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出口中国的英国教育是否会变味

来源:可可英语 编辑:alice   可可英语APP下载 |  可可官方微信:ikekenet

Normally an email from the head of governors at my old school bringing “exciting news” about an ambitious new development is cause for trepidation and accompanied by the inevitable plea for funds. A new theatre here or the irresistible offer of immortality there via my name chiselled on a flagstone.

通常,来自我母校董事会负责人的、带来有关雄心勃勃新发展的“激动人心消息”的邮件,会让我感到恐慌,并且必然附有募捐的请求。这里要建一座新剧院,或者那里要把我的名字刻在石板上让我百世流芳——一种让人无法拒绝的提议。
This one, however, was different. Westminster School in London had signed an agreement to set up six new establishments in China in the next decade, the latest example of a British private school embracing the biggest education market in the world.
然而,这一次情况完全不同。伦敦威斯敏斯特学校(Westminster School)签署了一项协议,将在未来十年在中国建立6家新机构。这是英国私立学校拥抱全世界最大的教育市场的最新例子。
Under the terms of an ambitious deal, Westminster will export its successful teaching methods to Chengdu and other cities. In return the school will boost its bursary funds, making more money available to help families on lower incomes access an education at one of the UK’s leading — and pricier — academic independent schools, whose former pupils include politicians, writers, rock stars and the odd trapeze artist. The venture sits within an initiative to promote collaboration between future leaders of both countries.
根据一项雄心勃勃的协议,威斯敏斯特学校将把它成功的教育方法出口至成都和其他城市。作为回报,该学校将增加助学基金,提供更多资金来帮助较低收入家庭的孩子在这所英国领先(并且较为昂贵的)学术独立学校接受教育,这里曾经培养出政客、作家、摇滚明星和高空杂技演员。合资建校的计划是基于促进两国未来领导人之间合作的倡议。
This all seems to tick many boxes. These range from a need for a “global Britain” to seize new opportunities, to Westminster acquiring the means to fulfil its obligations as a charity to make its schooling as widely available as possible.
这一切似乎是一举多得,包括满足“全球化的英国”掌握新机遇的需求,以及让威斯敏斯特学校获得履行其作为慈善机构尽可能广泛施教的职责的手段。
The move is also in keeping with a broader trend. For years now British schools have been operating offshoots in China (and elsewhere), selling various brands of top-drawer education directly in to fast-growing markets. Some have done very well, others have struggled, while one or two have faced concerns from parents that global expansion has become a distraction from the core mission back home. If anything, Westminster is a bit late to the China party.
此举也符合整体趋势。多年来,英国的学校不断在中国(及其他地区)运营分支机构,直接向快速增长的市场销售各种顶级教育品牌。有些学校做的非常出色,有些学校苦苦挣扎,同时还有一两家学校要应对来自家长的担忧——全球化扩张分散了学校完成本国核心任务的精力。对于威斯敏斯特学校来说,它加入中国盛宴的时间可能有点晚了。
On one level I am impressed by this outburst of commercial savvy. The entrepreneurial spirit underpinning the China gambit seems a world away from the shabby, bohemian atmosphere that reigned at the school during my years of badly dyed hair, winkle-picker shoes and clandestine smokes in the shadows of Big Ben, amid fraught attempts actually to talk to girls. The facilities were varied — breakfast in a gem of a medieval refectory followed by language lessons in a couple of leaking Portakabins — and the teaching was excellent, if at times unorthodox.
在某种程度上,这种突然迸发出来的商业思维令我印象深刻。支撑学校的中国策略的创业精神,与我上学时学校破破烂烂却放浪不羁的气氛相比恍如隔世,那时的我,顶着一头染得很糟的头发,穿着尖头皮鞋,在大本钟(Big Ben)的影子下偷偷吸烟,蹩脚地尝试着和女孩们说话。那时的设施多种多样——我们在中世纪的历史瑰宝餐厅内吃早饭,然后在几间漏水的活动房屋内上语言课——教学非常出色,尽管有时方法是非正统的。
Yet something about this venture jars. In particular, Westminster’s agreement to deliver the compulsory Chinese national curriculum, which includes political education. This is different from the way other UK schools operate in China, where they tend to stick to an international curriculum. It also seems at odds with the tradition and spirit of Westminster itself, which takes an almost perverse delight in a culture of defiant individualism, independence of mind and distrust of authority. It prides itself on having resisted the 19th-century reforms of the English “public” — ie private — system that placed so much emphasis on games and team spirit as a basis on which to raise a ruling class that would govern the world.
不过,威斯敏斯特学校的这次中国冒险,还有一些令人不太满意的地方。特别是威斯敏斯特学校同意使用中国义务教育全国通用课程——其中包括政治教育。这不同于其他英国学校在中国的运营方式——它们往往坚持使用国际课程。这似乎也与威斯敏斯特学校本身的传统和精神格格不入,它几乎固执地坚持反抗性的个人主义、思想独立以及不信任权威的文化。它引以为豪的是抵制了19世纪对英国“公共”(实际上是私立)学校体制——强调游戏和团队精神,视之为培养治理世界的统治阶层的基础——的改革。
Or at least that is what they used to tell us. The whole point about Westminster was that it was supposed to be slightly different. If it was a traditional education that offered polish but few surprises you were after, this could easily be had in London’s commuter belt or in one of the gracious, if pallid, cathedral cities.
或者至少这是他们过去告诉我们的。关于威斯敏斯特学校的关键在于,它本应该有所不同。如果你追求的是精致但寻常的传统教育,那么伦敦通勤者生活地带或优雅(但可能毫无生气)的大教堂所在城市可以轻松找到这样的学校。

出口中国的英国教育是否会变味.jpg

There is a broader question closer to home: what are overseas parents actually paying for? As the numbers of foreign students have increased, schools have adapted to their new customers. At what point do they lose the qualities that attracted overseas students in the first place?

还有一个更切入核心的更为广泛的问题:海外学生的父母花钱到底是为了什么?随着外国学生人数不断增加,学校已经面向它们的新客户做出调整。它们什么时候会失去最初吸引海外学生的品质?
The truth is that you can never really know how things are going to turn out. For all the Establishment types bred by English private schools there have been a fair number of rebels and scoundrels. The roll-call of old Westminsters includes Kim Philby — a consummate child of the British ruling class and arch traitor to it. The one-time Kings Scholar and later KGB colonel reportedly kept up with news from school long after he had taken up residence in Moscow, having inflicted massive damage on the system he was raised to serve. One can’t help wondering what China’s ruling cadres might think about that.
事实上,你永远都无法知晓事情会如何发展。尽管英国私立学校培养出了众多建制派人物,但也培养了相当数量的叛徒和无赖。老威斯敏斯特学校培养出的毕业生包括金?菲尔比(Kim Philby)——出身于英国统治阶层的天之骄子,却成为英国统治阶层的主要叛徒。据称,曾经获封国王学者(King's Scholar)、后来成为克格勃(KGB)上校的菲尔比在定居莫斯科很长时间后,仍然关注母校的消息,而他已对他原本应该服务的系统造成巨大伤害。人们不禁想知道中国的统治阶层对此有何感想。

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adj. 秘密的,暗中的

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adj. 传统的

 
boost [bu:st]

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vt. 推进,提高,增加
n. 推进,增加

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n. 课程,全部课程
curricula(复数

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