TED英语演讲稿：大人可以跟孩子学什么？
邹奇奇背景资料
美国华盛顿州西雅图市华裔女童邹奇奇(英文名Adora Svitak)，2008年被美国媒体誉为“世界上最聪明的孩子”，她比凤姐牛多了，3岁时就开始阅读各种书籍，从4岁起写下了400多篇故事和诗歌，8岁时出版的故事集《飞扬的手指》轰动美国，其中包含的300多篇故事大多以中世纪为背景，从古埃及写到了文艺复兴，文中透露的政治、宗教和教育见解，思想深刻，文思严谨，
TED英语演讲稿：大人可以跟孩子学什么？
。邹奇奇也被 誉为“美国文坛小巨人”。邹奇奇的母亲邹灿(Joyce)是中国重庆人，1988年到美国后，学习法语专业的她又获得了英语文学硕士学位，现在是美国一家电话语音翻译公司的.中英文翻译员。奇奇的父亲约翰John Svitak是一名捷克裔美国人物理学博士，现任职于微软公司。除了奇奇外，他们还有另一个名叫希希的10岁女儿，姐妹俩的名字合起来就是“希奇”。全家生活在美国华盛顿州西雅图市。尽管邹奇奇的外表和其他同龄孩子没啥两样，但她的知识和成就却远非同龄孩子可比。
Now, I want to start with a question: When was the last time you were called childish? For kids like me, being called childish can be a frequent occurrence. Every time we make irrational demands, exhibit irresponsible behavior, or display any other signs of being normal American citizens, we are called childish, which really bothers me. After all, take a look at these events: Imperialism and colonization, world wars, George W. Bush. Ask yourself: Who's responsible? Adults.
Now, what have kids done? Well, Anne Frank touched millions with her powerful account of the Holocaust, Ruby Bridges helped end segregation in the United States, and, most recently, Charlie Simpson helped to raise 120,000 pounds for Haiti on his little bike. So, as you can see evidenced by such examples, age has absolutely nothing to do with it. The traits the word childish addresses are seen so often in adults that we should abolish this age-discriminatory word when it comes to criticizing behavior associated with irresponsibility and irrational thinking. (Applause)
Thank you. Then again, who's to say that certain types of irrational thinking aren't exactly what the world needs? Maybe you've had grand plans before, but stopped yourself, thinking: That's impossible or that costs too much or that won't benefit me. For better or worse, we kids aren't hampered as much when it comes to thinking about reasons why not to do things. Kids can be full of inspiring aspirations and hopeful thinking, like my wish that no one went hungry or that everything were free kind of utopia. How many of you still dream like that and believe in the possibilities? Sometimes a knowledge of history and the past failures of utopian ideals can be a burden because you know that if everything were free, that the food stocks would become depleted, and scarce and lead to chaos. On the other hand, we kids still dream about perfection. And that's a good thing because in order to make anything a reality, you have to dream about it first.
In many ways, our audacity to imagine helps push the boundaries of possibility. For instance, the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, Washington, my home state -- yoohoo Washington -- (Applause) has a program called Kids Design Glass, and kids draw their own ideas for glass art. Now, the resident artist said they got some of their best ideas through the program because kids don't think about the limitations of how hard it can be to blow glass into certain shapes. They just think of good ideas. Now, when you think of glass, you might think of colorful Chihuly designs or maybe Italian vases, but kids challenge glass artists to go beyond that into the realm of broken-hearted snakes and bacon boys, who you can see has meat vision. (Laughter)
Now, our inherent wisdom doesn't have to be insiders' knowledge. Kids already do a lot of learning from adults, and we have a lot to share. I think that adults should start learning from kids. Now, I do most of my speaking in front of an education crowd, teachers and students, and I like this analogy. It shouldn't just be a teacher at the head of the classroom telling students do this, do that. The students should teach their teachers. Learning between grown ups and kids should be reciprocal. The reality, unfortunately, is a little different, and it has a lot to do with trust, or a lack of it.
Now, if you don't trust someone, you place restrictions on them, right. If I doubt my older sister's ability to pay back the 10 percent interest I established on her last loan, I'm going to withhold her ability to get more money from me until she pays it back. (Laughter) True story, by the way. Now, adults seem to have a prevalently restrictive attitude towards kids from every "don't do that," "don't do this" in the school handbook, to restrictions on school internet use. As history points out, regimes become oppressive when they're fearful about keeping control. And, although adults may not be quite at the level of totalitarian regimes, kids have no, or very little, say in making the rules, when really the attitude should be reciprocal, meaning that the adult population should learn and take into account the wishes of the younger population.
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