Getting a college education is a 20-year investment. When you're growing up poor, you're not accustomed to thinking that far ahead. Instead, you're thinking about where you're going to get your next meal and how your family is going to pay rent that month. Besides, my parents and my friends' parents seemed to be doing just fine driving taxis and working as janitors. It wasn't until I was a teenager when I realized I didn't want to do those things. By then, I was two-thirds of the way through my education, and it was almost too late to turn things around.
獲得一個學士學位 需要 20 年的投資 如果你生長在窮困的家庭 你不會想到那麼遠的事 相反地,你想的是下一餐在哪裡 那個月家裡的房租要從哪裡來 此外,我的父母和朋友們的父母 只靠開計程車和當清潔工 好像也過得不錯 直到我十幾歲 我瞭解了我不想做這些事 那時候,我在教育這條路上 已經走到了三分之二 回頭幾乎已經太晚了
When you grow up poor, you want to be rich. I was no different. I'm the second-oldest of seven, and was raised by a single mother on government aid in Queens, New York. By virtue of growing up low-income, my siblings and I went to some of New York City's most struggling public schools. I had over 60 absences when I was in seventh grade, because I didn't feel like going to class. My high school had a 55 percent graduation rate, and even worse, only 20 percent of the kids graduating were college-ready.
我生長在窮困家庭 也渴望成為有錢人 我跟大家都一樣 我在七個小孩中排行老二 我們住在紐約皇后區 母親一個人靠著政府津貼 扶養我們長大 因為在低收入的環境下長大 我和兄弟姐妹在紐約 只能去上一些公立的爛學校 我七年級時,缺席超過 60 次 因為我不想上學 我的高中只有 55% 的畢業率 更糟的是 畢業生中只有 20% 的孩子 準備好要上大學
When I actually did make it to college, I told my friend Brennan how our teachers would always ask us to raise our hands if we were going to college. I was taken aback when Brennan said, "Karim, I've never been asked that question before." It was always, "What college are you going to?" Just the way that question is phrased made it unacceptable for him not to have gone to college.
等我真的上大學後 有一次我告訴我的朋友小布 我之前的老師老是在問我們 是不是要上大學 小布說的話讓我嚇到了,他說 「克林,我以前 從來沒被問過這個問題。」 「老師只會問你, 你打算上哪個大學?」 這個問題的措詞問法 讓他無法接受沒上大學這件事
Nowadays I get asked a different question. "How were you able to make it out?" For years I said I was lucky, but it's not just luck. When my older brother and I graduated from high school at the very same time and he later dropped out of a two-year college, I wanted to understand why he dropped out and I kept studying. It wasn't until I got to Cornell as a Presidential Research Scholar that I started to learn about the very real educational consequences of being raised by a single mother on government aid and attending the schools that I did. That's when my older brother's trajectory began to make complete sense to me.
現在,我被問不一樣的問題 「你大學怎麼畢業的?」 多年來,我只說我很幸運 但這不只是幸運 我哥和我同時從中學畢業 他唸了兩年大學就輟學了 我想要瞭解他為什麼輟學 我一直在唸書 一直到我獲得康乃爾大學的 總統研究獎學金 我才開始真正瞭解到教育的重要性 對於那些接受政府補助 單親媽媽扶養長大 像我一樣念爛學校的孩子有多重要 我哥哥走過的教育之路 讓我真正瞭解教育的重要性
I also learned that our most admirable education reformers, people like Arne Duncan, the former US Secretary of Education, or Wendy Kopp, the founder of Teach For America, had never attended an inner city public school like I had. So much of our education reform is driven by a sympathetic approach, where people are saying, "Let's go and help these poor inner city kids, or these poor black and Latino kids," instead of an empathetic approach, where someone like me, who had grown up in this environment, could say, "I know the adversities that you're facing and I want to help you overcome them."
我也瞭解到我們所崇敬的教育改革者 像美國前教育部長阿恩·鄧肯 或「為美國而教」的 創辦人溫蒂· 克普 跟我不一樣 從沒讀過內城裡公立學校 大多數的教育改革 是以同情的方式驅動的 人們常說 「讓我們一起幫助 那些貧窮的內城孩子, 或那些貧窮的黑人或拉丁裔孩子。」 而不是用同理的方式 像我一樣在這種環境長大的人 可以理直氣壯地說 「我知道你們所面臨的逆境, 我想幫助你們克服這些困境。」
Today when I get questions about how I made it out, I share that one of the biggest reasons is that I wasn't ashamed to ask for help. In a typical middle class or affluent household, if a kid is struggling, there's a good chance that a parent or a teacher will come to their rescue even if they don't ask for help. However, if that same kid is growing up poor and doesn't ask for help, there's a good chance that no one will help them. There are virtually no social safety nets available.
今天我被問到我如何獲得這樣的成就 在這裡和大家分享一個最主要的原因 就是我勇於請求別人幫助 典型的中產階層,或富裕的家庭裡 如果孩子有困難 父母和師長一定會幫助他們 即使他們沒有尋求協助 但是,如果同樣的孩子 生長在貧窮的家庭 遇到困難沒有尋求協助 根本不會有人去幫助他們 這簡直沒有社會安全網可言
So seven years ago, I started to reform our public education system shaped by my firsthand perspective. And I started with summer school. Research tells us that two-thirds of the achievement gap, which is the disparity in educational attainment between rich kids and poor kids or black kids and white kids, could be directly attributed to the summer learning loss. In low-income neighborhoods, kids forget almost three months of what they learned during the school year over the summer. They return to school in the fall, and their teachers spend another two months reteaching them old material. That's five months. The school year in the United States is only 10 months. If kids lose five months of learning every single year, that's half of their education. Half.
所以 7 年前 我開始著手改革公立教育制度 從第一手的觀點開始進行 我從暑期學校開始 研究顯示,導致成就差距 有三分之二的原因 是因為教育程度的差距 無論是在貧富之間 或是在黑人白人的種族之間 都可以直接歸因於暑期學習的落差 在低收入社區,孩子們幾乎 忘了整個學年裡 三個月所學到的教材 在暑假這一段時間 當他們秋天開學回到學校 老師要多花兩個月的時間 再重新教一次他們所忘記的那些教材 加起來就是五個月 美國一學年只有 10 個月 如果孩子每年都要花五個月重新學習 在整個教育學程上就佔了一半 一半
If kids were in school over the summer, then they couldn't regress, but traditional summer school is poorly designed. For kids it feels like punishment, and for teachers it feels like babysitting. But how can we expect principals to execute an effective summer program when the school year ends the last week of June and then summer school starts just one week later? There just isn't enough time to find the right people, sort out the logistics, and design an engaging curriculum that excites kids and teachers.
如果孩子們在學校上暑期課程 他們就不會退步 但是傳統的暑期課程都缺乏計畫 對孩子而言只覺得是懲罰 對老師而言就像當保姆 但是我們如何期待校長 能執行一個有效的暑期計畫 如果學年在 6 月最後一週結束 暑期課程卻馬上在一週後開始? 就是沒有足夠的時間找到對的人 整理物資 並且設計一個有吸引力的課程 來激勵老師和孩子
But what if we created a program over the summer that empowered teachers as teaching coaches to develop aspiring educators? What if we empowered college-educated role models as teaching fellows to help kids realize their college ambitions? What if empowered high-achieving kids as mentors to tutor their younger peers and inspire them to invest in their education? What if we empowered all kids as scholars, asked them what colleges they were going to, designed a summer school they want to attend to completely eliminate the summer learning loss and close two-thirds of the achievement gap?
但是如果我們創建一個暑期的計畫 讓老師們像教練一樣 培養有抱負的教育者? 如果我們讓受過大學教育的模範榜樣 來當教學人員 幫忙孩子們實現他們 成為大學生的抱負? 如果讓擁有高成就的孩子們擔任導師 來教導比他們年輕一些的同儕 並激勵他們投資在教育上? 如果我們讓所有的孩童都成為學者 問他們想上哪所大學 設計一個他們想參加的暑期課程 以利降低暑期學習的差距 來彌補那近三分之二的成就差距?
By this summer, my team will have served over 4,000 low-income children, trained over 300 aspiring teachers and created more than 1,000 seasonal jobs across some of New York City's most disadvantaged neighborhoods.
這個暑假,我的團隊已經幫助 超過 4,000 名低收入的孩子 訓練超過 300 名有抱負的老師 並且創造超過 1,000 個 季節性的工作機會 遍及了一些紐約市最弱勢的地區
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And our kids are succeeding. Two years of independent evaluations tell us that our kids eliminate the summer learning loss and make growth of one month in math and two months in reading. So instead of returning to school in the fall three months behind, they now go back four months ahead in math and five months ahead in reading.
我們的孩子正邁向成功 兩年來的獨立評估告訴我們 這些孩子的暑期差距降低了 在數學上進步了一個月 在閱讀上進步了兩個月 之前秋天開學回到學校 課業會落後三個月 現在開學後 他們在數學上的表現超前四個月 在閱讀的表現超前五個月
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Ten years ago, if you would have told me that I'd graduate in the top 10 percent of my class from an Ivy League institution and have an opportunity to make a dent on our public education system just by tackling two months of the calendar year, I would have said, "Nah. No way." What's even more exciting is that if we can prevent five months of lost time just by redesigning two months, imagine the possibilities that we can unlock by tackling the rest of the calendar year.
十年前,如果你們告訴我 我會畢業於常春藤聯盟大學 並排行班級前百分之十 只要對付每年二個月的時間 就有機會解決公共教育體系上的問題 我會說 「不,怎麼可能。」 更令人興奮的是 如果我們能避免損失五個月的時間 只需要重新調整二個月的學程 就想像一下我們能解決 剩下學年問題的可能性
Thank you.
謝謝大家
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