Nowadays people may admire China’seconomy, but not Chinese creativity. Chinese architecture and art, music andmovies are derivative, and many a Chinese enterprise is merely a carbon copy ofan American one. China’s bestschools may produce the world’s best test-takers, but the United States’ best schools producethe world’s most creative talent.
如今中國的經(jīng)濟可能受到世人的青睞，但中國的創(chuàng )造力卻另當別論。中國的建筑學(xué)、美術(shù)、音樂(lè )和電影都是舶來(lái)品，許多中國企業(yè)只不過(guò)是美國企業(yè)的翻版。中國最好的學(xué)校出產(chǎn)世界上最好的考生，而美國最好的學(xué)校出產(chǎn)世界最具創(chuàng )造力的人才。
In his book The Social Animal, David Brooksoutlines the four-step learning process that teaches students to be creative:knowledge acquisition (research), internalization (familiarity with material),self-questioning and examination (review and discussion), and the ordering andmastery of this knowledge (thesis formulation and essay writing).
大衛·布魯克斯在其著(zhù)作《社會(huì )動(dòng)物》中把培養學(xué)生創(chuàng )造力的學(xué)習過(guò)程概括為四個(gè)階段：知識收集（研究），內在化（熟悉資料），反省和檢視（復查和討論）以及對這些知識的整理和掌握（論題的系統闡述和論文寫(xiě)作）。
However, this isn’t a linear process,Brooks points out, which means that the learner ‘(surfs) in and out of hisunconscious, getting the conscious and unconscious processes to work together –first mastering core knowledge, then letting that knowledge marinate playfullyin his mind, then wilfully trying to impose order on it, then allowing the mindto consolidate and merge the data, then returning and returning until somemagical insight popped into his consciousness, and then riding that insight toa finished product.’
然而，布魯克斯指出，這并非一個(gè)線(xiàn)性過(guò)程，意思是說(shuō)學(xué)習者“（游走）在潛意識內外，使意識和潛意識過(guò)程協(xié)調配合——首先掌握核心知識，再將知識愉快地消化，再有目的地設法加以整理，再讓頭腦整合信息，再不斷重復這個(gè)工程，直到某個(gè)不可思議的頓悟突然出現他的意識中，再借助這種頓悟形成最終的知識”。
The processwas not easy, but each ounce of effort and each moment of frustration andstruggle pushed the internal construction project another little step,’ DavidBrooks continues. ‘By the end, (the learner) was seeing the world around him ina new way.’
布魯克斯接著(zhù)說(shuō)，‘該過(guò)程可不容易，但每一點(diǎn)努力，每一瞬挫折和苦斗都讓知識形成的過(guò)程邁進(jìn)了一小步，到最后（學(xué)習者）將以新的視角看待周?chē)氖澜纭?/span>’
But what permits our brains to turn a chaoticsea of random facts and knowledge into an island of calm understanding? Believeit or not, it’s our emotions that permit us ultimately to become creativethinkers. In his book The Accidental Mind, the neuroscientist David J. Lindenexplains how emotions organize our memories:
但是，是什么讓我們的大腦將隨機事實(shí)和知識的混沌之海，變成平靜的認識之島呢？信不信由你，是我們的情感讓我們最終成為有創(chuàng )造力的思想者。大衛·林登在他的著(zhù)作《意外的想法》（The Accidental Mind）中解釋了情感是如何組織我們的記憶的。
In our lives,we have a lot of experiences and many of these we will remember until we die.We have many mechanisms for determining which experiences are stored (wherewere you on 9/11?) and which are discarded (what did you have for dinnerexactly 1 month ago?). Some memories will fade with time and some will bedistorted by generalization (can you distinctly remember your seventeenth haircut?).We need a signal to say, “This is an important memory. Write this down andunderline it.” That signal is emotion. When you have feelings of fear or joy orlove or anger or sadness, these mark your experiences as being particularlymeaningful…These are the memories that confer your individuality. And thatfunction, memory indexed by emotion, more than anything else, is what a brainis good for.’
‘我們都有大量生活經(jīng)歷，而且會(huì )永遠記住其中很多經(jīng)歷。我們有許多機制來(lái)決定把哪些經(jīng)歷存儲下來(lái)（911那天你在哪里？），把哪些拋棄掉（一個(gè)月前你晚餐到底吃的是什么？），一些記憶將隨時(shí)間而褪色，還有一些將由于一般化（generalization）而扭曲（你能清楚地想起自己第十七次剪發(fā)嗎？）。我們需要有一個(gè)信號告訴我們，“這是個(gè)重要的記憶，存下來(lái)，放在醒目位置”。那個(gè)信號就是情感，當你心懷恐懼、高興、愛(ài)慕、憤怒或憂(yōu)傷之情的時(shí)候，這些情感會(huì )將你的經(jīng)歷標記為特別重要…這些情感就是賦予你個(gè)性的記憶。這種由情感標示記憶的功能’比其他功能更有益于大腦。
What this means is that memories areultimately emotional experiences, and that effectively learning must involvethe learner emotionally. The very best US schools are seen as such because theyinspire their students to be curious, interested, and excited; China’s verybest schools gain their reputation by doing the opposite.
這意味著(zhù)記憶最終是情感體驗，并且事實(shí)上學(xué)習者必須在激動(dòng)地情況下才能獲得知識。美國那些最好的學(xué)校就是這樣的，因為它們鼓勵自己的學(xué)生要好奇、有興趣和充滿(mǎn)喜悅。中國最好的學(xué)校卻以反著(zhù)干贏(yíng)得了聲譽(yù)。
Thinking is the conscious effort ofapplying our memories to understand a new external stimulus, and creativity isasserting individual control over this process to create a synthesis betweenmemory and stimuli. In other words, thinking is really about applying previousemotional experiences to understand a new emotional experience, whilstcreativity is the mixing of old and new emotional experiences to a create anentirely new and original emotional experience.
思考是我們運用記憶理解新的外部刺激的有意識努力，創(chuàng )造力是對思考的過(guò)程進(jìn)行人為控制，從而創(chuàng )造一種記憶和刺激之間的融合體。換句話(huà)說(shuō)，思考實(shí)際上就是運用先前的情感體驗理解新的情感體驗，而創(chuàng )造力是將新舊兩種情感體驗結合在一起，創(chuàng )造一種全新的、完全原創(chuàng )的情感體驗。
The best US education institutions endowstudents with creativity by providing a relaxed and secure learning environmentin which students share in the refined emotional experiences of humanity byreading books and developing the logic necessary to share in collectiveemotional experiences through debate and essay writing. A dynamic learningenvironment allows students at many US schools to feel joy and despair,frustration and triumph, and it’s these ups and downs that encode the creativelearning process into our neural infrastructure and make it so transformative.
美國最好的教育機構通過(guò)提供輕松和安全的學(xué)習環(huán)境賦予學(xué)生創(chuàng )造力，學(xué)生們在這樣的環(huán)境中通過(guò)讀書(shū)和發(fā)展邏輯思維分享高雅的人類(lèi)情感體驗，而讀書(shū)和發(fā)展邏輯思維對于共享通過(guò)討論和論文寫(xiě)作的方式獲得的集體情感體驗來(lái)說(shuō)是非常必要的。一個(gè)充滿(mǎn)活力的學(xué)習環(huán)境讓美國許多學(xué)校的學(xué)生們體會(huì )到快樂(lè )、絕望、挫折和成功，正是這些情感的沉浮將創(chuàng )造性學(xué)習過(guò)程編碼到神經(jīng)網(wǎng)絡(luò )中，讓它如此充滿(mǎn)變革力。
A Chinese school is both a stressful andstale place, forcing students to remember facts in order to excel in tests.Neuroscientists know that stress hampers the ability of the brain to convertexperience into memory, and psychologists know that rewarding students solelyfor test performance leads to stress, cheating, and disinterest in learning.But ultimately, the most harmful thing that a Chinese school does, from acreativity perspective, is the way in which it separates emotion from memory bymaking learning an unemotional experience.
中國的學(xué)校是個(gè)充滿(mǎn)壓力和毫無(wú)生氣的地方，這些學(xué)校為了讓學(xué)生在考試中名列前茅而強迫他們記住一些事實(shí)。神經(jīng)系統科學(xué)家知道，壓力對大腦將經(jīng)歷轉化為記憶的能力具有阻礙作用。心理學(xué)家懂得，單純以考試成績(jì)?yōu)橹笜霜剟顚W(xué)生會(huì )導致緊張、作弊和失去學(xué)習興趣。但最終來(lái)說(shuō)，從創(chuàng )造力的視角來(lái)看，中國學(xué)校最具危害性的舉動(dòng)，莫過(guò)于它們通過(guò)非情感體驗的學(xué)習，將情感與記憶截然分開(kāi)的那種方式。
Whatever individual emotions Chinesestudents try to bring into the classroom, they are quickly stamped out. As I havepreviously written, from the first day of school, students who ask questionsare silenced and those who try to exert any individuality are punished. Whatthey learn is irrelevant and de-personalized, abstract and distant, furtherremoving emotion from learning.
If anyemotion is involved, it’s pain. But the pain is so constant and monotonous(scolding teachers, demanding parents, mindless memorization, long hours ofsitting in a cramped classroom) that it eventually ceases to be an emotion.
不管中國學(xué)生試圖在課堂上表現出怎樣的個(gè)人情感，這些情感很快就會(huì )被澆滅。正如我先前寫(xiě)到的那樣，從第一天到校起，提問(wèn)的學(xué)生就被噤聲，試圖表現個(gè)性的學(xué)生就受到懲罰。由于他們學(xué)到的都是與實(shí)際不相干而抹殺個(gè)性的，抽象化而晦澀的知識，故而進(jìn)一步加劇了情感與知識的脫節。如果說(shuō)其中有情感的話(huà)，也是痛苦。但是痛苦如此始終如一和單調乏味（怒聲斥責的老師、苛求的家長(cháng)、機械的記憶、長(cháng)時(shí)間的坐在狹窄的教室里），以至于它最終不再是一種情感。
To understand the consequences of Chinesepedagogy, consider the example of ‘Solomon Shereshevskii, a Russian journalistborn in 1886, who could remember everything,’ whom David Brooks writes about inThe Social Animal:
為了理解中國教學(xué)法的后果，讓我們考察一下俄國記者所羅門(mén)·舍雷舍夫斯基（Solomon Shereshevskii）的事例吧，他出生于1886年，能夠回憶起所有事情。大衛·布魯克斯在《社會(huì )動(dòng)物》中這樣描述他：
In oneexperiment, researchers showed Shereshevskii a complex formula of thirtyletters and numbers on a piece of paper. Then they put the paper in a box andsealed it for fifteen years. When they took the paper out, Shereshevskii couldremember it exactly…Shereshevskii could remember, but he couldn’t distil. Helived in a random blizzard of facts, but could not organize them into repeatingpatterns. Eventually he couldn’t make sense of metaphors, similes, poems, oreven complex sentences.’
‘在一個(gè)實(shí)驗中，研究人員給舍雷舍夫斯基出示了一張紙，上面寫(xiě)著(zhù)一個(gè)擁有三十個(gè)字母和數字組成的復雜公式。然后他們把紙放在盒子里，將它封存十五年。當他們取出之后，舍雷舍夫斯基能夠精確地回憶起來(lái)…舍雷舍夫斯基能夠記起來(lái)，但他不能提取精髓。他記住了大量隨機事實(shí)，但他不能將它們組織成重復性樣式。最終他不能搞清隱喻、明喻、詩(shī)歌，甚至于復雜的句子’。
Shereshevskii had a neural defect thatprohibited his brain from prioritizing, synthesizing, and controlling hismemories to permit him to formulate an understanding of self and the world.Like many a Chinese student today, he could experience, but he could not feel.
舍雷舍夫斯基的神經(jīng)有缺陷，這令他的大腦難以區分優(yōu)先次序、綜合和控制自己的記憶。由于不能控制記憶，他就不能確切闡述對自我和世界的理解。他同今天的許多中國學(xué)生一樣，能夠經(jīng)歷，但不能感受。
Chinese schools are producing a nation ofShereshevskiis, students with photographic memory and instant recall, but whocan never be creative.
中國的學(xué)校正在制造舍雷舍夫斯基之國，雖然這些舍雷舍夫斯基一樣的學(xué)生們擁有照相式記憶和瞬時(shí)記憶，但他們永遠不可能擁有創(chuàng )造力。
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