我是怎么學習愛上廢話的？

As I am no longer the FT’s chief bullshit correspondent, I cannot do what I normally do at this time of year and hand out Golden Flannel awards to the business people who have spouted the most heinous guff over the past 12 months.

由于我不再是英國《金融時報》的首席“廢話”記者，我今年不能做以往每年這個時候都會做的一件事：為過去12個月中講廢話登峰造極的商界人士頒發(fā)“金廢話獎”(Golden Flannel awards)。

Yet being a creature of habit, I could not resist peeping into my old guff cupboard as the year turned. There I found much to dazzle from 2017.

然而，我還是舊習難改。在辭舊迎新之際，我仍忍不住打開了那個老舊的廢話收集箱。2017年還真有不少可以拿出來曬一曬的胡言亂語呢。

Ford called firings “people efficiency actions”. On LinkedIn someone had replaced “go forward” with “bounce forward”. Best of all was a superlative verb in an email from a PR, which ended: “Let’s voice in the morning.” I looked at these, groaned, laughed, and thought how well bullshit has been getting along without me.

福特(Ford)把裁員稱為“人員效率行動” (people efficiency actions)。在領英(LinkedIn)的網站上，有人用“跳躍前進”(bounce forward)替代了“前進”(go forward)。最夸張的是，一份公關公司的郵件在結束語中用了一個高大上的動詞，“我們早上再語音。”(Let’s voice in the morning)?？粗@些廢話，我時而嘆氣，時而捧腹，我在想，在我離開的這段時間，雷人“驚句”還是層出不窮。

I have been getting on well without it, too. I have completed my first term as a trainee maths teacher in an east London comprehensive, and can confirm that at my school there is far less bullshit than I had been warned to expect. More surprisingly, for the first time in my life I have discovered that some terms I would have previously considered total tosh serve a purpose.

沒有這些廢話的陪伴，我也過得很好。我在倫敦東部的一所綜合學校當實習數(shù)學老師的第一學期已經結束。去之前，有人警告我說，在學校會聽到許多廢話。不過，現(xiàn)在可以確認，我在這所學校聽到的廢話比人們預想的要少得多。更令人驚訝的是，我平生第一次發(fā)現(xiàn)，以前我會認為是純屬廢話的說法，其實是有用的。

I am still at war with the word journey and I wish people would not say “pupils couldn’t access the content” when they mean “no one understood what you were on about”, but there are some euphemisms that I have grudgingly come to admire.

我仍在與言之無物的廢話作戰(zhàn)，我希望，當人們想說“沒有人理解你在說什么”(no one understood what you were on about)時， 不用要“學生不能訪問這些內容”(pupils couldn’t access the content)來表達。不過，有一些委婉說法，讓我不情愿地產生了認同感。

Every time I am observed teaching, I am given two lists by my mentor. One is headed WWW — what went well — while the other is not WWB (-adly), its rightful partner, but EBI — even better if. At first I despised the feeble euphemism. Now, I am warming to it as it makes the industrial quantities of criticism shunted a trainee’s way seem less, well, critical.

每次觀摩完我的課，我的導師都會給我兩份表格。一份的抬頭是WWW(what went well，表現(xiàn)不錯之處)，但另一份的抬頭不是原本理應與之相對的WWB(what went badly，表現(xiàn)不佳之處)，而是EBI(even better if，還能做得更好之處)。起初，我很鄙視這種軟弱無力的委婉說法。現(xiàn)在，我開始接受這些說法了，因為這些委婉語讓對一位實習老師的劈頭蓋臉的尖銳批評變得沒那么尖銳了。

I will be even better if I am a) stricter with the children who fiddle with rulers; b) end the lessons on time; c) talk less; d) talk slower; e) write my sums more neatly on the board, and f) hand out glue sticks in a less chaotic fashion. I am not remotely disheartened. I am set on being better.

我在以下幾個地方還能做得更好，a) 對玩尺子的學生更加嚴厲一些; b)按時下課;c)少說一些話; d)語速慢一些; e)板書更工整一些; f) 分發(fā)膠棒時更有條不紊一些。我并沒有灰心喪氣。我決心要做得更好 。

My second change of heart on a euphemism is more profound. At the beginning of term, an experienced teacher gave a talk in which she suggested we stop referring to “low ability” children and talk about “low attaining” ones instead. Inwardly, I rolled my eyes. How drearily PC, I thought.

我對委婉語看法的第二個轉變更為深刻。在學期之初，一位經驗豐富的老師做了一個講座，她建議我們不再說“學習能力低下”(low ability)的學生，而改說“學習效果較差”(low attaining)的學生。我在心里翻了個白眼。多可怕的政治正確，我想。

Now that I have a bit of experience, I think she might be right. I teach one class in which many of the children are wedded to the idea that a half is smaller than a fifth. I have tried to show them otherwise in several lessons deploying slices of pizzas, cakes and drawing subdivided oblongs on the board. They seem to get it, but then by the next lesson they have lost it again.

現(xiàn)在，我有了一些教學經驗，我認為她可能是對的。我教的一個班上有許多孩子固執(zhí)地認為二分之一小于五分之一。我用了好幾節(jié)課的時間來解釋不是這樣，用切成幾塊的披薩和蛋糕作教具，并在黑板上演示把矩形分成幾等份。他們當時似乎懂了，但到下一節(jié)課，他們又不明白了。

To think of these children as low ability is to write them off. If I call them low attainers, it puts the onus on me to change matters. To find new ways of explaining fractions in the full expectation that eventually the penny will drop and stay dropped. Given time, they will learn. And, given time, I will learn too. It is all that matters.

認為這些孩子學習能力低下就是徹底放棄他們。如果把他們稱作學習效果較差的學生，就是把改變他們的責任放到了我自己的肩上：要完全相信孩子們最終一定會茅塞頓開并且再也不會忘，同時找到新的方法來解釋什么是分數(shù)。給他們一些時間，他們會學會的。而且，給我一些時間，我也會學會怎么教他們。這才是最重要的。

In my old life, I would wince when grown-up business people got soppy about learning. They made it a noun, made it plural and stuck the word key in front of it. Key learnings had only one thing going for them — they were better than key takeaways.

從前，當看到成年的商界人士總是用“學習”(learning)這個詞時，我會皺眉頭。他們的完整說法是：“學習到的關鍵點(key learnings)”。這個說法唯一的優(yōu)點就是——它比“帶走的關鍵點”(key takeaways)要好。

When the FT was owned by Pearson, the motto “Always Learning” was printed across our business cards. I considered this so brainless I never gave them out. Now I feel differently about it.

當英國《金融時報》的東家還是培生(Pearson)時，我們的名片上都印著“學無止境”(Always Learning)的格言。我當時認為這句話太傻了，因此從來沒給人發(fā)過這些名片。但現(xiàn)在我有了不同的感悟。

My key learning from last term: the two most durable pleasures available to humankind — to help other people learn new things and to learn new things yourself.

上學期我學習到的關鍵點是：人類能獲得的兩種最持久的快樂是——幫助他人學習新東西，和自己學習新東西。

Alas, one thing is in the way of my learning. Despite my new permissive spirit on language, I am still finding my default mental stance — scepticism — a hindrance. 有一樣東西阻礙了我的學習。盡管我對語言有了新的寬容精神，但我仍然發(fā)現(xiàn)，我根深蒂固的心態(tài)——懷疑主義——阻礙了我的學習。

At university I spent three years finding the flaw in every argument. This stood me in good stead as a columnist, and then as a non-executive director — but is a handicap as a trainee teacher.

在大學里，我花了三年的時間尋找每一個論點的缺陷。這種特質在我當專欄作家、之后當非執(zhí)行董事的時候是個優(yōu)點——但作為一名實習老師，這一點卻成為了障礙。

A tiny example: after one lesson I was told I must write “Example” on the board, underline it, and wait until all pupils had done the same in their books, performing their underlining neatly with a ruler. The judging part of my brain instantly thought: why? It is obviously an example, and whether or not it is underlined with a ruler is not going to help them understand the external angles of a polygon.

舉一個小例子：在某一節(jié)課后，我被告知必須在黑板上寫下“例子”，然后在下面劃一條橫線，并等待所有的學生在他們的書上完成同樣的事，用尺子比著，劃一條筆直的下劃線。我大腦中喜歡評判的那部分立即想到：為什么? 誰都明白這是個例子。用不用尺子比著在下面劃條橫線，對他們理解多邊形的外角也沒有幫助。

Mentally I kicked against the system for a bit, which was daft as the school has its ways of doing things which are markedly successful in squeezing an astonishing amount of knowledge into the heads of all students. The system only works if everyone follows it, helping students form good habits.

我內心對這套系統(tǒng)抗拒了一會兒——這種抗拒是愚蠢的，因為學校有自己的教學方法，這些方法一直非常成功地將大量的知識灌輸?shù)綄W生的腦海中。只有每個人都遵守這個系統(tǒng)，幫助學生養(yǎng)成良好的習慣，這個系統(tǒng)才能發(fā)揮其功效。

Just before Christmas, BBC News broadcast a feature on my charity, Now Teach, which recruits 50-somethings like me as trainee teachers. I sat on a sofa in a studio along with a fellow trainee who had previously worked as a diplomat for a quarter of a century.

就在圣誕節(jié)之前，英國廣播公司新聞(BBC News)播出了介紹我所在的慈善組織Now Teach(現(xiàn)在教書吧)的專題節(jié)目。Now Teach招募一些像我一樣50多歲的人士去學校當實習老師。我坐在電視臺攝影棚的沙發(fā)上，和一位曾擔任外交官25年的實習老師一起接受了采訪。

The interviewer asked us whether “posh older people” belonged in the classroom. Variously she suggested we did not have the energy, that parents would be appalled at having incompetent people in their dotage who could not even master the technology teaching their children. It was a huge risk, she said, and if it goes wrong, the people who will suffer will be the children.

主持人問我們，課堂是不是“50多歲事業(yè)有成的人”應該待的地方。她用各種不同的方式暗示我們精力不夠，說讓像我們這樣甚至沒掌握教書技巧的衰老無能之輩給孩子們當老師，家長會很擔心。這樣做的風險很大，她說，如果出了問題，受影響的是孩子。

I replied as politely as I could that energy was not a problem, that parents seemed to rather like us — as did the kids — and we were learning the technology fast.

我盡可能禮貌地回答說，精力不是問題，家長們似乎很喜歡我們——孩子們也一樣——且我們學習教學技巧的速度很快。

What I did not say was that age may be hindering us in another way. Everyone on the Now Teach programme has had long and mainly high-powered careers doing other things. All of us have been paid to have opinions all our lives. For my ex-Foreign Office colleague, opinions were his stock in trade.

我沒有說的一點是，年齡可能會以另一種方式成為我們的障礙。參加Now Teach教書計劃的每一個人都有其他領域長期且非常靚麗的職業(yè)生涯。我們這些人一輩子都是靠發(fā)表意見掙飯吃。就我這位曾在外交部任職的同事而言，發(fā)表意見就是他的看家本錢。

Now, in order to learn faster, we need temporarily to disable our opinions. All the other Now Teach trainees who are faring the best are the ones who understand that for the first year or two they must shut up and learn.

現(xiàn)在，為了更快地學習，我們需要暫時不發(fā)表任何意見。所有其他做得好的Now Teach實習老師，都是那些明白在頭一兩年必須閉嘴并專心學習的人。

In the coming term I have resolved to be even better with glue sticks, with my workings on the board. More than that, I will be even better if I stop questioning everything and do some accepting instead.

在新學期里，我決心在分發(fā)膠棒上做得更好，板書也要寫得更規(guī)范。更為重要的是，如果我不再凡事都問個為什么，而是能夠接受一些現(xiàn)有的規(guī)矩，我會做得更好。

Verb, noun, singular, plural — learning is what counts.

不論你如何使用“學習”(learning)這個詞，學習本身才是最重要的。