学校是如何毁了一个人的生活

原文：How school can ruin a life - supermemo.guru

Introduction

引言

Schools have a potential to ruin self-esteem and affect people for life. Tamara story is another shocker on my list of high school anecdotes.

学校有可能毁掉自尊，影响人们的一生。塔玛拉的故事是我高中轶事清单上的另一个令人震惊的故事。

When writing Futility of schooling, I tried to replicate Tanya's effort of cramming 60 pages of history in 3 hours. I wanted to see how it affects the mind. Tamara is a friend who agreed to be my guinea pig. In that context I got to know her life story. One crushing conclusion from that story was that school took away all happiness from Tamara's life. Tamara is a good mom and an avid reader. However, her self-confidence has been destroyed at school. Moreover, she seems to be adrift. School might have also affected her decision-making powers. In an outwardly happy mom context, Tamara is seemingly never happy. This could be a matter of personality. However, the details of Tamara's life tell me that events from high school totally changed the way Tamara thinks of herself, and changed the way she sets goals in life. Apart from good motherhood, this is a very sad story. Life is not just about how much we accomplish. We can accomplish happily and thus accomplish better.

在写《学校教育的徒劳^[1]》时，我试图再现谭雅在 3 小时内死记硬背^[2] 60 页历史的努力。我想看看它是如何影响大脑的。塔玛拉是一位朋友，她答应做我的小白鼠。在这样的背景下，我了解了她的生平故事。从这个故事中得出的一个压倒性的结论是，学校夺走了塔玛拉生活中的所有幸福。塔玛拉是一位好妈妈，也是一位狂热的读者。然而，她的自信心在学校被摧毁了。此外，她似乎随波逐流。学校可能也影响了她的决策权。在一个表面上快乐的母亲的背景下，塔玛拉似乎从来没有快乐过。这可能是性格问题。然而，塔玛拉的生活细节告诉我，高中的事件完全改变了塔玛拉对自己的看法，改变了她设定生活目标的方式。除了善良的母性，这是一个非常可悲的故事。生活不仅仅在于我们完成了多少。我们可以快乐地完成，从而更好地完成。

The most interesting conclusion from Tamara's cram-reading experiment is that 3 hours of hasty reading under pressure might easily threaten one's love of learning cultivated for a quarter of a century. At least that was the impression of my guinea pig at the moment of reading. Tamara shows a powerful learn drive. She loves learning. If she was subject to unschooling, we might have had the same well-educated lady with a difference: her self-esteem might have been wildly different.

塔玛拉的死记硬背实验得出的最有趣的结论是，在压力下匆忙阅读 3 小时可能很容易威胁到一个人培养了四分之一个世纪的学习爱好^[3]。至少在阅读的那一刻，我的小白鼠给人的印象是这样的。塔玛拉表现出强大的学习动力^[4]。她喜欢学习。如果她接受非学校教育，我们可能会有同样受过良好教育的女士，但会有所不同：她的自尊可能会截然不同。

The experience of democratic schools shows that we can help people learn without making them unhappy for life

民主学校的经验表明，我们可以帮助人们学习，而不会让他们终身不快乐。

Tamara

塔玛拉

Tamara is a 44-year-old stay-at-home mom. She loves history. Her bookshelf is packed with highly ambitious pieces from the most exotic periods of time. She regularly reads books, but history makes most of that reading. A great deal of that reading is done in English. Tamara's English is probably best in my entire neighborhood. If I was to guess, I would think Tamara was a graduate of some good university who gave up her ambitious plans for raising her four kids. I would be wrong. Tamara did not graduate. Surprisingly it was history that was the reason she dropped out of high school. It was not a bad teacher who hated her. It was not that she hated history. It was the system! Her story is similar to that of Tanya except it does not have a happy high school ending. Tamara was overwhelmed by the volume of the history material to learn. She honestly admitted that her teen years were also marred by a distraction or two, but she was always a diligent student. The type that begins with straight As in primary school, only to slowly degrade to a robot that goes through all school duties against all the protest from within her body. Ignoring one's biological needs can be toxic.

塔玛拉是一位 44 岁的全职妈妈。她喜欢历史。她的书架上堆满了最具异国情调时期的雄心勃勃的作品。她经常看书，但历史是她阅读的主要内容。这些阅读有很大一部分是用英语完成的。塔玛拉的英语可能是我们整个街区最好的。如果让我猜的话，我会认为塔玛拉是一所好大学的毕业生，她放弃了抚养四个孩子的雄心勃勃的计划。那我就错了。塔玛拉没有毕业。令人惊讶的是，她高中辍学的原因正是历史。不是说她讨厌坏老师。不是说她讨厌历史。是体制问题！她的故事与谭雅的故事相似，只是没有一个幸福的高中结局。塔玛拉被要学的大量历史材料压得喘不过气来。她坦诚地承认，她的青少年时代也曾受到一两次分心的影响，但她一直是一个勤奋的学生。那种从小学开始就一直得 A 的机器人，后来慢慢退化成一个完成所有学校职责，反对她身体内所有抗议的机器人。忽视一个人的生理需求可能是有害的。

Lifelong disappointment

长达一生的失望

When Tamara failed her half-annual history exam, she knew she would be penalized with grade retention. That was too much. Not only did she give up. She never returned to school. To this day, she blames her inferior intellectual capacity for the failure. Her thinking goes as follows: "other kids could do it, I could not. There were only two girls in class who failed. Both dropped out and never went to college". Incidentally, I happen to know both ladies. Tamara's classmate Joanna is an enterprising businesswoman. I know Joanna to be a fast learner. I saw her in action when dealing with technology. Unlike Tamara, Joanna never regretted dropping out. She found her comfortable place in life and never looked back. Tamara says she has lived her whole life with a degree of inferiority complex. She got four beautiful kids to cherish. Instead, she enviously looks at her friends who graduated from college and got good jobs all around the world. That one failed exam poisoned her entire life.

当塔玛拉半年一次的历史考试不及格时，她知道自己会受到留级的惩罚。这太过分了。她不仅放弃了。她再也没有回过学校。直到今天，她还将失败归咎于自己智力低下。她的想法是这样的：“其他孩子可以做到，我不行。班上只有两个女孩不及格。两个女孩都辍学了，从来没有上过大学。”顺便说一句，我碰巧认识两位女士。塔玛拉的同学乔安娜是一位有事业心的女商人。我知道乔安娜学得很快。我在与技术打交道时看到了她的行动。与塔玛拉不同，乔安娜从不后悔辍学。她找到了生活中舒适的地方，再也没有回头。塔玛拉说，她的一生都带着一定程度的自卑情结生活。她有四个漂亮的孩子要照顾。相反，她羡慕地看着她的朋友们，他们从大学毕业，在世界各地找到了好工作。那一次考试不及格毒害了她的一生。

Tamara is a lady of multiple talents. We had a short chat about her knowledge of history and I was truly amazed that history was the subject that stopped her in her educational tracks. We spoke in English, and I was truly amazed at her fluency and the extent of her vocabulary considering she never travelled abroad. Her years after high school were primarily devoted to her children and to reading books late in the night when the kids were asleep. Tamara knows a great deal about things ranging from the 2016 Republican primaries to brain science and health. Some of her English fluency secret comes from the fact she has used SuperMemo for many years.

塔玛拉是一位多才多艺的女士。我们就她的历史知识进行了简短的交谈，我真的很惊讶历史是阻止她接受教育的科目。我们用英语交谈，考虑到她从未出国旅行，我真的对她的流利程度和词汇量感到惊讶。她高中毕业后的几年主要是和她的孩子们在一起，在孩子们睡着的时候深夜读书。从 2016 年共和党初选到脑科学和健康，塔玛拉知道很多事情。她英语流利的一些秘诀来自于她使用 SuperMemo 多年的事实。

Two decades after her failure in the history test, Tamara says that dropping out undermined her self-esteem, self-confidence, and stripped her ambitions. She never seriously considered going back to school. Her dream of going to college died long ago. When I insisted it is never too late, she replied: "perhaps once the last kid leaves the nest".

在历史考试失败 20 年后，塔玛拉说，辍学削弱了她的自尊和自信，剥夺了她的雄心。她从未认真考虑过重返校园。她上大学的梦想很久以前就破灭了。当我坚持认为永远不会太晚时，她回答说：“也许等到最后一个孩子离开家的时候。”

History test

历史测验

Knowing Tamara's interests, I kindly asked her to run for me an experiment. I wanted to simulate Tanya's experience with 60 pages of history in 3 hours. There would be a major twist to the experiment. Tamara has already got all necessary knowledge scaffolding. She would not hesitate about the date of the Fall of the Roman Empire. Secondly, she also knows a lot about efficient learning. Her SuperMemo items about history are not perfect, but I would still rank them in top 90 percentile of users. I wanted to know how much difference those two factors would make in Tamara's learning experience.

知道塔玛拉的兴趣后，我请她为我做一个实验。 我想在 3 小时内看 60 页的历史模拟谭雅的经历。 该实验将发生重大变化。 塔玛拉已经获得了所有必要的知识支架。 她对罗马帝国灭亡的日期毫不犹豫。 其次，她对高效学习也很了解。 她关于历史的 SuperMemo 卡片并不完美，但我仍将其排在用户的前 90％ 以内。 我想知道这两个因素对塔玛拉的学习经历有多大的影响。

To make things more interesting and inspirational, I picked 3 books at varying difficulty and in both languages: her native Polish, and her second language English.

为了让事情更加有趣和鼓舞人心，我选择了 3 本难度不同的双语书籍：她的母语波兰语和她的第二语言英语。

Tamara agreed for the experiment with enthusiasm. I hoped that this experiment could provide some peace of mind for her after years of seriously hurt self-esteem. Whatever the outcome of the test, my words introducing Tamara above should validate her own post-school success with self-learning, self-discipline, and her wish to self-improve.

塔玛拉满怀热情地同意了这个实验。我希望这个实验能为她在多年严重伤害自尊之后提供一些心灵的安宁。无论测试结果如何，我在上面介绍塔玛拉的话应该会证明她在自学、自律和自我提高方面取得的课后成功是正确的。

Four school test disappointments

学校考试的四个失望

When we outlined the conditions for the experiment, Tamara was instantly disappointed. She wanted to choose a weekend morning free of family obligations. I insisted that we need to simulate Tanya's conditions that were far from comfortable. She would need to learn in the late evening after a day of hard work at home. I could see half of her enthusiasm evaporate instantly. As Tamara often goes to sleep well past midnight, she would actually need to learn between midnight and 3 am. That would simulate Tanya's need to cut into her sleep with learning. As I never tolerate violations of sleep hygiene, I did not ask Tamara to go that far and that crazy.

当我们概述实验的条件时，塔玛拉立即感到失望。她想选择一个没有家庭负担的周末早晨。我坚持我们需要模拟谭雅不舒服的环境。在家里辛苦工作了一天之后，她需要在深夜学习。我可以看到她的热情有一半瞬间烟消云散。由于塔玛拉经常在午夜过后很久才能入睡，她实际上需要在午夜到凌晨 3 点之间学习。这将模拟谭雅需要切断睡眠来学习。因为我从来不容忍违反睡眠健康的行为，所以我没有要求塔玛拉走得那么远，走得那么疯狂。

The second disappointment came with the fact that there will be no discount for "reading with comprehension". Tamara will get 3 minutes per page and will need to process all pages. Otherwise, she would risk failing the test by getting questions she did not read about. Tamara insisted "this is crazy, I am a slow mindful reader". She admitted though, that back in high school, in the identical setting, she would not complain. She would take as much material as it was necessary and just do her best.

第二个失望是，“带理解阅读”将不会有折扣。塔玛拉每页 3 分钟，需要处理所有页面。否则，她可能会冒着考试不及格的风险，因为她会得到一些她没有读到的问题。塔玛拉坚持说：“这太疯狂了，我是一个阅读速度慢、注意力集中的人。”不过，她承认，回到高中，在同样的环境下，她不会抱怨。她会随心所欲地拿很多材料，尽她最大的努力。

The third disappointment came with a morning test. Tamara expected to be tested on each material immediately after reading. I insisted that we need to test her early in the morning, in exactly the same manner like Tanya. Tamara usually wakes up at 6 am. Sometimes she uses an alarm clock. She claims my "sleep theories" are wrong because she is always sleepy in the morning. To me, this is pretty obvious there are two simple culprits to her sleepiness: (1) going to sleep too late because of her reading passions, and (2) using the alarm clock in the morning. I consider alarm clocks brain killers, but people like Tamara just reply "I need to sacrifice some of my brain cells or my kids would not get their breakfast before school". We made an appointment at 7 am sharp to test Tamara's knowledge of her learning material.

第三个失望来自于早上的测试。塔玛拉希望在阅读后立即对每一份材料进行测试。我坚持我们需要在清晨对她进行测试，就像谭雅一样。塔玛拉通常早上 6 点醒来。有时她用闹钟。她声称我的“睡眠理论”是错误的，因为她早上总是犯困。对我来说，这很明显有两个简单的罪魁祸首：(1)因为她的阅读热情而睡得太晚，(2)早上使用闹钟。我认为闹钟会扼杀大脑，但像塔玛拉这样的人只是回答说：“我需要牺牲我的一些脑细胞，否则我的孩子们在上学前吃不到早餐。”我们约在早上 7 点整去测试塔玛拉对学习材料的了解程度。

The fourth disappointment came with the fact that Tamara won't have a chance to stop the timer for short breaks like toilet or coffee. I insisted that drinking coffee late in the evening is suicidal, but Tamara was adamant that she "knows her brain". I insisted that all breaks would have to cut from her learning time. Like in Tanya's case, the ruthless bracket of 3 hours was unmovable. For Tanya, it was even worse as she had to cut deeper into her sleep time.

第四个失望是，塔玛拉没有机会停下来休息一会儿，比如上厕所或喝咖啡。我坚持说晚上喝咖啡是自杀，但塔玛拉坚持说她“了解自己的大脑”。我坚持所有的休息时间都必须减少她的学习时间。就像在谭雅的案例中，3 小时这个无情的支架是无法移动的。对谭雅来说，更糟糕的是，她不得不减少更多的睡眠时间。

Reading test

阅读测试

Three books were used in the test. Each book was given an hour and 20 pages were read.

考试中用了三本书。每本书有一个小时的时间，阅读 20 页。

Book 1: American History

第一本：美国历史

For Tamara's first book, we chose "Ranaoke Island. The Beginnings of English America" by David Stick. This was to be the easiest material for the nice beginning. Tamara chose the book herself. It was on her reading list for 2017. Unlike Tanya who had to start in the middle of the book with poor recall of the context, Tamara was allowed to start from the Preface and went through the first 20 pages.

塔玛拉的第一本书，我们选择了《拉诺拉可岛：英属美洲的开端》，作者：大卫·斯蒂克。这是最容易的材料，为美好的开始。这本书是塔玛拉自己选的。这本书在她 2017 年的阅读清单上。塔玛拉不像谭雅那样必须从书的中间开始，对上下文的记忆很差，塔玛拉被允许从序言开始，浏览了前 20 页。

This learning experience instantly became unpleasant when Tamara realized she needs to read much faster than her usual meticulous processing rate. She likes to make notes or peek into a dictionary. She gave up those habits due to scarcity of time. This undermined her comprehension. While reading the first page, her brain was already rambling. She started talking to herself: "This is stupid. Why am I doing this? I will finish only because I promised Wozniak to do the test". She skipped some paragraphs for speed's sake saying "I love American history, but I am not too keen to read about Aristotle". I checked back the text and there was only a passing mention of Aristotle in the context of Columbus's mistake in confusing America with India. This instantly told me that Tamara's focus was poor. She was thinking about completing the test and the futility of her reading. This was similar to Tanya's experience. Tanya was tired and hoping to read fast enough to survive the night without waking up in a coma.

当塔玛拉意识到她需要比平时一丝不苟的处理速度快得多的阅读速度时，这种学习经历立即变得不愉快。她喜欢做笔记或翻字典。由于时间紧迫，她改掉了那些习惯。这削弱了她的理解力。当她读第一页的时候，她的大脑已经在漫无边际了。她开始自言自语：“这太愚蠢了。我为什么要这么做？我之所以会完成测试，只是因为我答应沃兹尼亚克去做测试。”为了加快速度，她跳过了一些段落，她说：“我喜欢美国历史，但我不太喜欢读关于亚里士多德的书。”我查了一下课文，在哥伦布将美国与印度混淆的背景下，只有一处提到亚里士多德。这立刻告诉我，塔玛拉的注意力不集中。她在想着要完成考试，而她的阅读是徒劳的。这与谭雅的经历相似。谭雅很累，她希望能读得足够快，以便在不昏迷的情况下熬过一夜。

Book 2: Polish History

第二本：波兰历史

The second book in the test was Tanya's infamous book of history. Reading in Polish should make life easier, but this time we made a jump deep into book's interior. To add to reading difficulty, I picked the chapter that started with 3 pages devoted to wars. I know this is one thing Tamara cannot stand in history: wars. Tired with her first book, Tanya had to ratchet the level of dislike and poor focus. She even complained about the book format: "Why are pages so huge? I would never buy a book like this". She reported losing it on the second page already. At first, she wanted to give up literally saying "I wanted to throw the book against the wall". She added in agitated Polish that all the book speaks about is "kozak, szlachcic, kmicic, hetman, zold". These are all ancient terms that probably cut into Tamara's comprehension leading to annoyance: "cossacks, szlachta, Kmicic, hetman, emolument" with Kmicic actually being a fictional character that certainly was not mentioned in the book. Tamara did not stop reading. She did not want to fail me. Instead, she got a serious laugh attack. When reading a section devoted to the Battle of Kircholm, her tired eyes misread it as Battle in Jello due to the similarity of the spelling of Kircholm and Starch in Polish ("Bitwa Pod Krochmalem"). I have never heard of Battle of Kircholm. To be precise, I totally forgot there was such a battle. I am sure it was spoken about in my classes of history decades ago. This 20 minute battle from 1605 was one of the major battles of the Polish-Swedish war. It makes a prominent place in Polish books of history because it was a "devastating" Polish victory. The excitement with that battle today is a bit flat as we often visit beautiful Sweden and its smiling citizens. Sweden is just a narrow Baltic sea away from Poland and there are no border controls. We can land in Sweden after just a few hours of inhaling sea breeze on a ferry. For Tamara, the only tangible connection of the battle with the present is that she lives in a neighborhood where streets are named after the great Polish hetmans who led the Polish army against the Swedes. Everyone around knows the names, but almost nobody knows who stands behind them!

测试中的第二本书是谭雅的那本臭名昭著的历史书。用波兰语阅读应该会让生活更轻松，但这一次我们深入到了书的内部。为了增加阅读难度，我选择了开始时用 3 页纸专门讲述战争的那一章。我知道这是塔玛拉在历史上不能忍受的一件事：战争。谭雅厌倦了她的第一本书，不得不逐渐增加厌恶和注意力不集中的程度。她甚至抱怨书的版式：“为什么书页这么大？我从来不会买这样的书。”她已经在第二页上报失了。起初，她想放弃字面上的“我想把书扔到墙上”的说法。她用激动的波兰语补充道，这本书所说的都是“科扎克、斯拉奇奇、克米西奇、赫特曼、佐尔德”这些都是古老的术语，可能会切断塔玛拉的理解，导致她感到恼火：“哥萨克人，什拉克塔，克米奇，赫特曼，薪酬”，而克米奇实际上是一个虚构的人物，书中肯定没有提到这个角色。塔玛拉没有停止阅读。她不想让我失望。相反，她受到了一次严重的大笑攻击。当她阅读一个专门介绍基尔霍姆战役的章节时，她疲惫的眼睛误读为“果冻之战”，因为基尔霍姆和波兰语中的淀粉的拼写很相似。我从没听说过柯尔霍姆战役。准确地说，我完全忘了有这样的一场战斗。我敢肯定，几十年前在我的历史课上就谈到过这一点。这场从 1605 年开始的 20 分钟的战斗是波兰-瑞典战争的主要战役之一。它在波兰的历史书中占有突出的位置，因为这是波兰的一次“毁灭性的”胜利。今天对这场战斗的兴奋有点平淡，因为我们经常参观美丽的瑞典和微笑的公民。瑞典距离波兰只有一个狭窄的波罗的海，没有边境管制。我们可以在渡轮上呼吸几个小时的海风后降落在瑞典。对塔玛拉来说，这场战斗与现在唯一切实的联系是，她住在一个社区，那里的街道是以领导波兰军队对抗瑞典人的伟大波兰赫特曼命名的。周围的每个人都知道这些名字，但几乎没有人知道他们背后的是谁！

After just 4-5 pages, Tamara started hating the book and her reading experience. She started having flashbacks to high school. It appears her "scaffolding" is now heavily biased to reading about certain periods, certain people, certain concepts. It is definitely not ready for reading about wars. She was shocked to see that she still needs a great deal of technical vocabulary in Polish to comprehend the text. She complained "the first book in the test had a story behind it. This one is like reading facts from an encyclopedia. This is awful". She admitted that her last 10 pages were based on her eyes doing the reading, and her brain doing the thinking about... things unrelated to the text. She remarked: "I started fearing that this hate will now spill over to other books". Instead of just wasting 3 hours, Tamara feared she might hurt her passions cultivated for two decades.

仅仅读了 4-5 页后，塔玛拉就开始讨厌这本书和她的阅读经历。她开始回想起高中时代。看来她的“脚手架”现在严重偏向于阅读某些时期、某些人、某些概念。它绝对没有做好阅读战争的准备。她震惊地发现，她仍然需要大量的波兰语专业词汇来理解课文。她抱怨说：“测试中的第一本书背后有一个故事。这本书就像从百科全书里读事实一样。这太可怕了。”她承认她的最后 10 页是基于她的眼睛在阅读，她的大脑在思考…与课文无关的东西。她说：“我开始担心这种仇恨现在会蔓延到其他书上。”比起浪费 3 个小时，塔玛拉担心这可能会伤害她培养了 20 年的激情。

This experiment turned into a big eye opener. I wanted to show how forced reading hurts comprehension and learning. Instead, a bigger problem emerged instantly: a mere two hours of a forced learning session can undermine passions that take years to cultivate! Why does not Tanya report such feelings? It seems Tanya's defenses have already been blunted. Tanya cannot contrast her passionate reading with her forced reading. Via learned helplessness, Tanya accepts her fate as an unavoidable necessity.

这个实验让人大开眼界。我想展示强迫阅读是如何伤害理解和学习的。相反，一个更大的问题立即出现了：仅仅两个小时的强迫学习课程就会削弱需要数年时间培养的热情！为什么谭雅不报告这种感受呢？看来谭雅的防御已经被削弱了。谭雅无法将她的激情阅读与她的强迫阅读进行对比。通过习得性的无助，谭雅接受了她的命运，认为这是不可避免的。

Book 3: Afghan History

第三本：阿富汗历史

For the third book, I picked "Return of a King" by William Dalrymple. The book is big, thick, and intimidating. Tamara has for long been getting down to reading it but admits being intimidated herself. The book got rave reviews and picked many awards, but it deals with a short period of the first Anglo-Afghan War 1839-1842. Tamara said she picked the book from recommendation and did not know the subject of war was that prominent. To make matters really difficult, I picked 20 pages from the middle of the book. I looked for a fact-rich text that would simulate Tanya's experience with the Fall of the Roman empire. That was supposed to eliminate Tamara's advantage with her scaffolding in history. By going deeper into details, Tamara would suffer the same comprehension issues like Tanya.

对于第三本书，我选择了威廉·达尔林普尔(William Dalrymple)的“国王归来”(Return Of A King)。这本书又大又厚，让人望而生畏。塔玛拉长期以来一直在认真阅读这本书，但她承认自己受到了恐吓。这本书获得了热烈的好评，并获得了许多奖项，但它讲述了 1839 年至 1842 年第一次英阿战争的一小段时间。塔玛拉说，她从推荐中挑选了这本书，并不知道战争的主题如此突出。让事情变得真正困难的是，我从书的中间挑了 20 页。我寻找了一本事实丰富的文本，可以模拟谭雅阅读罗马帝国终结时的经历。这本应消除塔玛拉在历史上的脚手架优势。通过更深入地研究细节，塔玛拉会像谭雅一样遭受同样的理解问题。

While reading about Afghan history, Tamara gave up. Sort of. The book was a relief compared with Polish history. It had an actual story that instantly became interesting. She concluded that she would rather read a couple of pages slowly with interest and comprehension rather than rush for her "test mark". Instead of hating the last book, she fell back on her good learning habits. She was awfully sleepy and tired by that time. By a stroke of luck, my chosen text mentioned Jan Prosper Witkiewicz. While encyclopedic recitation of Polish national heroes in a schoolbook of history was offputting for Tamara, an encounter with an interesting Polish character in a foreign land in an obscure period of history instantly revived her interest. Witkiewicz's story turned out captivating! In the test of memory and comprehension, despite failing to read the entire 20 pages, Tamara's recall of details was excellent. She read the supposedly hardest piece at the point of utmost exhaustion well past her usual bed time. However, she was rescued by slowing down, her good general knowledge, and the quality of text.

在阅读阿富汗历史时，塔玛拉几乎要放弃了。与波兰历史相比，这本书让人松了一口气。它有一个真实的故事，立刻变得有趣起来。她的结论是，她宁愿带着兴趣和理解慢慢读几页，也不愿急于取得“考试分数”。她没有讨厌上一本书，而是重新恢复了良好的学习习惯。那时她困得要命，而且很累。幸运的是，我选择的文字提到了简·普洛斯珀·维特凯维奇。虽然历史教科书中对波兰民族英雄的百科全书般的背诵让塔玛拉感到不快，但在一段默默无闻的历史时期，在异国他乡遇到一个有趣的波兰人物，立即重新唤起了她的兴趣。维特凯维奇的故事最终被证明是引人入胜的！在记忆力和理解力的测试中，尽管塔玛拉没有读完全部 20 页，但她对细节的回忆非常出色。她在她通常的就寝时间过了很久之后，在极度疲惫的时候读了一篇被认为是最难的文章。然而，她的速度慢了下来，她良好的常识和文本质量拯救了她。

Schoolbook's curse of knowledge

教科书的知识诅咒

This third read was most surprising. While I expected a further downturn in reading productivity, Tamara showed signs of recovery. It makes me think that my original diagnosis was wrong. Books for learning Polish history in Polish high school only look well done. However, they are a major mismatch for the cognitive capacity of an average kid. Written by smart professors affected by the curse of knowledge, they produce a huge knowledge gap. They raise the bar too high. Most kids are doomed to fail. Even when they pass the test, they leave with little knowledge and little passion for further learning. Considering the current reform of Polish education, new books are again being written in a hurry. In a record hurry actually. This is a mass production where cutting corners is inevitable. This production stands no chance in competing with the wisdom and literary skills of a passionate scholar. William Dalrymple put all his heart and knowledge into making his 500-page heavyweight interesting. In the end, Tamara made a good book choice. I am sure she will read the book with no regrets.

这第三次阅读是最令人惊讶的。虽然我预计阅读效率会进一步下滑，但塔玛拉显示出复苏的迹象。这让我觉得我最初的诊断是错的。在波兰高中学习波兰历史的书看起来只会做得很好。然而，与普通孩子的认知能力相比，他们是一个重大的不匹配。它们是由受知识诅咒影响的聪明教授撰写的，产生了巨大的知识鸿沟。他们把门槛提高得太高了。大多数孩子注定要失败。即使他们通过了考试，他们离开时也没有多少知识，也没有什么进一步学习的热情。考虑到目前波兰的教育改革，新书又开始仓促编写。实际上是在创纪录的匆忙中。这是一次大规模生产，偷工减料在所难免。这部作品没有机会与一位充满激情的学者的智慧和文学技巧竞争。威廉·达尔林普尔(William Dalrymple)把他所有的心和知识都放在了让这本 500 页的重量级小说变得有趣上。最后，塔玛拉选了一本不错的书。我相信她读这本书会无怨无悔。

Update: Exactly one year later, I found out that Tamara did not resume reading claiming lack of time. However, she found time for other books. It makes me wonder, could my 20 minute coercive test discourage reading?

更新：整整一年后，我发现塔玛拉没有恢复阅读这本书，声称没有时间。然而，她抽出时间看其他书。这让我不禁要问，我 20 分钟的强制测试会不会阻碍阅读呢？

Self-learning must be self-directed and self-paced

自学必须是自我导向和自定进度的

Interestingly, while preparing the tests for Tamara, I noticed that some of the test texts were heavy enough to make me sleepy! I was right after a short session of incremental reading where my alertness seemed excellent. Once I started digging into details of some obscure battles of the past, my processor started overheating. This is the state in which most of the kids learn, except they are usually more sleepy. Someone might label it self-learning because it is a kind of "learning" that happens by oneself. However, such "learning" is not self-directed and is not self-paced. As such, there is very little "self" and a great deal of "foreign intervention".

有趣的是，在准备塔玛拉的考试时，我注意到有些试卷太重了，让我昏昏欲睡！我刚读完一小段渐进阅读，我的警觉性似乎很好。一旦我开始挖掘过去一些默默无闻的战斗细节，我的处理器就开始过热。这是大多数孩子学习的状态，除了他们通常更困。有人可能会给它贴上自学^[5]的标签，因为它是一种自己发生的“学习”。然而，这样的“学习”并不是自我导向^[5]的，也不是自定进度的。因此，“自我”很少，而“外国干预”很多。

Our morning conversation with Tamara after her night of reading had an interesting turnaround. She looked pretty disappointed at first. She said I burst her bubble. She felt again like a dumb schoolgirl. I needed a lot of explaining and reassurance that "failure" was the prime option from the very beginning. This is not how we should learn. Considering the possibility of stoking up hatred of learning, it is conceivable that those 3 hours of cramming could do actual damage. If the kid spent that time watching some mindless TV show, he or she might suffer less harm. It is better to waste time you enjoy wasting than to waste time on mental torture with long-term negative consequences. While talking about the test, Tamara started getting increasingly agitated. As if she had some time and reason to step back and re-think the whole concept of learning at school. As if only now the pieces of the puzzle started fitting together. She started urging me to fight harder to explain the thing to parents and students. She exclaimed: "How can parents do it to their children?". I toned her outrage by reminding her gently that awareness does not come easy. She did not fight for her kids. Her parents did not fight for her freedom to learn. Everyone seems to have accepted the status quo.

在塔玛拉晚上读书之后，我们早上与她的谈话有了一个有趣的转折。起初她看起来很失望。她说我把她的泡沫打碎了。她又觉得自己像个哑巴女学生。我需要大量的解释和保证，“失败”从一开始就是首要的选择。这不是我们应该学习的方式。考虑到可能激起对学习的仇恨，可以想象，那 3 个小时的死记硬背^[2]可能会造成实际的损害。如果孩子把这段时间花在看一些愚蠢的电视节目上，他或她可能会受到较少的伤害。与其把时间浪费在带来长期负面后果的精神折磨上，不如浪费你喜欢浪费的时间。在谈到考试时，塔玛拉开始变得越来越焦躁不安。似乎她有时间和理由退一步，重新思考学校学习的整个概念。好像只有现在拼图的碎片才开始拼合在一起。她开始敦促我更加努力地向家长和学生解释这件事。她惊呼道：“父母怎么能这样对待自己的孩子呢？”我温和地提醒她，意识到这一点来之不易，从而激起了她的愤怒。她没有为她的孩子而战。她的父母没有为她的学习自由而斗争。似乎每个人都已经接受了现状。

I told Tamara that her nighttime torture will have some important contribution to my book and if it can help one kid in the world, it would be more than worth it. She smiled for the first time that morning. It was a job well done.

我告诉塔玛拉，她的夜间折磨将对我的书有一些重要的贡献，如果它能帮助世界上的一个孩子，那就更值得了。那天早上她第一次笑了。这是一项出色的工作。

Comprehension test

理解测试

It was a great surprise: Tamara passed all tests despite my effort to make things difficult. To her, it was a horrendous experience. To a teacher, this might look like "school works". Perhaps such superficial impressions keep the education system in operation?

这是一个巨大的惊喜：塔玛拉通过了所有的测试，尽管我努力让事情变得困难。对她来说，这是一次可怕的经历。对于老师来说，这可能看起来像是“学校工程”。也许这些肤浅的印象让教育系统得以运转？

This is how my testing proceeded:

我的测试是这样进行的：

Book 1: American History

第一本：美国历史

Tamara passed the test on her favorite book of American history. From her point of view, she "remembered nothing" and felt bad about it. From the teacher's point of view, she knew the most important facts from the 20 pages. From the memory point of view, her passive recall was excellent, her active recall was good enough to pass, her long-term recall prospects were, naturally, very poor. This should be obvious to anyone who understands a thing or two about spaced repetition. She will certainly remember 1492 for reasons other than the mere mention in the book. She is unlikely to remember much beyond that date without further review.

塔玛拉通过了她最喜欢的美国历史书的考试。在她看来，她“什么都不记得了”，并为此感到难过。从老师的角度来看，她从 20 页纸上知道了最重要的事实。从记忆的角度来看，她的被动回忆能力很好，主动回忆能力也可以通过，长期回忆能力自然很差。对于任何对间隔重复略知一二的人来说，这一点应该是显而易见的。除了书中提到的原因之外，她肯定会记住 1492 年。在没有进一步复习的情况下，她不太可能记住超过那个日期的很多东西。

During the test, I could see Tamara missed entirely a very interesting and long story of Bjarni Herjólfsson. In 985, Bjarni sailed from Norway to visit his dad for Christmas. He did not sail from fjord to fjord. He sailed in a viking boat to Iceland. In Iceland, Bjarni found out that his dad had left for Greenland. Bjarni followed and discovered America on his way. It happened 5 centuries before Columbus. Tamara explained that she might have been in a skip mode when reading about Greenland. She explained that she wanted to meet the target of 20 pages per hour. She also had no recall of a slight mistake in the text, which claimed that Eratosthenes confirmed the roundness of earth while having no idea of its size.

在测试中，我可以看到塔玛拉完全错过了比亚尼·赫尔乔夫松非常有趣和冗长的故事。985 年，比亚尔尼从挪威乘船去看望他的父亲过圣诞节。他没有从峡湾航行到峡湾。他乘海盗船去冰岛。在冰岛，比亚尼发现他的父亲去了格陵兰岛。比亚尼紧随其后，在途中发现了美洲。它发生在哥伦布之前 5 个世纪。塔玛拉解释说，她在阅读有关格陵兰岛的文章时可能处于跳过模式。她解释说，她希望达到每小时 20 页的目标。她也记不起课文中的一个小错误，声称埃拉托色尼证实了地球的圆形，但对其大小一无所知。

Book 2: Polish History

第二本：波兰历史

I was even more surprised that Tamara passed the test on Polish history as well. This, however, was largely a pass on her prior knowledge.

更让我惊讶的是，塔玛拉也通过了波兰历史的考试。然而，这在很大程度上是对她先前知识的传递。

For example, I asked a trick question about Polish Constitution of 1791. The Poles claim it is the second oldest constitution in the world after the US Constitution. However, there is still an active 6-book constitution of San Marino from 1600. Strangely, the text did not explain the global uniqueness of the Polish bill. When I asked Tamara, she claimed Polish constitution came second. She clearly knew that fact before. She was surprised there were 3 pages devoted to the subject. Her brain entirely missed that part despite her claim that her eyes went through the entire text line by line.

例如，我问了一个关于 1791 年波兰宪法的棘手问题。波兰人声称这是继美国宪法之后世界上第二古老的宪法。然而，从 1600 年至今，圣马力诺仍然有 6 本书的现行宪法。奇怪的是，文本并没有解释波兰法案的全球独特性。当我问塔玛拉时，她说波兰宪法排在第二位。她以前很清楚地知道那个事实。她很惊讶竟然有 3 页的篇幅专门讨论这个问题。她的大脑完全忽略了这一部分，尽管她声称她的眼睛逐行浏览了整篇文章。

The biggest flop of that section was for Tamara to still claim she lives on a street named after a great writer Chodkiewicz. The book explained that Chodkiewicz was actually a hetman. Tamara was upset "I recall checking it on Wikipedia. There must have been some writer of the same name". Naming streets after great heroes of history seems like a great idea, however, few people truly know who stands behind their street name. Even those who care about history!

这一部分最大的失败是塔玛拉仍然声称她住在一条以伟大作家乔德凯维奇的名字命名的街道上。这本书解释说，乔德凯维奇实际上是一个波兰军事指挥官。塔玛拉很不高兴，“我记得在维基百科上查过，肯定有同名作家”。以历史上伟大的英雄命名街道似乎是一个很好的想法，然而，很少有人真正知道他们的街道名称背后是谁。即使是那些关心历史的人！

When I asked her the question about the resistance to populism, she disagreed with the book! I reminded her jokingly "You are at school. You are not supposed to disagree with the teacher or an authoritative source". In my experience, this anti-individualistic stance largely depends on the teacher. Some teachers are delighted to have kids with opinions.

当我问她关于抵抗民粹主义的问题时，她不同意这本书！我开玩笑地提醒她：“你在学校，你不应该与老师或权威人士意见相左。”根据我的经验，这种反个人主义的立场在很大程度上取决于老师。一些老师很高兴有有意见的孩子。

In many cases, Tamara showed "useless recall". She missed Prof. Bobrzynski's interpretation of the causes of the loss of Polish independence. His Cracow School of Thought pointed to the lack of strong centralized government. Tamara noted, "I remember Bobrzynski's picture. I skipped that part because I was running out of time".

在很多情况下，塔玛拉表现出“无用的回忆”。她错过了博布林斯基教授对波兰丧失独立原因的解释。他的克拉科夫学派指出缺乏强有力的中央集权政府。塔玛拉说：“我记得博布林斯基的照片。我跳过了这一部分，因为我的时间不多了。”

Tamara is a good mom. Her passion for parenting acts as a mnemonic aid in some circumstances. In the test, it helped Tamara answer questions about hetman Zolkiewski's testament. She summarized the testament as very moving at first. Zolkiewski wrote to his son about education and the need to read books of history. But the testament ended with a passage that Tamara summarized as "Please die for your country. Death for your own country is sweet". This is typical of Polish nationalistic indoctrination: die for Poland to deny something to a German, or to a Swede. Polish history books are full of similar sentiments.

塔玛拉是个好妈妈。她对育儿的热情在某些情况下起到了助记的作用。在测试中，它帮助塔玛拉回答了有关赫特曼·佐尔基耶夫斯基遗嘱的问题。她一开始把遗嘱概括为非常感人。佐尔凯夫斯基写信给他的儿子，谈到了教育和阅读历史书籍的必要性。但遗嘱以一段话结束，塔玛拉总结道：“请为你的国家而死。为你自己的国家而死是甜蜜的。”这是典型的波兰民族主义灌输：为波兰拒绝德国人或瑞典人的东西而死。波兰的历史书中充满了类似的情绪。

Book 3: Afghan History

第三本：阿富汗历史

In her last reading section, Tamara fell back on her good reading habits. Partly because of her frustration with superficial reading, and partly because she truly got hooked on a story. She read with comprehension and interest. Her recall of details was excellent up to a point where it dropped to zero because she ran out of time. Tamara did not manage to read 20 pages. Despite good learning, she might have failed a test that would cover only the material she failed to read. Overall, however, she deserved a pass in the test of that section as well.

在她最后的阅读部分，塔玛拉又恢复了她良好的阅读习惯。部分是因为她对肤浅的阅读感到沮丧，部分是因为她真的被一个故事迷住了。她读得很有理解和兴趣。她对细节的回忆非常棒，但由于时间不够，她的回忆几乎为零。塔玛拉连 20 页都没看完。尽管她学习很好，但她可能没有通过一项只包括她没读过的内容的考试。不过，总的来说，她那部分的考试也应该及格。

Tamara vs. Tanya

塔玛拉VS谭雅

Two decades older, Tamara performed better than Tanya because of the following factors:

塔玛拉比谭雅年长 20 岁，由于以下因素，她的表现比谭雅更好：

• better general knowledge
• 更好的常识
• better knowledge of history
• 更好的历史知识
• better learning habits shaped with years of book-reading and some experience with SuperMemo
• 多年的阅读和一些使用 SuperMemo 的经验形成了更好的学习习惯
• lesser proportion of the material she did not choose or like
• 她不选择或不喜欢的材料比例较小
• only a symbolic penalty over her head
• 只是象征性的惩罚
• competitive spirit. Tamara knew Tanya's story and wanted to do one better. For Tanya, her test was just one more boring day at school
• 好胜精神。塔玛拉知道谭雅的故事，她想做得更好。对谭雅来说，她的考试只不过是学校里无聊的又一天。

Deschooling

去学校教育

Tamara admits having little knowledge of math, physics or chemistry. Most of her general knowledge comes from reading books. If Tamara had never gone to school, she would have learned reading like all kids who are unschooled or those who join democratic schools. She would then delve into history and English, reach higher levels and never damage her self-esteem. Without schooling, we might have a better version of Tamara: not only knowledgeable but also happy!

塔玛拉承认自己几乎不懂数学、物理或化学。她的大部分常识都来自读书。如果塔玛拉从来没有上过学，她就会像所有未受教育的孩子或那些加入民主学校的孩子一样学习阅读。然后，她会钻研历史和英语，达到更高的水平，永远不会损害自己的自尊。没有学校教育，我们可能会有一个更好的塔玛拉版本：不仅知识渊博，而且快乐！

I presented my deschooling hypothesis to Tamara. She did not concur. Most people assume schooling is a good thing. However, after a short pause, she said: "For sure my life would look better if I just never took that history test. It will never stop haunting me".

我向塔玛拉介绍了我的去学校假设。她不同意。大多数人认为上学是一件好事。然而，在短暂的停顿之后，她说：“如果我从来没有参加过那次历史考试，我的生活肯定会看起来更好。它永远不会停止困扰我。”

Conclusions

结论

• good learning habits help learning, even if imposed conditions are irrational
• 即使施加的条件不合理，良好的学习习惯也有助于学习
• general knowledge dramatically improves reading comprehension and learning
• 常识极大地提高了阅读理解和学习能力
• bad learning habits forced by schooling can backfire in genuine hatered of the subject matter or even learning in general
• 学校强迫学生养成的不良学习习惯可能会适得其反，导致学生对某一学科甚至整个学习过程产生真正的厌恶
• learning on one's own is no guarantee of efficiency. Self-learning demands self-directed and self-paced approach
• 自学并不能保证效率。自学需要自我导向和自定进度的方法。
• schools could make a huge difference if they just cut down on the volume of learning, increased freedoms, increases self-learning, self-direction and self-pacing
• 如果学校减少学习的数量，增加自由，增加自学^[5]，自我导向和自定进度，就可以产生巨大的不同。
• schools can have dramatically bad impact on self-esteem and sheer joy of life
• 学校可能会对自尊和纯粹的生活乐趣产生极大的不良影响。
• for some people, unschooling might do more good than school
• 对一些人来说，非学校教育可能比上学更有好处。

Message to all great people in hiding

给所有默默无闻的伟人们的话

How come we set up the educational system in a way that makes it possible for great people like Tamara live years of low self-esteem while she should rather feel like a fantastic contributor to global good and global well-being? She is a great mom, wise human being, and a model citizen. I hope this text can provide a tiny bit of comfort and compensation!

为什么我们建立的教育体系会让塔玛拉这样的伟人多年来都生活在自卑之中，而她却应该觉得自己是全球公益和全球福祉的杰出贡献者？她是一位伟大的母亲，智慧的人，也是一位模范公民。希望这篇文字能给大家一点小小的安慰和补偿!

← 返回目录