還能進步：一個數(shù)學老師的前半學期總結

Seven weeks ago, on my first day as a trainee maths teacher, a lost 11-year-old in a brand new, oversized blazer approached me. “Miss,” he said, “where’s room 211?”

本學期剛開學時，在我開始當實習數(shù)學老師的第一天，一個迷路的11歲娃，穿著件超大的夾克衫走近我。“，”他問，“女士(注：英文為Miss, 這是英國中小學對女教師的叫法)，請問211室在哪?”

I had no idea where the room was — or what I was doing standing in a school corridor. I felt as if I had been snatched from my comfortable life as an FT columnist and dropped into the alien territory of Mossbourne Community Academy in Hackney, east London. I shook my head helplessly and he looked as if he might cry. I felt inclined to join him.

我不曉得哪是211——也搞不清自己干嘛站在一個學校的走廊里。我原來舒舒服服地當著英國《金融時報》的專欄作家，現(xiàn)在我感覺好像誰把我從那種安逸日子中揪了出來，然后拋在了倫敦東部哈克尼區(qū)(Hackney)莫斯布恩社區(qū)學校(Mossbourne Community Academy)的陌生地盤。我無助地搖了搖頭，這個娃看起來要哭了。我也想跟他一起哭。

Half a term later I know the answer to his question. I strut around the school wearing my red lanyard that says “staff” on it, and the word no longer feels like a lie. On an open evening in my third week, prospective parents took one look at my grey hair and assumed I had been teaching for decades rather than days. I saw no reason to disabuse them.

半學期過后，我知道該怎么回答那個孩子了。我昂首闊步地走在校園里，戴著自己寫著“教員”字樣的紅色掛繩，不再自覺心虛。在我任教第三周的開放參觀夜，準家長們一看到我花白的頭發(fā)，都以為我教了大半輩子書，而不是短短幾天。我也找不到糾正人家的理由。

Yet there is another question that still floors me. It is one I get asked by almost everyone I meet: “How’s teaching? Are you enjoying it?”

然而擊敗我的還有另一個問題。這個問題幾乎每個我遇到的人都會問我：“教書怎么樣?挺享受不?”

A lot seems to hang on my answer. Nearly a year ago I co-founded Now Teach to convince other middle-aged professionals to ditch their cushy jobs and retrain as teachers. Nearly four dozen are training alongside me in assorted London secondary schools, teaching mainly maths and science. Now we have started recruiting again, aiming to persuade an even larger group to join this noble profession next year.

我的答案似乎關系重大。大約一年前，我和別人聯(lián)合創(chuàng)辦了Now Teach，去說服其他中年專業(yè)人士放棄他們舒適的工作，重新受訓當教師。大約有40人和我一起在倫敦各式各樣的中學培訓，主要教數(shù)學與科學。現(xiàn)在我們又開始招人了，想勸說更多的人在明年加入這一崇高的職業(yè)。

Unfortunately, the word “enjoy” fails to describe how I feel about my new job. Since September I have lost half a stone and live in constant fear of making an idiot of myself. It is not enjoyable to get in such a muddle that you write on the electronic white board with a felt pen — as I have done. Neither is it enjoyable when you are trying so hard to remember names and be vigilant for any sign of inattention that you get your own sums wrong and a student points it out.

不好意思，“享受”這個詞無法表達我對自己這份新工作的感受。九月以來我體重下降了7磅，總怕自己出洋相。像我這樣，卷入要拿著白板筆在電子白板上寫字的麻煩事可沒啥享受的。還有，費勁吧啦地去記一大堆名字，還得時刻警惕學生是不是開小差了，結果不留神自己算錯數(shù)，被一個學生給指出來了，這也不是什么享受的事。

A word that better describes my early classroom experience is obsession. It is a bit like being at the beginning of a tumultuous love affair. I feel euphoria one moment — when I have successfully explained how to turn a recurring decimal into a fraction — and despair the next. Even at the weekend, when I do not have to stumble out of bed for pre-school meetings, I wake before dawn with my head full of snatches of lesson plans and the faces of my new charges.

有個詞能更貼切地描述出我的教學“初體驗”，那就是癡迷。這有點像剛開始一段充滿激情的戀愛關系。我時而感到開心——當我成功地解釋出怎么將循環(huán)小數(shù)轉換成分數(shù)時——緊接著又陷入絕望。即使周末不用為課前會議掙扎著爬起床，我也會在天亮前醒來，滿腦子都是零碎的教案和我那些學生的臉。

One of my fellow Now Teach trainees, who in a previous life was a top civil servant, says teaching is a bit like having a baby. It is more shattering, more difficult — but also more rewarding — than anyone can prepare you for.

一位和我一起在Now Teach參加培訓的朋友，原先是一名高級公務員，她說教書有點像養(yǎng)娃。無論事前別人向你傳授了多少經(jīng)驗，真的做這件事時，你都會猝不及防地發(fā)現(xiàn)這件事有多么可怕、多么困難，但又多么令人滿足。

For me, it is like having a baby in a different way. When my eldest child was born 26 years ago, for the first time in my life I had something more pressing to think about than myself. Becoming a teacher has performed the same miracle professionally — teaching is no longer about me. It is about the students, and more precisely about getting them to learn some maths.

對我來說，教書像是另一種意義上的養(yǎng)娃。26年前我家老大出生了，那是我這輩子頭一回有比自己更迫切需要我去關心的東西。成為一個老師就已經(jīng)在職業(yè)上實現(xiàn)了同樣的奇跡——教書不是為了我自己，而是為了學生，更具體地說就是為了讓他們學一些數(shù)學知識。

The second unexpected pleasure comes from being the most inept novice in the school. I had expected to find this humbling, but instead feel weirdly liberated by it. No one expects me to be good straight away — I am a trainee. All I have to do is get better, and given how bad I was to start with, this is quite easy.

第二種出乎意料的樂趣是我成了學校里最秀逗的新手。我原以為這會很丟人，但卻奇怪地感到被解放了。沒人指望我能立馬勝任——我是個實習老師。我要做的就是每天進步一點點，鑒于我的起點如此之低，這實在太容易了。

Already, I know how to give instructions; the most efficient way of handing out sheets; not to talk so much — or so fast. I still see the electronic white board as my sworn enemy, but I am sometimes able to make it bend to my wishes.

我已經(jīng)知道怎么教學生;怎么給學生發(fā)放資料最有效率;說話不要太多——或太快。雖然我與電子白板仍不共戴天，但有時我也能讓這玩意服從我的意愿。

Each of my lessons is taught with the door open so that any teacher can wander in and tell me where I am going wrong. This is a shock, as I come from a world where feedback is spasmodic, belated and generally unwelcome. Now I have to get used to being told in precise terms what I am doing wrong — and how to put it right.

我講課時都敞著門，這樣任何老師都能走進來告訴我哪兒做得不對。這著實令人震驚，因為在我以往的世界里，反饋總是零星的、姍姍來遲，而且通常不怎么招待見?，F(xiàn)在我不得不習慣聽人家準確地指出我哪里做得不對——以及如何改正。

While I teach, my mentor — a formidable maths teacher who is a quarter of a century my junior and takes no nonsense from anyone, including me — stations herself at the back of the classroom, frowning and ominously taking notes. After one lesson, she presented me with a list of 18 Ts, each with a circle around it. T stands for target, but it might as well have been for terrible.

在我講課時，我的導師——一位比我年輕四分之一個世紀的令人敬畏的數(shù)學老師，她從不受任何人忽悠，包括我——坐在教室后排，眉頭緊蹙，十分不妙地做著筆記。一節(jié)課過后，她給了我18個T，每個T都畫了個圈。T代表目標(target)，但也可能代表糟糕(terrible)。

In my old life if I had been told by an editor that there were even two things wrong with a column, I would have taken it amiss. Now, though I do not adore being presented with 18 “targets”, the better part of me is grateful. I know it is the only way I will get better.

以往如果我被一個編輯告知專欄里哪怕只有兩處錯誤，我都會往心里去。如今，雖然我不愿意被人家一下給出18個“目標”，但我知道應該心懷感激。我知道這是我改進的唯一途徑。

An even more radical change is that I have come to love rules. Pre-teaching, my life had been almost entirely rule-free. I was educated at a liberal school that viewed rules as an impediment to creativity. Later, as a journalist, I made a point of disregarding the few rules there were. It was my job to mock corporate rigidity. I even wrote a column once, boasting about how I had never read my own company’s code of conduct.

一個更劇烈的變化是我開始熱愛規(guī)矩。教書之前，我的生活中幾乎沒有規(guī)矩。我上的那所學校校風自由，認為規(guī)矩阻礙創(chuàng)新。后來當了記者，我決意不理會僅存的不多的幾條規(guī)矩。嘲諷公司中的僵化作風是我的工作。我甚至還寫過一篇專欄，自豪地說我從未讀過自己東家的《行為準則》。

Now I live in a world where rules rule. Mossbourne is famous for its strict ways — uniform is worn perfectly and students move around the school in silence. “No excuses” is one of the school’s two values (the other being excellence) and that applies to the staff as much as to the students.

目前我身在一個規(guī)矩為王的世界。莫斯布恩以嚴格著稱——大家都好好地穿著制服，學生們在學校里安靜地走動。“杜絕借口”是本校兩大價值觀之一(另一個是追求卓越)，這對于教員和學生同樣適用。

There are rules governing where I need to be, what I wear and how I comport myself. Bells ring every 55 minutes, and as students move between lessons I station myself on the staircase and try to bark “hands out of pockets!” as authoritatively as my colleagues.

這里有規(guī)矩管著我應該在哪、穿什么以及我的行為舉止。鈴聲每隔55分鐘就響一次，當學生們課間走動時，我站在樓梯上，試著像我的同事們一樣發(fā)號施令“都把手從口袋里拿出來!”

These rules, and the punctilious way in which they are upheld, daily save my bacon. It is thanks to them that no one has thrown furniture at me. That no one has sworn at me. That instead, students come to lessons ready to learn.

這些規(guī)矩，以及對規(guī)矩的那種一絲不茍的執(zhí)行，每天都在救我的命。多虧有這些規(guī)矩才沒人朝我掀桌子扔板凳。沒人罵我。學生們也乖乖來上我的課。

I welcome the rules in another, less obvious, way. They have freed me from the ambiguity that has dogged my professional life. For the first time I know precisely what is expected of me — with the result that I feel oddly calm.

我還以另一種方式默默地感謝著這些規(guī)矩。它們讓我擺脫了一直伴隨我職業(yè)生涯的那種模棱兩可。我第一次明確地知道別人希望我怎么做——結果我感到出奇地平靜。

From my first half-term have come two other minor surprises. The first is how much I love school dinners. By lunchtime I am so ravenously hungry that I fall on a plastic tub of soft pasta in orange tomato sauce as if it were the best food I have ever eaten.

我的前半學期還有兩個小驚喜。第一就是我超愛學校的飯食。到午飯時間我就餓得兩眼發(fā)慌了，我埋頭吃著一塑料盆軟乎乎的浸在橙紅色番茄醬里的意大利面，好像從沒吃過這么香的東西。

The second is how agreeable it is, at the age of 58, to be called Miss. Last Friday as I prepared to go to the pub with my delightful 20-something colleagues, I thought fondly to myself that teaching has knocked 30 years off me. Alas not everyone seems to agree: that very day one of my fellow maths teachers cheerfully told me that I reminded her of her grandmother.

第二就是，到了58歲還被人叫做“女士”，心情簡直不要太好。一個周五我準備跟一群20來歲朝氣蓬勃的同事去酒吧時，還一廂情愿地以為，教書讓我年輕了30歲。唉，但不是每個人都這么認為：就在那天，另外一位數(shù)學老師興致勃勃地告訴我，我讓她想起了她奶奶。

I have survived the first half-term, but I suspect the hard part is yet to come. My school has started me off lightly — I teach only for seven hours a week, but after half-term I will be given more classes. I do not expect to enjoy it. But with every week that passes I am feeling more confident that one day, when I know what I am doing, I will reply to the question “how’s teaching?” by saying: “I love it.”

我已經(jīng)成功度過了半個學期，但我猜想艱難的時刻尚未到來。因為我才剛開始教書，學校給我的教學任務很輕——每周教7個小時，但半學期后他們會給我安排更多的課時。到時候我大概不會覺得“享受”。但每度過一周，我就感到更自信了些，某天，當我知道教書是怎么一回事了，對于“教書怎么樣?”這個問題我會這樣回答：“我愛教書。”