无人问津

一个澳大利亚的moodler写了一篇博客——《Nobody asks》,讲述他推广cms的感触。他所做的和面对的,与我有太多相似。没想到在发达国家,亦是如此啊。故翻译一下。水平有限,有些翻译很拿不准,所以原文也嵌在里面,供对照、指正(感谢magnolia的指正)。因为原文被墙,所以图片我都放在了本地,希望不会侵权。

无人问津/Nobody asks

——Tomaz Lasic

Last week, I was invited to a high school as an ‘expert’ on using Moodle in the classroom. I had a series of 45-minute sessions to, as my brief read, ‘inspire’ each group of teachers (average size of about 15-20) over two days of PD to use their nice local Moodle & Mahara setup in their teaching.

上星期,我以在课堂使用Moodle的“专家”身份被邀请到一所高中。按我的简单理解,我有两天的时间 ,可以用若干个45分钟的学时,去“鼓舞”每组教师(平均一组15-20人)在教学中使用他们学校已经配置得很好的Moodle和Mahara。

Yeah right.

啊哈,是这样。

I’ve never liked ‘gurus’ showing flashy wares and ideas, especially right at the start of school year with so many things to get ready before the kids arrive. I’ve never liked being considered one either.

我一点儿也不喜欢像一些“教主”那样展示华而不实的工具和理念,尤其此时,学年刚刚开始,在孩子们到来之前还有太多事情要做。我甚至想都没这么想过。

So, I thought we’d use the 45 minutes for a guided chat about things we are kinda all good at – talking about our needs. Needs of teachers I spoke to and, importantly, the kids they teach. In the context, shoot a few Moodle ideas past them and see how use-full or use-less they may be. But it was about the hole, less about the drill.

因此,我想我们最好用45分钟一起聊聊我们都擅长的事情——我们需要什么。我正面对的这些教师的需要,和更重要的,他们所教的孩子们的需要。在这样的氛围下,向他们介绍一点儿Moodle的理念,看看是很有用还是没啥用。但这一定是关于“洞”的,与“电钻”的关系不多。

(“所有买电钻的人都不是想要个电钻。他们是想要个洞——Perry Marshall”。这才是首要任务。)

I even flashed these sort of things as a visual reminder:

我甚至把这些做成了闪亮的视觉提醒:

伟大的教师可能并不总是了解或善于描述利用科技的解决方案……但是,他们伟大,因为他们善于理解和描述他们的需要,以及同他们在一起的人的需要!)

And…

和……

(您需要什么?您所教的孩子需要什么?)

EVERY group sat a little stunned at first. Believe it or not, the ideas did not flow very freely. The replies ranged from encouraging (‘enthusiasm’, ‘motivation’, ‘meaning’ …) to downright pathetic (‘textbook’, ‘ways to easily memorise a range of acronyms we use’). We’d eventually get about 5 – 10 needs on the board to work with.

组在刚开始时都有点儿沉闷。不管你信还是不信,交流得并不顺畅。回应中,有令人鼓舞的(热情、主动、意义……),也有完全令人泄气的(教科书、怎样快速记忆我们使用的那些缩写)。最后,我们在黑白上总结了5-10个需要面对的需求。

And behold the question “Why DO you teach?” asked as the conversations began to flow. Many felt a little threatened even!

令人意外的是,“您为什么做教师?”做为对话的开场提问,居然让很多人感到这个问题有点儿威胁!

Or as one teacher put it: “Nobody really gets asked these questions.” Rarely, if ever, do teachers ask these themselves. It’s all assumed, we all know what happens at school and what the school and teachers are there for, we all ‘innovate’ but it basically changes bugger all while giving the impression of progress and change.

就像一名教师所说:“没人真的被问过这样的问题。”甚至几乎没有教师自己问过自己这样的问题。我们都假定,我们知道学校是怎么回事,知道学校和教师都是干啥的。我们都“创新”,尽管它使人看到进步和改变,但实质上它让一切更糟糕。

I am NOT  bashing teachers here. Quite contrary, I understand so many of them, barraged by things to, often mindlessly, tick and do while lacking time, space, even increasingly a reason for these questions (other than stuff like ‘raise scores’ etc.).

我不是来猛批这些教师的。恰恰相反,我理解他们中的大多数。他们被各种事情困扰,经常在缺少时间、空间,甚至行事意义的情况下,不动脑地去打分、做事(除了像“提分”这样的事)。

A friend noted in reply to my email containing a few gems collected over two days: “I often reflect that all of these controlling, narrow and limiting views of education are expressed by people who once showed wonder, imagination, a sense of fun, and often got into teaching because they wanted to have a positive influence on the lives of young people. How is it that they are who they are today? Not easy to answer, but important to try nonetheless.”

一个朋友在回我总结了两天来的几条亮点的email时说:“我经常思考,表达出这些霸道、狭隘和目光短浅的教育观点的人,他们也曾经表现出好奇心、想象力和幽默感,并经常沉浸于教学中,想要对年轻人的生活产生正面影响。他们是怎么变成今天这个样子的?不好回答啊,但仍应该尝试去解答。”

While I did cover my brief and talked about Moodle and ‘technology’ over the two days, I was glad, while sad and often a little horrified, to talk about the ultimate technology and weapon for change – asking good questions and wrestling with them.

还好,在这两天里,我确实表达了我的基本想法,介绍了Moodle和“技术”。在谈论为变革而生的终极技术和武器——提出好的问题并为之绞尽脑汁时,我开心,同时也伤心,并经常感到些许的恐怖。

I wish all my Australian & New Zealand teaching colleagues and their students a great school year 2011 (first day today for most). Turn the crap detectors on and use them! Make it matter.

我希望所有我的澳大利亚和新西兰的教师同行和他们的学生们都会有一个完美的2011学年(今天大多数人都是开学第一天)。打开并使用那些屁话检测器!让它发挥作用。

And if you think I can help you in some way in doing that, you know where to find me.

如果你觉得我在这方面能提供什么帮助的话,你知道该到哪找我。

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