Unit 4 Creativity新编大学英语第二版第四册课文翻译讲课教案

Unit 4 Creativity

The Case for Creativity—Encouraging Children to Think

Creativity is the key to a brighter future, say education and business experts. Here is how schools and parents can encourage this vital skill in children.

If Dick Drew had listened to his boss in 1925, we might not have a product that we now think of as practically essential: masking tape. Drew worked for the Minnesota Manufacturing and Mining Company, better known as 3M. At work he developed a sticky-side substance strong enough to hold things together. But his boss told him not to pursue the idea. Finally, using his own time, Drew perfected the tape, which now is used everywhere by many people. And his former company learned from its mistake: Now 3M encourages people to spend 15 percent of their work time just thinking and developing new ideas.

It is a strategy that more and more companies are employing and one that experts around the country say we ought to be following with our children, both at home and at school. The feeling is that if we teach them to think creatively, they will be better able to function in tomorrow's society.

Creativity's benefits reach beyond music and art. Successful students and adults are the ones who discover a number of ways to approach problems.

Creativity is not something one is just born with, nor is it necessarily a characteristic of high intelligence. Just because a person is highly intelligent does not mean that he uses it creatively. Creativity is the matter of using the resources one has to produce original ideas that are good for something.

Unfortunately, schools have not tended to promote creativity. With strong emphasis on test scores and the development of reading, writing and mathematical skills, many educators sacrifice creativity for correct answers. The result is that children can give back information but can't recognize ways to apply it to new situations. They may know their multiplication tables, for example, but they are unable to apply them to story problems.

In some schools, however, educators are recognizing the problem and are developing new approaches to teaching which should encourage creativity in their students. Some teachers are combining the basics with activities where the students must use their imagination. For example, instead of simply asking WHEN Columbus discovered the New World, teachers might ask students to think about what would have happened if his trip had taken him to New York first instead of to the Caribbean area. With that question, students would have to use what they know about Columbus, what they know about New

York, and what they know about the Caribbean. Teachers feel that even if the answers seem silly, it's OK, that sometimes being silly is an essential step toward creativity. In the classroom as well as at home, children must have the right to have crazy thoughts, experts say. Then it is up to parents and teachers to work with the children to develop those thoughts into workable ideas. The best strategy is to encourage children by asking them questions, meanwhile praising their ideas and new thoughts. Experts say that it is important to create an atmosphere in which there is no risk in being creative—a place where wild ideas are honored and valued, never scorned or dismissed.

There are things that parents can do at home to encourage creativity. They can involve children in decision-making if the problem is appropriate, asking the child for suggestions. Parents can help their children to understand the consequences of various decisions. Parents should also encourage their children to talk out loud about things they are doing. Thinking and language skills are closely related. Talking out loud improves language skills and thinking skills.

Having a sense of humor is also important in helping to develop creativity in a child. When parents show a sense of humor, children can see creativity in its purest form. By its nature, humor crosses conventional boundaries and breaks patterns. Creativity often does the same.

It is important to give children choices. From the earliest age, children should be allowed to make decisions and understand their consequences. Even if it's choosing between two food items for lunch, decision-making helps thinking skills. As children grow older, parents should let their children decide how to use their time or spend their money, but not automatically help them too much if they make the wrong decision. This may be confusing for the child, but that is all right. This is because one of the most important traits of creative people is a very strong motivation to make order out of confusion.

关于创造力的培养——鼓励孩子思考

1 教育界和商业界的专家们说, 具有创造性是通向光明前程的关键。本文将介绍一下学校和家长如何才能鼓励孩子发展这一至关重要的能力。

2 如果1925年迪克?德鲁听从了他老板的意见，也许我们就不会有遮护胶带这种用品了。现在我们几乎离不开它。德鲁当时就职于“明尼苏达制造和矿业公司”，通常称为3M公司。在工作中，他研制了一种用于胶带有黏性那面的物质，黏性很强，能使物体粘在一起。但是老板却不让他做进一步的研究。最后德鲁只好利用自己的时间改进了这种胶带。这种胶带现已被人们广泛使用。而他原来工作过的3M公司也从自己的失误中吸取了教训：现在该

公司鼓励员工抽出15%的工作时间专门用来开动脑筋搞创新。

3 现在这种策略已被越来越多的公司所采用，而且全国各地的专家认为，对待孩子也应仿效这种做法，无论是在家里还是在学校。他们认为，如果我们教育孩子进行创造性思维，他们就能在明天的社会中更好地发挥作用。

4 受益于创造性的不只限于音乐和艺术领域。能取得成功的学生和成人都是那些会寻求各种办法解决问题的人。

5 创造性并非与生俱来，也不一定就是高智慧的特征。一个人智力高并不意味着他必然能创造性地发挥才智。创造性是指能利用已有的资源想出新点子，而这些点子有助于解决某方面的问题。

6 遗憾的是，学校还没有想到要促使学生发挥创造性。许多教育者十分看重考试分数，强调阅读、写作和数学能力，往往因追求正确的答案而牺牲了对创造性的培养。其结果是，孩子们能够反馈所学的知识，却不知道如何灵活地应用知识。比如，他们可能熟记乘法表，却不会用它来解决数学应用题。

7 然而，在有些学校里，教育者们正逐渐认识到这一问题，并致力于研究能启发学生创造性的新的教学方法。一些教师把基础知识和要求学生发挥想象力的活动结合起来。比如，教师不再简单地问学生哥伦布何时发现了新大陆，他们可能让学生思考如果哥伦布首先到达的不是加勒比地区而是纽约，情况会是如何。要回答这一问题，学生必须应用自己掌握的关于哥伦布、纽约和加勒比地区的知识。教师们认为即便学生的回答会很可笑，也毫无关系，这也许是通向创造性的重要一步。专家认为，在课堂以及在家里，必须允许孩子们有些荒唐的念头。家长和教师们则有责任和孩子共同努力，使那些念头成为切实可行的建议。最好的办法是通过提问来鼓励孩子，同时对他们的想法和新点子表示赞赏。专家认为必须创造一个可以自由发挥创造力的氛围，一个尊重和赞赏而不是鄙视或不理会荒诞想法的环境。

8 在家里，家长可以做一些鼓励孩子发挥创造力的事情。如果遇到合适的问题，家长可以就该问题征求孩子的意见，让他们参与决策。家长可以帮助孩子了解不同的决策将会带来的各种后果。家长还应鼓励孩子大声谈论他们正在做的事情。思维能力和语言能力是紧密相关的。大声地谈论有助于提高语言能力和思维能力。

9 具有幽默感对于开发孩子的创造力也非常重要。当家长表现出幽默时，孩子们就看到了最地道的创造性。从本质上看，幽默跨越了常规界限，打破了固有模式。要创造往往也得如此。

10 给孩子一些选择的余地也很重要。应该允许孩子自己做决定并清楚其后果，要让孩子从尽可能早的年龄开始这样做。做决定有助于培养思维能力，即便只是在午餐的两种食物的选择上做决定也行。随着孩子慢慢长大，家长应让孩子自己做主支配时间或金钱；当他们作出错误的决定时，不要不假思索地给予过多的帮助。这种做法可能会使孩子迷惑不解，但这没有关系。因为富有创造力的人有很强的动力，使他们能够从混乱中创造秩序。这是他们的一个最重要的特点。

A Long March to Creativity (I)

The Jinling Hotel is a comfortable, modern hotel in the heart of Nanjing, a big city in eastern China. My wife Ellen, our year-and-a-half-old son, Benjamin, and I lived there for a month in the spring of 1987 while we were studying arts education in Chinese kindergartens and elementary schools. The key to our room was attached to a large plastic block with the room number printed on it. When leaving the hotel, a guest was encouraged to turn in the key, either by handing it to an attendant or by dropping it through a slot into a container. 1 Because the key slot was narrow and rectangular, the key and the block had to be inserted carefully so as to fit into the slot.

Benjamin loved to carry the key around, shaking it vigorously. He also liked to try to place it into the slot. He would move the key to the vicinity of the slot and then try to push it in. Because of his young age, lack of manual dexterity, and incomplete understanding of the need to orient the key "just so", he would usually fail. Benjamin was not bothered in the least. He loved to bang the key on the slot and probably got as much pleasure out of the sounds it made, and the physical feelings it gave him, as he did those few times when the key actually found its way into the slot.

Now both Ellen and I were perfectly happy to allow Benjamin to bang the key near the key slot. We were usually not in a hurry, he was having a good time, and this "exploratory behavior" seemed harmless enough. But I soon observed an interesting phenomenon. Any Chinese attendant nearby—and sometimes even a mere Chinese passer-by—would come over to watch Benjamin. As soon as the observer saw what our child was doing, and noticed his lack of initial success at the appointed task, she (or, less often, he) attempted to intervene. In general, she would hold onto his hand and, gently but firmly, guide it directly toward the slot, reorient it as necessary, and help Benjamin to insert the key. She would then smile somewhat expectantly at Ellen or me, as if awaiting a thank you—and on occasion, would frown slightly, as if to criticize us as parents.

Unfortunately, even for the sake of Chinese-American friendship, we were not particularly grateful for this intervention. After all, it was not as if Benjamin were running around wildly or without supervision; clearly we were aware of what he was doing and had not ourselves intervened. But it also became clear to us that we were dealing with totally different attitudes about the preferred behavior for children and the proper role of adults in their socialization.

Spending a good deal of time with a baby in China, we had plenty of opportunity to compare Benjamin with Chinese babies and to observe the relationship that generally occurs between adults and young children. Time and again, adults would approach Benjamin, sometimes just to say "Hello" or to play with him (actions encountered the world over), but often with a particular agenda in mind. Sometimes adults would tease Benjamin, pretending to give or to show him something, but then withdrawing the promised reward. More often, these adults would aid Benjamin with some task—retrieving a ball with which he was playing, helping him to sit straight in his seat, fixing his shirttail or his shoes, directing him away from a dangerous spot, or guiding the stroller he was awkwardly pushing around.

It became obvious to us that for some Chinese, babies are "fair game". Some adults (and even adolescents) feel little hesitation about intervening in the child-rearing process. Now it might be thought that Benjamin's appearance—he is Chinese, and we adopted him in Taiwan—encouraged this intervention; but similar intrusive interventions are reported by Westerners whose children do not look the least bit Chinese. It was equally clear that these Chinese agree on what is right or wrong in child rearing; in casual encounters with Benjamin and other Western children, they were exhibiting their shared beliefs.

培养创造性——任重道远（一）

1金陵饭店是一座舒适、现代化的宾馆，位于中国东部大城市南京市的中心。1987年春天我和妻子埃伦及我们一岁半的儿子本杰明曾在那里住了一个月，当时我们在研究中国幼儿园和小学的艺术教育。我们房间的钥匙系在一块大塑料牌上，牌上印有房间号。饭店希望客人在外出时交还钥匙，可以交给服务员或通过一个窄孔把钥匙投进一个盒子里。因为钥匙孔很窄，又是长方形的，所以塞钥匙和钥匙牌时得很小心才能对准那个孔。

2本杰明喜欢拿着钥匙，边走边使劲摇。他也很喜欢把钥匙往钥匙孔里塞。他总是把钥匙拿到钥匙孔附近，就要把它塞进去。可是因为他太小，手不灵活，又不完全理解钥匙要放在“正好”的位置才能插进钥匙孔里，所以，他往往放不进去。但是本杰明一点儿都不烦恼。他喜欢用钥匙砰砰敲打窄孔，也许他从钥匙的撞击声以及敲敲打打给他带来的肢体感受中得到的乐趣，不亚于偶尔有几次把钥匙真的插入窄孔时所给予他的乐趣。

3埃伦和我都很乐意让本杰明拿着钥匙在钥匙孔周围折腾。我们通常都不赶时间，他也玩得很高兴，这种“探索行为”好像也没有什么不好。但是很快我就发现了一个很有趣的现象：任何一位中国服务员——有时甚至只是个过路的中国人——只要是在附近，都会走过来注视着本杰明。一旦这个观察者明白了我们的孩子正在做什么，并注意到他对既定要做的事最初没有成功，她(少数几次是他)就会设法干预。一般来说，她会抓住本杰明的手，轻轻地但又是坚定地引导他的手直接去找钥匙孔，必要时重新调整方向，帮助本杰明把钥匙塞进去。然后

她会有所期待地对埃伦或者我微笑，好像在等着我们感谢她——或者有时也会微微地皱起眉头，好像是在批评我们做父母的没有尽到责任。

4遗憾的是，即使是为了中美友谊，我们也并不特别感激这种干预。毕竟，这又不是本杰明在到处乱跑或者没人看管；很明显，我们知道他在做什么，而且我们自己都没有干预他。然而，同样明显的是，在希望孩子怎样行事，在孩子融入社会生活时大人应起的作用方面，我们遇到了两种截然不同的态度。

5带着一个小孩在中国呆了很长时间，就有很多机会拿本杰明和中国小孩相比较，并观察大人与小孩之间通常存在的关系。很多次大人们会走近本杰明，有时只是说句“你好”或者只是为了和他玩玩(这种情况全世界都有)，但(大人)常常是想好了做什么。有时大人们会逗本杰明，假装要给他或给他看什么东西，然后又把答应给的奖赏收回去。更多的情况是，这些大人会帮着本杰明，例如找回他在玩的球，帮他在座位上坐直，给他理理衬衣下摆或者整整鞋子，引导他远离不安全的地方，或者当他笨拙地到处乱推婴儿车时指引他一下。

6在我们看来，对某些中国人来说小孩子显然是“该纠错的对象”。大人(甚至青少年)几乎毫不犹豫地干涉小孩成长的过程。可能会有人认为本杰明的外貌容易让人这样做，因为他是中国人，我们在台湾收养的他；但是其他西方人也报道过类似的干预，他们的孩子可是一点儿都不像中国人。另外一点也很清楚，在多数情况下，在抚养小孩过程中什么是对的，什么是不对的，这些中国人都有一致的看法。这些看法就反映在他们和本杰明及其他西方小孩的随意交往中。

A Long March to Creativity (II)

I soon realized that this incident was directly relevant to our assigned tasks in China: to investigate the ways of early childhood education (especially in the arts) and, more broadly, to illuminate Chinese attitudes toward creativity. And so before long I began to include this "key-slot" anecdote into my talks to Chinese educators. I would tell audiences about what had happened and seek their reactions. Some of my Chinese colleagues displayed the same attitude as the attendants at the Jinling Hotel. Since adults know how to place the key in the key slot (they would say), since that is the ultimate purpose of

approaching the slot, and since the toddler is neither old nor clever enough to realize the desired action on his own, what possible gain is achieved by having the child flail about? He may well get frustrated and angry—certainly not a desirable outcome. Why not show him what to do? He will be happy (those around will be happier), he will learn how to accomplish the task sooner, and then he can proceed to more complex activities, like opening the door or asking for the key.

We listened to such explanations sympathetically. We agreed that sometimes it is important to show a child what to do, and that we certainly did not want to frustrate Benjamin. But, as I have said, he was rarely frustrated by his fledgling attempts: "delighted" would be a more appropriate word to describe him. We went on to suggest that many Americans held quite different views about such matters.

First of all, we did not much care whether Benjamin succeeded in inserting the key into the slot. He was having a good time and exploring, two activities that did matter to us. But the critical point was that in the process, we were trying to teach Benjamin something: that one can solve a problem effectively by oneself. Such self-reliance is a principal value of child rearing in middle-class America. So long as the child is shown exactly how to do something—whether it be placing a key in a key slot, drawing a rooster, or apologizing for a misdeed—he is less likely to figure out himself how to accomplish such a task. And, more generally, he is less likely to view life—as many Americans do—as a series of situations in which one has to learn to think by oneself, to solve problems on one's own, and even to discover new problems for which creative solutions are wanted.

In retrospect, it became clear to me that this incident was indeed key—and key in more than one sense. It indicated important differences in the educational and artistic practices in our two countries. Even more to the point, this apparently little episode revealed important issues about education, creativity, and art that have interested thinkers around the world.

Dating back to the time of the Greeks, as Philip Jackson has pointed out, one can discern two contrasting approaches to educational issues. One dominant approach is the "mimetic" one, in which the teacher (and "the text") are seen as the unquestioned sources of knowledge. Students are expected to memorize information and then, on subsequent occasions, feed back the information that has been presented to or modeled for them.

Opposed to this tradition is a "transformative" approach, in which the teacher is more of a coach, attempting to elicit certain qualities in her students. The teacher engages the student actively in the learning process, asking questions and directing attention to new phenomena, in the hope that the student's understanding will be enhanced. One might say that in the "mimetic" tradition, the cultivation of basic skills is primary; whereas in the "transformative" approach, the stimulation of the child's expressive, creative, and knowing powers is most prized.

培养创造性——任重道远（二）1我很快发现这件事和我在中国要做的工作直接相关：调查早期儿童教育方法(尤其在艺术方面)，更广义地说，即阐明中国人对创造力的态度。所以不久，在与中国教育者们的谈话中，我就提起了这个“钥匙孔”的故事。我告诉他们事情的经过，要看看他们的反应。我的中国同事所持的态度与金陵饭店的那些服务员一样，极少例外。他们会说，既然大人们知道如何把钥匙放到钥匙孔里，既然这是接近钥匙孔的最终目的，既然初学走路的孩子不够大，也不够灵巧，无法独立完成想做的事，那么老让小孩子这样乱折腾有什么好处?他很可能会感到受挫或不高兴——这当然是不希望有的结果。为什么不做给他看呢?他会很高兴(他身边的人会更高兴)，他会更快地学会如何完成这项任务，然后他可以去完成更复杂的动作，例如开门或要钥匙。

2我们在倾听他们的解释时，表示理解。我们也同意有时候告诉一个小孩怎么做是很重要的，而且我们当然不想让本杰明受挫折。但是，正如我曾说过的，对自己毫无经验的尝试他几乎没有感到什么沮丧；相反，用“高兴”这个词来形容他应该更恰当。我们接着指出，关于这种问题很多美国人持不同的观点。

3首先，我们不太在意本杰明是否能成功地将钥匙插进窄孔。在我们看来重要的是两件事：他玩得很痛快并且在探索。然而最关键的是，在这个过程中，我们在设法教本杰明：人可以靠自己来有效地解决问题。这种自立精神在美国的中产阶级中是培养小孩的最重要的价值观。不管是把钥匙放进钥匙孔，还是画一只公鸡，或者是为做错事而道歉，只要是有人手把手地教孩子如何做某件事，他就不太可能去自己弄清楚该如何完成这一任务。更广义地说，他就不太会像许多美国人那样，把生活看作是一系列的境遇，在这些境遇中，一个人必须学会独立思考，独立解决问题，甚至于去发现新问题，并且用新的办法去解决这些问题。

4回想起来，我开始明白这个事件所反映的问题确实很关键，而且不止在一个方面很关键。它表明我们两个国家在教育和艺术实践方面有着重要的区别。说得更确切些，这件貌似微不

足道的事情在教育、创造力和艺术等方面揭示了一些全世界的有识之士都感兴趣的问题。5正如菲利普·杰克逊指出的那样，人们可以看出，在教育问题上有两种截然不同的方法，而且可以追溯到希腊时代。一种很有影响的方式是“模仿”式。在这种方式中，老师(还有“课本”)毫无疑问被看作是获取知识的源泉。要求学生记住信息，并在随后的时间里，把传授给他们的或者说是用依葫芦画瓢的办法提供给他们的信息再反馈出来。与此传统相反的是“转化”方式。在这种方式中，老师更像是个教练，努力发掘学生身上的某些品质。老师会使学生积极地投入到学习过程中去，向学生提问并把学生的注意力转l箩到新现象上，期望学生的理解力会因此而提高。可以说，在“模仿”式传统中，首要任务是培养基础技能；而在“转化”模式中，最看重的则是激发小孩的表达、创造和认识能力。