美国国家公共电台 NPR Liz Coleman: How Do We Teach College Students To Ask Big Questions?

 

GUY RAZ, HOST:

It's the TED¹ Radio Hour from NPR. I'm Guy Raz, and on the show today, ideas about the Spirit Of Inquiry².

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RAZ: And when it comes to the unknown on any subject, we're all kind of trained to seek out experts.

LIZ COLEMAN: The model of the expert, which has dominated our intellectual life for a century now, is not a model of inquiry at all.

RAZ: This is Liz Coleman.

COLEMAN: It's a model of command. It's a model of knowing more than the other person. It's a model in which what the expert does is what matters. And the job of the, quote, "student" is to absorb.

RAZ: Liz was president of Bennington College in Vermont for more than 25 years. And she argues that we've lost this desire to be interested in many different things because we live in an age where the expert is king.

COLEMAN: It's not easy when a system is built on that version of accomplishment³, when narrowing your sights is treated as a virtue⁴. We all use the language of experts and of separating things.

RAZ: Here's how Liz Coleman put it on the TED stage.

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COLEMAN: The progression of today's college student is to jettison⁵ every interest except one and within that one, to continually narrow the focus, learning more and more about less and less. This, despite the evidence all around us of the interconnectedness of things. As one moves up the ladder, values other than technical competence⁶ are viewed with increasing suspicion. Questions such as, what kind of a world are we making, what kind of a world should we be making, what kind of a world can we be making, are treated with more and more skepticism and move off the table.

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RAZ: Liz Coleman says that by narrowing the focus of our questions, we lose out on how they connect to the big ones. And without people thinking about the big questions, there will be consequences. Take, for example, climate change.

COLEMAN: So we have this absurd idea that the scientists should figure out what's wrong with the situation vis-a-vis the environment. And then they hand it over to the politicians that are supposed to figure out what to do. Until the thinking and the action become inseparable, we're not going to get where we need to get.

RAZ: When you think about the people who discover things - right? - the people who we depend on for information, and most of those people are academics or researchers, but then you think about the people who - I'm trying to think of the best way to put it - like 360-degree people who could really communicate a variety of ideas, Renaissance⁷ people, in sort of the modern age. I can think of, like, Richard Feynman or Stephen Jay Gould or Neil deGrasse Tyson or Vera Rubin.

COLEMAN: Right

RAZ: Like, they stand out because they felt like they could talk about literature and science and the cosmos⁸ and philosophy all at the same time.

COLEMAN: Yeah, it's very interesting, and one of the most intriguing⁹ things about that - almost all of them are scientists. And it's fascinating that we think of the sciences as the most highly technical of any of the disciplines. So, for example, we think about literature, history, psychology¹⁰ as more available, but in fact, the great leaders who have really made some of their wisdom and their insight available to the largest number of people are almost all scientists.

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COLEMAN: Einstein spent a lot of time talking about his ideas and indeed other ideas. That's itself very interesting. What's even more interesting and disconcerting is - what's happened in literature is the opposite so that in literature the criticism has become less and less something that has possible resonance¹¹ for people across the divides.

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COLEMAN: The importance of coming to grips with values like justice, equity¹², truth, becomes increasingly evident as students discover that interest alone cannot tell them what they need to know when the issue is rethinking education, our approach to health or strategies for achieving an economics of equity. The value of the past also comes alive.

You are not the first to try to figure this out, just as you are unlikely to be the last. Even more valuable, history provides a laboratory in which we see played out the actual as well as the intended consequences of ideas. In the language of my students, deep thought matters when you are contemplating¹³ what to do about things that matter.

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RAZ: Liz, when you gave this talk eight years ago, it was cautionary. I mean, you were warning. It was a warning. And it was...

COLEMAN: Yeah.

RAZ: And some people in the audience might've thought you were being alarmist. And I wonder now, you know, eight years on, when you look at sort of the future and where we're headed as a country, as a culture, are you worried?

COLEMAN: Of course because the risks are huge. And when the risks are huge, you worry. At the same time, I do think that there is a different sense of urgency. What is important is that there is an awakening¹⁴ in this country to the dimensions both of what's at stake and how much it is in danger.

One of the most powerful things to me about the act of thinking and about democracy, actually, is the extent to which being able to engage the challenge of that with other people is an extraordinary experience. It's what's called deliberation. It began the United States. It's a very powerful part of our history and very relevant today because of its absence. And hopefully one of the things that the evident urgencies of our time may generate is a return to that art of people collecting and thinking out loud together.

RAZ: Liz Coleman, former president of Bennington College in Vermont. You can hear her full talk at ted.com.

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1 ted   

vt.翻晒，撒，撒开

参考例句：

• The invaders gut ted the village.侵略者把村中财物洗劫一空。
• She often teds the corn when it's sunny.天好的时候她就翻晒玉米。

2 inquiry   

n.打听，询问，调查，查问

参考例句：

• Many parents have been pressing for an inquiry into the problem.许多家长迫切要求调查这个问题。
• The field of inquiry has narrowed down to five persons.调查的范围已经缩小到只剩5个人了。

3 accomplishment   

n.完成，成就，（pl.）造诣，技能

参考例句：

• The series of paintings is quite an accomplishment.这一系列的绘画真是了不起的成就。
• Money will be crucial to the accomplishment of our objectives.要实现我们的目标，钱是至关重要的。

4 virtue   

n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力

参考例句：

• He was considered to be a paragon of virtue.他被认为是品德尽善尽美的典范。
• You need to decorate your mind with virtue.你应该用德行美化心灵。

5 jettison   

n.投弃，投弃货物

参考例句：

• Sometimes you need to jettison unhealthy cargo.有时你必须抛弃不好的货物。
• We jettison an unworkable plan.我们放弃难实行的计划。

6 competence   

n.能力，胜任，称职

参考例句：

• This mess is a poor reflection on his competence.这种混乱情况说明他难当此任。
• These are matters within the competence of the court.这些是法院权限以内的事。

7 renaissance   

n.复活，复兴，文艺复兴

参考例句：

• The Renaissance was an epoch of unparalleled cultural achievement.文艺复兴是一个文化上取得空前成就的时代。
• The theme of the conference is renaissance Europe.大会的主题是文艺复兴时期的欧洲。

8 cosmos   

n.宇宙；秩序，和谐

参考例句：

• Our world is but a small part of the cosmos.我们的世界仅仅是宇宙的一小部分而已。
• Is there any other intelligent life elsewhere in the cosmos?在宇宙的其他星球上还存在别的有智慧的生物吗？

9 intriguing   

adj.有趣的；迷人的v.搞阴谋诡计(intrigue的现在分词)；激起…的好奇心

参考例句：

• These discoveries raise intriguing questions. 这些发现带来了非常有趣的问题。
• It all sounds very intriguing. 这些听起来都很有趣。 来自《简明英汉词典》

10 psychology   

n.心理，心理学，心理状态

参考例句：

• She has a background in child psychology.她受过儿童心理学的教育。
• He studied philosophy and psychology at Cambridge.他在剑桥大学学习哲学和心理学。

11 resonance   

n.洪亮；共鸣；共振

参考例句：

• Playing the piano sets up resonance in those glass ornaments.一弹钢琴那些玻璃饰物就会产生共振。
• The areas under the two resonance envelopes are unequal.两个共振峰下面的面积是不相等的。

12 equity   

n.公正，公平，（无固定利息的）股票

参考例句：

• They shared the work of the house with equity.他们公平地分担家务。
• To capture his equity,Murphy must either sell or refinance.要获得资产净值，墨菲必须出售或者重新融资。

13 contemplating   

深思，细想，仔细考虑( contemplate的现在分词 )； 注视，凝视； 考虑接受（发生某事的可能性）； 深思熟虑，沉思，苦思冥想

参考例句：

• You're too young to be contemplating retirement. 你考虑退休还太年轻。
• She stood contemplating the painting. 她站在那儿凝视那幅图画。

14 awakening   

n.觉醒，醒悟 adj.觉醒中的；唤醒的

参考例句：

• the awakening of interest in the environment 对环境产生的兴趣
• People are gradually awakening to their rights. 人们正逐渐意识到自己的权利。