Thank you so much everyone from TED, and Chris and Amy in particular. I cannot believe I'm here. I have not slept in weeks. Neil and I were sitting there comparing how little we've slept in anticipation for this. I've never been so nervous -- and I do this when I'm nervous, I just realized. (Laughter) So, I'm going to talk about sort of what we did at this organization called 826 Valencia, and then I'm going to talk about how we all might join in and do similar things.
这里我要感谢 TED 大会主办方,特别感谢克里斯和安弥 我真不曾想象到我会有机会登上这个舞台 我有好几周都没睡好觉了。 刚才我在台下还跟尼尔比谁睡得更少呢 为了准备这个演讲 我可谓从没有这么紧张过 我刚刚意识到我一紧张就会这样子搓手 好了,我今天主要是谈谈我们这个组织做的一些事情 它的名字是“826瓦伦西亚” 希望大家听完我的演讲后能有所启发,一起干类似的事情
Back in about 2000, I was living in Brooklyn, I was trying to finish my first book, I was wandering around dazed every day because I wrote from 12 a.m. to 5 a.m. So I would walk around in a daze during the day. I had no mental acuity to speak of during the day, but I had flexible hours. In the Brooklyn neighborhood that I lived in, Park Slope, there are a lot of writers -- it's like a very high per capita ratio of writers to normal people. Meanwhile, I had grown up around a lot of teachers. My mom was a teacher, my sister became a teacher and after college so many of my friends went into teaching. And so I was always hearing them talk about their lives and how inspiring they were, and they were really sort of the most hard-working and constantly inspiring people I knew.
2000年的时候,我住在布鲁克林 那时我正在写我的第一本书 每天白天,我都会在街上神智恍惚的来回走 因为我每晚都是从夜里12点写到凌晨5点 于是,到了白天,我就精神恍惚的在街上走 白天,我不能完全集中精神,可是,我的工作时间比较灵活 我住在布鲁克林区的斜坡公园附近 那里是作家的汇集之地 要是说到作家分布的情况 那里的作家人数在整个社区中的比例是颇高的 此外,我自小就是在一种教师的氛围中成长的 我母亲是一位教师,我姐姐毕业后也当上了一名教师 我有很多朋友在念完大学以后也走上了教师的岗位 我经常听他们谈论学校里的事情 他们说学校里有很多给人鼓舞的事情在发生 我认为教师是最勤劳 同时又经常能给人们带来启迪的人之一
But I knew so many of the things they were up against, so many of the struggles they were dealing with. And one of them was that so many of my friends that were teaching in city schools were having trouble with their students keeping up at grade level, in their reading and writing in particular. Now, so many of these students had come from households where English isn't spoken in the home, where a lot of them have different special needs, learning disabilities. And of course they're working in schools which sometimes and very often are under-funded. And so they would talk to me about this and say, "You know, what we really need is just more people, more bodies, more one-on-one attention, more hours, more expertise from people that have skills in English and can work with these students one-on-one."
此外,我也深知他们面临哪些困难 知道他们的种种艰难处境 他们遇到的其中一个难题是 让孩子在读写这两方面 的成绩得到提升 这个问题在那些市立学校里头表现最突出 那些学校的学生 在家里根本不说英语 此外 他们还有其他各种不同的需要 包括学习障碍 而他们所在的学校 则经常遇到资金不足的难题 我的朋友跟我提起这事 他们说:“我们要的是更多的人手 对孩子给予更多一对一的关心 要是我们能找到更多人,更多有经验的人 让他们一对一的给孩子进行辅导,那就好了
Now, I would say, "Well, why don't you just work with them one-on-one?" And they would say, "Well, we have five classes of 30 to 40 students each. This can lead up to 150, 180, 200 students a day. How can we possibly give each student even one hour a week of one-on-one attention?" You'd have to greatly multiply the workweek and clone the teachers. And so we started talking about this. And at the same time, I thought about this massive group of people I knew: writers, editors, journalists, graduate students, assistant professors, you name it. All these people that had sort of flexible daily hours and an interest in the English word -- I hope to have an interest in the English language, but I'm not speaking it well right now. (Laughter) I'm trying. That clock has got me. But everyone that I knew had an interest in the primacy of the written word in terms of nurturing a democracy, nurturing an enlightened life. And so they had, you know, their time and their interest, but at the same time there wasn't a conduit that I knew of in my community to bring these two communities together.
我就问:那你们干嘛不给孩子来个一对一的辅导? 他们回答说 我们每个人都要负责五个班,每个班三四十人 加起来我们每人每天都要应付180到200个学生 我们怎么有可能给予学生 哪怕是每人一小时的关注? 除非你大幅度加大教师的工作量,并克隆出更多的老师 于是我们开始考虑这事情 与此同时 我想到了我认识的那一班专业人士 他们是作家、或编辑、或记者、或研究生 或者教授助理,反正就是搞文字的 这些人的工作时间都很灵活 他们也对英语这门语言怀有浓厚兴趣 此刻,我也想讲得更有条理 但我显然是言不由衷了 我尽可能讲得好一点吧。看 墙上那个钟告诉我要控制好时间! 我认识的每个人都认同文字创作不可替代的意义 民主的孕育、优质生活的形成,皆舍此不可 而我的这些朋友 他们有的是时间和兴趣 但是,我们那时候还没有一种管道, 把这两种需求结合起来
So when I moved back to San Francisco, we rented this building. And the idea was to put McSweeney's -- McSweeney's Quarterly, that we published twice or three times a year, and a few other magazines -- we were going to move it into an office for the first time. It used to be in my kitchen in Brooklyn. We were going to move it into an office, and we were going to actually share space with a tutoring center. So we thought, "We'll have all these writers and editors and everybody -- sort of a writing community -- coming into the office every day anyway, why don't we just open up the front of the building for students to come in there after school, get extra help on their written homework, so you have basically no border between these two communities?" So the idea was that we would be working on whatever we're working on, at 2:30 p.m. the students flow in and you put down what you're doing, or you trade, or you work a little bit later or whatever it is. You give those hours in the afternoon to the students in the neighborhood.
其后我们搬回到旧金山,租了这所房子 我们想把《麦思维尼季刊》 那是一份每年出版两三次的(文学)刊物 以及其他杂志,都放到那里 我们第一次要搬进办公室啦 在那以前,我的厨房就是办公室 我们现在要搬到正式的办公室去 并且我们打算与辅导中心共用一块场地 我们那时候想:这里每天都会有那么多的作家、编辑、记者 进出这个办公室 为什么我们不把房子的大门打开 让附近的孩子在放学后来得这里 获得专家的课业辅导 以此来拉近两个作家与孩子两个群体间的距离? 我们就想 我们只管在办公室干自己的事 下午两点半孩子一放学,你就放下手头的工作 或者你找别的时间去干,或者你干晚一点 反正在下午 你就把时间献给这些住在附近的孩子
So, we had this place, we rented it, the landlord was all for it. We did this mural, that's a Chris Ware mural, that basically explains the entire history of the printed word, in mural form -- it takes a long time to digest and you have to stand in the middle of the road. So we rented this space. And everything was great except the landlord said, "Well, the space is zoned for retail; you have to come up with something. You've gotta sell something. You can't just have a tutoring center." So we thought, "Ha ha! Really!" And we couldn't think of anything necessarily to sell, but we did all the necessary research. It used to be a weight room, so there were rubber floors below, acoustic tile ceilings and fluorescent lights. We took all that down, and we found beautiful wooden floors, whitewashed beams and it had the look -- while we were renovating this place, somebody said, "You know, it really kind of looks like the hull of a ship." And we looked around and somebody else said, "Well, you should sell supplies to the working buccaneer." (Laughter)
于是我们找到这房子,租了下来 房东对此也十分支持。看,那是一副壁画 它以壁画的方式 来讲述印刷术的故事 你要花点时间,走到大街上,远远的看,才能看得出其中的含义 好了,我们就租下了这房子 一切都很顺利,可是房东跟我们说 这个区域是专门用作销售的 你要搞点什么来卖啊! 单单搞一个辅导中心是不够的! 我们心想:真的要那么做吗? 那时候我们真的想不到有什么东西值得卖的, 但我们做了充分的研究 发现那里原来是一个健身室,地板都是铺橡胶的, 还有隔音的天花板和荧光灯。 当我们把这些东西都拆下来以后,我们发现地面是木板做的。 还能看到粉刷成白色的边, 就在我们给那房子进行翻新的时候,有人喊出一句: “大家看,这是不是很像一艘船的内核?” 于是我们仔细的环顾四周,又有人说, “嘿,不如我们就在此地卖海盗用品吧!”
And so this is what we did. So it made everybody laugh, and we said, "There's a point to that. Let's sell pirate supplies." This is the pirate supply store. You see, this is sort of a sketch I did on a napkin. A great carpenter built all this stuff and you see, we made it look sort of pirate supply-like. Here you see planks sold by the foot and we have supplies to combat scurvy. We have the peg legs there, that are all handmade and fitted to you. Up at the top, you see the eyepatch display, which is the black column there for everyday use for your eyepatch, and then you have the pastel and other colors for stepping out at night -- special occasions, bar mitzvahs and whatever.
说干就干。正因为这样做能够给人们带来一点笑料 我们不认为那是纯粹的疯子的行为 就这么决定了要卖海盗用品 看,这时我在一块手绢上画的一幅画 屋子里的东西都是一个木匠搞成的 我们尽可能做成海盗屋的模样 这是按尺寸出售的厚木板 抗坏血病的装备 还有手工制作的海盗假腿 在顶上你还能看到海盗必备的眼罩 那个黑色框里装的是日间使用的眼罩 而素色和其他颜色的眼罩 通常是在夜间 一些特殊场合(比如酒吧)使用
So we opened this place. And this is a vat that we fill with treasures that students dig in. This is replacement eyes in case you lose one. These are some signs that we have all over the place: "Practical Joking with Pirates." While you're reading the sign, we pull a rope behind the counter and eight mop heads drop on your head. That was just my one thing -- I said we had to have something that drops on people's heads. It became mop heads. And this is the fish theater, which is just a saltwater tank with three seats, and then right behind it we set up this space, which was the tutoring center. So right there is the tutoring center, and then behind the curtain were the McSweeney's offices, where all of us would be working on the magazine and book editing and things like that.
于是我们装修完以后就开张了。看,这是一个大盆子 我们把一些小礼物放到里面去,孩子来了,就去那里找礼物。 这是一个假眼——假如你眼睛坏了,可以用这个。 还有这些贴在墙壁上的口号: “与海盗开玩笑。” 就在你细读这些口号的时候,我们就在背后拉一下绳子 就马上会有八个拖把头降临到你的头上 那纯粹是我个人的“发明”,因为我说,总得要有东西摔到人们的头上啊, 这东西就是拖把头。这个是“鱼缸戏院”, 其实就是有一个金鱼缸,前面摆三张凳子, 就在那后面就是 我们的辅导中心 镜头上看到的就是我们的辅导中心, 背后则是“麦思维尼”的办公室 我们就在那里做书刊的编辑工作
The kids would come in -- or we thought they would come in. I should back up. We set the place up, we opened up, we spent months and months renovating this place. We had tables, chairs, computers, everything. I went to a dot-com auction at a Holiday Inn in Palo Alto and I bought 11 G4s with a stroke of a paddle. Anyway, we bought 'em, we set everything up and then we waited. It was started with about 12 of my friends, people that I had known for years that were writers in the neighborhood. And we sat. And at 2:30 p.m. we put a sandwich board out on the front sidewalk and it just said, "Free Tutoring for Your English-Related and Writing-Related Needs -- Just Come In, It's All Free." And we thought, "Oh, they're going to storm the gates, they're gonna love it." And they didn't. And so we waited, we sat at the tables, we waited and waited. And everybody was becoming very discouraged because it was weeks and weeks that we waited, really, where nobody came in.
孩子们会来到这里 ——或者该这么说:当初我们确实是认为孩子会来到我们那里的 现在空间都开放了 我们可是花了几个月时间来翻新这地方啊 那里有书、桌椅和其他的工具 我在怕罗奥托市的一家假日酒店通过网上拍卖 买来了11台G4苹果电脑,以及其他的东西。 不管怎么说,反正我们是把一切都准备好了 我们就开始等(孩子到来) 一开始我联系到了十二位朋友, 他们都住在附近,并且跟我已认识很久。 我们坐在办公室等,到了下午两点半 我们把一块牌放在门口的过道上, 上面写着:“免费提供英语及写作辅导—— 一切免费,欢迎光临。” 开始时我们想:孩子们一定会飞奔到这里来的 他们一定会喜欢这地方。可是,我们看不到有孩子过来 我们坐在桌边等啊等,就是看不到孩子的影子 我们都感到非常沮丧 我们一连等了好多个星期,就是等不到一个孩子
And then somebody alerted us to the fact that maybe there was a trust gap, because we were operating behind a pirate supply store. (Laughter) We never put it together, you know? And so then, around that time, I persuaded a woman named Nineveh Caligari, a longtime San Francisco educator -- she was teaching in Mexico City, she had all the experience necessary, knew everything about education, was connected with all the teachers and community members in the neighborhood -- I convinced her to move up from Mexico City where she was teaching. She took over as executive director. Immediately, she made the inroads with the teachers and the parents and the students and everything, and so suddenly it was actually full every day.
这时候,有人提醒我们说 也许是因为信任的问题 毕竟我们是一个卖海盗用品的店铺啊 这一点我们倒是没有想到 于是,我找到了妮涅娃·卡里咖丽 她在旧金山当过老师 后来到了新墨西哥洲去教书了 她经验十足 懂得教育的门道 跟我们那个社区的老师和社会名流也很熟 我劝她搬回旧金山 让她担任整个项目的执行主任 很快的,她就跟当地的老师 家长、学生以及相关人士做好了思想工作 后来我们的辅导中心就变得天天都人满为患了
And what we were trying to offer every day was one-on-one attention. The goal was to have a one-to-one ratio with every one of these students. You know, it's been proven that 35 to 40 hours a year with one-on-one attention, a student can get one grade level higher. And so most of these students, English is not spoken in the home. They come there, many times their parents -- you can't see it, but there's a church pew that I bought in a Berkeley auction right there -- the parents will sometimes watch while their kids are being tutored. So that was the basis of it, was one-on-one attention. And we found ourselves full every day with kids. If you're on Valencia Street within those few blocks at around 2 p.m., 2:30 p.m., you will get run over, often, by the kids and their big backpacks, or whatever, actually running to this space,
我们每天都努力为学生提供 一对一的辅导 我们务求做到给予每一位学生“一对一”的关注 因为,研究表明一年当中 假如能够给予学生35-40个小时的“一对一”辅导 学生的学习成绩会跃升一个层次 来到这里的孩子,他们在家里大多不说英语 他们的家长有时也会随着他们一同到来 也许你在画面上看不到,但是我们准备了一张长椅子 那是我在伯克莱的一次拍卖会上买下来的 家长们有时会来看自己的孩子 我们说最根本一点就是 一对一的关注 我们每天都被孩子们围着,简直忙不过来 假如你是住在瓦伦西亚街附近的话,每到下午2:30 要是你到街上走 你会迎头撞上背着书包向着辅导中心跑的孩子
which is very strange, because it's school, in a way. But there was something psychological happening there that was just a little bit different. And the other thing was, there was no stigma. Kids weren't going into the "Center-for-Kids-That-Need-More-Help," or something like that. It was 826 Valencia. First of all, it was a pirate supply store, which is insane. And then secondly, there's a publishing company in the back. And so our interns were actually working at the same tables very often, and shoulder-to-shoulder, computer-next-to-computer with the students.
这看起来有点不正常,因为那里已经变成“半个学校”了 因为去那里已经变成一种情感上的需要 这就是我们的辅导中心的独特之处 另外,去辅导中心不会带有任何的羞辱成分 因为孩子们不是去上“差等生补习班” 或者是诸如此类的机构。那里只有一个名字:“826瓦伦西亚” 首先,那里是一家卖海盗用品的店,这一点就够呛了 此外,我们在房间的后面还有一个出版机构 所以说,我们的实习生经常也是 坐在同样一张桌子边 他们的旁边就是参加辅导的孩子
And so it became a tutoring center -- publishing center, is what we called it -- and a writing center. They go in, and they might be working with a high school student actually working on a novel -- because we had very gifted kids, too. So there's no stigma. They're all working next to each other. It's all a creative endeavor. They're seeing adults. They're modeling their behavior. These adults, they're working in their field. They can lean over, ask a question of one of these adults and it all sort of feeds on each other. There's a lot of cross-pollination. The only problem, especially for the adults working at McSweeney's who hadn't necessarily bought into all of this when they signed up, was that there was just the one bathroom. (Laughter) With like 60 kids a day, this is a problem.
所以说,那里不仅仅是辅导中心 出版中心 还是一个写作中心 他们来到这里以后也许是和高中生一起 完成一部小说——我们有天赋过人的孩子 根本不会有羞辱的存在 大家坐在一起,那是一种充满创意的环境 孩子们看着身边的大人,也要学习学习 而这些大人,虽然他们也在忙着自己的事情 孩子们可以把头探过来,问大人问题 这样一来,相互都可以在交流中提炼出价值 大人和孩子之间是可以相互感染的。但是 我们也遇到了一个令我们头痛的问题 特别是对于麦思维尼出版机构的员工来说,更是如此 因为他们当初来到这里时并没有想到会遇到今日之种种。 我们那地方只有一个洗手间 而我们每天都会迎来六十多名学生,这真是一个难题
But you know, there's something about the kids finishing their homework in a given day, working one-on-one, getting all this attention -- they go home, they're finished. They don't stall. They don't do their homework in front of the TV. They're allowed to go home at 5:30 p.m., enjoy their family, enjoy other hobbies, get outside, play. And that makes a happy family. A bunch of happy families in a neighborhood is a happy community. A bunch of happy communities tied together is a happy city and a happy world. So the key to it all is homework! (Laughter) (Applause) There you have it, you know -- one-on-one attention.
但是,当你看到孩子们完成功课 每一天都能受到大人们的悉心指导 回到家后,已经不需为功课而烦恼 不需坐在电视机前面写作业 每天下午五点半就可以回家,跟家人共度美好时光 做自己爱干的事情,或者是到外面去玩 这样一来我们不就有一个和谐的家庭了吗? 社区里的和谐家庭多了,社区不也更和睦吗? 只要这样的和睦社区越来越多,我们不是有希望看到一个和平的都市以及和平的世界吗? 所以说,一切的关键在于让孩子完成作业! 还有,一对一的专注辅导
So we started off with about 12 volunteers, and then we had about 50, and then a couple hundred. And we now have 1,400 volunteers on our roster. And we make it incredibly easy to volunteer. The key thing is, even if you only have a couple of hours a month, those two hours shoulder-to-shoulder, next to one student, concentrated attention, shining this beam of light on their work, on their thoughts and their self-expression, is going to be absolutely transformative, because so many of the students have not had that ever before. So we said, "Even if you have two hours one Sunday every six months, it doesn't matter. That's going to be enough." So that's partly why the tutor corps grew so fast.
我们一开始有12名志愿者 后来有50人 再后来就增加到了几百人 现在,有1400个志愿者加入了我们 我们力求让志愿者的参与变得非常简单 最重要一点是,哪怕你每个月才能挤出两个小时的空余时间 那用来做一对一辅导已经足够 你就坐在孩子的旁边 给孩子以指点 让孩子在思想上和表达上变得更优秀 这样的片刻对于孩子而言是具有洗心革面之意义的 因为很多孩子从来都没有过这样的体验 所以我们说,“即便你每半年只有两小时的空余时间 也不要紧,那已经足够了。 也正是因为这样的安排,我们的志愿者队伍增长很快
Then we said, "Well, what are we going to do with the space during the day, because it has to be used before 2:30 p.m.?" So we started bringing in classes during the day. So every day, there's a field trip where they together create a book -- you can see it being typed up above. This is one of the classes getting way too excited about writing. You just point a camera at a class, and it always looks like this. So this is one of the books that they do. Notice the title of the book, "The Book That Was Never Checked Out: Titanic." And the first line of that book is, "Once there was a book named Cindy that was about the Titanic." So, meanwhile, there's an adult in the back typing this up, taking it completely seriously, which blows their mind.
后来我们想, 白天的时间是不是也把辅导中心利用起来 是不是在下午两点半孩子放学之前也把这地方用起来 所以我们决定要在日间开课 每天,都会有孩子来到这里做实习,在大人的指导下写书 你可以看到屏幕上显示的就是他们写的书 这是其中一个班,他们还真的为写作而疯狂呢 不管什么时候,你拿着一台摄像机对着孩子,总会见到这样的表情 并且这样的表情长期如此 这是他们做成的一本书 大家注意看那书名 《从未被借出的一本书:泰坦尼克》 书的第一句话是这样的:从前,有一本书,书名叫《辛迪》 写的是“泰坦尼克”的故事 此外,我们还有大人坐在后面把这些文字敲到电脑里 一切都十分认真,简直是把孩子乐坏了
So then we still had more tutors to use. This is a shot of just some of the tutors during one of the events. The teachers that we work with -- and everything is different to teachers -- they tell us what to do. We went in there thinking, "We're ultimately, completely malleable. You're going to tell us. The neighborhood's going to tell us, the parents are going to tell us. The teachers are going to tell us how we're most useful."
不过,我们的志愿者人数还是很多 这是某次活动上的照片 我们跟老师紧密合作 老师们知道该怎么做 我们就在一旁听 我说,“我们的人都是很灵活的,你们要我们怎么做我们就怎么做。” 我们也会听家长的意见 老师们会告诉我们怎么做才能最大限度的发挥志愿者的作用
So then they said, "Why don't you come into the schools? Because what about the students that wouldn't come to you, necessarily, who don't have really active parents that are bringing them in, or aren't close enough?" So then we started saying, "Well, we've got 1,400 people on our tutor roster. Let's just put out the word." A teacher will say, "I need 12 tutors for the next five Sundays. We're working on our college essays. Send them in." So we put that out on the wire: 1,400 tutors. Whoever can make it signs up. They go in about a half an hour before the class. The teacher tells them what to do, how to do it, what their training is, what their project is so far. They work under the teacher's guide, and it's all in one big room. And that's actually the brunt of what we do is, people going straight from their workplace, straight from home, straight into the classroom and working directly with the students. So then we're able to work with thousands and thousands of more students. Then another school said, "Well, what if we just give you a classroom and you can staff it all day?"
有一次,他们问:你们是不是也把志愿者派到学校里去啊? 因为总会有一些孩子没办法来你们这里啊 比如说,有些家长自己不甚积极 或者是孩子家住得比较远? 于是我们想,我们有1400多位志愿者 假如有老师跟我们联系说 接下来的五个星期我的课堂需要12名志愿者 因为我们要准备大学入学申请的论文。你们把志愿者叫过来吧 于是我们就把消息发布出去 只要是有空闲的都可以报名。他们只需在课前半个钟到课室就行了 老师会告诉他们该做些什么 如何做:课堂内容是什么,要达到什么教学目的 志愿者在老师的指导之下开展辅导 他们到一个大课室 这现已成为我们做得最大的一件事 志愿者直接由家里、公司来到学校 直接走进课堂 跟学生一起工作 通过这样的方式,我们能够接触到更多的学生 接着又有一所学校跟我们说,“我们腾出一间教室给你们用怎么样?” 你们可以把志愿者请过来,一整天都用那个教室啊?
So this is the Everett Middle School Writers' Room, where we decorated it in buccaneer style. It's right off the library. And there we serve all 529 kids in this middle school. This is their newspaper, the "Straight-Up News," that has an ongoing column from Mayor Gavin Newsom in both languages -- English and Spanish. So then one day Isabel Allende wrote to us and said, "Hey, why don't you assign a book with high school students? I want them to write about how to achieve peace in a violent world." And so we went into Thurgood Marshall High School, which is a school that we had worked with on some other things, and we gave that assignment to the students. And we said, "Isabel Allende is going to read all your essays at the end. She's going to publish them in a book. She's going to sponsor the printing of this book in paperback form. It's going to be available in all the bookstores in the Bay Area and throughout the world, on Amazon and you name it." So these kids worked harder than they've ever worked on anything in their lives, because there was that outside audience, there was Isabel Allende on the other end. I think we had about 170 tutors that worked on this book with them and so this worked out incredibly well. We had a big party at the end. This is a book that you can find anywhere. So that led to a series of these. You can see Amy Tan sponsored the next one, "I Might Get Somewhere." And this became an ongoing thing. More and more books.
这是埃维雷特高中的写作室 那里也装点成海盗店的模样 它就在图书馆隔壁,我们可以给529名学生提供写作课程 就是整一个学校的学生 这是他们做的报纸,叫《有话直说》 上面有来自市长纽绅的专栏 并且是以英语西班牙语双语写的 有一天我们收到伊丝贝拉(Isabel Allende)的信, 她说,“你们怎么不给孩子们布置一个写书的任务啊? 我希望看到孩子是怎么想象一个和平的世界的 于是我们来到图耳鼓·马绍尔高中 我们曾经和那个高中有过合作 我们向学生布置了这个作业 我们对孩子说,你们写的每一个字,伊丝贝拉都会去阅读 她会把你们的文章做成一本书 她还会资助你们出版 你们的书将会在旧金山一带的书店上买得到 或者是通过亚马逊在线书店,在全球任何一个角落都能购买 于是孩子们干的很用劲 他们之前干任何事情都没有这么认真 因为他们知道有一个潜在的读者 还有伊丝贝拉 我记得我们一共有170位志愿者参与了这个项目 这个项目运行非常顺利 最后我们还开了一个庆功会 现在你在很多地方都能找到这书了。由此也开启了一系列的项目 谭恩美就表示要支持下一本书的出版 那书叫《也许我能到达某地》 于是这成为了一个长期的项目,我们也出了很多书
Now we're sort of addicted to the book thing. The kids will work harder than they've ever worked in their life if they know it's going to be permanent, know it's going to be on a shelf, know that nobody can diminish what they've thought and said, that we've honored their words, honored their thoughts with hundreds of hours of five drafts, six drafts -- all this attention that we give to their thoughts. And once they achieve that level, once they've written at that level, they can never go back. It's absolutely transformative. And so then they're all sold in the store. This is near the planks. We sell all the student books. Where else would you put them, right? So we sell 'em, and then something weird had been happening with the stores. The store, actually -- even though we started out as just a gag -- the store actually made money. So it was paying the rent. And maybe this is just a San Francisco thing -- I don't know, I don't want to judge. But people would come in -- and this was before the pirate movies and everything! It was making a lot of money. Not a lot of money, but it was paying the rent, paying a full-time staff member there. There's the ocean maps you can see on the left.
甚至是变得有点出书成瘾了 孩子们为了出书也会做得非常认真 因为他们知道那将会成为一种具有长久意义的东西。 知道他们写的书会出现在书架上 他们所想所写的东西没有人能够磨灭 我们尊重他们的表达以及他们的思想 他们花了几百个小时进行创作 前后改了五六遍 我们一直都在支持孩子们去表达自己的想法 而一旦他们的写作能力达到了一定的水平 通常就不会下降了 这样的辅导对于孩子而言具有洗心革面的意义 孩子的书摆在店卖 就放在木板旁边 这些书全都卖光了 你还能想象把这些书放在别的地方吗 我们把书都卖了 可是发生了奇怪的事情 就是我们这个辅导中心旁边的这店 虽然我们一开始的时候开这店只是为了好玩 但现在它居然也给我们带来利润了 我们就用这个来付房租 也许这是只有在旧金山才会发生的怪事吧 我也不知道 也不想评论 但人们确实是会来到这里 并且那时候《加勒比海盗》还没有上映呢 就因为如此 这店给我们带来了许多收益 我们拿那些钱交租 也给这里的一位全职员工发工资 左边那个是海洋地图
And it became a gateway to the community. People would come in and say, "What the --? What is this?" I don't want to swear on the web. (Laughter) Is that a rule? I don't know. They would say, "What is this?" And people would come in and learn more about it. And then right beyond -- there's usually a little chain there -- right beyond, they would see the kids being tutored. This is a field trip going on. And so they would be shopping, and they might be more likely to buy some lard, or millet for their parrot, or, you know, a hook, or hook protector for nighttime, all of these things we sell. So the store actually did really well. But it brought in so many people -- teachers, donors, volunteers, everybody -- because it was street level. It was open to the public. It wasn't a non-profit buried, you know, on the 30th floor of some building downtown. It was right in the neighborhood that it was serving, and it was open all the time to the public. So, it became this sort of weird, happy accident.
这里就成为了社区的一个窗口 人们经常进来问 这里是搞 xx 什么的啊 这里我不说那个字了 这是常规吗 我也不清楚 他们会问 这是什么? 进来的人们都会学到一些东西 而就在店的旁边 他们就会看到孩子正在上课 正好有个写作班正在上课 他们就在这里买东西 他们更多的是买一些喂鸟的食物 也有买钩子的 还有买钩子保护器的 反正就是我们这里的古怪的东西 我们可以说 这店办得还挺好的 可是来的人太多了 教师、慈善人士、志愿者 什么人都有 因为那正好就在街角 并且是对外开放的 而不是像一些公益组织那样 隐藏在市中心30层高的大楼深处 它就在社区里 就是给社区提供服务的 并且时刻都向社区开放 这时候 奇怪的事情又发生了
So all the people I used to know in Brooklyn, they said, "Well, why don't we have a place like that here?" And a lot of them had been former educators or would-be educators, so they combined with a lot of local designers, local writers, and they just took the idea independently and they did their own thing. They didn't want to sell pirate supplies. They didn't think that that was going to work there. So, knowing the crime-fighting community in New York, they opened the Brooklyn Superhero Supply Company. This is Sam Potts' great design that did this. And this was to make it look sort of like one of those keysmith's shops that has to have every service they've ever offered, you know, all over there. So they opened this place. Inside, it's like a Costco for superheroes -- all the supplies in kind of basic form. These are all handmade. These are all sort of repurposed other products, or whatever. All the packaging is done by Sam Potts.
我过去在布鲁克林认识的那些朋友 他们也想搞个这样的辅导机构 并且他们很多以前就是当教师的 或者是马上就要成为教师的 于是他们联合当地的一些设计师 教师 所有的点子都是他们自己想的 一切都是他们自己亲力亲为 不过他们不想卖海盗用品 因为那边没有这个需求 但是他们想到了纽约市经常搞反暴力活动 于是就开设了布鲁克林超级英雄专卖店 这是山姆·博茨设计的 他特意设计成这个模样 就是仿照五金店 让人感觉里面应有尽有 想买什么都能找到 于是这店开张了 里面有如一家百货公司 各种简单的英雄装备都有 并且是手工制作的 大多是废物利用 而所有的包装都是出自山姆·博茨的手
So then you have the villain containment unit, where kids put their parents. You have the office. This is a little vault -- you have to put your product in there, it goes up an electric lift and then the guy behind the counter tells you that you have to recite the vow of heroism, which you do, if you want to buy anything. And it limits, really, their sales. Personally, I think it's a problem. Because they have to do it hand on heart and everything. These are some of the products. These are all handmade. This is a secret identity kit. If you want to take on the identity of Sharon Boone, one American female marketing executive from Hoboken, New Jersey. It's a full dossier on everything you would need to know about Sharon Boone. So, this is the capery where you get fitted for your cape, and then you walk up these three steel-graded steps and then we turn on three hydraulic fans from every side and then you can see the cape in action. There's nothing worse than, you know, getting up there and the cape is bunching up or something like that. So then, the secret door -- this is one of the shelves you don't see when you walk in, but it slowly opens. You can see it there in the middle next to all the grappling hooks. It opens and then this is the tutoring center in the back. (Applause) So you can see the full effect!
还有这个困兽笼子 孩子们把自己的父母丢到里面去 还有办公室 还有这里 你把商品交给店员 商品就随着升降机上升 柜台后面那个店员就会告诉你 要作一番英雄宣誓 凡是要买东西的 都必须宣誓 这个也多少影响了他们的收入 我个人以为那是一个问题 毕竟他们做这些商品花了不少心机 看这些就是他们的商品 都是手工制作的 这是秘密身份认证卡片 假如你想充当Sharon Boone 她是来自于新泽西州霍伯昆的营销经理 这里一整个箱子都是 关于 Sharon Boone的东西 这个是披肩的外披 穿上以后 你踏上这个三层的台阶 我们就拧开风扇开关 看 那披肩神起来了 不过也许披肩会鼓起来 那就最不如意了 还有这个秘密门 你刚进来的时候不会看到的 但是进来后你会慢慢发现 在一大堆钩子中间 你会发现这个门 门的后面就是辅导中心 这就是全景
But this is -- I just want to emphasize -- locally funded, locally built. All the designers, all of the builders, everybody was local, all the time was pro-bono. I just came and visited and said, "Yes, you guys are doing great," or whatever. That was it. You can see the time in all five boroughs of New York in the back. (Laughter) (Applause) So this is the space during tutoring hours. It's very busy. Same principles: one-on-one attention, complete devotion to the students' work and a boundless optimism and sort of a possibility of creativity and ideas. And this switch is flicked in their heads when they walk through those 18 feet of this bizarre store, right? So it's school, but it's not school. It's clearly not school, even though they're working shoulder-to-shoulder on tables, pencils and papers, whatever.
这一切 我想强调说 都是当地人自己筹款 自己建起来的 所有的设计以及建造 都是靠本地人 并且是秉持公益的原则 我刚去过那边 对他们说 你们做得真棒 反正就是这么说 你可以在墙上看到纽约市的五个时区 在不同的辅导课程之间是有时间间隔的 每天都很忙 他们会坚持一些原则 如一对一的辅导 全身心的关注孩子的作业 洋溢着乐观情绪 以及创意 这个想法 就是他们在走访店铺的时候想到的 那是一个学校 又不是一个学校 很显然它不是一所学校 但是老师和孩子却是肩并肩的在一起学习
This is one of the students, Khaled Hamdan. You can read this quote. Addicted to video games and TV. Couldn't concentrate at home. Came in. Got this concentrated attention. And he couldn't escape it. So, soon enough, he was writing. He would finish his homework early -- got really addicted to finishing his homework early. It's an addictive thing to sort of be done with it, and to have it checked, and to know he's going to achieve the next thing and be prepared for school the next day. So he got hooked on that, and then he started doing other things. He's now been published in five books. He co-wrote a mockumentary about failed superheroes called "Super-Has-Beens." He wrote a series on "Penguin Balboa," which is a fighting -- a boxing -- penguin. And then he read aloud just a few weeks ago to 500 people at Symphony Space, at a benefit for 826 New York. So he's there every day. He's evangelical about it. He brings his cousins in now. There's four family members that come in every day.
我们有个孩子 叫卡雷德·翰丹 你可以看看这段话 我以前沉迷于电子游戏和电视 在家里不能集中精神 后来我到了这里 得到了老师的密切关照 他就再也离不开这里了 不久后 他开始写东西了 他可以很早的完成功课 并且非常认真的去做功课 要知道 做这事情是会变得上瘾的 他还可以让老师帮他看作业做得对不对 这样他就能更好的准备第二天的课 简直是做作业上瘾了 后来还做了别的事情 现在他已经出了五本书 还与别人合作写了个搞笑剧本 讲述失败的英雄故事 剧本的名字是“昨日英雄” 他还写了个企鹅勇士系列 讲述一种擅长打架的企鹅的故事 几周前 他在交响乐空间那里大声念给500人听 那是“826纽约”给予他的奖励 现在他每天都去 还向别人宣传“826纽约” 也把自己的妹妹带到那里了 每天一家四口都会来
So, I'll go through really quickly. This is L.A., The Echo Park Time Travel Mart: "Whenever You Are, We're Already Then." (Laughter) This is sort of a 7-Eleven for time travelers. So you see everything: it's exactly as a 7-Eleven would be. Leeches. Mammoth chunks. They even have their own Slurpee machine: "Out of Order. Come Back Yesterday." (Laughter) (Applause)
好 时间不多 我快速的过一遍 这是洛杉矶 回声公园时间旅行商店 “不管你在什么时候 我们都在那里。” 就像是专门为时间旅行的人士开的7-11连锁店 你可以看到所有的东西 就是跟7-11差不多的 有水蛭酱 猛犸酱 他们还有个思乐冰机器 “商品卖完。欢迎明天再来。”
Anyway. So I'm going to jump ahead. These are spaces that are only affiliated with us, doing this same thing: Word St. in Pittsfield, Massachusetts; Ink Spot in Cincinnati; Youth Speaks, San Francisco, California, which inspired us; Studio St. Louis in St. Louis; Austin Bat Cave in Austin; Fighting Words in Dublin, Ireland, started by Roddy Doyle, this will be open in April. Now I'm going to the TED Wish -- is that okay?
好 我要尽快将完 这些都是当地人自己搞的 他们不过是和我们保持一种联系 因为我们做的是同样的事情 这是麻省彼兹菲特的“字街” 辛辛那提的“墨水点” 圣佛朗西斯科的“青年之声” 那里也给我们带来了启发 还有圣路易斯的“圣路易斯工作室” 奥斯丁蝙蝠谷 爱尔兰都柏林的“字戏” 那是罗迪·多利办的 将会在4月正式开放 好 现在我要讲我的TED愿望了 可以吗
All right, I've got a minute. So, the TED Wish: I wish that you -- you personally and every creative individual and organization you know -- will find a way to directly engage with a public school in your area and that you'll then tell the story of how you got involved, so that within a year we have a thousand examples -- a thousand! -- of transformative partnerships. Profound leaps forward! And these can be things that maybe you're already doing. I know that so many people in this room are already doing really interesting things. I know that for a fact. So, tell us these stories and inspire others on the website.
好 只剩一分钟 我的TED愿望是 我希望你们 包括你们自身以及一切富于创意的朋友 以及你们个人认识的一些组织 都能参与到你所在地区的学校教育中去 然后你来给我们讲述你的故事 我们希望一年之后能够收集到1000个这样的故事 没错 就是1000个 1000个给学生带来改变的故事 要让学生真的取得进步啊 也许你们当中有些人现在已经在做这样的事情 我知道这个会议厅里有 很多人 都在做一些有意义的事情 我只是知道有这么一回事 但是我希望 你们给我们讲述你们的故事
We created a website. I'm going to switch to "we," and not "I," hope: We hope that the attendees of this conference will usher in a new era of participation in our public schools. We hope that you will take the lead in partnering your innovative spirit and expertise with that of innovative educators in your community. Always let the teachers lead the way. They will tell you how to be useful. I hope that you'll step in and help out. There are a million ways. You can walk up to your local school and consult with the teachers. They'll always tell you how to help. So, this is with Hot Studio in San Francisco, they did this phenomenal job. This website is already up, it's already got a bunch of stories, a lot of ideas. It's called "Once Upon a School," which is a great title, I think. This site will document every story, every project that comes out of this conference and around the world. So you go to the website, you see a bunch of ideas you can be inspired by and then you add your own projects once you get started. Hot Studio did a great job in a very tight deadline. So, visit the site. If you have any questions, you can ask this guy, who's our director of national programs. He'll be on the phone. You email him, he'll answer any question you possibly want. And he'll get you inspired and get you going and guide you through the process so that you can affect change.
我们建立了一个网站 好 现在我转为用“我们”而不是“我” 我们希望 参加这个会议的人们 能够引领社区教育走向新的纪元 我们希望你们能够成为这样一场革新的领跑者 用你们的创意以及专业技能 通过当地的教师 为社区教育提供服务 记住 永远都要让教师做决定 他们才知道怎么样的帮助才是最合适的 可以有数以百万计的方式去做 你可以去到你所在地区的公立学校 跟那里的老师讲 他们会告诉你可以做什么 这个是圣佛朗西斯科的热工作室做的 他们做得很棒 这个网上现已有一些故事 很多不同的想法 它的名字是“从前有一所学校” 我认为那是个很好的标题 每一个上传的故事都会出现在这个网上 这些故事将来自你们中间以及世界各地 你可以登陆进去看看 看那些故事能否给你一些启发 然后你一旦决定要参与此间 你就马上 把你的想法写下 贴到那里 热工作室在时间紧张的情况下做出这么好的网站 实在不简单 一定要去看看 要是有问题 可以咨询这个家伙 他是我们的全国项目负责人 他会在电话上为你解答疑问的 也可以给他写电邮 他也会回复的 他会给你一点启发 让你知道该怎么做 也会全程关注你的项目进展 帮助你
And it can be fun! That's the point of this talk -- it needn't be sterile. It needn't be bureaucratically untenable. You can do and use the skills that you have. The schools need you. The teachers need you. Students and parents need you. They need your actual person: your physical personhood and your open minds and open ears and boundless compassion, sitting next to them, listening and nodding and asking questions for hours at a time. Some of these kids just don't plain know how good they are: how smart and how much they have to say. You can tell them. You can shine that light on them, one human interaction at a time. So we hope you'll join us. Thank you so much.
并且这一切都可以是好玩的 这就是这个演讲之精髓 不是固定一个模式 也不必怕官僚作风 你完全可以运用你的技能去参与 学校需要你 老师需要你 学生以及家长也需要你 他们要你站在他们身边 也希望得到你在心灵上给予他们指导 只要你用心去倾听 再加上一颗同情心 坐在孩子身边 给予他们肯定的暗示 每次是一连几个小时 回答孩子的疑问 有些孩子其实就是不知道自己能力是多么强啊 也不知道其实他们是多么聪明 有那么多话要说 你可以告诉他们 你可以成为他们成长的明灯 每次就一对一的关怀 希望大家能够一起合作 帮助孩子 谢谢