted but most attend state schools, which, especially in California, can provide excellent educational opportunities. The irony, though, is that many of these students aspire to go to a liberal-arts school but don’t necessarily understand its significance. They’re drawn to sleepy quads, weathered brick, and cascading ivy, but they are resolutely pre-professional in spirit.

可以理解我的學生們爲什麼十分在意金錢。他們沒有資本不去擔心。他們幻想着將來有錢可以讓他們好好享受生活。他們夢想擁有某種顏色的限定款汽車、位於特殊社區的大豪宅以及隨時可以在喜歡的餐廳享用豐盛的美食。許多學生參觀東岸文科學院時幾乎爲之瘋狂，我所在的學校用心良苦地安排了很多這種參觀活動。大學申請季節時，斯沃斯莫爾和哈弗福德等大學會讓伊莎貝拉這樣的學生飛過去面試。少數幾名學生會被東岸大學錄取，但絕大多數學生會進入公立大學，尤其是加利福尼亞的大學，這些學校可以提供良好的受教育機會。但具有諷刺意味的是，很多向往文科學院的學生不一定了解這類大學強在哪裏。吸引他們的是安靜的校園、飽經風雨的牆磚和層層疊疊的常春藤，但在內心他們已經毅然踏入職前教育階段。

In contrast, at the private school I attended for the last two years of high school, my classmates thought about what they wanted to learn in college, not only what they wanted to become. Some knew medical or law school loomed in the future, but they thought about the work in a different way. My privileged classmates enjoyed money, from what I could tell. A few reveled in their cars and clothes, but most appeared to take it for granted. They didn’t talk about it. Instead, a future doctor talked about working at the CDC to fight public health epidemics. A future lawyer envisioned starting a defense firm to provide a service to the hometown community. Most of us wanted to do something special.

與此相反，在我高中最後兩年就讀的私立學校，我的同學們考慮的是他們想在大學裏學到什麼，不僅僅只是他們想要從事的職業。有的同學知道將來很可能就讀醫學院或法學院，但他們以完全不同的方式思考未來。我那些有錢有勢的同學很享受金錢帶來的快樂，這點我看得出來。有人喜歡汽車，愛買衣服，但大多數人似乎覺得這理所當然。他們不談論金錢。相反，未來的醫生談論在疾病預防控制中心的工作，治療影響公衆健康的流行病。未來的律師設想開辦律師事務所服務家鄉的社區。我們當中的絕大多數人想要做一些特別的事。

My students’ fantasies of the actual work they’d do in a well-paid professional capacity are vague by comparison—practicing law without knowing the difference between civil and criminal litigation or how to prepare for law school, doing business without an understanding of the nuts and bolts of entrepreneurship. While the vagueness stems from the lack of models in their communities, it also comes from the lack of imagination with which mentors have addressed their professed college plans. Students hear that being a doctor is great because doctors can make money, enjoy respect, and have a great don’t hear that being a doctor is great because doctors possess the expertise to do great things.

相比之下，我那些希望從事高薪職業的學生們對工作實質毫無概念——想當律師的不瞭解民事訴訟和刑事訴訟的差別，也不知道讀法學院要如何準備；想經商的不知道創業的各種細節。雖然這種茫然的根源來自他們的生活圈子裏沒有可以模仿的對象，但也由於缺乏想象力，因爲導師們已經一手包辦了他們自稱的大學規劃。這些學生聽到的是，當一名醫生很棒，可以賺大錢，受人尊敬，能過上富足的生活。他們沒聽到的是，當一名醫生很棒的原因是，醫生所具備的專業知識能讓他們去做很棒的事。

When schools deemphasize the intellectual benefits of higher education, students become less imaginative about their futures.

當學校弱化高等教育對智力發展的重要性時，學生們對未來也變得不再富有想象力。

The rhetoric echoes the oft-cited work of Jean Anyon, an education researcher who died in September. Studying elementary schools, Anyon looked at how schools can condition kids for positions in life. She saw that schools teaching the children of affluent families prepared those kids to take on leadership roles and nurtured their capacity for confident self-expression and ols teaching children from low-income families focused on keeping students busy and managing behavior. A middle-class school deemphasized individual expression and in-depth analysis and rewarded the dutiful completion of specified rote tasks. In each case, according to Anyon, a “hidden curriculum” has prepared students for a future role in society. Some students learn to take orders and others learn to chart a course of action and delegate responsibility. School can either perpetuate inequity through social reproduction or have a transformative effect and help students transcend it.

這類言論也符合大家經常提及的吉恩?安揚（Jean Anyon）的研究，這位教育研究人員於今年9月去世了。在針對小學的研究過程中，安揚注意到學校是如何限定了孩子們的社會地位。她發現，在富裕家庭孩子就讀的學校，老師教這些學生如何承擔領導角色並培養他們充滿自信地自我表達和演講辯論。對低收入家庭的兒童，學校教育的重點放在讓學生總是忙忙碌碌而且規矩聽話。而中產階級家庭孩子就讀的學校弱化個性展示和深入分析，獎勵學生盡職地完成指定的機械工作。根據安揚的研究，學校針對不同情況制定的“隱性課程”爲學生們量身定製了未來的社會角色。有些學生學會服從命令，其他學生學會規劃執行方案並且層層落實責任。學校可以通過社會複製讓這種不公平延續下去，或者選擇努力變革從而幫助學生超越它。

The rhetoric Isabella has heard about the purpose of college has a hidden message as well. When school environments casually yet consistently deemphasize the intellectual benefits of higher education, students become less imaginative about their futures. According to ACT’s College Choice Report from November 2013, 32 percent of students pick a college major that doesn’t really interest them. The same study suggests that students are less likely to graduate when they do this. As high school educators know, good students have less trouble getting into selective schools than they do graduating from them – especially first-generation minority college students like Isabella and her classmates.

伊莎貝拉聽到的大學目標這類言論還潛藏了一個信息。當學校看似隨意但不停弱化高等教育對智力發展的重要性時，學生對未來也變得不再富有想象力。根據2013年11月ACT（美國大學入學考試）的大學選擇報告，32%的學生選擇了他們並不真正感興趣的專業。這份研究還表明，做出這種選擇的學生順利畢業的可能也較小。高中老師都知道，好學生考取重點大學不難，但順利畢業就難說了——尤其是少數民族的第一代移民大學生，比如伊莎貝拉和她的同學們。

College should be “sold” to all students as an opportunity to experience an intellectual awakening. All students should learn that privilege is connected to the pursuit of passions. People are privileged to follow their hearts in life, to spend their time crafting an identity instead of simply surviving. Access to higher education means that your values and interests can govern your choices. It makes sense that privileged 18-year-olds who have already learned that lesson gravitate to liberal-arts colleges. I would prefer not to live in a country in which rhetoric about the purpose of college urges kids from privileged backgrounds to be innovators and creators while the poor kids who do very well in school are taught to be educated, capable employees. Isabella figured it out on her own – much as she’s managed to ace her classes without academic help outside of school. To achieve this goal more broadly, though, we need to proactively teach our most marginalized students that honing an intellectually curious frame of mind is as essential to leading an invigorating working life as ambition and work ethic.

大學應該向所有學生“灌輸”的是，有機會體驗知識帶來的覺醒。所有的學生都應該知道，享有特權與追求愛好息息相關。人們有權利按照心靈的指引生活，用生命打造自己獨具的特性，而不僅僅是爲了生存。接受高等教育意味着你的價值觀念和興趣愛好可以左右你的選擇。享有特權的這些18歲孩子們已經得到了被文科學院吸引的教訓，這很正常。我不願生活在這樣的國家，誇誇其談大學的目的就是讓有錢有勢的孩子成爲革新者和創造者，而品學兼優的窮孩子則被教育成有知識的合格打工者。伊莎貝拉靠自己明白了這個道理——就像她沒有上過校外輔導班門門功課照樣拿優一樣。但爲了讓更多的學生也同樣明白，我們需要主動告知我們最被邊緣化的學生，想要擁有愉快的職業生涯，培養好奇心和求知慾以及保持進取心和職業道德都是缺一不可的。