Every time something didn't work, we just threw in the towel and said, "Let's forget it." Right? 每次如果有什么东西没有用，我们就放弃，就说：“算了，没用的。”这样行吗？

　　You know, they convinced me. I'm sure some of you were like me -- the latest and greatest thing, the PalmPilot. 他们想说服我。我想你们当中有些人也曾和我一样--当时有一台最新款的、最好的东西--掌上电脑。

　　They told me, "Geoff, if you get this PalmPilot you'll never need another thing." 他们告诉我：“Geoff，如果你有了这台掌上电脑，你就什么别的东西都不想要了。”

　　That thing lasted all of three weeks. It was over. I was so disgusted I spent my money on this thing. 但是，那东西我只用了三个星期就坏了。我为我把钱花在这种玩意身上而懊恼不已。

　　Did anybody stop inventing? Not a person. Not a soul. The folks went out there. They kept inventing. 可有任何人因为这样就不去发明了吗？不会，绝对不会的。人们会不断地去发明。

　　The fact that you have failure, that shouldn't stop you from pushing the science forward. 失败不能阻止你将科学推向进步。

　　Our job as educators, there's some stuff we know that we can do. 作为教育工作者，我们知道我们可以做些事情。

　　And we've got to do better. The evaluation, we have to start with kids earlier, 我们要做得更好。我们要在低年级的孩子中做教育评估，

　　we have to make sure that we provide the support to young people. 我们得确保我们对年轻人提供了足够的支持。

　　We've got to give them all of these opportunities. So that we have to do. But this innovation issue, 我们要给他们足够的机会。这是我们应该做的。但是创新呢？

　　this idea that we've got to keep innovating until we really nail this science down is something that is absolutely critical. 我们还是要继续创新的，直到我们打下坚实的科学基础。这是重中之重的事。

　　And this is something, by the way, that I think is going to be a challenge for our entire field. 顺便说一句，我认为这对我们所有的教育工作者来说都是一种巨大的挑战。

　　America cannot wait another 50 years to get this right. We have run out of time. 美国不能再等50年再来将这些我们做错的事情改过来，我们耗不起这个时间。

　　I don't know about a fiscal cliff, but I know there's an educational cliff that we are walking over right this very second, 我不懂财政危机什么的，但我知道我们当下正面临着严峻的教育危机。

　　and if we allow folks to continue this foolishness about saying we can't afford this 如果我们继续容忍这些人做蠢事，然后说我们没法做这些事，

　　So Bill Gates says it's going to cost five billion dollars. 因为，比尔·盖茨说，这要耗掉美国50亿美元。

　　What is five billion dollars to the United States? What did we spend in Afghanistan this year? How many trillions? 50亿美元对美国来说是什么概念呢？知道我们今年在阿富汗花了多少钱吗？到底我们花了多少万亿美元呢？