TED英語演講稿：大人可以跟孩子學(xué)什么？
鄒奇奇背景資料
美國華盛頓州西雅圖市華裔女童鄒奇奇(英文名Adora Svitak)，2008年被美國媒體譽為“世界上最聰明的孩子”，她比鳳姐牛多了，3歲時就開始閱讀各種書籍，從4歲起寫下了400多篇故事和詩歌，8歲時出版的故事集《飛揚的手指》轟動美國，其中包含的300多篇故事大多以中世紀為背景，從古埃及寫到了文藝復(fù)興，文中透露的政治、宗教和教育見解，思想深刻，文思嚴謹，
TED英語演講稿：大人可以跟孩子學(xué)什么？
。鄒奇奇也被 譽為“美國文壇小巨人”。鄒奇奇的母親鄒燦(Joyce)是中國重慶人，1988年到美國后，學(xué)習法語專業(yè)的她又獲得了英語文學(xué)碩士學(xué)位，現(xiàn)在是美國一家電話語音翻譯公司的.中英文翻譯員。奇奇的父親約翰John Svitak是一名捷克裔美國人物理學(xué)博士，現(xiàn)任職于微軟公司。除了奇奇外，他們還有另一個名叫希希的10歲女兒，姐妹倆的名字合起來就是“希奇”。全家生活在美國華盛頓州西雅圖市。盡管鄒奇奇的外表和其他同齡孩子沒啥兩樣，但她的知識和成就卻遠非同齡孩子可比。
Now, I want to start with a question: When was the last time you were called childish? For kids like me, being called childish can be a frequent occurrence. Every time we make irrational demands, exhibit irresponsible behavior, or display any other signs of being normal American citizens, we are called childish, which really bothers me. After all, take a look at these events: Imperialism and colonization, world wars, George W. Bush. Ask yourself: Who's responsible? Adults.
Now, what have kids done? Well, Anne Frank touched millions with her powerful account of the Holocaust, Ruby Bridges helped end segregation in the United States, and, most recently, Charlie Simpson helped to raise 120,000 pounds for Haiti on his little bike. So, as you can see evidenced by such examples, age has absolutely nothing to do with it. The traits the word childish addresses are seen so often in adults that we should abolish this age-discriminatory word when it comes to criticizing behavior associated with irresponsibility and irrational thinking. (Applause)
Thank you. Then again, who's to say that certain types of irrational thinking aren't exactly what the world needs? Maybe you've had grand plans before, but stopped yourself, thinking: That's impossible or that costs too much or that won't benefit me. For better or worse, we kids aren't hampered as much when it comes to thinking about reasons why not to do things. Kids can be full of inspiring aspirations and hopeful thinking, like my wish that no one went hungry or that everything were free kind of utopia. How many of you still dream like that and believe in the possibilities? Sometimes a knowledge of history and the past failures of utopian ideals can be a burden because you know that if everything were free, that the food stocks would become depleted, and scarce and lead to chaos. On the other hand, we kids still dream about perfection. And that's a good thing because in order to make anything a reality, you have to dream about it first.
In many ways, our audacity to imagine helps push the boundaries of possibility. For instance, the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, Washington, my home state -- yoohoo Washington -- (Applause) has a program called Kids Design Glass, and kids draw their own ideas for glass art. Now, the resident artist said they got some of their best ideas through the program because kids don't think about the limitations of how hard it can be to blow glass into certain shapes. They just think of good ideas. Now, when you think of glass, you might think of colorful Chihuly designs or maybe Italian vases, but kids challenge glass artists to go beyond that into the realm of broken-hearted snakes and bacon boys, who you can see has meat vision. (Laughter)
Now, our inherent wisdom doesn't have to be insiders' knowledge. Kids already do a lot of learning from adults, and we have a lot to share. I think that adults should start learning from kids. Now, I do most of my speaking in front of an education crowd, teachers and students, and I like this analogy. It shouldn't just be a teacher at the head of the classroom telling students do this, do that. The students should teach their teachers. Learning between grown ups and kids should be reciprocal. The reality, unfortunately, is a little different, and it has a lot to do with trust, or a lack of it.
Now, if you don't trust someone, you place restrictions on them, right. If I doubt my older sister's ability to pay back the 10 percent interest I established on her last loan, I'm going to withhold her ability to get more money from me until she pays it back. (Laughter) True story, by the way. Now, adults seem to have a prevalently restrictive attitude towards kids from every "don't do that," "don't do this" in the school handbook, to restrictions on school internet use. As history points out, regimes become oppressive when they're fearful about keeping control. And, although adults may not be quite at the level of totalitarian regimes, kids have no, or very little, say in making the rules, when really the attitude should be reciprocal, meaning that the adult population should learn and take into account the wishes of the younger population.
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