“Why aren’t you eating your noodles? Are you anorexic? You should see a doctor.
“你为什么不吃面条？ 你有性症吗？ 你应该去看医生。
“Chinese people don’t care about mental health that much like Americans do. But if you’re in my school and you skip lunch, the consultant definitely will suggest therapy…”
“中国人不像美国人那样关心心理健康。 但如果你在我的学校，你不吃午饭，顾问肯定会建议治疗……”
I grimaced and slapped the chopsticks on the table. Shaking my arm fat that hung like a cow’s dewlap, I tilted my head at my twelve-year-old, American-born cousin and asked, “Does it look anorexic to you? Or did you just learn the word anorexia in a health class before school was over and fear that you might forget over the course of summer unless you throw it at someone?”
我龾着脸，把筷子拍在桌子上。 我摇了摇手臂，像牛的乳头一样垂下，把头歪向我十二岁的美国出生的表弟，问道：“你看起来是无症吗？ 还是你刚刚在放学前在健康课上学会了厌食症这个词，并担心在夏天的时候你可能会忘记它，除非你把它扔给别人？”
“You interrupted me!” she said, flaring a sincere rectitude in her eyes as she rolled them.
“你打断了我！” 她说，当她翻着眼睛时，她的眼睛里燃烧着真诚的正直。
I know I’m not supposed to hit a child, but in the moment, all I wanted was to grab her by the neck and smash her head into her bowl of noodles.
我知道我不應該打孩子，但此刻，我只想抓住她的脖子，把她的頭砸在她的一碗麵條上。
At first, I thought that it was just my cousin, and a single case cannot represent a horde; then I moved to Canada and found that a lot of Chinese children brought up in North America are as competitively obnoxious, who demand immediate attention, praise, or even presents whenever it is inappropriate. Where their parents seem proud of their downright rudeness that substantiate a privilege in a linkage to their American or Canadian-ness, parents from a more affluent background in Chinese first-tier cities are beginning to exhort their children to be more like their distant relatives on the other side of the Pacific. Gone are the days when we endorse docility as educational gospel; the receiver-oriented culture is transitioning to be more speaker-oriented.
起初，我以为这只是我的表弟，一个案例不能代表一群人；然后我搬到了加拿大，发现许多在北美长大的中国孩子在竞争上同样令人厌恶，他们要求立即关注、表扬，甚至在不恰当时给予礼物。 他们的父母似乎以他们彻头彻尾的粗鲁为荣，这证实了与他们的美国或加拿大人联系的特权，而来自中国一线城市更富裕的父母则开始劝告他们的孩子更像他们在太平洋另一端的远亲。 我们支持温顺作为教育福音的日子已经一去不复返了；以接受者为导向的文化正在过渡到更以演讲者为导向。
What exactly constitutes or justifies such a revolution? How far along in in this process is China, leastwise for more advanced, major cities?
究竟是什麼構成或證明這種革命是合理的？ 对于更先进的主要城市来说，中国在这个过程中进展到什么程度了？
In his bestselling work, “Outliers: The Story of Success”, Malcom Gladwell refers to studies in sociology and compares the different styles of parenting between the well off and the less privileged. Whereas the latter are more often intimidated by teachers’ authority when their children have low performance at school, the former challenge teachers and petition the school.
在他的畅销书《离群人：成功的故事》中，马尔科姆·格拉德威尔提到了社会学研究，并比较了富裕群体和弱势群体之间的不同育儿风格。 当孩子在学校表现不佳时，后者更经常受到教师权威的恐吓，而前者则挑战教师并向学校请愿。
In a case study, sociologist Annette Lareau recounts the story of a child who was disqualified from a gifted program. The mother challenged the school and intervened on behalf of her child. She arranged for her to be retested and got her admitted. Lareau’s study shows that wealthier and more powerful parents inculcate their children with the impression of an entitlement. They encourage their children to question authority because, as the privileged, silence is never expected of them. By contrast, the less privileged parents are timid; they react passively and “stay in the background”. Where the rich voice demands, the poor listen and comply. Amid the unprecedented expansion of the Chinese middle class, the education of entitlement hence infiltrates Chinese families, at home and abroad.
在一个案例研究中，社会学家Annette Lareau讲述了一个孩子被取消天赋计划资格的故事。 母亲挑战学校，并代表她的孩子进行干预。 她安排她重新测试，并让她入院。 Lareau的研究表明，更富有和更有权力的父母会给他们的孩子灌输权利的印象。 他们鼓励他们的孩子质疑权威，因为作为特权者，他们永远不会被期望保持沉默。 相比之下，特权较低的父母是胆小的；他们反应被动，“保持在幕后”。 富人的声音要求的地方，穷人倾听并服从。 在中国中产阶级空前扩张的情况下，权利教育因此渗透到国内外的中国家庭中。
Social economy aside, entitlement also plays an instrumental role in success. Drawing references from wide-ranging studies, Gladwell opines that intelligence, talent, and hard-work have only a qualified effect on success. The reality is that a man who scores over 170 in the IQ test does not strike a remarkable difference in work performance than does his colleague, whose score ticks around 120. What makes someone more successful is the understanding of the power dynamics and how to turn it in his or her favour. That is to say, other than genetics, the successful succeed because they know how to negotiate with authority and own the negotiation. But to own it, first, they ought to be confident and comfortable in making the demands to which they genuinely believe that they are entitled. That entitlement does not equate hubris but ushers us to success has enlightened many of us to readjust our own values and parenting approach.
撇開社會經濟不談，權利在成功中也起著重要作用。 Gladwell从广泛的研究中汲取了参考资料，认为智力、才能和努力工作对成功只有限定的影响。 现实情况是，一个在智商测试中得分超过170分的人在工作表现上与他的同事相比没有明显的差异，他的同事得分在120分左右。 使某人更成功的是理解权力动态以及如何使其对他或她有利。 也就是说，除了遗传学之外，成功者之所以成功，是因为他们知道如何与权威进行谈判并拥有谈判。 但要拥有它，首先，他们应该有信心和自如地提出他们真正认为自己有权提出的要求。 这种权利并不等同于傲慢，而是引导我们走向成功，这启发了我们中的许多人重新调整自己的价值观和育儿方式。
Meanwhile, the awareness of active learning also constitutes our shift in attention from listening to speaking. Back in the 1960s, American scholar Edger Dale posited that the effectiveness of learning hinges on how active we are involved in the process. Based on theory, Dale created a model known as the Cone of Experience. At the top are passive learning methods, such as reading and listening, whereas at the bottom, learning methods, incorporating role play, debates and simulations, are more active as they require learners’ reactions. According to Dale’s study, active learners are more likely to retain the memory of what they have learned than passive ones. Many conclude, therefore, that we should talk more for the sake of active participation.
與此同時，主動學習的意識也構成了我們的注意力從聽力到口語的轉變。 早在20世纪60年代，美国学者Edger Dale就认为，学习的有效性取决于我们参与这个过程的积极性。 基于理论，戴尔创建了一个被称为经验锥的模型。 顶部是被动学习方法，如阅读和听力，而在底部，结合角色扮演、辩论和模拟的学习方法更活跃，因为它们需要学习者的反应。 根据戴尔的研究，与被动学习者相比，主动学习者更有可能记住他们所学的内容。 因此，许多人得出结论，为了积极参与，我们应该多谈谈。
But does talking necessarily calibrate the active level of our involvement?
但谈话是否必然会校准我们参与的积极程度？
Talking alone does not constitute active learning. Rather, blind encouragement of talking deprives students of their participation as an active listener. Latest research in education evinces that as an important component to speech, silence is prerequisite for meaningful dialogues and learning. Unfortunately, however, it has long been downplayed in the western philosophical canon as a negative response.
单独说话并不构成主动学习。 相反，盲目鼓励说话剥夺了学生作为积极倾听者的参与。 教育方面的最新研究表明，作为言语的重要组成部分，沉默是有意义的对话和学习的先决条件。 然而，不幸的是，长期以来，它在西方哲学大论中被淡化为负面反应。
Where democracy consecrates the belief in authenticity and making our true voices heard, little scholarly attention has been paid to the genesis of self, or authenticity; that is, an ongoing process of learning what we could become, becoming, then recreating. The myth of authenticity that self must be pure skips the initial stage of learning and wreaks havocs on classroom, where children are expected to be self-conscious of their uniqueness while the self is still under construction.
在民主神圣化了对真实性的信念并让我们的真实声音被听到的地方，学术界很少关注自我或真实性的起源；即学习我们可以成为什么，成为，然后重生的持续过程。 自我必须是纯洁的真实性的神话跳过了学习的初始阶段，并对课堂造成了破坏，当自我仍在构建时，孩子们应该意识到自己的独特性。
In addition, that which is unique does not warrant meaning or merit. Even Rousseau, the father of Romanticism who touted authenticity, confessed that being different does not guarantee being better. Granted, the importance of building unique characters is self-evident, but we should not verify the virtue of subjective experience in an overlap with objective learning. Professor at the University of Toronto, Lauren Bialystok, argues, “If truth claims are not verifiable by reference to external standards, then learning process emphasising student experience can risk sliding into a more global form of epidemic anti-foundationalism, according to which there is no truth or falsity beyond subjective interpretation”.
此外，独特的东西并不能保证意义或优点。 即使是吹捧真实性的浪漫主义之父卢梭也承认，与众不同并不能保证更好。 诚然，构建独特角色的重要性是不言而喻的，但我们不应该在与客观学习重叠时验证主观经验的美德。 多伦多大学教授Lauren Bialystok认为：“如果真理主张不能通过参考外部标准来验证，那么强调学生经验的学习过程可能会滑入更全球性的流行病反基础主义，根据这种形式，除了主观解释之外，没有真实或虚假。”
While the west is revising and rebalancing its approach, we probably should not be jettisoning our wisdom and plunge from one side of the extreme to the other too soon. Perhaps then we will not have that many imps, whose more pervasive presence is both galling and alarming.
当西方正在修改和重新平衡其方法时，我们可能不应该过早地抛弃我们的智慧，从极端的一边跳到另一边。 也许这样我们就不会有那么多小英姿了，他们更普遍的存在既令人恼火又令人震惊。
