[2008.12.13] 小学教育：对不起，老师，什么是历史？

Primary schooling
小学教育

Please, sir, what’s history?
对不起，老师，什么是历史？

Dec 11th 2008
From The Economist print edition

A missed chance to make hard choices about what children should learn
学龄儿童应该学些什么课程？课程计划错过了作出高难度诀择的一次机会。

IF YOU are in your 40s and British, it is quite possible that your spelling is an embarrassment. You may never have been taught the distinction between “there”, “their” and “they’re”, or perhaps even your times tables. If you moved house during your primary years you may have entirely missed some vital topic-joined-up writing, say. And you may have struggled to learn to read using the “initial teaching alphabet”, a concoction of 40 letters that was supposed to provide a stepping stone to literacy but tripped up many children when they had to switch to the standard 26.

假如你身在英国，40来岁，你的拼写很有可能让你窘迫脸红。你的老师或许从来没教过你如何分辨 “那里（there）”，”他们的（their）”以及”他们是（they’re）”之间的区别。你甚至没背过乘法表。如果小学阶段你搬过家，你或许已经彻底错过了一些不可或缺的课题，比如”连写”。或许，你曾学习用”初级教学字母”【1】来学会阅读，但却被那东西整得痛苦不堪。这40个字母的套装原本是为学龄儿童提供的一个识字台阶，结果，当他们必须切换到标准26个字母时，许多孩子都被绊倒了。

Those days of swivel-eyed theorising and untrammelled experimentation-or, as the schools inspectorate put it at the time, “markedly individual decisions about what is to be taught”-ended in 1988 with the introduction of a national curriculum. But though that brought rigour and uniformity, it also created an unwieldy-and unworldly-blueprint for the Renaissance Child. Schools have struggled to fit it all in ever since. Now, 20 years later, the primary curriculum is to be cut down.

那些年，偏颇的理论及不受控制的试验，或按学校督察当年的说法，那些”明显带着个人意志的教学选择”，终于随着88年”全国指定课程”出炉后结束。指定课程虽然具有它的严格性和统一性，却因臃肿复杂而难以执行，同时它还带着”文艺复兴孩子”的烙印，与外界相脱节。自88年起，学校就一直在竭力尝试达到它的所有指标。可是到了20年后的今天，小学课程却即将被砍去一部分。

In January the government commissioned Sir Jim Rose, a former chief inspector of primary schools, to trim ten existing required subjects to give extra space to computing skills and to accommodate two new compulsory subjects: a foreign language and the now-optional “personal, social, health and economic education” (eating fruit and veg, refraining from hitting one’s classmates and much more). On December 8th he published his interim report-and many fear that, as well as losing fat, education will see a lot of meat go too.

今年1月，政府任命前小学总督察吉姆•罗斯爵士(Sir Jim Rose)削减现有的10个必修科目，腾出课时开”电脑技能”和另外两门新的必修科目：一门为外语，另一门为”个人、社会、健康和经济教育的选修课（内容包括多吃水果和蔬菜、自我约束不袭击同学及其他更多）”。 12月8日，罗斯爵士发表了他的试行报告。很多人担心，教育内容在减”肥”的同时，将失去一堆”精肉”。

Sir Jim proposes merging the subjects into six “learning areas”. History and geography will become “human, social and environmental understanding”; reading, writing and foreign languages, “understanding English, communication and languages”. Physical education, some bits of science and various odds and ends will merge into “understanding physical health and well-being”, and so on. His plan would “reduce prescription”, he says, and, far from downgrading important ideas, “embed and intensify [them] to better effect in cross-curricular studies”.

吉姆爵士提议将科目合并成6个”学习领域” 。历史和地理并成”理解人类、社会和环境”; 阅读、写作和外语并成”理解英语、沟通和语言”；体育、部分科学及其它林林总总并成”理解身心健康健全”等等。这份计划将”精简条条杠杠”，他强调说，但重要的教育理念非但不会被丢弃，反而通过”嵌入和加强[它们]能更好地促进跨学科学习” 。

Learned societies are livid. “An erosion of specialist knowledge,” harrumphs the Royal Historical Society; its geographical counterpart is worried about “losing rigour and the teaching of basics”. Even those with no brief for a particular subject are concerned. Pouring 12 subjects into six “learning areas” is not the same as slimming down; if the curriculum is to become more digestible something must be lost, and just what is being glossed over. “Wouldn’t it be better to address the question of subjects directly-which ones, for how long and what to specify?” asks Alan Smithers, of Buckingham University.

学术团体则一片哗然。皇家历史学会指责新计划是对 “专业知识的侵蚀”; 与之门当户对的皇家地理学会担心教育会”失去严谨性和教学基础”。即使那些不被缩减的科目也令人忧心忡忡了。把12个科目并成六个”学习领域”可不同于简单地”瘦身”，如果课程变成了”摘要”，那一定是失去了部分内容，只不过在表面上被掩饰了。白金汉大学（教研中心主任-注）阿兰•史密瑟斯批评说，”直接了当地针对科目问题，明确解释需要教那些科目，需要教多长时间岂不更好？”

One answer is that making hard choices openly would provoke complaints that the curriculum was being dumbed down. Attempts to cut it outright would run counter to powerful forces, as politicians look to schools to solve myriad social ills-from obesity to teenage pregnancy to low turnout in elections-and to pick up the slack left by poor parenting. But Sir Jim’s prescription indicates more than the difficulty of his job. He has been asked to solve tricky educational conundrums before and, every time, he has managed to catch the prevailing political wind.

对上述问题的回答之一是，公开作出削减课程的高难选择会惹起批评。完全砍掉某些科目容易惹翻社会各方主流强势，尤其当政客们总是指望以学校来解决各种社会弊病，包括从肥胖到少女怀孕，再到低投票率。总之，学校要捡起贫穷父母留下的一堆烂摊子。从吉姆爵士的计划可见，其难度超出了他的工作范围。幸而他以前就曾被请来解决”教育课程”的棘手难题，并且他每次都能设法紧跟当时的政治风向。

In 2006 he reviewed reading tuition, and plumped for the back-to-basics “synthetic phonics”-to the delight of a government already mustard-keen on the method. In 1999 he answered “no” to the charge that rising exam results were a sign of less exacting exams rather than of better teaching. In 1991 the Tory government of the day was equally thrilled to be told that primary education had become too progressive.

在2006年，吉姆爵士审查了阅读讲授课程之后，决定回到基础的”看字读音教学法”。此举正中政府下怀，因为当时这个方法已重新受到重视。 99年，有人指控说，考试成绩上升并不代表教学质量的上升，反而是考试严格程度降低的结果。吉姆爵士断然否定了此项指控。91年，他告诉当时的保守党政府，小学教育进展突飞猛进，同样令政府异常兴奋。

This time, too, Sir Jim has captured the Zeitgeist. Synthesis and cross-cutting are once more fashionable in educational circles: since July 2007 England’s schools have been overseen not by an education ministry but by the Department for Children, Schools and Families, which is responsible for pretty much everything to do with young people, from health to criminal justice to learning. (The three other bits of the United Kingdom-Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland-go their own way on education.) Primary schools were turning away from discrete subjects even before he pronounced: a 2007 survey found a third taught mostly “themed” lessons; another 40% were planning to do so soon. Another recent review, this time of what 11-14-year-olds should learn, also plumped for more cross-curricular learning.

这次，吉姆爵士再度紧随时代的潮流。”综合法”和”跨学科削减”正值时尚风行：至2007年7月以来，英国的学校已经不受教育部，却受”儿童、学校和家庭部”的监管，而该部门所负责的年轻人从健康到刑事司法到学习的种种问题，五花八门，包罗万象。（大不列颠的另三个联合体苏格兰、威尔士和北爱尔兰则各自另立与自行教育方针。）在报告公布之前，小学已经在逐步走向综合科目教学。一份 2007年的调查发现，三分之一的学校主要进行”主题”教学; 另外有40％的学校打算尽快行施同类方法。另一项近期的审查显示，有关11至14岁应学科目将容置更多跨学科学习。

Many countries’ curriculums consist of high-flown descriptions of the paragonic citizens that education is meant to help produce, couched in impenetrable educationalese. But alongside are usually some hard facts: which textbooks to use and how many hours to devote to each topic, for example. England’s lacks such a crib sheet. Schools can choose their own texts, even write their own, and apportion the school day as they please. Exams come in competing varieties from independent exam boards that must, like teachers, read between the lines to figure out what is meant to have been taught. That leaves England particularly exposed to the consequences of curricular woolliness.

许多国家指定课程的内容措辞夸张地强调，教育是为了帮助培养模范公民。尽管使用的教育专业术语表述费解，但它们一般会附带一些明确数字：比如，使用哪些教科书及每个科目教多长时间。英国的指定课程则缺乏这样一份数据明细表。英国学校可以自选教科书，或甚至自编教材，学校可以自定教课时间。各类竞争考试由不同的独立考试委员会出卷。他们像教师一样，必须得领会指定课程大纲的言外之意才能搞清要教哪些内容。这使英国尤其容易遭受浆糊课程的不堪后果。

Despite seeming vague, though, national curriculums do often encapsulate some aspect of national ideals. France’s is explicit about the primacy of la belle langue; Sweden’s elevates equality above all other virtues; Japan’s, love of country. That these match stereotypes so well suggests that they capture a national spirit, or create it, or a bit of both-and raises a worrying question for anyone looking at England’s proposed mishmash of a new curriculum.

尽管定义含混不清，国家指定课程往往包裹着国家理想主义的某些成分。法国很明确地以语言华美为首要;瑞典将平等置于所有道德之上;日本强调热爱本国。这些国家理想与固有成见神形貌似，说明它抓住或创造了国家精神，或二者兼备–这里出现的问题，是任何一个看到新课程计划之杂混的人所担心的。

译者：skittos http://www.ecocn.org/bbs/viewthread.php?tid=16053&extra=page%3D1