Let me tell you a story.
我来给大家讲个故事。
It's my first year as a new high school science teacher, and I'm so eager. I'm so excited, I'm pouring myself into my lesson plans. But I'm slowly coming to this horrifying realization that my students just might not be learning anything.
我成为高中理科老师的第一年, 我非常的积极。 非常的兴奋,我全身心的投入到我的教学工作中。 但是我慢慢的认识到一个可怕的现实 我的学生可能什么都学不到。
This happens one day: I'd just assigned my class to read this textbook chapter about my favorite subject in all of biology: viruses and how they attack. And so I'm so excited to discuss this with them, and I come in and I say, "Can somebody please explain the main ideas and why this is so cool?"
有一天, 我安排学生们阅读课本的一个章节, 这个章节讲的是我在生物学中最喜欢的主题—— 病毒以及其攻击原理。 我很兴奋能够跟他们讨论这个内容 我走进课堂,问:“有没有人能阐述一下本章主要内容, 并解释病毒为什么这么酷?
There's silence. Finally, my favorite student, she looks me straight in the eye, and she says, "The reading sucked."
现场一片寂静。 终于,我最中意的学生,她看着我的眼睛, 说道,教材太恶心了
(Laughter)
然后她澄清道:“我的意思是
And then she clarified. She said, "You know what, I don't mean that it sucks. I mean I didn't understand a word of it. It's boring, who cares, and it sucks."
我不是说内容恶心,我是说我根本看不懂。 太无聊了。嗯,管他呢,就是恶心。
(Laughter)
教室里一下子
These sympathetic smiles spread all throughout the room now, and I realize that all of my other students are in the same boat, that maybe they took notes or memorized definitions from the textbook, but not one of them really understood the main ideas. Not one of them can tell me why this stuff is so cool, why it's so important.
充满了赞同的笑声。 我意识到班上所有的学生都是一样的感觉。 他们或许做了笔记,死记硬背了教材中的定义, 但没有一个人真正理解了其中意义。 没有一个人能告诉我为什么这东西有意思, 为什么它很重要。
I'm totally clueless. I have no idea what to do next. So the only thing I can think of is say, "Listen. Let me tell you a story. The main characters in the story are bacteria and viruses. These guys are blown up a couple million times. The real bacteria and viruses are so small we can't see them without a microscope, and you guys might know bacteria and viruses because they both make us sick. But what a lot of people don't know is that viruses can also make bacteria sick."
我完全迷茫了。 我不知道接下去要做什么。 我想到唯一可以做的是说, “听着,我来给大家讲个故事。 故事的主角是细菌和病毒。 现在我手上的这俩家伙是放大了几百万倍的样子, 真正的病毒和细菌太小了, 小到我们只能用显微镜才能看到。 你们可能对细菌和病毒并不陌生, 因为它们会让我们生病。 但很多人都不知道的是,病毒 也可以让细菌生病。”
Now, the story that I start telling my kids, it starts out like a horror story. Once upon a time, there's this happy little bacterium. Don't get too attached to him.
而后,我开始给学生们讲故事。 故事的开头有点恐怖。 很久很久以前,有一个快乐的小细菌。 别太投入了。
(Laughter)
他可能正在你的胃里,
Maybe he's floating around in your stomach or in some spoiled food somewhere, and all of a sudden, he starts to not feel so good. Maybe he ate something bad for lunch. And then things get really horrible, as his skin rips apart, and he sees a virus coming out from his insides. And then it gets horrible when he bursts open and an army of viruses floods out from his insides. "Ouch" is right. If you see this, and you're a bacterium, this is like your worst nightmare. But if you're a virus and you see this, you cross those little legs of yours and you think, "We rock." Because it took a lot of crafty work to infect this bacterium. Here's what had to happen. A virus grabbed onto a bacterium and it slipped its DNA into it. The next thing is that virus DNA made stuff that chopped up the bacteria DNA. And now that we've gotten rid of the bacteria DNA, the virus DNA takes control of the cell and it tells it to start making more viruses. Because, you see, DNA is like a blueprint that tells living things what to make. So this is kind of like going into a car factory and replacing the blueprints with blueprints for killer robots. The workers still come the next day, they do their job, but they're following different instructions. So replacing the bacteria DNA with virus DNA turns the bacteria into a factory for making viruses -- that is, until it's so filled with viruses that it bursts. But that's not the only way that viruses infect bacteria. Some are much more crafty.
或是在一些变质的食物里游荡。 突然之间,他开始感觉不大对劲了。 可能他午饭吃坏肚子了, 然后事情变得非常的可怕 它的皮肤裂开了,它看到一个病毒 从他体内钻了出来。 更恐怖的事情是 它的身体爆炸了,成群的病毒 从细菌的体内喷涌了出来。 如果——哦,是的—— 如果你是一个细菌而你目睹了这一幕, 这将是你最可怕的噩梦。 但如果你是一只病毒,此情此景, 你可能就会悠闲地跷着二郎腿心想, “我们太牛了。” 因为病毒需要通过很巧妙的方式来感染细菌。 以下是具体过程: 一个病毒抓住一个细菌, 悄悄把自己的DNA注入细菌。 接下来,病毒的DNA生成了一些物质 破坏了细菌原有的DNA。 现在细菌的DNA已经被破坏了, 病毒的DNA控制了整个细胞。 然后病毒DNA开始复制更多的病毒。 因为,你看,DNA像是一个制造图纸 指示生命体制造指定的物质。 这就像原本是一个造车工厂 图纸被替换了,开始造杀人机器人了。 工人们第二天照旧来上班开工, 但他们执行的却是完全不同的指示。 那么,将细菌的DNA更换为病毒的DNA 就使得细菌自身成为了一间制造病毒的工厂, 直到生产的病毒多到把细菌撑爆了为止。 但这并非是病毒感染细菌的唯一途径。 有些方法更加精妙。
(Laughter)
When a secret agent virus infects a bacterium, they do a little espionage. Here, this cloaked, secret agent virus is slipping his DNA into the bacterial cell, but here's the kicker: It doesn't do anything harmful -- not at first. Instead, it silently slips into the bacteria's own DNA, and it just stays there like a terrorist sleeper cell, waiting for instructions. And what's interesting about this is now, whenever this bacteria has babies, the babies also have the virus DNA in them. So now we have a whole extended bacteria family, filled with virus sleeper cells. They're just happily living together until a signal happens and bam! -- all of the DNA pops out. It takes control of these cells, turns them into virus-making factories, and they all burst, a huge, extended bacteria family, all dying with viruses spilling out of their guts, the viruses taking over the bacterium. So now you understand how viruses can attack cells. There are two ways: On the left is what we call the lytic way, where the viruses go right in and take over the cells. On the [right] is the lysogenic way that uses secret agent viruses.
当一个病毒“特工”感染一个细菌, 间谍活动随之展开。 这名潜行的特工不动声色地将其DNA送入细菌细胞, 但秘诀在于:它不会伤害细菌——至少现在不会。 相反,它默默潜伏于细菌自身的DNA中, 犹如一枚定时炸弹, 静静地等待指令。 有趣的是,接下来当细菌开始繁殖,有了自己的孩子时, 它的孩子也带有病毒的这段DNA。 于是当细菌繁衍成为一个大家族, 每一个家族成员都带有病毒的定时炸弹。 他们幸福地生活在一起,直到信号出现。 于是,“砰!”地一声,所有的潜伏DNA被唤醒了。 病毒DNA控制了这些细胞,将其变为制造病毒的工厂, 并让它们全部涨裂。 于是,熙熙攘攘的细菌大家族, 就这样被病毒由内而外全部消灭。 病毒完全接管了细菌体。 于是现在大家能理解病毒是如何攻击细胞的了。 总共有两种途径:左边的我们称其为裂解性感染, 病毒一旦进入即掌控整个细胞。 右边的我们称其为溶源性感染, 就是病毒特工闪亮登场的情境。
So this stuff is not that hard, right? And now all of you understand it. But if you've graduated from high school, I can almost guarantee you've seen this information before. But I bet it was presented in a way that it didn't exactly stick in your mind.
所以这些东西也不是那么难嘛,对吧? 现在大家都能够理解。 只要你高中毕了业, 我敢保证几乎每个人都看到过以上的东西。 只是这些知识是以其他的形式呈现的,
So when my students were first learning this,
并没有给你留下什么印象。
why did they hate it so much? Well, there were a couple of reasons.
那么当我的学生们初次学习这些东西的时候, 为什么他们会这么痛恨这些? 当然,有若干原因:
First of all, I can guarantee you you that their textbooks didn't have secret agent viruses, and they didn't have horror stories. You know, in the communication of science, there is this obsession with seriousness. It kills me. I'm not kidding. I used to work for an educational publisher, and as a writer, I was always told never to use stories or fun, engaging language, because then my work might not be viewed as "serious" and "scientific." I mean, because God forbid somebody have fun when they're learning science. So we have this field of science that's all about slime and color changes. Check this out. And then we have, of course, as any good scientist has to have ... explosions! But if a textbook seems too much fun, it's somehow unscientific.
其一,我可以保证他们的课本 可没有什么“病毒特工”或是恐怖小故事。 在科学界的交流中 通常有着对内容严肃性的执念。 我被“严谨”二字折磨死了,真的。 我曾在一家教育出版社供职, 作为一名撰稿人,我被告知永远不要用故事体 逗趣笑话或引人眼球的语言风格, 因为如果我用了的话,我的作品就不会被视为是 “严肃的”和“科学的”。 对吧?就好像上帝禁止学科学的人 找乐子一样。 所以我们的科学领域中充满了黏液 颜色变化等。注意看这个。 然后,当然,我们有优秀科学家必备的 爆炸! 但是如果教材太有意思了, 似乎就不科学了。
Now another problem was that the language in their textbook was truly incomprehensible. If we want to summarize that story that I told you earlier, we could start by saying, "These viruses make copies of themselves by slipping their DNA into a bacterium." The way this showed up in the textbook, it looked like this: "Bacteriophage replication is initiated through the introduction of viral nucleic acid into a bacterium." That's great, perfect for 13-year-olds.
另一个问题在于, 教材中使用的语言真的是无法理解。 如果我们要总结我们之前讲的故事, 我们可以这么说: ”病毒通过把自己的DNA送入细菌体内 来复制自己。” 但如果要是写在课本里的语言,就会变成这样: “噬菌体病毒之复制 以病毒核酸向细菌体 之引入而开始。” 这个很好,对13岁小孩来说很合适。
But here's the thing: There are plenty of people in science education who would look at this and say there's no way that we could ever give that to students, because it contains some language that isn't completely accurate. For example, I told you that viruses have DNA. Well, a very tiny fraction of them don't. They have something called RNA instead. So a professional science writer would say, "That has to go. We have to change it to something much more technical." And after a team of professional science editors went over this really simple explanation, they'd find fault with almost every word I've used, and they'd have to change anything that wasn't serious enough, and they'd have to change everything that wasn't 100 percent perfect. Then it would be accurate, but it would be completely impossible to understand. This is horrifying.
但是问题来了。在科学教育领域的 很多人会在看了这段话之后,说他们 不能这么教育学生, 因为这段话中的措辞并不完全准确。 比如,我之前告诉大家病毒有DNA。 好吧,很小一部分病毒是没有DNA, 相对应地,他们体内有另一种称为RNA的物质。 于是所谓专业的科学作者估计会把这处圈出来,说, “这不行 得换成更严谨科学的表述。” 然后经过专业科学编辑团队 审阅了这段简单的解释之后 他们可能会发现我说的每句话都有毛病 而他们必须要改掉所有不严谨的地方 他们不得不改掉所有不是 百分百精确的事情 现在或许是精确了 但是已经完全无法让人理解了 这太吓人了
You know, I keep talking about this idea of telling a story, and it's like science communication has taken on this idea of what I call the tyranny of precision, where you can't just tell a story. It's like science has become that horrible storyteller that we all know who gives us all the details nobody cares about, where you're like, "Oh, I met my friend for lunch the other day, and she was wearing these ugly jeans. I mean, they weren't really jeans, they were more like leggings, but I guess they're actually kind of more like jeggings, and you're just like, "Oh my God. What is the point?" Or even worse, science education is becoming like that guy who always says, "Actually." You want to be like, "Oh, dude, we had to get up in the middle of the night and drive a hundred miles in total darkness." And that guy's like, "Actually, it was 87.3 miles." And you're like, "Actually, shut up! I'm just trying to tell a story."
我一直在说通过讲故事进行教学 的想法 但是现在的科学课程教学是基于我称之为 精确性至上的教学法 这套方法不讲故事。 感觉讲故事的人很可怕,会把科学课程变成 传授我们尽人皆知的细碎知识, 就像是“哦,一天我跟朋友吃饭, 她穿的牛仔裤不好看。 我是说,他们不是真的牛仔裤,而是窄腿裤 但是,我想他们某种意义上更像是紧身裤 但是我想——你会类似反应“天哪, 到底想说什么?” 或者更糟,科学教育变成了 一个总是说“实际上”的人。 不是么?想象一下,“哦,伙计, 我们要在午夜起床然后 在黑夜中开车走100公里。” 然后一个人说,“实际上,是87.3公里哦” 然后你说,“实际上,闭嘴!” “我只是想说一个故事。”
Because good storytelling is all about emotional connection. We have to convince our audience that what we're talking about matters. But just as important is knowing which details we should leave out so that the main point still comes across. I'm reminded of what the architect Mies van der Rohe said, and I paraphrase, when he said that sometimes, you have to lie in order to tell the truth. I think this sentiment is particularly relevant to science education.
好的故事需要关注的是情感的联系。 我们需要说服我们的听众 我们说的话很重要。 而重要的是知道 忽略掉无关紧要的细节 重点才会得到突出。 我记得建筑大师密斯·凡德罗(Mies van der Rohe)说过, 我解释一下,当他说有时候 你必须通过谎言来传达真相 我想这跟科学教育 有相通之处。
Now, finally, I am often so disappointed when people think that I'm advocating a dumbing down of science. That's not true at all. I'm currently a Ph.D. student at MIT, and I absolutely understand the importance of detailed, specific scientific communication between experts, but not when we're trying to teach 13-year-olds. If a young learner thinks that all viruses have DNA, that's not going to ruin their chances of success in science. But if a young learner can't understand anything in science and learns to hate it because it all sounds like this, that will ruin their chances of success.
现在,最后, 我时常感到失望 人们会认为我是在鼓吹 科学的弱智化. 根本不是这样的。 我现在是MIT的在读博士, 我完全理解细节的重要性 专家之间交流时细节尤其重要 但是在教13岁孩子的时候不是那么重要的 如果一个孩子觉得病毒都是有DNA的 不大可能因此毁掉了他们成为科学家的机会。 但是如果一个孩子无法理解科学课程中的知识 并由于这些枯燥的东西而讨厌这门课程 这真的可能会毁掉他们成功的机会。
This needs to stop ... and I wish that the change could come from the institutions at the top that are perpetuating these problems, and I beg them, I beseech them to just stop it. But I think that's unlikely. So we are so lucky that we have resources like the Internet, where we can circumvent these institutions from the bottom up. There's a growing number of online resources that are dedicated to just explaining science in simple, understandable ways. I dream of a Wikipedia-like website that would explain any scientific concept you can think of in simple language any middle schooler can understand. And I myself spend most of my free time making these science videos that I put on YouTube. I explain chemical equilibrium using analogies to awkward middle school dances, and I talk about fuel cells with stories about boys and girls at a summer camp. The feedback that I get is sometimes misspelled and it's often written in LOLcats,
这需要改变。 我希望这些改变来自于高层的机构 让他们能够意识到问题的存在 我祈求他们,祈求他们别再这么教学了。 但是我觉得不太现实。 还好我们很幸运的拥有互联网这样的资源 我们可以撇开这些管理机构,自底向上的 进行改变。 网上相关的教程越来越多 他们都尝试用简单和直白的语言 来解释科学原理 我希望有一个维基百科一样的网站 解释你能想到的任何科学概念 用一种任何一个中学生都能够理解的语言和方式。 而我自己把我的闲暇时间都投入到了 制作这些YouTube在线课程的事情上。 我用中学舞蹈的古怪动作来类比 化学等价原理。 我用夏令营中男孩和女孩的故事来 解释燃料电池原理 我收到的反馈,经常包含拼写错误 经常包含各种聊天缩写
(Laughter)
但是撇开这些
but nonetheless, it's so appreciative, so thankful that I know this is the right way we should be communicating science.
我很感激这些评论 让我知道我的方法是正确的 我们就应该这样传授科学知识
There's still so much work left to be done, though, and if you're involved with science in any way, I urge you to join me. Pick up a camera, start to write a blog, whatever, but leave out the seriousness, leave out the jargon. Make me laugh. Make me care. Leave out those annoying details that nobody cares about and just get to the point. How should you start? Why don't you say, "Listen, let me tell you a story."
虽然还有很多很多的工作要做 如果你也有参与科学工作 我请求你加入我的行动。 录段视频,写篇博客,怎么都行, 但是请抛开严谨性,抛开术语口号。 逗观众开心,吸引他们注意。 抛开这些没人关心的恼人的细节 直击重点。 如何开场? 为什么不尝试说:“来,我给你讲个故事“
Thank you.
谢谢。