考研英语时文阅读(11)

引语：Enrichment activities can provide for very bright kids.

可为极聪明的孩子提供丰富充实的活动。

Gifted Children: how to bring out their potential

如何发挥天才儿童的潜力

Contrary to what many people believe, highly intelligent children are not necessarily destined for academic success. In fact, so-called gifted students may fail to do well because they are usually smart. Ensuring that a gifted child reaches his or her potential requires an understanding of what can go wrong and how to satisfay the unusual learning requirements of extrememly bright young people.

与许多人的看法背道而驰，极为聪明的儿童并非注定在学业上取得成功。事实上，所谓的天才生可能因为他们超乎寻常的聪明未能做到学业有成。确保一名有天赋的孩子发挥他或她的潜力，需要懂得可能会出什么差错和如何满足极端聪明青少年非同寻常的学习要求。

One common problem gifted kids face is that they, and those around them, place too much importance on being smart. Such an emphasis can breed a belief that bright people do not have to work hard to do well. Although smart kids may not need to work hard in the lower grades, when the work is easy, they may struggle and perform poorly when the work get harder because they do not make the effort to learn. In some cases, they may not know how to study, having never done it before. In others, they simply can’t accept the fact that some tasks require effort.

天才孩子普遍面临的一个问题是，他们及其周围的人，过分强调人得聪明。如果侧重会滋生聪明的人无须努力工作就能得心应手的理念。尽管聪明孩子在低年级时因为功课容易，不必努力学习，但当课程难度加大时，因为没有付出努力学习，他们可能学习吃力并表现不佳，有些情形是由于以前从未认真学习过，他们可能不知道该如何学习。其它情形则是他们根本不能接受有些任务需要付出努力这一事实。

If the scholastic achievement of highly intelligent children remains below average for an extended period, many teachers will fail to recognize their potential. As a result, such students may not get the encouragement they need, further depressing their desire to learn. They may fall far behind in their schoolwork and even develop behavior problems. Boys may turn aggressive or become class clowns. Girls often develop performance anxiety and psychosomatic symptoms such as stomachaches.

如果才智高的儿童的学习成绩在持续时间内始终低于平均水平，许多教师会不认可他们的潜力。如果这样的学生可能得不到他们所需的鼓励，从而进一步削弱他们的学习欲望。这些学生可能在学业上远远落后，甚至发展成行为问题。男孩可能变得暴躁好斗或成为班上的小玩

闹。女孩通常表现得焦虑并出现如胃痛那样的身心失调症状。

One way to avoid such difficulties is to recognize that IQ is just one ingredient among many in the recipt for success. Children thrive or struggle in school for a host of reasons apart from IQ, according to psychologist Franz Monks of the University of Nijmegen in the Netherlands. These include motivation and persistence, social competence, and the support of family, educators and friends. Emphasizing the importance of persistence and hard work, for example, will help a child avoid the laziness trap. Gifted children also need intellectual challenges---to teach them how to work hard.

避免此类问题的一个方法是承认智商只是众多促成成功的要素之一。据荷兰奈梅亨大学心理学家Franz Monks所说，除了智商，儿童在学习上“天天向上”或吃力坚持有诸多原因。这些原因包括兴趣和毅力、社交能力以及家庭、教育者和朋友们的支持。比如，强调持之以恒和勤奋努力的重要性将帮助孩子避免落入懒惰的陷阱。有天赋的孩子同样需要智力上的挑战---教会他们如何努力学习。

Acceleration or Enrichment? 跳级还是丰富所学？

Highly gifted children solve the most varied thought problems faster and more thoroughly than those with more average aptitudes do. Because these children speed through the regular curriculum for their grade, they need additional intellectual stimulation while they wait for the rest of the kids to learn the basics. Two central approaches are used to satisfy the educational needs of such children: acceleration and enrichment. Acceleration means studying material that is part of the standard curriculum for older students. Enrichment involves learning information that falls outside the usual curriculum---say, investigating a topic in greater depth or finding out about new topics.

天赋极高的孩子比悟性一般的孩子更快、更彻底地解决极不同的推理问题。因为这些孩子快速掌握所在年级的常规课程，他们在等待其他同学学习基础知识之际，需要额外的智力刺激。两种主要途径用以满足此类孩子的教育需求：跳级和丰富教学。跳级意味学习高年级学生标准课程的部分内容。丰富所学包括学习常规课程之外的知识信息，比如更深度地探讨某个课题或探索新课题的内容。

One way to accelerate children is through early schooling, a term that refers to expanding educational opportunities to children younger than five years. Such schooling may be very beneficial: one extraordinary talented little boy I met had learned to read fluently even before entering school.

加速儿童学习的一种方法是早期学习教育，这一术语是指将教育机会扩展到5岁以下的儿童。这种学校教育可能非常有益：我遇到一个天资极高的小男孩

在入学前就已经学会熟练自如地阅读。

A child might also skip one or more grades as a way of accelerating in school. But being with older children for the entire school day---and perhaps for grade-based extracurricular activities such as sports—can make a child feel inferior in every realm outside of academics. One very bright fourth-grader who had skipped two grades remained far ahead of his classamates intellectually, but as his classmates reached puberty, his social and other shortcomings became painfully apparent. To compensate, he began to brag about how smart he was, and his classmates responded by calling him “crazy ” and “show-off” and by totally excluding him from their social life.

这类小孩还可以跳一级或更多年级以加快学校学习的进程。但整天的学校生活都是与年龄大的同学相处，参与或许是以年级为主的课外活动，如体育运动，会使他们觉得在学业外的各项活动中均不如人。一名跳了两个年级的很聪明的四年级学童在智力上远远地超过他的同班同学，但当他的同学们到达青春期时，他的社交能力和其它不足变得恼人地突出。为了弥补这些缺陷，他开始夸耀自己有多么的聪明，他同学则以“疯子”和“卖弄”来回应，并完全将其排斥在他们的社会生活之外。

Because of such problems, most highly gifted children are better off if they largely remain in the grade with other children their age. Alternatively, mixed-age classes such as those found at Montessori schools prevent precocious students from leaving their regular class completely and yet may enable some acceleration for younger students. In some cases, gifted kids might be given the opportunity to, say, take an accelerated class in a subject that interests them while remaining in their regular classroom for ther subjects.

由于有这些问题，极具天赋的儿童如果主要与其他同龄学童待在同一个年级，处境会更好。要不，就像在Montessori学校发现的混龄班级那样，不让早熟的学生完全脱离常规班级，然而却可以使年龄小的学生获得加速学习的机会。在某种情形下，有天赋的孩子可能会有这样的机会，比如，留在其常规班上学习其它课程的同时参加他们感兴趣的某个科目的提高班。

When accelaration is not an option, or not a good one, enrichment can be. After all, school is not a race but an adventure in learning. As such, school is not finishing first but absorbing as much knowledge as possible in the time allotted. Thus, providing opportunities for a child to study topics outside the regular curriculum can be at least as valuable as pushing him or her through the required material faster. Gifted kids might get the stimulation they require by, say, joining a chess club, a math or debate team, or another enrichment activity that engages their intellect. Another c

ommon technique is to enable a child to embark on an independent project or experiement under the guidance of a mentor.

当跳级不是一项选择，或不是一项好的选择时，丰富所学是可行的。上学毕竟不是一项竞赛，而是一种学习上的探索。正因如此，目标并非首先冲过终点，而是在指定时间里尽可能多地吸取知识。因而给孩子提供常规课程以外学习课题的机会至少与使他或她更快通过必须课的学习同样重要。有天资的孩子如果参加一个国际象棋俱乐部，一支数学或辩论代表队，抑或其它使他们的才智有用武之地的丰富所学活动，可能获得他们所需要的学习动力。还有一种常规方法是在导师指导下让孩子着手进行一项独立的课题或试验。

The independent project approach has met with success in varied educational settings. In the revolving door model developed by educational psychologists Joseph Renzulli and Sally Reis of the University of Connecticut, a broad swath of above-average elementary school students---those who score in the top 15 to 25 percent on standardized tests---leave their regular classrooms for several hours to work individually on projects of their own choosing.

独立课题方法在不同的教育环境中已取得了成功。在Connecticut 大学教育心理学家Joseph Renzulli 和Sally Reis发展的“旋转门”模式中，一大批学生成绩超过平均水平的小学生---即在标准化测试中得分位居前15%到25%的学童---离开平日上课的教室几个小时，独立进行各自选择的课题研究。

In 2003 my colleagues at the University of Munster and I founded the Forder—Forder (challenge---encourage) program, in which kids in grades two through seven spend two hours per week outside their regular classroom studying a subject that interests them. So far 346 kids have completed the program, which usually culminates in a presentation to a teacher and classmates. One second-grade participant produced a documentary about Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen---the physicist who discovered x-ray radiation---that was later shown at the Rontgen Museum in Remscheid, Germany. Other children have put together presentations on bionics, black holes, female pirates, and the life of Queen Luise of Prussia. Gifted kids typically choose to learn about complex topics that are too advanced for most kids their age.

2003年，我和我的Munster大学的同事创建了“挑战---激励”项目----二年级至七年级的学童每周花2个小时在平日上课的教室外学习他们感兴趣的课程。迄今已有346名学童完成了项目，该项目通常以向教师和同学描述内容告结。一名二年级参与者撰写了一篇关于X射线辐射的物理学家Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen的文章。后来这篇文章被展示在德国Rontgen Museum in Remscheid。其它孩子还组织出关于仿生学、黑洞、女海盗和普

鲁士女王路易丝生平的内容展示。有天赋的孩子通常选择对大多数同龄人而言过于超前的难懂课题。

The programs and suggestions described here demonstrate that what highly gifted students need most are good mentors to serve as guides as they navigate complex subject matter. This specialized learning process benefits not only the gifted children but others as well: when the participating students share the fruits of their labors, the rest of their class also reaps the reward of learning something new.

本文所叙述的计划和建议显示极具天赋的学生最需要的是，当他们探究难解的课题时，有好的导师给予指导。这种专门的学习过程不仅使有天赋的儿童受益也惠及其它学生：参与者把他们的劳动果实拿出来分享时，班上的其它学生也获得了学习新知的回报。