Alpha School: A New Approach To Education - MacKenzie Price

章节 1：传统教育模式的根本症结

📝 本节摘要：

在本章中，MacKenzie Price 指出了传统教育模式的核心弊病：源自工业革命时期的“一人讲课、众人听讲”模式旨在培养顺从的工厂工人，而非具备批判性思维的现代公民。她详细分析了这种模式的低效性——进度快的学生感到无聊，进度慢的学生跟不上，导致课堂效率极低。此外，她探讨了从幼儿园到高中学生学习热情逐年递减的现象，以及家长因自身经历偏差而对教育创新产生的无意识阻力。

[原文] [Chris Williamson]: what's fundamentally broken about the current school model

[译文] [Chris Williamson]: 现在的学校模式根本上哪里出了问题？

[原文] [MacKenzie Price]: oh boy I don't know how long your podcast is but let me tell you the fundamental issue Uh the teacher in front of the classroom model of uh one person trying to educate many kids who are at wildly different levels of understanding uh just fundamentally doesn't work And uh that would be the summary Uh there's a lot of sub points in there Uh I think the other thing that we really want to fundamentally change in our culture is the attitude about school I think people think school is like spinach It's good for you but you kind of just got to got to you know get it through and and do that And what I truly believe is that kids should love school because when kids love school it opens up the possibility it opens up the possibility to do so many incredible things Uh and that's what we're doing at our schools

[译文] [MacKenzie Price]: 天哪，我不知道你这期播客有多长，但我来告诉你根本的问题。呃，“老师站在教室前面”的模式——也就是一个人试图教育许多理解水平天差地别的孩子——根本就行不通。呃，这就是总结。里面还有很多细分点。呃，我认为我们真正想在文化中根本改变的另一件事是人们对学校的态度。我觉得人们认为学校就像菠菜：它对你有好处，但你只要……你知道，得熬过去，把它吃下去。而我真心相信孩子们应该热爱学校，因为当孩子们热爱学校时，它就开启了可能性，开启了做许多不可思议事情的可能性。呃，这就是我们在我们的学校里所做的事情。

[原文] [Chris Williamson]: Dig deeper What's wrong with the one person lecturing to 20 30 40

[译文] [Chris Williamson]: 深入讲讲。一个人对20、30、40个人讲课有什么问题？

[原文] [MacKenzie Price]: yeah Well you know if you want to go back in history think a thousand years ago when Socrates was tutoring Plato who tutored Aristotle who tutored Alexander the Great who went on to go uh take over the known world at the age of 22 that tutoring system uh was phenomenal but it was reserved for the very very elite and uh and you know education was not given to the masses You know fast forward uh many years uh to the 1800s with the industrial revolution uh we had to figure out a way to educate the masses How could you get education to as many people as possible but there was also another goal in mind at that point How could you raise up compliant citizens who would listen to instruction and do as they're told so that they could go to work in the factories and and make industry work Um and you know so that system of education a teacher leading a group of students in a classroom you know came out in the 1800s And you think about all of the industry changes across the board except in the area of education And if you went and visited a rural school in India or you went to the most posh boarding school in the east coast you would really see the same thing You would see a teacher leading a group of students uh in a timebased classroom You know the building's nicer in one versus the other but otherwise you know our education system has not changed Uh and we're seeing all of the kind of bad fruit that is coming from that especially in recent years where our world is changing so quickly and we fundamentally need to create a different type of citizen uh that's able to have critical thinking skills is able to develop life skills and you know we're not even in the traditional system developing great academic skills at this point

[译文] [MacKenzie Price]: 是的。你知道，如果你想回顾历史，想想一千年前，苏格拉底教导柏拉图，柏拉图教导亚里士多德，亚里士多德教导亚历山大大帝，后者在22岁时就征服了已知世界。那种导师制度是非常了不起的，但它是为极少数精英保留的，呃，你知道，教育并没有普及给大众。你知道，快进许多年，呃，到了19世纪的工业革命，呃，我们必须想出一个办法来教育大众。你如何能让尽可能多的人接受教育？但那时还有另一个目标：如何培养出顺从的公民？他们会听从指令，照吩咐办事，这样他们就可以去工厂工作，让工业运转起来。嗯，你知道，所以这种教育体系——一个老师在教室里带领一群学生——是在19世纪出现的。你想想所有行业都发生了翻天覆地的变化，唯独教育领域除外。如果你去印度的一所乡村学校参观，或者去（美国）东海岸最豪华的寄宿学校，你看到的其实是同一回事。你会看到一个老师在基于时间的课堂里带领一群学生。你知道，也许这一边的建筑比那一边的好看，但除此之外，你知道我们的教育体系并没有改变。呃，我们正看到由此产生的所有恶果，尤其是在最近几年，我们的世界变化如此之快，我们根本上需要创造一种不同类型的公民，呃，能够拥有批判性思维技能，能够发展生活技能，而且你知道，我们在传统体系中目前甚至没有培养出很好的学术技能。

[原文] [Chris Williamson]: Why doesn't the traditional system enable life skills social skills academic skills effectively

[译文] [Chris Williamson]: 为什么传统体系不能有效地培养生活技能、社交技能和学术技能？

[原文] [MacKenzie Price]: well you know one of the things about uh the teacher in front of the classroom model and you know just to be clear Chris I think teachers are heroes You know I it's an impossible job to take you know 15 20 25 kids uh who who show up in a classroom and some of them you know barely know how to read and others you know are are super advanced You know if you think about um a teacher having let's say a group of fifth graders come in and she's got to explain a concept and some of those fifth graders before she's even opened her mouth they already know the concept and they're sitting there just bored to death And after she's explained the concept there's a huge percent of the class that it has gone right over their head They have no idea what's happening And in either case you're forced to just move forward and do that Um and so as a result uh the learning system in a traditional classroom is wildly inefficient Right so kids are spending you know six hours a day and then add homework as kids are getting older starting in like second third grade uh to try to learn in this way It just doesn't work And so these schools uh only have so much time in the day and they're trying to get you know 50 minutes of math and 50 minutes of English and language and social studies and history all of that stuff kind of crammed into a day And what that results in is a bunch of kids who are chained to their desks all day Uh doing academics and again either learning how to play the game and jump through the hoops and study for the tests uh to get the A's on the report cards or they choose to rebel and kind of disengage like "Yeah I'm not playing this."

[译文] [MacKenzie Price]: 嗯，你知道，关于“老师在教室前面”这种模式——必须要澄清一点，Chris，我认为教师是英雄。你知道，这是一份不可能完成的工作：要把15、20、25个孩子聚在教室里，其中一些人可能几乎不识字，而另一些人则非常超前。你知道，如果你想象一下，嗯，一个老师面对一群五年级学生进来，她必须解释一个概念。而其中一些五年级学生在她开口之前就已经知道了这个概念，他们坐在那里简直无聊得要死。而在她解释完概念之后，班上有很大一部分人完全没听懂，这内容直接从他们头顶飞过去了，他们根本不知道发生了什么。无论哪种情况，你都被迫只能继续往前推进。嗯，因此结果就是，呃，传统课堂的学习系统效率极低。对吧，所以孩子们每天花六个小时，如果加上家庭作业——随着孩子们长大，大概从二三年级开始——试图以这种方式学习。这根本行不通。所以这些学校，呃，一天只有这么多时间，他们试图把50分钟的数学、50分钟的英语和语言、社会研究和历史所有这些东西都塞进一天里。结果就是一群孩子整天被拴在课桌上，呃，搞学术。再说一次，他们要么学会了如何“玩这场游戏”，跳过各种圈套，为考试而学习，呃，为了在成绩单上拿到A；要么他们选择反叛，某种程度上脱离参与，就像在说“是啊，我不玩这一套了。”

[原文] [MacKenzie Price]: What were you Chris were you a Did you know how to play the game or were you a rebel

[译文] [MacKenzie Price]: 你以前是什么样的，Chris？你是一个……你知道怎么玩这场游戏吗，还是你是个叛逆者？

[原文] [Chris Williamson]: oh I was a good boy I was very

[译文] [Chris Williamson]: 哦，我是个好孩子，我非常……

[原文] [MacKenzie Price]: You were a good boy All right Classic only child syndrome Yeah Well I was a great student as well but I will tell you one thing about me I hated school growing up I was always that kid who would sit the classroom and I'd like raise my hand I'd be like I'm sorry why do I need to know this like why is this something I'm having to spend my time learning um and so I think that's always an interesting combination of like I was motivated to do well in school because I really wanted to go to this great college Uh but I didn't enjoy the experience Uh and I remember when I graduated I was so excited to finally be done with school um and have that be over Um and you know I do think that there are you know the thing about the traditional education system it does do a good job of training kids to be compliant do as they're told And you know that's kind of what it is But you know let's think about the motivation problem I'll tell you what Chris fundamentally there's two things that are required for a student to be able to learn well The first is they have to have the right level and pace of instruction that meets them where they're at Right but that's only about 10% of what creates a great learner 90% of what creates a great learner is they have to be motivated They have to have a motivation to do that

[译文] [MacKenzie Price]: 你是个好孩子。好吧，典型的独生子女综合征。是啊，我也是个好学生，但我可以告诉你关于我的一件事：我从小就讨厌上学。我总是那种坐在教室里，然后举手问：“抱歉，我为什么要学这个？比如为什么我要花时间学这个？”嗯，所以我认为这总是一种有趣的组合，比如我有动力在学校表现好，因为我真的很想上那所很棒的大学，呃，但我并不享受这个过程。呃，我记得当我毕业时，我是多么兴奋终于完成了学业，嗯，让那一切都结束了。嗯，你知道，我确实认为，你知道，传统教育体系确实在训练孩子顺从、照吩咐办事方面做得很好。你知道那就是它的本质。但是，你知道，让我们想想动力问题。我告诉你，Chris，根本上讲，一个学生要学好需要两件事。第一是他们必须获得适合他们当前水平和节奏的指导，在他们所处的水平上满足他们。对吧，但这只构成了造就一个优秀学习者的10%。造就一个优秀学习者的90%在于他们必须有动力。他们必须有动力去学。

[原文] [MacKenzie Price]: And you know you think about the motivation structure that we give to kids in traditional world is we take a kindergartener and we say all right little buddy you know at age five you are going to uh go to school each day for about seven hours a day 5 days a week nine months a year You are going to learn how to sit still You're going to learn how to raise your hand how to ask permission to go to the restroom Uh you know how to uh listen to your instructions uh you're going to within a couple years start also doing work at home at night You're going to do this for 13 years And if you are really good at grinding it out if you're a good little boy or a good little girl like I was right if you're really good at grinding it out you might get to go grind it out for four more years at university right isn't that true that is our motivation structure uh right now And um and you know I can't even necessarily get excited about something that's way down the road You know imagine these these five or six year olds uh you know doing this and then it just kind of goes In fact you know they've done research that shows the highest level of enthusiasm between kindergarten and 12th grade Can you guess what year students have the most enthusiasm at the end when they think they're about to finish

[译文] [MacKenzie Price]: 你知道，想想我们在传统世界里给孩子的动力结构：我们抓一个幼儿园小孩，然后说，好吧小伙计，你知道五岁的时候，你要去上学，每天大约七个小时，每周五天，每年九个月。你要学会如何坐着不动。你要学会如何举手，如何请求许可去洗手间。呃，你知道如何呃听从指令，呃，几年之内你还要开始在晚上把工作带回家做。你要这样做13年。如果你非常擅长苦熬（grinding it out），如果你像我一样是个好男孩或好女孩，对吧，如果你真的很擅长苦熬，你可能还有机会去大学再苦熬四年。对吧，这不是真的吗？这就是我们现在的动力结构。嗯，而且你知道，我甚至不一定能对那么遥远的事情感到兴奋。你知道，想象这些五六岁的孩子，呃，你知道在做这些，然后就这样继续。事实上，你知道他们做过研究，显示了从幼儿园到12年级之间最高的热情水平。你能猜出学生在哪一年热情最高吗？（Chris插话：在最后，当他们觉得快要结束的时候？）

[原文] [MacKenzie Price]: That is close It's actually the second highest Uh the highest level of enthusiasm is in kindergarten Uh because kids show up and they're excited and curious and ex and interested in learning Kids are little sponges right and then what happens is every year that enthusiasm goes down down down until their junior year of high school when they finally start to see the light at the end of the tunnel and they're like "Oh my gosh I'm almost out of here." Right and you just think about what a sad state of affairs that is You know how kids are are kind of you know just hanging out And so you know fundamentally we have a motivation problem Um and that's one of the things we're out we're out to change

[译文] [MacKenzie Price]: 那很接近了，那其实是第二高的。呃，最高的热情水平是在幼儿园。呃，因为孩子们来了，他们很兴奋、好奇，呃，对学习感兴趣。孩子们就像小海绵，对吧？然后发生的事情是，每一年那种热情都在下降、下降、下降，直到他们的高中三年级，那时他们终于开始看到隧道尽头的光亮，他们就像是“天哪，我快要离开这里了。”对吧，你只要想想那是一种多么悲哀的状况。你知道孩子们有点像是在那里干耗着。所以你知道，根本上我们有一个动力问题。嗯，这就是我们要去改变的事情之一。

[原文] [Chris Williamson]: Why do you think the education system has remained so resistant to innovation even after co uh well you know co did a really good job of exposing just how sad of a state our education system is um but we are so entrenched in the way things were

[译文] [Chris Williamson]: 为什么你认为教育体系对创新如此抗拒？即使在新冠疫情之后……呃，你知道，新冠疫情确实很好地暴露了我们的教育体系状况有多么可悲，嗯，但我们还是固守旧习。

[原文] [MacKenzie Price]: and the thing that's interesting about education is pretty much everybody had our own personal experience with being educated right like we knew what it was like to go to kindergarten and and you go to school and and do all the things go to football games do all the things And I think parents often kind of look back on their journey And when it's time to educate their own kids they're kind of like well my kids should be educated the way I was educated right that's why you see people are like I went to Catholic school my kids going to Catholic school I went to private school or I went to public school I did that I was the same way I was a public school kid My husband was And when it was time for our girls to go to school we put them on the bus and said you know go to the local public school So we have this idea And the other thing that I think happens is we often will have a little bit of a mismemory of what our experience was like because we'll be like well I turned out fine right i turned out well and I got my best friends from high school You know I just did a girl trip with my best friends from high school a couple months ago Like I have great memories from high school Um but we kind of start to forget about you know the average day-to-day thing

[译文] [MacKenzie Price]: 关于教育有一件有趣的事，就是几乎每个人都有自己受教育的亲身经历，对吧？比如我们知道上幼儿园是什么样的，去上学，做所有那些事，去看橄榄球比赛，做所有那些事。而且我认为父母通常会回顾他们的旅程。当轮到教育他们自己的孩子时，他们会有种想法：嗯，我的孩子应该像我受教育那样受教育，对吧？这就是为什么你看到人们说“我上了天主教学校，我的孩子也要上天主教学校”；“我上了私立学校”或者“我上了公立学校”。我也是那样。我是个公立学校的孩子，我丈夫也是。当轮到我们的女儿上学时，我们把她们送上校车，说：“你知道，去当地的公立学校吧。”所以我们有这种观念。我认为发生的另一件事是，我们通常会对我们的经历产生一点错误的记忆，因为我们会觉得“嗯，我最后也挺好的嘛”，对吧，“我结果不错，我在高中交到了最好的朋友”。你知道，几个月前我和我高中最好的朋友们进行了一次闺蜜旅行。比如我对高中有美好的回忆。嗯，但我们有点开始忘记那些平庸的日常琐事了。

[原文] [Chris Williamson]: How do most kids feel about normal school is this something that we know because I I you know anecdotally I have friends who have been teachers in the US who have got kids that are going to school in the US and they're quite concerned Teachers are saying you know we're very hamstrung It feels very restrictive I saw some study that came out of Illinois that was looking at levels of literacy and numeracy Um and some absurd level of high schoolers couldn't do math There was one school that was $30,000 per student per year was the budget that they had And I don't think any students were able to do math at this level So what like what's the the headlines when it comes to

[译文] [Chris Williamson]: 大多数孩子对普通学校感觉如何？这是我们知道的数据吗？因为我，我，你知道，从轶事来说，我有在美国当老师的朋友，或者有孩子在美国上学的朋友，他们都很担忧。老师们说，你知道，“我们束手束脚，感觉非常受限”。我看到伊利诺伊州出的一项研究，调查读写和计算能力的水平。嗯，有些荒谬比例的高中生不会做数学。有一所学校每年的预算是每个学生3万美元，但我认为没有一个学生能达到那个数学水平。那么，关于这个有什么……主要结论是什么？

[原文] [MacKenzie Price]: Well I mean here's here's the state of affairs Uh a third of students can do math or reading at grade level right so it's an incredibly low amount And guess what that got even wider as a result of COVID right there was such a big difference you know during the the COVID experience So academically we're in a terrible state In fact uh a high school senior who graduates in the 50th percentile you know your average high school senior they know the same amount of math as a third grader who's in the 99th percentile So when you think about that half of our students in in you know the country that we graduate don't know as much math as a 99th percentile third grader It's absolutely crazy In fact you know you think about inequality in the world and you think about in in the United States uh the inequality between like a 50th percentile uh kid versus a kid in the 99th percentile when it comes to education you know math reading it is a huge difference In fact for kids that are just average kids you could really look at four years of high school as basically a waste of time for them They barely improve at all

[译文] [MacKenzie Price]: 嗯，我的意思是，这就是现状：只有三分之一的学生能在达到年级水平上进行数学或阅读，对吧，所以这个比例低得令人难以置信。而且你猜怎么着，由于新冠疫情，这个差距变得更大了，对吧，你知道在新冠期间这种差异非常大。所以在学术上，我们处于一种糟糕的状态。事实上，呃，一个在第50百分位毕业的高中生——你知道，就是你的普通高中毕业生——他们掌握的数学知识量和一个在第99百分位的三年级学生一样多。所以当你想到这一点，我们国家有一半即将毕业的学生，还没一个第99百分位的三年级学生懂的数学多，这绝对是疯了。事实上，你知道，考虑到世界上的不平等，考虑到在美国，呃，一个第50百分位的孩子和一个第99百分位的孩子之间在教育方面——你知道，数学、阅读——的不平等，那是巨大的差异。事实上，对于那些只是普通水平的孩子来说，你真的可以将四年的高中视为基本上是在浪费时间。他们几乎没有任何进步。