《10到25岁》第二章(5)：导师心态的典范

Sergio Estrada teaches at Riverside High School in El Paso, Texas. I found Sergio through an analysis of the data from around 1,100 teachers across Texas delivering rigorous college-level courses in high schools. We located the forty or so teachers that the statistical model said had the most surprising success. This means that the model thought students would do poorly, but for some reason they did well. We called these teachers bright spots. They were proof that ordinary teachers could consistently use the mentor mindset to achieve extraordinary results even in places many people had given up on. We convened these bright-spot teachers for three days to study what they did and how they taught. In this group of superteachers, Sergio stood out. He, more than anyone, achieved top performance for all students from all backgrounds. At a school at which just 2 percent of students were ready for college according to their standardized tests, 95 percent of Sergio’s students pass college-level physics each year.

塞尔吉奥·埃斯特拉达在德克萨斯州埃尔帕索的河畔高中任教。我通过分析德克萨斯州约1,100名教师在高中教授严格大学水平课程的数据找到了塞尔吉奥。我们定位了大约四十名教师，统计模型显示他们取得了最令人惊讶成功。这意味着模型认为学生表现会不好，但出于某种原因他们表现很好。我们称这些教师为“亮点”。他们证明了普通教师可以始终如一地使用导师心态，即使在许多人已经放弃的地方也能取得非凡成果。我们将这些亮点教师召集在一起，进行了为期三天的研讨，研究他们的教学内容和教学方法。在这群超级教师中，塞尔吉奥脱颖而出。他比任何人都更能让所有背景的学生取得顶尖成绩。在一所只有2%的学生根据标准化测试能够上大学的学校里，塞尔吉奥的学生每年有95%通过了大学水平的物理课程。

Here is what Sergio doesn’t do. He doesn’t enforce an impossible standard for performance without guiding or assisting his students. He’s the opposite of his colleague Mr. Trimmer, the math teacher.

以下是塞尔吉奥不做的事情。如果不指导或协助他的学生，他不会强制执行一个不可能的绩效标准。他与他的同事，数学教师特里默先生截然相反。

Trimmer is a lover of math who sees himself as the gatekeeper to the field. He has very little patience for students who fail to grasp the basic concepts. I can explain math to you, but I can’t understand it for you, he says. This comes from Trimmer’s belief that his students are unruly, unmotivated kids who tend to disobey him, disrespect him, and learn nothing. Therefore, his class is an exercise in compliance. He governs with fear. Any sign of disrespect or disobedience is met with threats of harsh discipline. Signs of laziness are met with public shaming. I teach, you listen is the social contract. Trimmer is a true enforcer. Most students fail, and those who pass do so by memorizing (and often later forgetting) the content, not by mastering it. Few of Trimmer’s students are prepared for college-level work.

特里默是一位热爱数学的人，他将自己视为该领域的守门人。他对未能掌握基本概念的学生几乎没有耐心。他说：“我可以给你解释数学，但我不能替你理解它。”这源于特里默认为他的学生是一群不守规矩、缺乏动力的孩子，倾向于不服从他、不尊重他，并且什么也学不到。因此，他的课堂是一种服从练习。他用恐惧来管理。任何不尊重或不服从的迹象都会受到严厉纪律的威胁。懒惰的迹象会遭到公开羞辱。“我教，你听”是社会契约。特里默是一个真正的强制者。大多数学生不及格，那些通过的学生也是通过死记硬背（而且往往后来会忘记）内容，而不是掌握它。特里默的学生中很少有人为大学水平的学业做好准备。

Many of Sergio’s colleagues in the district are the opposite. They don’t enforce standards. Take the pre-AP English teachers, so called because their courses put students on track for Advanced Placement (AP) courses. “They aren’t real pre-AP students,” the teachers said. They accused the administrators of putting unqualified students in their advanced courses simply to boost the school’s ranking on district metrics for course-taking. In the teachers’ eyes, the students are too frail, too far behind, to be held to high standards. “They are going to fail and lose confidence” if students took the district’s challenging college-preparatory tests. Therefore, the teachers rebelled. They reverted to methods that required much less critical thinking, such as telling students to write formulaically or regurgitate facts on tests. Lowering standards to protect students from distress, however, produced roughly the same results as Trimmer’s enforcement strategy: rampant student disengagement, shallow learning, and eventual failure. A Riverside student named Yvonne told me, “My English teacher, she doesn’t believe we can do anything. So, she doesn’t try to teach us. She just gives us worksheets and tells us to memorize them. She doesn’t respect us.” The English teachers use a protector mindset.

塞尔吉奥在该学区的许多同事则完全相反。他们不执行标准。以英语预科教师为例（之所以叫预科，是因为他们的课程让学生走上高级课程的道路）。“他们不是‘真正的’预科学生，”教师们说。他们指责管理员将不合格的学生放入他们的高级课程，只是为了提高学校在学区课程选修指标上的排名。在教师们眼中，学生太脆弱、太落后，无法达到高标准。“如果学生参加学区的挑战性大学预备考试，他们会失败并失去信心。”因此，教师们反抗了。他们回归到要求批判性思维少得多的方法，例如告诉学生按公式写作或在考试中复述事实。然而，降低标准以保护学生免受压力，产生了与特里默的执行策略大致相同的结果：学生普遍不参与、浅层学习和最终失败。一位名叫伊冯娜的河畔学生告诉我：“我的英语老师，她不相信我们能做任何事情。所以，她不尝试教我们。她只是给我们发放工作表，让我们记住它们。她不尊重我们。”英语教师使用的是保护心态。

What does Sergio do? He uses the mentor mindset: high standards, high support. His physics class is demanding. He covers the hardest concepts. He expects students to master them. But his class is also highly supportive. His lessons are interesting, involving hands-on labs and activities. Although his tests are very hard, students can retake them and recover points. He makes himself available to go over missed problems with students. When students come before school or during a free period to get help, he lavishes them with praise: “Selena is rocking it today because she came in and talked about problems she missed. She’s really improving!” Quick, correct answers aren’t praised nearly as effusively as having the courage to troubleshoot mistakes with Sergio.

塞尔吉奥做了什么？他使用导师心态：高标准、高支持。他的物理课要求严格，涵盖最困难的概念。他期望学生掌握它们，但他的课堂也极具支持性。他的课程有趣，涉及动手实验和活动。尽管他的测试非常难，但学生可以重考并重新覆盖分数。他愿意与学生一起复习错过的题目。当学生在课前或自由时段来寻求帮助时，他会大加赞扬：“塞琳娜今天表现很棒，因为她来讨论她错过的题目。她真的在进步！”比起与塞尔吉奥一起排查错误，快速、正确的答案并没有得到热烈表扬。

During the 2021-2022 school year, Sergio and Trimmer shared a troubled student, David. David was retaking Trimmer’s math class after having failed it during the prevaccine COVID-19 year. He was disruptive and noncompliant. By the end of August, David had just a 13 percent in Trimmer’s class. It was a level of failure that takes creativity and sheer force of will given how much work early in the year consists of easy in-class assignments. One day Trimmer came to Sergio’s classroom to warn him that David would be a handful. Sergio was confused. “David’s doing awesome in my class,” Sergio told me. David had an 85 percent. The morning I talked to Sergio, David had come in to apologize for missing an assignment. He turned it in by lunch. “I have no discipline problems from David.” In fact, Sergio has never sent a student to the office in all his years at Riverside. Sergio’s success with David is a kind of treatment group to Trimmer’s control. He got remarkable learning and growth from the same students, in the same school, when he used a different, more respectful mentor-mindset approach.

在2021-2022学年，塞尔吉奥和特里默共同教了一个问题学生大卫。大卫在新冠病毒疫苗出现前一年，上特里默教的数学课，不及格，正在重修。他捣乱且不服从。到八月底，大卫在特里默的课堂上只有13分（总分100）。考虑到年初的大部分工作都是简单的课堂作业，这种失败需要创造力和坚强的意志力。有一天，特里默来到塞尔吉奥的教室，警告他大卫会很难对付。塞尔吉奥感到困惑。“大卫在我的课上表现很棒，”塞尔吉奥告诉我。大卫得了85分。我与塞尔吉奥谈话的那天早上，大卫因为错过了一个作业来道歉。他在午餐前交了上来。“大卫在我那没有纪律问题。”事实上，塞尔吉奥在河畔的这么多年里，从未将学生送到办公室。塞尔吉奥让大卫取得成功，与特里默相比，就像科学实验中的治疗组与对照组一样。在同一所学校，当使用不同的、更尊重的导师心态时，他让同一批学生获得了显著的学习效果和卓越的成长。