A Taste Of Success（品尝成功）

（NPR：This I Believe）November 6, 2008节目的翻译

原文

A  Taste  Of  Success

品尝成功

When I say I believe all children can learn, people sometimes misunderstand.

当我说所有孩子都能学习时， 人们有时会曲解我的意思。

Because I have been working with poor, minority children in Harlem for the last 25 years, some people think I am talking about good kids in bad environments — that if you give a bright kid from a poor family a good educational support system, he or she can succeed. That's absolutely true, but that's not what I mean.

因为我已在哈勒姆同穷孩子和少数族裔孩子一起整整工作了25 年，有人以为我说的是处于恶劣环境下的好孩子 —— 如果一个来自贫困家庭的聪明孩子得到 好的教育资助，他就能成功。这当然对，但这不是 我要说的 。

You see, I truly believe that all kids can learn. I believe it; I've seen it; I've even tasted it.

你要明白，我真心相信所有孩子都可以学习。 我相信这点，我看到过，甚至我还品尝到过。

Back in 1975, when I was coming out of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, I worked in a summer camp in Ossipee, N.H., for kids with the absolute toughest problems: emotionally disturbed kids, autistic kids, oppositional ADHD kids, kids that everyone — even their parents — had given up on.

这要回到1975年，那时我刚从哈佛教育学院毕业， 在新罕布什尔州奥西皮市的一个夏令营与一些有严重问题的孩子在一起。这些孩子有的有情绪障碍，有的有自闭症，有的有注意力缺陷过动症，有的令所有人 都放弃了希望，甚至他们的父母。

One of the things that I and the staff would do is cook with the kids. These children didn't know baking powder from table salt, but once they had eaten a warm biscuit out of the oven, smeared with melted butter and a drizzle of maple syrup, they were very motivated to learn how to make some more.

我和我的同事要做的事情之一是与孩子们一起做饭。这些孩子们并不知道如何烘烤加了食盐的面粉，但 当他们一旦品尝了刚刚出炉，抹着融化的牛油和细细的枫糖浆的热饼干，就开始非常积极地想学习如何做更多的饼干。

Suddenly, kids who couldn't sit still or focus were carefully eyeballing ingredients as we measured them out, learning the simple math and spelling lessons we could slip in along the way. By the end of the summer, I remember parents breaking down and crying when they saw the progress their children had made.

突然间，当我们在配料的时候，这些无法安静地坐着或集中注意力的孩子们瞪大眼睛非常仔细地观察配料，并学习我们顺便插入的简单算术和拼写。我记得当夏天结束，父母们看到孩子所取得的进步的时候都止不住哭了。

The biscuits, by the way, were delicious, and I can still remember the taste of them today — and more importantly, I still remember the lesson they taught me: that if we, the adults, can find the right motivation for a child, there's hope for that child's education.

顺便说一下，饼干很好吃，我至今还记得它们的味道 — — 更重要的是，我还记得他们给我的经验教训：如果我们，大人，能找到对孩子适当的诱导，那么孩子的教育就有希望。

Today, I run two charter schools and a series of educational programs, and we work with over 10,000 kids a year. I make sure that every single one of my staff understands that I don't accept excuses about kids not learning. You can't blame the kids. In my shop, if a child does not succeed, it means the adults around him or her have failed.

现在我管理着两所政府特许学校和一系列教育计划，每年和超过一万名孩子在一起工作。我确信我的每一个员工都明白我绝不接受孩子们不学习这样的接口。你不能怪孩子。在我这儿，如果一个孩子没能成功，就意味着他周围大人的失败。

That's because the kids with the really tough problems are not going to suddenly start teaching themselves. I believe that we adults have to help them, and that starts with looking hard at each child, finding out what excites them and exploiting that excitement shamelessly.

这是因为有真正严重问题的孩子不会一下子开始教会他们自己。我相信我们大人必须帮助他们，而这开始于仔细观察每一个孩子，找出什么令他激动，然后毫不客气地使用它。

When I was growing up poor in the south Bronx, one of four boys raised by a single mom, I probably looked like I was heading nowhere, hanging out on the street with my friends and getting into fights and trouble. And I would have ended up dead or in jail like many of my friends if it had not been for a couple of teachers and family members who saw something underneath my teenage tough-guy act. They spotted my fascination with reading, starting with Green Eggs and Ham and later with Manchild in the Promised Land, and they made sure I had great books to read.

在布郎克斯区南部的贫困中长大，由一个带着4个孩子的单身母亲抚养，与朋友们在街上晃荡，打架，惹麻烦，我看上去似乎无路可走。如果不是因为一些老师和家人看到在我十几岁顽固外表下面的某些东西，我将会以死亡结束或者像我的许多朋友那样进监狱。他们发现了我对阅读的狂热，一开始是“Green Eggs and Ham”（绿鸡蛋和火腿），然后是“Manchild in the Promised Land”，他们总是能保证我有很棒的书来读。

Because of that, I have dedicated my life to going back into the most devastated communities in America and making sure kids like me don't get written off.

正因如此，我把一生都投回到美国环境最糟糕的社区里面，保证象我一样的孩子不再被视为无可救药。

My first taste of success came way back at that summer camp in Ossipee, N.H. It came with a plate of steaming, hot biscuits that tasted so good I believe they could have brought a tear to your eye.

我第一次品尝成功追溯到新罕布什尔州奥西皮市的那个夏令营。它跟一盘尝起来是那么棒的热气腾腾的饼干一起到来，我相信他们一定也让你热泪盈眶。