Lane老师专栏｜哈佛大学 vs 北京大学，一个亲历两者学生的有感

Lane：我时常在思考，在这个专栏里我如何可以更好的帮助我们的家长们了解更多的教育资讯，寻找到更好的方式引导孩子们的学习和生活。今天在VIPKID的办公室里，我意识到我的周围有一群非常棒的有着海外留学和生活背景的小伙伴们，他们出众的学习经历是不是也会给家长们带来一些思考？一点启发？于是这一期，我邀请到了我的同事Irene Shao，她有着在中国和美国长时间学习和生活的经历，年轻、阳光、充满活力，在此她与大家分享关于中美学习环境差异的观点。

Irene has a Master in Education Technology from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a Bachelor in Chinese history and Piano Performance from Cornell University. Irene leads the teacher recruiting effort at VIPKID, making sure only the best teachers are on our platform. In her spare time, Irene loves to dance ballet, play tennis, and she adores her Golden Retriever puppy.

本篇文章作者Irene，于哈佛研究生学院获得教育科学学位，于康奈尔大学获得中国历史及钢琴演奏双学位。目前，Irene任职于VIPKID，负责为VIPKID在北美招聘极具教学经验的优秀教师。工作之余，Irene喜欢芭蕾舞和网球运动，不过她最爱的是她那只活泼的金毛犬。

Irene专栏

The slogan of“ becoming a world-class university” is prevalent among the most prestigiousinstitutions in China. Having attended one, Peking University, as a MA student,only to drop outand complete an Ed.M. at Harvard, here’s my perspective of what’s missing.

“成为世界一流大学”已是时下中国有声望的大学纷纷打出的口号。我本人曾有幸在中国顶尖大学——北京大学中主修中文学硕士学位。中途辍学后又在哈佛大学完成了我的教育学硕士。故对两所高校差别，有些自己切实的体会。

It is uncontestablethat Peking University has world-class students and faculty. The people aroundme at both institutions were intelligent and ambitious. The problem isn’t funding either. It is mindset: how do we define “world-class education”?

毋庸置疑，北京大学，拥有着世界顶尖的学生和教学设备。不论是在北京大学还是哈佛大学，我身边的学生及教授们都极具智慧，并拥有奋发图强的感染力。当然，两所学校的差别也绝不在于资金方面。在我眼中，最重要的应是我们该如何定义“世界一流教育”这个理念。

During my undergraduate days at Cornell and grad school atHarvard, I was able to explore an abundance of non-academic interests: Istudied and performed in the only professorial piano studio on campus. I wasoften away to compete at debate tournaments, cumulating in three worldchampionships. I also tackled a non-required senior thesis, took figure skatingand ballroom classes, and worked on multiple startup ventures. To do all this,I have extended every kind of deadlines, took final exams in foreign hotels,and three faculty committee members scheduled my senior thesis defence aroundmy needs to ensure I had time for my other commitments.

我在康奈尔大学完成了我本科课程，并在哈佛大学攻读下研究生学位。回忆起那段日子，我非常有幸能得到大量时间和机会拓展学业以外的兴趣爱好，像我的钢琴技能，是在学校专业的钢琴演奏厅里学来的，最终还登上舞台完成了汇报演出；辩论赛也是我经常出没的阵地，还参加了三次世界级的锦标赛。非专业规定的毕业论文也是我时常涉猎的研究范围，花样滑冰和芭蕾课程也统统被我收归到日程行囊中，同时我还积累到了很多新型公司工作的经验。不过自然，为了完成所有这些，我不得不错过我大多数功课的提交日期，有时需要在国外酒店里完成我的众多期末考试，甚至三名教研员不得不重新为我规划我的毕业论文计划，以便我有机会完成我其他需要提交的工作。

No paperwork. No negotiation. I just had to inform myprofessors and they understood that their class, while important, is not andshould not be the center of my education. Everything was flexible to ensureI could direct and maximize my learning—academically and otherwise. And themost amazing part is that I am not an exception: this flexibility is affordedto everyone.

没有正式的书面申请，也无需义正严辞的谈判，我只是需要告知到我的教授，因为他们能够理解——即使他们的课程十分重要，但也并非是我学习的核心。我所做的任何事情都十分灵活，目的只有一个：确保我可以直接获取，并最大化获取我需要的知识，既包括学术上，同时也包括其它领域。最令我感到惊喜的是，我并不是一位特例独行者，这种灵活的学习方式是面向学校里的每一位学生的。

The day I arrivedat Cornell, President Skorton said in his welcome remarks: your education will not be confined to theclassroom. Your education is concealed in student organizations, duringnon-academic opportunities off campus, and over 3am conversations with ourfriends. Seems crazy, doesn’t it? Yet today, I can barely recall any conceptfrom Introduction to International Relations, but I vividly remember the worlddebate championships held in Gaborone, Botswana, where I saw the reality ofAIDS and how it affects university students just like me.

我来到康奈尔大学的那一天，Skorton校长在他的欢迎致辞中说，你们的教育绝对不仅局限于课堂。你们所获得的教育，渗透在学生社团活动中、课外与学业毫无关系的业余活动中，在与好友之间凌晨3点的促膝长谈中等等。听起来很疯狂，不是吗？时至今日，我几乎很难回忆起当初在国际关系学院中学到的知识，但我却清楚的记得当时在哈博罗（博茨瓦纳首都）举办的世界辩论锦标赛，在那里我亲眼见到艾滋病就在我身边，并了解它是如何影响着像我这样再平凡不过的学生。

But at BJU,applying for time away from school was like a deathtrap. My programme directorat Beida even rebuked me once, saying: “You are a student and as student,learning comes first.”

但是在北大，申请一段时间离开学校，是一个羞于开口的请求。我北大的项目指导员甚至还曾斥责我：你是一名学生，对学生而言最重要的就是学习！

Maybe, but howshould we define learning? In a globalized world, should students still beeducated with the aim of acing a test? Shouldn’t China’s best and brightest young minds have the freedom toexplore and grow? But to do that, theremust be a fundamental shift in mindset: to a student-centered approach thatholistically maximizes learning both in and outside the classroom.

也许他说的并没有错，但是我们究竟该如何定义“学习”呢？在这样一个全球化的世界中，难道学生的学习还是局限于以考试为目的的方式吗？难道中国最棒、最有思想的青年学子不应该有自由去拓展自己并在此过程中成长吗？但做到这些，我个人认为，我们也许应在心态上有些转变：形成以学生为中心的学习方式，同时在校内校外全面最大化我们的学习。

◇ 本文谨代表作者自己观点

小编语：如何看待中美教育的差异，一直以来都有很多不同的声音，有人说差异首先在于两国初等教育的教学目标不同，今天这篇文章或许就代表了这种声音。我们希望通过不同的视角来综合的看待这种差异，也欢迎我们的家长们一起来讨论这个话题，之后我们也期望能邀请更多亲身经历过两国教育的朋友来与大家分享。

想与北美外教一对一学习美国小学课程？快到VIPKID碗里来！