實驗室

圖：老師眼中的討厭鬼 ─ 總是對老師學校要求太多，或對自己的孩子要求太少。
("Teacher’s Pest" 相對於 "Teacher’s Pet")

The Aggressive Advocate – 強烈的維護者

Marguerite Damato, a mother of two in Silver Spring, Md., wonders whether she is too involved in her 10-year-old sons school life.
一位馬里蘭州的兩個孩子的母親質疑自己，是不是在她十歲大兒子有關學校活動上花了太多時間。

"Because hes not in the gifted and talented group, hes almost nowhere," she says. "If I stopped paying attention, where would he be?" Every week she spends two hours sitting in his math class, making sure she knows the assignments and the right vocabulary so that she can help him at home. And despite all she sees and all she does, she says, "I feel powerless there."
「可是，因為他並不是天資很好的孩子，他現在的成績已經可以說是一無是處」這個媽媽說，「如果我停止關注他學校的事的話，你想他的成績會變成怎樣？」每個禮拜，這個媽媽都會花兩小時呆在兒子的數學課教室裡，確定她自己了解老師指定的每一樣作業、以及有關這個科目的專門字彙，如此她在家裡才有辦法協助她兒子這門課。但即使她已經花了這麼多精力與心血，她說，「我仍是覺得很無力」。

Parents understandably argue that there is a good reason to keep a close watch if their child is one of 500 kids in a grade level.
可以理解的，家長們會爭辯說，他們一定得要密切地注意孩子學校的課程，因為一個年級裡總共有五百個學生。

Teachers freely admit its impossible to create individual teaching programs for 30 children in a class. "There aren enough minutes in the day," says Tom Loveless, who taught in California for nine years and is now director of the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution. "You have to have kids tackling subject matter together as a group. Thats a shoe that will pinch for someone."
老師們也不諱承認，在一個三十個學生的班上，一對一的教學是不可能的。「我們每天的時間總是會不夠用」一位曾在加州執教九年的老師說，「我們必須讓學生們以小組的方式學習各個主題；而小組學習這樣的方法，一定會讓某些家長不滿意。」

Since the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act, which requires schools to show progress in reading and math test scores in Grades 3 through 8 across all racial and demographic groups, parents are worried that teachers will naturally focus on getting as many students as possible over the base line and not have as much time to spur the strongest kids or save the weakest. Some educators argue that you can agree on the goals of accountability and achievement, but given the inequalities in the system, not all schools have the means to achieve them. "A really cynical person who didn want to spend any more money on an educational system might get parents and teachers to blame each other and deflect attention away from other imperfect parts of the system," observes Jeannie Oakes, director of the Institute for Democracy, Education and Access at UCLA.
自從法案“No Child Left Behind”(“不放棄任何一個孩子”) 通過之後，因為這個法案要求的是，學校裡三年級到八年級、不分人種不分人口族群的學生，在閱讀及數學兩個科目的測驗成績上，都必須要有進步，家長們開始擔心起來，因為這個原因，老師很自然的會把教學重心放在怎樣讓最多的學生的成績可以過關，於是就沒有太多剩餘的時間可以加強那些成績本來就較好的學生、或是挽救成績很差的學生。一些教育家爭論說，他們可以同意該法案針對於學校責任及學生成就的這個目標，但是現在教育系統中，存在了許多的不均等因素，這個事實讓許多學校沒有辦法達到這個法案所要求的成果。「系統中很可能會有這種犬儒學派的奉行者 ─ 他不願意在教育系統上花多一分的錢，但同時他卻讓家長和老師之間互相責難，於是大家的注意力就不會集中在教育系統中真正需要改善的部分。」一位 UCLA 教育機構的總監這麼說。

(註：No Child Left Behind 法案網址 - http://www.ed.gov/nclb/landing.jhtml)

Families feel they have to work the system. Attentive parents study the faculty like stock tables, looking for the best performer and then lobbying to get their kids into that teachers class. "You have a lot of mothers who have been in the work force, supervising other people, who have a different sense of empowerment and professionalism about them," notes Amy Stuart Wells, professor of sociology and education at Columbia Universitys Teachers College. "When they drop out of the work force to raise their kids, they see being part of the school as part of their job." Monica Stutzman, a mother of two in Johnston, Iowa, believes her efforts helped ensure that her daughter wound up with the best teacher in each grade. "We know whats going on. We e-mail, volunteer on a weekly basis. I ask a lot of questions," she says. "Im not there to push my children into things they
e not ready for. The teachers are the experts. Weve had such great experiences with the teacher because we create that experience, because we
e involved. We don just get something home and say, Whats this?\"
有些家庭的想法是，他們必須得“操作”教育系統。有些很專注的家長們，研究學校的師資就像是在研究股票似的，他們努力尋找表現最好的老師，然後用盡各種方法把孩子送到他/她班上。「有很多學生的母親們，她們曾經都是職場上的成員，並且是管理階級的一員；這些母親對於自己的專業與權力的看法頗為不同。」一為哥倫比亞大學的社會教育學系的教授注意到，「當她們離開職場成為全職媽媽，她們認為對於孩子學業的參與，便是她們現在的工作。」愛荷華州一位兩個孩子的媽媽 Monica，相信她的努力讓她女兒得以在每個年級都進入那個最好的老師的班上。「我們很清楚每件發生的事 ─ 我們寫電子郵件、每週都作義工、我也經常問問題。我的參與並不是要逼孩子去作她們還沒準備好的事，老師才是要求孩子面對這類挑戰的專家。我們和老師之間的互動是如此的良好，是因為我們積極的參與“創造”出了這些互動。我們不會在家裡看到孩子的指定功課時才問：『這是什麼東西？』」

Parents seeking to stay on top of whats happening in class don have to wait for the report card to arrive. "Now its so easy for the parents through the Internet to get a hold of us, and they expect an immediate response," notes Michael Schaffer, a classroom veteran who teaches AP courses at Central Academy in Des Moines, Iowa. "This e-mail—Hows my kid doing?—could fill my day. Thats hyperbole. But its a two-edged sword here, and unfortunately its cutting to the other side, and parents are making demands on us that are unreasonable. Yeah, they
e concerned about their kids. But Im concerned about 150 kids. I don have time during the day to let the parent know when the kid got the first B." As more districts make assignments and test scores available online, it may cut down on the "Hows he doing" e-mails but increase the "Why did she get a B?" queries.
那些總是很清楚課堂上發生了什麼事的家長，才不會坐著等成績單的到來。「這年頭家長們很輕易的就可以透過網路連絡到我們，而且他們總是期待我們要即時回應。」一位愛荷華州進階教育的資深老師說，「像『我的孩子表現如何？』這樣的電子郵件，很容易就把我一天都佔去了。也許這麼說有些誇張，可是說真的，這個現象就像是一把兩面刀，而很不幸的，它已經開始切割到另外一面；家長們對我們的要求實在是不合理。是的，他們很關心他們的孩子，但我需要關心的是我教的那一百五十個學生。我沒有辦法總是在每個孩子拿到他的第一個“B”時，就馬上通知家長。」今天大部分學區都已經在線上公佈作業與成績，這也許會減少「我的孩子表現如何？」的電子郵件，但是隨之而來的是「她為什麼拿“B”？」這樣的問題。

Beneath the ferocious jostling there is the brutal fact that outside of Lake Wobegon, not all children are above average. Teachers must choose their words carefully. They can just say, "Im sorry your childs not as smart as X," and no parent wants to hear that there are five other kids in the class who are a lot smarter than his or hers. Younger teachers especially can be overwhelmed by parents who announce on the first day of school that their child is going to be the smartest in the class and on the second day that he is already bored. Veteran teachers have learned to come back with data in hand to show parents who boast that their child scored in the 99th percentile on some aptitude test that 40 other students in the class did just as well.
在學生無情的學業競爭下，還有另外一個更殘忍的事實 ─ 在 Lake Wobegon 以外的地方 (註*)，不是所有的孩子都有平均以上的成績。老師們必須要非常謹慎的措辭，他們不能明說，「很抱歉你的孩子沒有某某某優秀」，沒有一個家長願意聽到老師說，在班上有其他五個孩子比他們的孩子更聰明。年輕一點的老師特別容易被嚇到：有的家長在開學第一天就先公告，他的孩子將是班上最聰明的學生，然後第二天又說，我的孩子在學校已經開始無聊了。資深的老師則學會把數據握在手上，好拿給那些自誇孩子在天資測驗中達到前百分之九十九的家長看，因為，其實有另外四十個同班同學的成績，和他孩子一樣好。

(Lake Wobegon effect：這是一個根據一本1985年小說“Lake Wobegon Days”所衍生出來的說法。小說裡，住在這個地方的每一個孩子，都有優於平均的表現。)

It would be nice if parents and teachers could work together to improve the system for everyone, but human nature can get in the way.
如果家長和老師之間能朝「改善公眾教育系統」這個目標一起合作，那當然是再好不過，可是，「人性」是很容易成為障礙的。

Both sides know that resources are limited, and all kinds of factors play into how they are allocated—including whose elbows are sharpest. Many schools, fearful of "bright flight," the mass departure of high-achieving kids, feel they have no choice but to appease the most outspoken parents. "I understand, having been a parent, the attitude that I don’t have time to fix the whole system; I don’t have time and energy to get rid of systemic injustice, racism, poverty and violence; I have to get whats right for my kid,\" says Syracuses Sapon-Shevin. "But then the schools do educational triage. They basically attend to the most vocal, powerful people with more resources. They say, Don’t get angry. Well take care of this issue. And they mean, Well take care of it for your child. Well get your kid out of the class with the bad teacher and leave the other kids in there."
家長老師兩方都很清楚，教育資源是有限的，於是各種因素開始左右起資源的分配 ─ 包括誰的拐子最大力……. 很多學校，因為擔心“bright flight”，也就是大群成績優秀學生的轉校出走，他們覺得去討好安撫那些大聲講話的家長，變成學校唯一的選擇。「身為家長，我很了解那種“我沒時間改善這個系統、我沒時間精力來排除體系的不公正、種族歧視、貧窮與暴力，我唯一會去作的就是對我孩子有幫助的事”的態度。」雪城大學教授 Sapon-Shevin 說，「可是同時學校就被迫開始做起教育上的優先分配 ─ 基本上學校會特別照顧那些說話大聲、有權力有資源的家長，會對他們說『別生氣別生氣，我們會處理這件事』這句話的意思就是，『我們會特別照顧您的孩子，我們會把他從這個比較不優秀的老師的班上調走，至於別人的孩子就不管了。』」

At the deepest level, teachers fear that all this parental anxiety is not always aimed at the stuff that matters. Parents who instantly call about a grade or score seldom ask about what is being taught or how. When a teacher has spent the whole summer brightening and deepening the history curriculum for her ninth-graders, finding new ways to surprise and engage them, it is frustrating to encounter parents whose only focus is on test scores. "If these parents were pushing for richer, more meaningful instruction, you could almost forgive them their obnoxiousness and inattention to the interests of all the other children," says Alfie Kohn, a Boston-based education commentator and author of Unconditional Parenting. But "we have pushy parents pushing for the wrong thing." He argues that test scores often measure what matters least—and that even high test scores should invite parents to wonder what was cut from the curriculum to make room for more test prep.
從最深層的角度來看，老師們的恐懼來自於，家長們種種的急切與不安，並沒有針對真正重要的問題。那些一收到成績就打電話給老師的家長，幾乎都不會問老師有關這個科目的內容與教學方法。當一個老師花了整個夏天的時間，加強加深給她九年級學生的歷史教材、並找尋各種可以帶給學生驚喜感與參與感的教學方法，結果卻是碰到一些只關心考試成績的家長，這真的很令人挫折。「如果家長們要求的是更豐富更有意義的教學，我們幾乎可以原諒他們那種完全忽略他人利益的討人厭的態度，」一位在波士頓的教育學者說，可是「今天這些咄咄逼人的家長，他們盯錯了重點」他進一步爭論說，考試成績所直接呈現的通常是最不重要的問題 ─ 而就算是看到了高分的成績，家長也應該去思考，會不會真正教學的空間都被縮減了，學生只是在準備考試而已。

Kohn knows a college counselor hired by parents to help "package" their child, who had perfect board scores and a wonderful grade-point average. When it was time to work on the college essay, the counselor said, "Lets start with a book you read outside of school that really made a difference in your life." There was a moment of silence. Then the child responded, "Why would I read a book if I didn have to?"
這位波士頓的學者，認識一位大學的指導員，他曾被某家家長請去“包裝”他們孩子申請大學的資料，而這個孩子的成績非常非常的優異。當他們準備到大學申請論文這一部分時，他對孩子說，「我們就從一本在你生命裡有很大影響的課外書開始好了。」在片刻的沉默之後，這個孩子說，「既然叫『課外』書，我為什麼要看呢？」

If parents focus only on the transcript—drive out of children their natural curiosity, discourage their trying anything at which they might fail—their definition of success will get a failing grade from any teacher watching.
如果家長僅僅重視一份成績單 ─ 壓抑孩子們天生的好奇心、阻止他們去嘗試可能會失敗的事情 ─ 他們對於成功這兩個字的定義，將不會通過任何一個老師的評鑑。