通才教育永遠讓人受益 The timeless benefits

It is hard to imagine life without digital search and the internet. This is as true for me as for anyone else: the greater ease of obtaining and checking relevant facts and data has transformed the life of the columnist. Pulling books from library shelves and turning their pages was never an efficient search technique, even if sometimes an entertaining and instructive one. But exercises that once required hours in a library, and were often unproductive, can now usually be accomplished with a few mouse clicks.

很難想象沒有數字搜索和互聯網的生活會怎樣。對於我以及任何其他人來說都是如此：更輕鬆地獲取並覈實相關事實與數據，已使專欄作家的生活徹底改觀。取下圖書館書架上的書然後逐頁翻查從來不是一種高效率的檢索方法，即使有時這是一項有趣且增進知識的努力。但這種曾經需要泡在圖書館數小時（而且往往徒勞）的工作，現在通常只需點擊幾下鼠標就可以完成。

This change, which has taken place in the 20 years since I first wrote a column for the Financial Times, highlights wider shifts in the nature of knowledge and corresponding methods of education. Today it is less important to know, and more important to know what is known. The options trader need not be familiar with Black-Scholes equations, though he must know that they exist, and that others give them weight: the lawyer need not recall the judge’s reasoning in Bloggs v Bloggs, but must still have the higher-level knowledge that guides her search for relevant cases.

發生在從我第一次爲英國《金融時報》撰寫專欄以來20年期間的這種變化，突顯了知識的性質和相應教育方法的整體轉變。如今，瞭解什麼變得不那麼重要，更重要的是知道什麼是已知的。期權交易員不需要熟悉布萊克-斯科爾斯(Black-Scholes)公式，但他必須知道它們存在，而且其他人重視它們；律師不需要記住法官對Bloggs訴Bloggs案的推理，但仍必須掌握引導她搜索相關案例的更高層次的知識。

At the frontiers of knowledge, the finance academic who seeks to find a more advanced option pricing model, or the judge who must determine the case to which Bloggs v Bloggs applies, must still acquire personal mastery of all relevant information. But writing newspaper columns, running businesses, managing assets and advising clients in legal disputes are activities whose primary demand is synthesis. The ability to make connections between disparate sources of information is more critical than detailed familiarity with any specific source. This is the task that modern technology has made so much easier.

在知識前沿，試圖找到更先進期權定價模型的金融學者、或者必須裁決Bloggs訴Bloggs判例是否適用的法官，仍必須掌握所有相關信息。但是撰寫報紙專欄、經營企業、管理資產以及爲陷入法律糾紛的客戶提供諮詢，這些活動需要的主要是信息綜合。在迥然不同的信息源之間建立聯繫的能力，比熟知任何具體信息源更加重要。正是現代科技使得這項任務變得容易得多。

That is why the widespread belief that education should be focused more on the acquisition of job-specific knowledge is especially misconceived in the 21st century. Those who argue that more resources should be devoted to teaching Stem subjects (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) have a point, but not the point they generally make. It is beyond scandalous that so many people in positions of influence, especially in Britain and the US, are not only functionally innumerate, but do not feel embarrassed by that innumeracy. But this is because education is excessively specialist, not because it is insufficiently vocational. In England it is possible, and common, to abandon the study of any scientific subject at the age of 15, and the knowledge that they can opt out of any quantitative discipline allows young people to avoid applying themselves to these subjects at an earlier age.

這就是爲什麼“教育應更加專注於工作相關知識的獲取”這種普遍看法在21世紀尤其不合時宜。那些認爲應該將更多資源投入Stem學科（科學、技術、工程和數學）的人士說得有道理，但並非他們通常所說的那個理由。特別是在英國和美國，這麼多位高權重的人不僅沒有數字概念，還不以爲意，這簡直是丟臉的。但這是因爲教育過度專業化，而不是因爲不夠職業化。在英格蘭，15歲的孩子們可以——而且經常——放棄任何理科課程的學習，知道自己可以不選擇任何涉及數字的學科使得孩子們年紀輕輕就回避這些課程。

Fareed Zakaria’s book this year defending liberal education — a tradition that introduces undergraduates to a wide range of subjects and approaches to knowledge — is very much to the point. And so is his refutation of philistine Republican governors (just Google Rick Scott, Rick Perry, or Patrick McCrory), who draw cheap laughs at the expense of philosophy and anthropology. A little capacity for reflection might reveal that morality is not simply a matter of common sense or reading a sacred text, and that an understanding of other cultures — or simply an acknowledgment that there are other cultures — might have led to better outcomes in, for example, Iraq.

美國知名知識分子法裏德丠慢里亞(Fareed Zakaria)今年出版的捍衛通才教育（一項向本科大學生介紹多種不同學科和學習方法的傳統）的新書相當切中要害。他對幾個沒水平的共和黨州長——可以用谷歌(Google)搜索一下里克斯科特(Rick Scott)、裏克槧裏(Rick Perry)或者帕特里克麥克羅裏(Patrick McCrory)——的駁斥也是如此，後者爲了譁衆取寵經常嘲笑哲學和人類學。一點點反思能力或許可以揭示，道德並非簡單的常識或者閱讀宗教經典，而理解其他文化（或者只是承認還有其他文化存在）或許本來可以在現實中帶來更好的結果（如在伊拉克）。

It is a mistake to focus basic education on job-specific skills that a changing world will render redundant in a few years. The objective should be to equip students to enjoy rewarding employment and fulfilling lives in a future environment whose demands we can neither anticipate nor predict. In 20 years, we will probably not be using the Black Scholes model, or referring to the case of Bloggs v Bloggs. But the capacities to think critically, judge numbers, compose prose and observe carefully — the capacities that education can and should develop — will be as useful then as they are today.

將基礎教育聚焦於與工作相關的具體技能是不對的，因爲不斷變化的世界可能在幾年內讓這些技能變得多餘。目標應該是讓學生們在一個我們無法預測或預作準備的未來環境從事富於回報的職業，有一個充實的人生。20年後，我們或許不會再使用布萊克-斯科爾斯模型，或者參照Bloggs訴 Bloggs判例。但批判性思考、數字演算、撰寫文章和細心觀察的能力——也就是教育能夠（而且應該）開發的能力——在未來將同今天一樣有用。