No matter what age we are, we all remember our schooldays — but how many of us remember them as happy, carefree days? Society expects a great deal from our young people and is often tempted to label young people as “underachievers” if they do not achieve as highly as we would wish. However, who is to blame for these “underachievers?” Is it possible that the children are not at fault at all, but society itself?

This is a recording of a debate speech made on exactly this question as it exists in Britain. How much of what the speaker says applies to your own experiences of education and to what extent do you agree?

“Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, without a doubt, the greatest wish of every caring and responsible society is to do something important and meaningful to improve the lives of its young people. The most obvious way of doing this is to free childhood from the unacceptable pressure of examinations and selection.

At the tender age of 13 and 14, children are selected and pushed into examination classes that effectively decide their futures. Then, at the age in their lives when most of them are perhaps least receptive to formal learning, they are forced to sit exams where the penalties for failure are as final as a death sentence.

The lives of secondary school children are dominated by these exams. Some schools do offer a wide range of interesting subjects, but only for those who have already been labelled as less likely to be successful. So parents continue to push, cajole, threaten and force their children through exams, or search frantically or schools with “high standards” to do the pushing and forcing for them, because this is what our tertiary institutions demand. 

But is there any need for all that? What’s the hurry? The labour market is not exactly begging for young newly qualified people. Why do we put such intolerable pressure on our young people? What do they want? Between the ages of 13 and 16 a great many children feel less like studying and learning than at any other time in their lives. The business of growing up is enough. They need time and space. Often, highly motivated children, whose love of reading has led them to read libraries of books, suddenly stop reading at this age. It doesn’t mean that they will stop forever. With any luck, after about 16 or 17, they can grow out of that phase, but under our present system of selection that’s too late. If they took the wrong course at the age of 14, then they may already be excluded from certain options. Parents are often driven to despair at children who, given the chance, spend half the day in bed and the other half getting dressed, but it doesn’t last forever. So why do we choose this period in their lives as the time to make or break them?

If the pressure of selection at 16 was removed, secondary education could become a different process altogether. From about 13 onwards, children could be free to study if they choose; or they could choose to study for part of the time only. They could spend exactly as long as they wanted doing the subjects they wanted to do. Or they would be free to do nothing. Schools would have sitting spaces for them to do nothing in. If they wanted to spend half the day in the art rooms or doing drama, that would be their decision. In Britain, such schools have existed for decades, but while the present exam system exists, the penalties for encouraging a child to develop their own interests instead of the interests approved by the school system can be very severe.

It seems that the primitive system of education, physically beating knowledge into a child, has been replaced by a system that is equally unacceptable to a caring society: to frighten children with the threat of being considered unsuccessful.

When I consider that between the ages of 5 and 18 I was subjected to 17,745 lessons at a time when the brain is biologically at its most receptive, and how little I knew at the end of it all, I am appalled by the waste of time, money and effort. The schoolday itself is hardly designed to encourage serious study and concentration, as it is divided up into forty-minute pieces of learning. Students move about the school like cars on a factory production line, having little pieces of geography or history or biology added at certain times and in a particular order.

Most children cannot concentrate under these conditions. The very act of being taught all day by people who know better, or at least believe they know better, is enough to make any but the most highly motivated student rebel. The only rationale behind the present system is that it makes administration and school bureaucracy easy, but it can never be called efficient. Why, for example, does it take up to eleven years to get children up to the low level of English required for the exam they sit at 16? If somebody really wanted to teach a child English and the child actually wanted to learn, it could be done in a year or so.

The voice of the children themselves is rarely heard; and all too often, when they do write about education, they simply write what they know the teacher wants to read, as they are afraid of being marked down because the teacher disagrees with what they have written. However, changes are slowly beginning to take place. In Britain there is a National Union of Students (NUS) that can help students express their true opinions to the school authorities.

The NUS argues that school should not be compulsory, boring teachers should get fewer pupils, and many more people from ordinary jobs should take turns teaching in schools. If jobs are available, pupilsshould be able to do some work in the outside world. Adults should be encouraged to come to the schools and learn as well, in an attempt to make young people and the community as a whole more understanding of each other. They argue that under such a free system pupils would be likely to learn more and be more cooperative with adults and authority in general. 

I have no idea whether these students are correct in their belief that children would actually learn more. But I am sure they would be happier. I very much doubt that they would end up learning less, and we shouldn’t have to spend so much time telling 13- and 14-year-olds that if they don’t study all day, every day, they will not be successful in later life.

Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, I’m sure you will agree that you have no choice but to agree with today’s motion. The system that exists today is certainly harmful to our children and must be changed.”

人无论活多大，总忘不了学生时代——可在多少人的记忆中它是快乐的、无忧无虑的呢？社会对年轻人期待过高，一旦没达到我们的期望值，我们就总爱把他们贴上“差生”的标签。可是，谁该受到责备呢？孩子们无可责备，该责备的是社会，这可能吗？

英国同样存在这样的问题，下面是就这一问题的辩论纪录。演讲者的话有多少适合你受教育的经历，在多少程度上你赞同他的观点？

“主席先生，女士们，先生们：毫无疑问，一个富有爱心、有责任感的社会的最大愿望就是做些重要的、有意义的事情，去改善年轻人的生活。达到此目的的最明显不过的办法就是把孩子们从无法接受的考试和筛选的压力中解放出来。

十三四岁的年幼孩子就被筛选，被迫参加考试，自己的前途就这样基本上被决定了。对大部分孩子来说，这个年龄段也许是最不适合接受正规教育的年龄，可他们却被迫参加考试，失败了得接受无法挽回的惩罚，如同被判死刑一样。

中学孩子们的生活被考试所主宰了。一些学校确实提供不少有趣的课程，可只是针对那些落后学生的。于是父母们继续催促、劝诱、威胁、强迫孩子们继续考试，或者拼命去找这类擅长逼孩子们考试的好学校，因为我们的高等学府需要这个。

可是，有这必要吗？为何如此心急？劳务市场并没有巴望着要用刚培养出来的年轻人。为什么要给他们施加这无法忍受的压力？他们要的是什么？十三至十六岁的年龄段是大多数孩子们最厌学的阶段。长大成人这件事就足以他们应付的了，他们需要时间和空间。有的孩子学习积极性极高，遍览群书，可到了这个年龄阶段，往往突然不读书了。这并不意味着他们从此放弃读书，顺利的话，他们过了十六七岁就能走出这个阶段。但是对于现有的考试筛选制度来说，这个年龄已经太晚了。如果孩子十四岁时没走上正道，那他们就失去了很多机会。有的孩子，你要由他去，可以在床上磨蹭半天，穿衣又是半天，父母拿他们真是没辙，但过了这段时间就没事了。可我们为什么要选择这个年龄段，要么毁了他们，要么让他们成才？

如果我们去掉十六岁时筛选的压力，中学教育就会大变样。大约从十三岁起，孩子们就有选择学与不学的自由，或者选择部分时间学习。他们想学什么课程、学多久由他们自己定。或者他们有权选择什么也不做。学校会提供他们闲坐的地方。他们要是想去艺术室待上半天或排练戏剧什么的，随他们去好了。在英国，这类学校办了几十年，可在现有制度下，要鼓励孩子们发展自己的兴趣，不一心一意读书本，孩子们得到的惩罚将十分严重。

原始的教育制度是把知识强行灌进孩子们的脑子，它似乎已被另一种制度所取代：拿做个失败者去威胁孩子。这制度同样不为富有爱心的社会所接受。

想起自己五岁至十八岁就得上17745节课，按道理这个年龄段是脑子接受力最强的时候，可学完之后脑子一片茫然，这是多大的时间、金钱和人力浪费！我简直不敢相信。学校的课时每节课为四十分钟，这种课程设计不鼓励孩子集中注意力认真读书。学生在学校就如同流水线上的轿车，一会儿给你装点地理，一会儿给你安点历史或生物知识。

大多数孩子在这种条件下没法集中精力学习。让比自己懂得多的人，或者说至少是以为比自己懂得多的人来教自己已足以让学习劲头大的学生产生叛逆感。这种制度存在的唯一理由是让行政管理方便，让校方的官僚作风滋生，而绝不是高效率管理。比方说，要求十六岁的孩子参加的初级英文考试为什么需要用十一年去教？老师真心教，孩子真心学，一年左右的时间就够了。

有谁听孩子们的意见；当他们真有机会谈谈对教育的看法，也常常只写老师爱看的内容，因为他们担心自己的观点与老师不合，会得低分。但是这一切在慢慢地改变。英国成立了全国学生会来帮助学生向校方表达他们的真实意见。

学生会说受教育不应是强迫的，学生应不去听乏味的课，应让做其他工作的人轮流上讲台授课。如果能找到工作，学生可以到社会上去打工。也应鼓励成年人来学校学习，让年轻人和社区相互增进了解。他们说在这种宽松的制度下孩子们通常会更学有所得，与成人和校方采取更合作的态度。

学生们讲他们会学到更多的东西，我不知道这种想法是否正确。但我肯定他们一定会更快乐。我倒非常怀疑他们会学得更少，我们不该对十三四的孩子唠叨个没完，说他们不没日没夜地学习，以后就无法成功。

女士们，先生们，我坚信你们将不得不同意我今天的提议。今天的制度对我们的孩子有害，我们必须改变它。”