今天的这篇讨论的是教育和科技的关系。
作为一个教育从业者，我曾怀疑过人类老师可能终有一天会被机器人所取代。
但再仔细想想又觉得不是这么回事，因为教育本身的社交属性和孩子对老师的情感认同等因素注定了老师在教学中起的作用更大。
除非机器人已经进化到跟人类一样，拥有思想、感情甚至灵魂，但短期内应该不可能实现。
所以，人工智能还是工具而已，现代教育需要思考的是如何利用好这种工具，更好地为教学服务。
这篇文章让我厘清了一些思路，看清了教育科技未来的方向。
希望本文也能带给你启发。
准备好胃口，开动吧~

科技改变教育

Education technology

Together, technology and teachers can revamp schools

How the science of learning can get the best out of edtech

1. IN 1953 B.F. Skinner visited his daughter’s maths class. The Harvard psychologist found every pupil learning the same topic in the same way at the same speed. A few days later he built his first “teaching machine”, which let children tackle questions at their own pace. By the mid-1960s similar gizmos were being flogged by door-to-door salesmen. Within a few years, though, enthusiasm for them had fizzled out.

gizmos: a general word for a small piece of equipment, often one that does sth in a new and clever way
flog: informal to sell something
fizzle out: informal to gradually become less successful and end in a disappointing way

1）1953年，伯尔赫斯·弗雷德里克·斯金纳参观了女儿的数学课。这位哈佛心理学家发现每个学生以相同的速度以相同的方式学习同一个话题。几天后，他建立了他的第一个“教学机器”，让孩子们以自己的节奏解决问题。到二十世纪六十年代中期，类似的小装置被挨家挨户拜访的推销员所** 销售。然而，在几年之内，对它们的热忱渐渐消失殆尽**。

2. Since then education technology (edtech) has repeated the cycle of hype and flop, even as computers have reshaped almost every other part of life. One reason is the conservatism of teachers and their unions. But another is that the brain-stretching potential of edtech has remained unproven.

hype: advertisements and discussion on television, radio, etc. telling the public about a product and about how good or important it is
flop: If something is a flop, it is completely unsuccessful.

2）自那时以来，教育技术（edtech）一直重复在炒作和惨败间循环，即使当电脑已经重塑了生活中几乎任何一个方面。原因之一是教师及其工会的保守主义。但另一个原因是教育技术的大脑延伸潜力尚未得到证实。

3. Today, however, Skinner’s heirs are forcing the sceptics to think again. Backed by billionaire techies such as Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates, schools around the world are using new software to “personalise” learning. This could help hundreds of millions of children stuck in dismal classes—but only if edtech boosters can resist the temptation to revive harmful ideas about how children learn. To succeed, edtech must be at the service of teaching, not the other way around.

dismal: if a situation or a place is dismal, it is so bad that it makes you feel very unhappy and hopeless

3）然而，如今斯金纳的继承人正在迫使怀疑者再次思考。由诸如马克·扎克伯格和比尔·盖茨等这样的亿万富豪计算机人才支持，全球各地的学校正在使用新的软件来“个性化”学习。这可以帮助数亿困在沉闷的课堂里的儿童——但只有当教育技术人员可以抵制诱惑，这种诱惑想要使得有关如何儿童学习的有害想法再度流行。要成功，教学技术必须为教学服务，而不是相反。

Pencils down

4. The conventional model of schooling emerged in Prussia in the 18th century. Alternatives have so far failed to teach as many children as efficiently. Classrooms, hierarchical year-groups, standardised curriculums and fixed timetables are still the norm for most of the world’s nearly 1.5bn schoolchildren.

hierarchical: if a system, organization etc is hierarchical, people or things are divided into levels of importance

4）传统的教育模式诞生于18世纪的普鲁士。迄今为止，替代方案都没有如此有效地教育如此多的孩子。教室、等级制的年级、标准化课程和固定时间表仍然是世界上近15亿学童中大部分人的常态。

5. Too many do not reach their potential. In poor countries only a quarter of secondary schoolchildren acquire at least a basic knowledge of maths, reading and science. Even in the mostly rich countries of the OECD about 30% of teenagers fail to reach proficiency in at least one of these subjects.

proficiency: a good standard of ability and skill

5）太多孩子没有发挥他们的潜力。在贫穷国家，只有四分之一的中学生获得了数、阅读和科学中至少一门的基础知识。即使在经合组织的大多数富裕国家，大约30％的青少年在至少一个这些科目中没有达到熟练程度。

6. That share has remained almost unchanged over the past 15 years, during which billions have been spent on IT in schools. By 2012 there was one computer for every two pupils in several rich countries. Australia had more computers than pupils. Handled poorly, devices can distract. A Portuguese study from 2010 found that schools with slow broadband and a ban on sites such as YouTube had better results than high-tech ones.
   6）在过去15年中虽然数十亿美元用于学校的信息技术，但这一比例几乎没有变化。到2012年，几个富裕国家每两个学生就有一台电脑。澳大利亚的电脑比学生多。如果处理不好，这些设备可能会分散注意力。 2010年的一项葡萄牙语研究发现，宽带缓慢的学校和禁止YouTube等网站的学校比高科技学校的成绩更好。

7. What matters is how edtech is used. One way it can help is through bespoke instruction. Ever since Philip II of Macedon hired Aristotle to prepare his son Alexander for Greatness, rich parents have paid for tutors. Reformers from São Paulo to Stockholm think that edtech can put individual attention within reach of all pupils. American schools are embracing the model most readily. A third of pupils are in a school district that has pledged to introduce “personalised, digital learning”. The methods of groups like Summit Public Schools, whose software was written for nothing by Facebook engineers, are being copied by hundreds of schools.

bespoke: a bespoke product, especially computer software or a piece of clothing, has been specially made for a particular customer
for nothing: without paying for something or being paid for something

7）重要的是如何使用教育科技。一种方法是通过定制教学来实现。自从马其顿的菲利普二世雇用亚里士多德为他的儿子亚历山大的伟业做准备，富有的父母就一直在花钱雇佣导师。从圣保罗到斯德哥尔摩的改革者认为，教育科技可以让所有学生都得到单独的关注。美国学校最乐于拥抱这个模式。三分之一的学生在承诺引进“个性化，数字化学习”的学区。数百所学校正在复制像新泽西州萨米特公立学校这样团体的方法，其软件是由Facebook的工程师免费编写的。

8. In India, where about half of children leave primary school unable to read a simple text, the curriculum goes over many pupils’ heads. “Adaptive” software such as Mindspark can work out what a child knows and pose questions accordingly. A recent paper found that Indian children using Mindspark after school made some of the largest gains in maths and reading of any education study in poor countries.
   8）在印度，大约一半的小孩小学毕业时都无法阅读一篇简单的文章，该课程检查了许多学生的头脑。 “自适应”软件，如Mindspark，可以计算出一个孩子知道什么，并提出相应的问题。最近的一篇论文发现，使用Mindspark后的印度孩子在贫穷国家里任何教育学习的数学和阅读方面取得了一些最重大的成就。

9. The other way edtech can aid learning is by making schools more productive. In California schools are using software to overhaul the conventional model. Instead of textbooks, pupils have “playlists”, which they use to access online lessons and take tests. The software assesses children’s progress, lightening teachers’ marking load and giving them insight on their pupils. Saved teachers’ time is allocated to other tasks, such as fostering pupils’ social skills or one-on-one tuition. A study in 2015 suggested that children in early adopters of this model score better in tests than their peers at other schools.

overhaul: If you overhaul a system or method, you examine it carefully and make many changes in it in order to improve it.

9）教育技术可以帮助学习的另一个方法是让学校更有成效。在加利福尼亚州，学校正在使用软件彻底革新传统模式。学生不用教科书，而是使用“播放列表”，用于访问在线课程并进行测试。该软件评估儿童的进步，减轻教师的打分负荷，并提供他们对于学生的洞察力。节约教师的时间分配给其他任务，如培养学生的社交技能或一对一的教学。 2015年的一项研究表明，这种模式的早期采用者中的儿童比其他学校的同龄人的成绩要好一些。

Pay attention at the back

10. Such innovation is welcome. But making the best of edtech means getting several things right. First, “personalised learning” must follow the evidence on how children learn. It must not be an excuse to revive pseudoscientific ideas such as “learning styles”: the theory that each child has a particular way of taking in information. Such nonsense leads to schemes like Brain Gym, an “educational kinesiology” programme once backed by the British government, which claimed that some pupils should stretch, bend and emit an “energy yawn” while doing their sums.

pseudoscientific: based on theories and methods erroneously regarded as scientific

10）这样的创新是受欢迎的。但是，尽可能多的教育技术意味着要做好几件事情。首先，“个性化学习”必须遵循儿童学习的证据。它不能成为复兴伪科学思想的借口，如“学习类型”：每个孩子都有一种特殊的信息获取方式这种理论。这样的废话导致“大脑健身馆”这样的计划，一项曾一度被英国政府支持的“教育运动学”项目，声称有些学生应该一边拉伸、弯曲并释放出“能量呵欠”，一边做出算术。

11. A less consequential falsehood is that technology means children do not need to learn facts or learn from a teacher—instead they can just use Google. Some educationalists go further, arguing that facts get in the way of skills such as creativity and critical thinking. The opposite is true. A memory crammed with knowledge enables these talents. William Shakespeare was drilled in Latin phrases and grammatical rules and yet he penned a few decent plays. In 2015 a vast study of 1,200 education meta-analyses found that, of the 20 most effective ways of boosting learning, nearly all relied on the craft of a teacher.

consequential: important = significant
falsehood: a statement that is untrue = lie
drill: If you drill people, you teach them to do something by making them repeat it many times.

11）一个不那么严重的 谎言是技术意味着孩子们不需要学习事实或从老师那里学习——而是可以使用Google。一些教育学家走得更远，认为事实妨碍了创造力和批判性思维等技能。恰恰相反。一个充满知识的记忆使这些人才成为可能。威廉·莎士比亚在拉丁语短语和语法规则中反复训练，才写出一些像样的戏剧。 2015年，一次针对1200多项教育变化分析的广泛研究发现，在促进学习的20个最有效的方法中，几乎都依靠老师的技巧。

12. The second imperative is to make sure that edtech narrows, rather than widens, inequalities in education. Here there are grounds for optimism. Some of the pioneering schools are private ones in Silicon Valley. But many more are run by charter-school groups teaching mostly poor pupils, such as Rocketship and Achievement First—or Summit, where 99% of graduating pupils go on to university and laggards make the most progress relative to their peers in normal classes. A similar pattern can be observed outside America. In studies of edtech in India by J-PAL, a research group, the biggest beneficiaries are children using software to receive remedial education.

charter-school: A charter school is a school that receives government funding but operates independently of the established state school system in which it is located, and in some cases is privately owned.
laggard: someone or something that is very slow or late

12）第二项当务之急是确保教育技术缩小而不是扩大教育的不平等。这里（人们）有理由乐观。一些先驱学校是硅谷的私人学校。但还有更多的是由教育大部分为贫困学生的特许学校所举办的，比如Rocketship 和 Achievement First-或者 Summit这些学校，99％的毕业生上了大学，与正常班上同学相比落后者取得了最大的进步。在美国境外也可以看到类似的模式。由研究组织J-PAL对印度的教育科技研究中可以看到，最大的受益者是使用软件接受补习教育的儿童。

13. Third, the potential for edtech will be realised only if teachers embrace it. They are right to ask for evidence that products work. But scepticism should not turn into Luddism. A good model is São Paulo, where teachers have welcomed Geekie, an adaptive-software company, into public schools.

Luddism: the beliefs of bands of early 19th-century English workmen that attempted to prevent the use of labor-saving machinery by destroying it.

13）第三，只有教师拥抱教育技术才能发挥教学技术的潜力。他们想看到证明产品有效果的要求是正确的。但怀疑论不应该变成反对科技论。一个好的模式是圣保罗，教师们欢迎Geekie（一家适应性软件公司）进入公立学校。

14. In 1984 Skinner called opposition to technology the “shame” of education. Given what edtech promises today, closed-mindedness has no place in the classroom.
    14）1984年，斯金纳称反对科技为教育的“耻辱”。鉴于今天教育科技的承诺，封闭式的思想在课堂上没有任何地位。

This article appeared in the Leaders section of the print edition under the headline "Brain gains"

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原文出处：经济学人

翻译：七呵夫

本译文仅供个人研习、欣赏语言之用，谢绝任何转载及用于任何商业用途。本译文不代表本人立场。本人同意简书平台在接获有关著作权人的通知后，删除文章。