祝孩子们天天健康快乐！

标题: 【转帖】麻省理工招生办主任的让人落泪的文字-父母必读 [打印本页]

作者: 柔光宝宝 时间: 2005-12-14 13:00
标题: 【转帖】麻省理工招生办主任的让人落泪的文字-父母必读
文字比较长，来自MIT的一个关于招生信息的博克。
注，文中提到的提前申请，是高中生们在常规的大学申请开始之前就进行的。为了进名校和常青藤大学，高中生们每天睡觉5个小时，各种学业任务和文体社会活动应接不暇。
先看看。权作管中窥豹吧。
谁说美国的孩子们轻松？应当如何对待这激烈竞争和失败。。。

麻省理工招生办主任的让人落泪的文字-父母必读

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Post-Early-Action Thoughts
[By Marilee Jones, Dean Of Admissions @ MIT.]

I'm sitting home reading the blogs this morning, enjoying my first day off in months. This breather comes courtesy of the finale of the early phase of the admissions process, but also because I'm finally driven to my bed, the result of a bad bronchitis that got the best of me as we worked late to finish those last-minute decisions. Spent nearly four hours in an emergency room on mailing night. Hmmmm... neglecting my health to get the work done... sounds like life at MIT alright. ;-)

Anyway, this gives me time to catch up on the cybertraffic and hear your concerns and it is breaking my heart. You see, my beautiful daughter - the love of my life - is a senior applying to college this year and I am just horrified by the pressures inherent to the admissions process everywhere. Horrified as both a mother and a dean who has dedicated her professional life to education, choosing to leave a life of research science long ago to become a gatekeeper for those who could really make a difference in this world.
Though Nora is not applying early anywhere (resisting the frenzied peer pressure to just get it over with), she is still in agony of a different type. She wonders aloud, did she do the right thing to wait? Will all the spots be gone? Will colleges think less of her because she didn't signal to them that they were her #1? I told her, in my deepest, wisest voice, that she was doing the right thing because she had not yet fallen in love with a specific college. Early programs were for people who were set on that one school, right? Don't worry, I told her, most students do not apply early anywhere and everything will turn out fine in the end "because after all, everything always works out for you".

Then I went to a session for senior parents at her school and learned that only 5 of the 94 seniors in her class were not applying early anywhere. I sat in that auditorium and began to cry, realizing the truth of what she'd been telling me all fall - that the pressure to get it over with was nearly unbearable. Here I was in my dean-of-admissions mindset, oblivious to that experience of holding such pressure while having to still do well in school. I fell in love with her all over again as I realized how brave she was to hold her own and do what was right for her. At her age, I would have totally caved.
So many epiphanies this year about this crazy process. All admissions deans should be required to have a child going through the process at least once to get grounded in the reality of your experience. I am convinced that although we think we know what you are going through (we were your age once... we applied to college and waited for that all-important envelope, we've been rejected and got over it OK and hey, we even got to be the dean), we actually have no clue what your lives are really like because your lives are so vastly different from ours when we were your age.

We hung out, watched just 3 channels of TV (!) or listened to transistor radios, showed up to take the SAT with no preparation, applied to one or two schools and got in or not. You are bombarded by glossy college propaganda ("we're #1 in the universe, the hottest thing around. The US News and World Report agrees, ranking us XX, so we must be good"), by companies trying to sell you their test prep or college counseling or financial services, by everyone out there who has turned applying to college into an opportunity to make a buck.

It's actually sickening to me now because as I stand off and observe as a mother, I see how often the message we adults send to young people is that they are not good enough as they are, that if only they were more involved, took more AP courses, cured cancer already, they would make a better applicant. I really feel that my generation has failed you by failing to act like adults, by failing to just tell the truth about what we do and why, by expecting you at your age to be what we still can't be at ours - perfect.
I read your blog entries and my heart breaks - because as Matt and Ben have told you, we took so many fewer this year (~12%) as we had 10% more applicants. We only have so many spots, so many rooms on campus, and so many of you are perfect for MIT in every way. This year especially I know that while we tell you in all honesty that an Early Action deferral is not a rejection, it will still feel like that to you. I really wish I could comfort you better. I want more than anything for my daughter to be admitted everywhere so she will not feel that sting of rejection so familiar to me at my age and level of experience (you don't get to be Dean of Admissions without some bruises along the way), but as a pragmatic dean, I know that she will probably get some rejections because of the laws of probability. After all, you are all at the crest of the huge demographic bubble, applying to many more schools than students used to, so everyone's probability of acceptance goes down. Ugh. Sometimes the truth is so ugly.

I can only imagine the anxiety you are feeling, the anxiety you describe online, as you are waiting for our decision, and I apologize that we still do things the old fashioned way - on paper, through the mail. I hear you when you say that the agony is unbearable and I believe you with all my heart. But we want to make sure that when we deliver the decisions electronically, it will be done right technologically, and this year we do not have the assurance that we can do that.

My staff also knows how I feel on this topic: while your generation has a completely different attitude towards personal privacy from mine (you guys love pouring it all out to the universe on blogs while my generation fears that Big Brother is watching), you are still teenagers and the public rejection of checking decisions on line in front of others is much more hurtful than finding out in your own time in private under your own control. A sense of control is essential. You don't have to tell everyone where you've applied, nor do you have to tell everyone where you were admitted or rejected. There are many advantages to privacy. Yeah, privacy is good.

That being said, I assure you that we MIT admissions officers will do everything we can to make this process clean, transparent and safe for you. You must see by now how committed we are to make admissions humane again, to treat every applicant like the rare jewel that you are. Ben, Matt, Bryan and Daniel in Financial Aid all love kids, and have the biggest hearts and highest integrity I know. They don't try to spin or package the truth... they just speak the truth and they are in life exactly as they write. I cannot say strongly enough, having just been through the grueling process with them of taking just 377 of 3098 superstars, how lucky I am to work with them, to work at MIT, at this remarkable place where truth matters more than perception, where light matters more than smoke and mirrors.

I know that doesn't make you feel any better, but it's why I get up every morning, to do my part to clean up the admissions process and take it back from the marketers and Big Business, to help return education to its rightful role in the scheme of things. I often tell my audiences, and usually they gasp, that "it's just college, nothing more, nothing less". We adults all know that where you go to college does not make your life in America - you make your life through your choices and intentions. This is not cliche... it is really true. The best people I have ever worked with - the smartest, the most creative, the most resourceful - did not go to Ivy League schools or the MITs of the world. Many went to schools you have never heard of.

My friend, a well-known pediatrician specializing in adolescent medicine, says that the #1 quality of successful and happy people is resilience - the ability to spring back from life's bumps and bruises. Since learning this I have thought that we colleges should really be asking applicants not just for your many successes but for your failures as well, to understand how much experience with resilience you've had. Certainly MIT students need resilience by the boatload because egos are challenged here every day. Humility comes fast. In order to be happy at MIT, all of us - students, faculty and administrators - have to like being surrounded by people who are smarter and more talented than we are. Not all smart people like that concept and there are many other good schools for them.

This leads me to my final thought on this Weekend of the Big Wait. Because I believe that the happiest people always create their own reality, I suggest that you see the college admissions process for what it really is - an initiation or rite of passage into adulthood. We don't really have initiations in this secular culture because America is a culture where Youth, not Wisdom, is celebrated. Initiation is all about growing up. An initiation is a process, not just an event. It is always hard - otherwise it is not an initiation - and it always has an element of fear or anxiety because you are being tested. It requires self-examination, courage and calls upon all skills previously learned. In an initiation you are saying to the world in a public way, "I am ready to be an adult and I will prove it now".

Think about it... through the college admissions process, you are reducing the complexity of your essence and experience to fit a fixed format on a handful of pages, exposing yourself to strangers who will judge you using arcane rules you will never understand, you will be forced to hold your anxiety for many weeks while you are expected to keep up the highest level of performance in school, and then will get the thumbs up or down response in a public way. Sounds like an initiation to me. And it may be the hardest thing you will ever do.

Odds are that many of you will be rejected somewhere this year (especially if you stretch yourself as the most talented people do) and I assure you, speaking as one who has gone before you, that life will present you with many such rejections. As you walk through them, you'll see that things always turn out for the best in the end. I do believe that when the door closes, the window opens. If you get a rejection this year, feel the hurt, yes, feel it fully to metabolize it, let it move through you and then release it. But then look for that open window. It's always there. After all, everything always works out in the end.

Now it's back to bed for me, since my fever seems to have returned. Hang in there, you guys. No matter what happens, better days are coming. I'll write again soon.

Marilee

作者: jerryhao 时间: 2005-12-14 13:07
哈，是的，只要有竞争，那里也不会容易，否则美国的孩子难道不会梦想进麻省呀。但不同的是美国人的评价标准而已。那个标准绝对不是花时间背书就能达到的。

作者: 八根儿 时间: 2005-12-14 18:25
看不懂<img src="http://www.etjy.com/images/smiles/muteness.gif" border="0" onclick="javascript:window.open(this.src);" alt= style="CURSOR: pointer" onload="javascript:if(this.width>screen.width-500)this.style.width=screen.width-500;" /> 谁给译译<img src="http://www.etjy.com/images/smiles/tongue-out.gif" border="0" onclick="javascript:window.open(this.src);" alt= style="CURSOR: pointer" onload="javascript:if(this.width>screen.width-500)this.style.width=screen.width-500;" />

作者: yu0099 时间: 2005-12-14 18:37
麻烦柔光宝宝　给大家翻译一下吧！

作者: 蛤蟆妈 时间: 2005-12-14 21:54
倒是觉得这篇文章与其是母亲对女儿的心疼与共情，不如说是招生办主任对落选学生的鳄鱼眼泪。其中还不忘宣传一下自己学校的热门却公正。其实竞争哪里没有呢？只不过美国的学生除SAT之外有更多的机会展示自己的能力，比如申请、推荐、平时成绩、课外活动、科研项目，等等，而且可以申请无数的学校；而中国的高中生就等着高考这一锤定音的裁判罢了。而正因为如此，美国学生申请大学的工作量比中国学生是一点也不少的。申请的学校多，被拒绝的可能性当然就更多，但被接受的机会也一样增加的。在美国你可以同时申请哈佛，MIT，斯坦福等等一流学校，而在中国有几个学生能申请北大的同时又申请清华？基本上这个志愿就是浪费了。当然中国有中国的国情，人口、制度、地区差异等等都是制约，至今还没有比高考更好的办法。可是无论哪种竞争方式，最重要的还是个心态。

引用:< the #1 quality of successful and happy people is resilience - the ability to spring back from life's bumps and bruises.

是金玉良言啊！而这个，正是我们从小应该给孩子培养的素质。
中国的高考保送生制度，除非是绝棒的，一般都不是上很好的学校，所以其实不过是个“规避风险，但退而求其次”的作用罢了，比别的同学早点舒一口气。但是美国大学的early application其实是个很好的解压办法，公平竞争，又是最好的机会都开放，真的是“get it over with”的捷径。作者的女儿没有申请只不过因为自己还难以确定目标，这就不能不怪她自己动作晚了。我觉得倒没有太多可值得同情的。但是反正

引用:< we've been rejected and got over it OK and hey, we even got to be the dean

, 这大概是妈妈对孩子最assuring的话了吧。

作者: 桑榆妈 时间: 2005-12-15 02:36
这篇文章我有收藏了,留给所有我认识的中国家长们看,看看谁还敢叫喊中国孩子辛苦了!

作者: 八戒公子 时间: 2005-12-15 09:01
英文水平所限，文章读得很慢，感谢宝宝的转贴。
感觉国人（我当然也在其中）对于西方的很多东西还处在“盲人摸象”的阶段，所以会有许多不同的观点，会有争论。但愿宝宝有空儿多搬点儿“象鼻子”“象腿”“象尾巴”过来：）
相信这一份真诚，个中辛苦也是有缘由的。同一个孩子，付出同样的辛苦，他生在中国的山东还是北京，结果可能不同，生在中国还是美国，结果仍然可能不同…………

作者: zsh8848 时间: 2005-12-16 09:32

八戒公子+2005-12-15 09:01-->引用:八戒公子 @ 2005-12-15 09:01 英文水平所限，文章读得很慢，感谢宝宝的转贴。
感觉国人（我当然也在其中）对于西方的很多东西还处在“盲人摸象”的阶段，所以会有许多不同的观点，会有争论。但愿宝宝有空儿多搬点儿“象鼻子”“象腿”“象尾巴”过来：）
相信这一份真诚，个中辛苦也是有缘由的。同一个孩子，付出同样的辛苦，他生在中国的山东还是北京，结果可能不同，生在中国还是美国，结果仍然可能不同…………

有道理！不过我觉得最重要的还不能仅仅从能否上名校来衡量美国学生和中国学生的不同，问题在于美国的孩子即使考不到名校，也有比中国孩子更多的机会接受大学教育（这是国情等原因造成的）。但是，即便是考不上大学的美国学生，也比中国考不上大学的孩子具备更多的生存能力，中国的孩子一旦考不上大学，高中的知识几乎等于白学，因为他们还没有学会，或者说他们还没有机会学会如何把知识同实际结合起来、如何在生活实践中学习的能力。这就是我们应试教育最大的弊端，我们的教育更重视的是“解题”能力，而不是“解决问题”的能力，我们高考落榜的孩子所学的知识就成了不再需要的“解题机器”一旦走向社会，他们就需要重新学习生存能力，而多年的应试教育养成的学习习惯又大大阻碍了他们融入社会的进程。在我国大学升学率远远不能满足社会需求的情况下，还是希望我国多思考一下我们的教育模式问题，当然这和大学升学的应试并不矛盾，令人担忧的是我国的现状是这种应试教育的负面影响已经愈演愈烈，已经从高中蔓延到初中，从初中蔓延到小学，甚至在幼儿园已经出现了“小学教育幼儿化”的现象，我的孩子上幼儿园（蒙氏班，今年4.5岁），在幼儿园除要做蒙氏工作外（挂羊头卖狗肉）还要学“千字童、拼音、英语、手工、剪纸、绘画、音乐、小学语文准备、数学准备（已经开始学乘法）、社会准备等等”这难道不是我们我们应试教育所带来的连锁反应吗？这难道不是我们中国孩子的悲哀吗？可能有人会说，就别让孩子那么累了！就在今年小学刚上一年级的一个班里就发生了这样的事，老师要教拼音，可听有的孩子说学过了，老师一问，全班50个学生，只有3个孩子没有学过拼音，其中两个是本地军队上的幼儿园，一个是老人带大的，他们都没学过。老师说为了照顾大多数学生也只好让家长回去给补课了，家长又多了一份负担，孩子也又多了一份负担，在这样的压力下，还有几个孩子喜欢上幼儿园、上学？同样，又有几个家长敢不让孩子接受这种幼儿教育？..........这能说中国的孩子不苦吗！

作者: hq1966 时间: 2005-12-16 12:26
<font color="royalblue">　　2000以下的单词量，除了we have the of看着面熟，其他都是生词。　　望洋兴叹！

作者: 八根儿 时间: 2005-12-16 13:03
8848 确实有高度！<img src="http://www.etjy.com/images/smiles/agree.gif" border="0" onclick="javascript:window.open(this.src);" alt= style="CURSOR: pointer" onload="javascript:if(this.width>screen.width-500)this.style.width=screen.width-500;" /> 看得实在！！<img src="http://www.etjy.com/images/smiles/agree.gif" border="0" onclick="javascript:window.open(this.src);" alt= style="CURSOR: pointer" onload="javascript:if(this.width>screen.width-500)this.style.width=screen.width-500;" /> <img src="http://www.etjy.com/images/smiles/agree.gif" border="0" onclick="javascript:window.open(this.src);" alt= style="CURSOR: pointer" onload="javascript:if(this.width>screen.width-500)this.style.width=screen.width-500;" />

作者: woodgarden 时间: 2005-12-18 23:42
<font color="green">此辛苦非彼辛苦。我觉得美国的教育环境，使学生更有机会全方位地了解和展示自己，有的放矢地经营自己的学业，学校竞争更接近于真正的生存竞争。而我们的教育从胎教一直到硕博，如火如荼的学业竞争已经到了扭曲病态的地步，孩子将要走过一条怎样的求学之路简直不敢想象。现在我们也许还有些教育的自主权，等上了小学怎么办？学校每天会让小小的他端坐几个小时？要灌输多少知识？晚上要写多少作业？课间允许活动四肢透口气吗？能保证充足的睡眠吗？还有时间运动和玩耍吗？他还能象现在一样地笑口常开吗？......什么时候我们教育的目的才不单单是为了造就成千上万的做题机器？我甚至现在就盘算着如何替他写作业和帮他请假了。未来社会需要题山文海煅铸的标准件，还是坚强乐观有责任感有魅力的人？

作者: 柔光宝宝 时间: 2005-12-19 01:34
最近在看一本书，To Open Minds: Chinese Clues to
the Dilemma of Contemporary Education By Howard
Gardner.
作者是一位哈佛著名的教育心理学家，特别是在早期艺术教育方面颇有建树。
他曾作为文革后最早到中国参加教育学考察和交流的带头人，数次到中国的各类学校考察中国的早期艺术教育。作者在该书中主要比较了中国的重视基础和规则的传统教育思想方法和美国的偏重渐进的认知和创新的方法。他带着客观科学的态度和对中国的深厚感情，思考和分析了自己在中国全国各个大中型城市里的许多中小学校所观察到的现象。他对中国的教育同行提出了诚恳的建议。
文中叙述道到89年止他在中国看到的教育状况。其中的一些介绍和描述让我作为一个那个时期的学生，感到非常的熟悉。他的观察和思考却让我对自己过去受到的教育有了更新更深的认识。感到确实是旁观者清。书中记录下作者和他们参观的学校老师之间的交流，其中有一段是作者对中美教学方式的“客气”的比较。原文是这样的：
In China, education is considered a race. Students should begin as early as possible and should proceed as quickly as possible along the track which is known and available to all. The education system is judged successful when many individuals have made it to the finish line as soon as possible. In America, we recognized the race too, but we feel that the students should have a chance to wander or meander much more, even if in the end not all of them make it to the finish line. As a result of their wandering, some of the participants may have more to offer by the conclusion of the race.
The advantage of the Chinese way is that more of your students become proficient and make it to the goal line. The disadvantage is that they may have less to say or to show once they get there. The disadvantage of the American way is that many students never make it to the end or even get close. The advantage is that some who do go "all the way" have very intersting and oreiginal things to say when they get there.
这让我联想到一个寓言故事，两个人为了什么任务走了很长一段的路程，等到他们分别到达目的地时，他们的师傅问他们在路上看到了什么，一个人说什么也没看到，只想着赶路了，另一个则描述了很多路上的美景。。。
教育的目标是什么，是某个指标的实现？还是教育过程中的经历的丰富和坚韧完整的人格的培养？

作者: paleo 时间: 2005-12-19 22:14
都不容易啊！

作者: dyly 时间: 2005-12-20 16:27
和柔光宝宝击掌！

作者: benben_2003 时间: 2005-12-21 15:20
谢谢楼上诸位的感言,获益菲浅

作者: tht 时间: 2006-1-30 23:46
看不懂Y文

作者: zlj_sd 时间: 2006-1-31 09:57
需要加强英文学习

作者: 临风听雨 时间: 2006-2-5 11:56
都一样。

作者: coolly 时间: 2006-3-24 21:10
谢谢楼主!好文章!

作者: 5270 时间: 2006-3-26 01:23
英语水平有限，下来慢慢看！

作者: doudoumm 时间: 2006-6-12 16:05
苦于没有国外生活的经验，对于国外教育的真实性很难断言。但很信奉媒体讲的国外教育在孩子个性和知识的使用性上的成绩。至于说压力和竞争是否可以跟国内相媲美，也因人而异。所以我们只要学自己觉得有用的东西，按照自己的目标和实际环境培养自己的孩子就行了。美国学生压力大并不能证明我们的教育是正确的，不用怀疑的。

作者: 乐乐的妈 时间: 2006-6-13 14:32
花了很长时间，加上金山词霸，看得好累，终于看完，不过压力在哪都会存在，这是不争的事实。

作者: jerryhao 时间: 2006-7-14 00:58
昙花快来帮忙翻译

作者: hulqun 时间: 2006-7-18 17:53
看不懂Y文，哪位翻譯一下

作者: jerryhao 时间: 2006-7-25 13:08
test

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