TED演讲：用"云"建立一所学校(1)

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　　I do have a plan, but in order for me to tell you what that plan is, I need to tell you a little story, which kind of sets the stage. 我有个计划，但是为了向你们介绍我的计划，我需要先给你们讲一个小故事，作为铺垫。

　　I tried to look at where did the kind of learning we do in schools, where did it come from?  我试着思考我们在学校里学习的方式源自于哪里？

　　And you know you can look far back into the past, but if you look at present-day schooling¹ the way it is,  这可以追溯到很久之前，但如果你问的是如今的学校教育形式，

　　it's quite easy to figure out where it came from.  很容易就能找到源头。

　　It came from about 300 years ago, and it came from the last and the biggest of the empires on this planet. 它起源于大约300年前，起源于这个星球上最大的也是最后一个帝国。

　　Imagine trying to run the show, trying to run the entire planet, without computers, without telephones, with data handwritten on pieces of paper, and traveling by ships.  想想一下在没有电脑、也没有电话的情况下，管理整个帝国，文件资料需要靠手抄，出差需要靠轮船。

　　But the Victorians actually did it.  但维多利亚时代的人们确实做到了。

　　What they did was amazing. They created a global computer made up of people.  他们所做的事令人惊奇。他们创造了一台由人组成的覆盖全球的计算机。

　　It's still with us today. It's called the bureaucratic² administrative³ machine.  这台计算机如今仍在运行着。它被称为公务员行政体系。

　　In order to have that machine running, you need lots and lots of people.  为了让这个系统运作，需要许许多多人。

　　They made another machine to produce those people: the school.  这就催生了另一个体系去培养这些人：学校。

　　The schools would produce the people who would then become parts of the bureaucratic administrative machine.  学校会培养这些人，他们会在将来成为公务员体系一分子。

　　They must be identical to each other. They must know three things: They must have good handwriting, because the data is handwritten;  他们必须是协调一致的。他们必须了解三件事：书写要规范，因为资料都是手写的；

　　they must be able to read; and they must be able to do multiplication⁴, division, addition and subtraction⁵ in their head.  有阅读能力； 会在脑子里作加减乘除。

　　They must be so identical that you could pick one up from New Zealand and ship them to Canada and he would be instantly functional⁶.  他们必须是一模一样的，这样才可以从新西兰随便的挑一个人送去加拿大，并能立刻派上用场。

　　The Victorians were great engineers.  维多利亚时代的人们是些伟大的工程师。

　　They engineered a system that was so robust⁷ that it's still with us today, continuously producing identical people for a machine that no longer exists.  他们设计了这样一个有蓬勃生命力的系统，至今，仍在为那个已不复存在的帝国源源不断地输送着同质的人才。

　　The empire is gone, so what are we doing with that design that produces these identical people,  帝国已逝，这个产生了那些同质人才的设计，我们能用它来做什么？

　　and what are we going to do next if we ever are going to do anything else with it? 如果我们想用它做点别的事情，下一步要做些什么？

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