Success Is Not Just About Smart
成功不僅僅與智力有關
By Tom Brady

Technology has been promoted as the great equalizer in education. Initiatives like One Laptop Per Child and Massive Online Open Courses were supposed to democratize learning, but when the $400 laptops given to poor children around the world broke, and failure rates of some MOOCs were as high as 75 percent, reality set in.
科技被宣傳為偉大的教育平衡工具。「1人1筆電」和「磨課師」線上課程等計畫，理應讓學習變得民主化，然而當發給全球貧窮學生400美元筆電的計畫失敗，某些「磨課師」課程的未完修率又高達75%時，現實也浮上了檯面。

Though many believe that computers can shrink the education gap, research shows that giving students from poor families online access is more likely to widen the divide, Susan Pinker reported in The Times. Jacob Vigdor and Helen Ladd, economists at Duke University in North Carolina, tracked a million disadvantaged middle-school students for five years after they were given networked computers and found “a persistent decline in reading and math scores,” they wrote. The scores of boys and African-Americans dropped drastically because many used their machines to play games, surf social media and download entertainment.
儘管許多人認為電腦可縮短教育差距，蘇珊．平克卻在紐約時報報導，多項研究顯示，提供貧窮家庭學生上網的機會，可能反使教育差距擴大。北卡州杜克大學經濟學家雅各．維多和海倫．拉德做了一項研究，以來自弱勢家庭的100萬名中學生為對象，追蹤給予他們可上網電腦後5年的情形。他們在報告中寫道，他們發現這些學生的「閱讀和數學成績持續下降」。男學生與非洲裔美籍學生成績大降，因為許多學生只拿電腦來玩遊戲，逛社交媒體，下載娛樂內容。

The same thing happened in the One Laptop project, with children spending less time on their homework than before, researchers found. New findings suggest that educators should focus more on low teacher-student ratios, early intervention and character traits.
同樣的事情也發生在「1人1筆電」計畫，研究人員發現，學生花在家庭作業的時間變少。新發現意謂，教育單位應多聚焦於偏低的師生比例、早期干預和性格特質上。

Chicago has introduced an intensive program where black and Latino boys work two on one with a tutor, and participants have ended up as much as two years ahead of students who haven’t gotten help, David Kirp wrote in The Times. This math success also has put them on track to graduate, helped them engage in school and made them less likely to be arrested for a violent crime.
芝加哥市引進了一項密集課程計畫，由1名教師負責教導2名黑人與拉丁語裔男學生，大衛．柯普在「紐約時報」上寫道，參加此一計畫者比未參加者的課業進度超前2年之多。這項數學課程的成功幫助這些學生順順利利一路到畢業，協助他們更加投入學校活動，也讓他們比較不會因暴力犯罪而被捕。

Many programs address the time between birth and age 3, but the teen years may be just as important. Laurence Steinberg, a psychologist at Temple University in Philadelphia, points out in his new book that neuroscientists have realized that adolescence, like early childhood, is a “period of tremendous ‘neuroplasticity,’ ” during which the brain changes through experience.
目前已有許多計畫用於解決出從生至3歲時期的教育問題，但青少年時期可能同樣重要。費城天普大學心理學家勞倫斯．史坦伯格在新書中說，神經學家發現，青春期和幼兒期一樣，也是「一段驚人的『神經可塑』期」，這段時期大腦會隨著經驗而改變。

The Times’s Nicholas Kristof wrote that early help for disadvantaged children not only reduces inequality but also can save public money. He quoted James Heckman, a University of Chicago professor and Nobel Prize-winning economist, who says the cheapest way to reduce crime is to invest in early childhood programs. Mr. Heckman has calculated that to get the same reduction in crime by adding police officers would cost five times as much.
紐約時報的紀思道寫道，提早協助弱勢孩子不僅可以降低不平等，還能節省公帑。他引用芝加哥大學教授、諾貝爾經濟學獎得主詹姆斯．赫克曼的話說，減少犯罪最省錢的方法，就是投資於兒童的早期教育計畫。根據赫克曼的計算，藉由增添警力來減少相同的犯罪率，花費會是5倍之多。

“Early education” includes counseling at-risk pregnant women not to drink, smoke or take drugs, and then after birth, helping them breastfeed and read to the child. These help, Mr. Kristof wrote, “apparently because the first few years are the window when the brain is forming and when basic skills like self-control and grit are developed.”
「早期教育」包括提供諮詢，勸導高危險群的孕婦不要喝酒、抽菸或濫用藥物，生產完後，幫助她們以母乳哺乳以及讀書給孩子聽。這些做法會有幫助，紀思道寫道，「顯然是因為這頭幾年正是一扇機會之窗，也就是大腦形成，以及一些基本技巧如自我控制與毅力的發展期」。

At some schools, grit, self-control and curiosity are now part of the curriculum. Scientists say personality could be more important than intelligence when it comes to success in school.
在一些學校，毅力、自我控制和好奇心現今成為課程的一部分。科學家說，論及在校學業表現的好壞，性格可能扮演著比智力更重要角色。

Arthur E. Poropat, an Australian psychology professor, cites data showing that a tendency to be “diligent, dutiful and hardworking,” and qualities like creativity and curiosity, are more predictive of student performance than intelligence. This is good news, Dr. Poropat wrote in a paper last year, because “personality has been demonstrated to change over time to a far greater extent than intelligence.”
澳洲心理學教授亞瑟．E．波洛帕特引用的資料顯示，學童是否傾向「用功、有責任感、勤勞」，以及是否兼具創造力、好奇心等特質，比起智力，更能預測學生的學業表現。這是個好消息，波洛帕特博士去年在一篇論文中寫道，因為個性已證實比智力更能隨著時間而做更大程度的改變。

“We probably need to start rethinking our emphasis on intelligence,” he told The Times.
他告訴紐約時報：「我們可能必須重新思考我們對智力的重視程度。」

Mandy Benedix, who teaches a class on grit at Rogers Middle School in Pearland, Texas, told The Times: “We know that these noncognitive traits can be taught. We also know that it is necessary for success. You look at anybody who has had long-term sustainable success, and every one of them exhibited at some point this grit, this tenacity to keep going.”
在德州皮爾蘭羅傑斯中學教導毅力課程的曼迪．班尼迪克斯告訴紐約時報：「我們知道，這些非認知的特質是可以教導學習的。我們也知道，它是成功的必要元素。你觀察獲得長期持續性成功的每一個人，他們無一例外，每個人都曾經在某個時間點，展現出這種毅力，這種堅持且不屈不撓的精神。」

原文參照：
http://newtelegraphonline.com/success-is-not-just-about-smarts/

2015-03-03聯合報/G5版/UNITED DAILY NEWS 王麗娟譯 原文參見紐時週報三版右