教育,贯穿人的一生,一向都是热点话题。互联网的兴起和蓬勃发展,使得人们获取信息和知识的方式更趋多元化且越加方便,这无疑给传统的学校教育带来诸多挑战。传统的学校教育发展到今天,在开发人的潜能、创造力等方面一直饱受争议。于是,一些人渐渐把目光聚焦于更有针对性的“家庭教育”。例如,国内著名的“童话大王”郑渊洁就直接对学校教育说“no”,帮儿子办了退学手续,在家自己编教材、当老师,做得不亦乐乎。
父母是孩子人生的第一任老师,家庭教育对孩子的影响极其深远。不过,目前在国内,家庭教育更多局限于学前教育时期。而在美国,家庭教育已成为独立于学校教育之外的另一种教育模式,其涵盖范围远远超过学前教育。这种新趋势引人注目,值得探究一番。 ——Maisie
The first thing you notice about Karen Allen’s house is that it is spotless. Even in her teenage boys’ bedrooms, not a thing is out of place. And her boys, Thomas and Taylor, are polite and 2)engaging. The Allens are home-schoolers. Instead of sending their children to a public (non-fee-paying) or private school, they teach them at home. A generation ago, home-schooling was rare and, in many states, illegal. Now, according to the Department of Education, there are roughly 1.5m home-schooled students in America, a number that has doubled in a decade. That is about 3% of the school-age population.
在凯伦·艾伦的家中,你注意到的第一件事就是那一尘不染的家居。连她两个十几岁的儿子的房间里也没有一件东西是乱摆乱放的。她的两个儿子托马斯和泰勒,彬彬有礼且可爱迷人。艾伦一家是家庭教育实践者。他们不把自己的孩子送去公立(免费的)或者私立学校,相反,他们在自己的家里教育孩子。约二三十年以前,家庭教育还很少见,而且在很多州属于违法。而现在,据美国教育部的数据,在美国接受家庭教育的学生大概有150万,这个数字十年来翻了一番。其人数大约是学龄人口的3%。
Why do people teach their children at home? Many of the earliest were 3)hippies who thought public schools 4)repressive and 5)ungroovy. Now they are far more likely to be religious conservatives. At a public school, says Mrs. Allen, her boys would get neither much individual attention nor any Christian instruction. At home they get plenty of both.
为什么人们要在家里教育孩子呢?最早的实践者中很多都是嬉皮士,他们认为公立学校压抑而糟糕。而现在选择家庭教育的,更可能是宗教保守派人士。艾伦太太说,在公立学校,她的孩子既不能获得足够的个人关注又不能得到任何有关基督教的指导。而在家里,他们可以在这两方面都得到充分的满足。
In a 2007 survey by the Department of Education, 88% of home-schooling parents said that their local public schools were unsafe, drug-6)ridden or 7)unwholesome in some way. Some 73% complained of 8)shoddy academic standards. And 83% said they wanted to instill religious or moral values in their children.
根据美国教育部2007年的一项调查,在实践家庭教育的家长中,88%的人认为他们当地的公立学校不安全、毒品泛滥或者有这样那样的不良影响。约73%的人抱怨说学校教学水平低下。还有83%的人说,他们希望向他们的孩子灌输宗教或者道德价值观念。
Those who teach at home are passionate about it. They have to be: it is a huge undertaking. One parent, usually the mother, drops out of the workforce and devotes her life to teaching. The family must 9)subsist on a single income while still paying the taxes that 10)finance public schools. Home-schooling is not for the 11)faint-hearted.
那些亲自践行“在家教学”的人对此充满热忱。对他们来说,这是一项艰巨的任务。一名家长(通常是母亲)需要辞掉工作并全心投入到教学之中。家庭不得不单靠一份收入维持生计,同时资助公立学校的税项仍需缴纳。没点胆识和勇气的人可走不成“家庭教育”这条路。
“It becomes a lifestyle,” says Mrs. Allen. She teaches her boys English, history and Bible studies. Maths comes on a DVD. When they go shopping, she teaches them economics. On holiday in Alaska, they made 12)moulds of a wolf’s paw print, a “science adventure”.
“这成为了一种生活方式。”艾伦太太说。她给两个儿子上英语、历史课,讲解《圣经》。而数学则用DVD课件教学。购物的时候,她就趁机会教儿子经济学。在阿拉斯加度假时,他们一起制作狼的爪印模子,作为一种“科学探险”。
Not all home-schoolers 13)shun the public schools for religious reasons. Anne Mitchell, for example, pulled her son Gordon out because she did not like the way his school dealt with his 14)cerebral palsy. Rather than helping him to do things himself, it assigned a helper to follow him around and do everything for him. A tenth of home-schooling parents say that one of their children has a physical or mental problem that the local school cannot or will not 15)accommodate. And some parents teach at home because their children are brilliant and public school fails to 16)stretch them. American public schools are rigidly 17)secular. Private schools are expensive. For parents who want their children to grow up relatively unexposed to doubt or 18)indecent 19)lunchroom 20)chatter, home-schooling offers hope.
并不是所有选择在家教育子女的父母都出于宗教原因而舍弃公立学校。例如,安妮·米切尔让儿子戈登退学是因为她不喜欢学校对待她儿子患大脑性麻痹这个问题的方式。学校不是帮他学会自己应对挑战,而是指派了一个助手围着他转,替他做所有的事情。十分之一实践家庭教育的家长说,他们的其中一个孩子有身体或心智残障,当地的学校无法或不愿考虑接收。还有些家长选择在家里教育孩子是因为他们的孩子聪明绝顶,公立学校没法进一步拓展栽培他们。美国的公立学校严格奉行普通教育(不灌输宗教观念)。私立学校又学费高昂。对于那些想让自己的孩子在成长中相对地少受否定,或者不会听到学校餐厅里那些粗俗闲聊的家长们来说,家庭教育带来了希望。
Opponents of home-schooling—and some of them are 21)vehement—argue that it is socially divisive. Also, since it is regulated lightly or not at all, it is hard to tell whether children being taught at home are receiving an adequate education. “Unregulated home-schooling opens up the possibility that children will never learn about…alternative ways of life,” writes Rob Reich of 22)Stanford University.
家庭教育的反对者——其中不少言论激烈——则认为这是一种社会分裂。此外,因为对家庭教育的管制很少或者根本没有,所以很难说在家接受教育的孩子是否获得了足够的教育。“不受监管的家庭教育导致了一种可能性——孩子将永远无从了解到……其他的生活方式。”斯坦福大学的罗布·瑞奇写道。
But parents make no apology for 23)shielding their children from what they see as bad influences. They 24)hotly deny that children learn better social skills on a school playground than at home. The children we met in Georgia were confident, 25)gregarious and socialised a lot, 26)albeit mostly with families doing the same thing. They were also at ease with friends of different ages. Public-school kids, by contrast, live in an “age-27)segregated herd”, scoffs Michael Farris, the 28)chancellor of 29)Patrick Henry College, a Christian university in Virginia most of whose students were taught at home.
但是那些家长一心保护孩子远离他们眼中的不良影响,他们的立场绝不动摇。他们极力否认孩子在学校操场上能比在家里学到更好的社交技能。我们在佐治亚州遇到的孩子们都自信合群,不乏交际互动,尽管大多只是和同样奉行“在家教育”的那些家庭来往。与不同年龄的朋友在一起时,他们也很轻松自在。相比之下,公立学校的孩子生活在一种“以年龄划分的群体”里,帕特里克·亨利学院院长迈克尔·法里斯嘲讽道。该学院是弗吉尼亚州的一所基督教大学,其大多数学生都曾在家中接受教育。
Whether teaching at home yields better or worse academic results than the conventional sort is impossible to say. Its 30)boosters argue that one-on-one instruction helps children learn, and point to the 31)striking number of home-schooled children who win debating contests and 32)spelling bees. A study of 20,000 home-schooled students in 1998 by Lawrence Rudner of the 33)University of Maryland found that they scored well above average in academic tests, and subsequent studies have found similar results. This is impressive, but does not prove that the method is superior. Parents who teach at home are deeply involved in their children’s education, and the children of such parents do well in normal schools, too.
与传统教育方式相比,家庭教育能使孩子的学业成绩更佳还是更差,这点尚无结论。其推崇者认为一对一的指导有助于孩子学习,并指出辩论赛和拼字比赛的获胜者中,接受家庭教育的孩子人数可观。马里兰大学的劳伦斯·拉德纳在1998年的一项针对2万名接受家庭教育的学生的调查中发现,他们在学业测试中的成绩要高于平均水平,在随后的研究中也有类似的结果。数据听起来是很厉害,但并不能证明该方法更好。实践家庭教育的家长深入地参与到他们孩子的教育中,而有这种家长的孩子在普通学校里也表现很好。
Some states try to regulate home-schooling. Twenty-six require parents to provide regular test scores or professional evaluations of their children’s progress. Of these, six, concentrated in the north-east, require much more, such as the use of approved curriculums or home visits by bureaucrats. Fourteen states demand only that parents tell the authorities that they are home-schooling. And ten do not regulate it at all. Some children taught at home, undoubtedly, receive a poor education. But so do many children in public schools.
美国一些州设法监管家庭教育。26个州要求家长提供子女的定期考试成绩或者对其学习情况的专业评估结果。这些州当中,有6个州(主要集中在东北部)提出了更多要求,比如使用经核准的课程或派官员进行家访。有14个州只要求家长向当局申报他们采用家庭教育。还有10个州对此完全没有规定。的确,有些在家接受教育的孩子没学到什么。但是许多在公立学校上学的孩子也一样如此。
The 34)movement will probably continue to grow. For one thing, it is getting easier. The Internet lets parents discover teaching materials and communicate with each other, 35)swapping tips online. They lobby vigorously against anything that might 36)cramp their freedom. Moreover, having Barack Obama in the White House may cause more people to pull their children out of public schools, predicts Mr. Farris. Views of the government are 37)coloured by views of the president, he says, even though the president has little control over education. And Mr. Obama is far too liberal for most of America’s home-schoolers.
家庭教育这种趋势可能会继续增长。一方面,它变得越来越容易。互联网使得家长们能够找到教学素材,相互沟通,并在线交换信息。他们积极游说,反对任何可能妨碍他们自由的东西。此外,法里斯先生预测说,巴拉克·奥巴马执掌白宫期间可能会导致更多的人让他们的孩子从公立学校退学。他说,尽管总统对教育的掌控力很小,但政府的观点会被总统的看法所影响。而在美国大部分选择“在家教育”的家长看来,奥巴马的教育政策自由度过大,不太能让人接受。(编者注:选择“在家教育”的家长一般思想保守,属中产或上流社会出身,推崇精英教育,注重“个体”,奉尊传统道德,多为宗教保守派,且共和党人为多。而奥巴马是民主党人,其政策偏向“全民”、“集体”,“机会均等”这些关键词,他提出的教育改革政策中,对各州特许学校的拨款增加一倍,支持教师绩效工资计划等是颇具争议的。因而“在家教育”人士对奥巴马的教育政策有所保留。)