We want to do well at school for an obvious reason, because, as we're often told, it's the primary route to doing well at life. Few of us are in love with the A grades themselves. We want them because we're understandably interested in one day having a fulfilling career, a pleasant house, and the respect of others. But sometimes, more often than seems entirely¹ reassuring², something pretty confusing occurs. We come across people who triumphed at school but flunked⁴ at life, and vice⁵ versa. The former stars who once knew exactly how to satisfy their teachers may now be flatlining in a law office or relocating to a provincial⁶ town in the hope of finding something better. The path that seemed guaranteed to lead to success has run into the sand.

我们都为了一个很显然的原因想要在学校表现好，因为，就像人们常跟我们说的一样，那是成为人生胜利组的主要途径。我们很少人是真心热爱好成绩本身。我们想要得到好成绩，因为可以理解我们全都想要有天能有成功的事业、一幢舒适的房子，以及获得他人的尊敬。不过有时候会发生满令人困惑的事，让人感到不安。我们会遇到资优生在人生的课题中不及格，也会碰到相反的情况。曾知道该怎么让老师满意的前明星学生，现在可能落到一间律师事务所里，或搬到一个乡野小镇，期望能找到更好的生活。以往看似保证能通往成功的道路变成一场空。

 

We shouldn't actually be surprised. School curricula are not designed by people who necessarily have much experience of, or talent at, the world beyond. School curricula are not reverse engineered from fulfilled adult lives in the here and now. They were intellectually influenced by all kinds of slightly random⁷ forces over hundreds of years of evolution, shaped by, among other things, the curricula of medieval monasteries⁸, the ideas of some 19th-century German educationalists, and the concerns of aristocratic court societies.

我们其实不该感到讶异。学校课程不见得是由这样的人编排的，那些对学校以外的世界有所阅历或有天赋的人。学校课程不是参考现在成功大人的人生逆向策划出来的。数百年的发展过程中，它们在知识方面受到略为随机的各式力量所影响，此外也受中世纪修道院的课程所影响，一些十九世纪德国教育家的理念，以及贵族宫廷社会的顾忌也有影响。

 

This helps to explain the many bad habits that schools can inculcate. They suggest that the most important things are already known; that what is is all that could be. They can't help but warn us about the dangers of originality⁹. They want us to put up our hands and wait to be asked. They want us to keep asking other people for permission. They teach us to deliver on rather than change expectations. They teach us to redeploy ideas rather than originate them. They teach us to respect people in authority rather than imagine that, in rather inspiring ways, no one actually knows quite what's going on. They teach us everything other than the two skills that really determine the quality of adult life: knowing how to choose the right job for us and knowing how to form satisfactory relationships. They'll instruct us in Latin and how to measure the circumference¹⁰ of a circle long before they teach us these core subjects: work and love.

这有助说明学校可能会灌输的许多坏习惯。他们暗示最重要的事物已被了解；一切就是这样。他们忍不住警告我们独创性的危险。他们想要我们举手然后等着被问问题。他们想要我们不断征求他人同意。他们教我们达成而非改变期望。他们教我们重新利用而非自己想出点子。他们教我们尊重位高权重的人，而不是要我们想象，这其实满让人振奋的，其实没有人什么都了解。他们什么都教我们，但却漏掉了两项真正决定成人生活质量的技能：知道如何为自己选择对的工作，以及知道如何建立让人满足的关系。他们教我们拉丁文以及量圆周长的方法，远在他们教我们这些核心科目前：工作与爱。

 

That said, it isn't that all we need to do to succeed at life is flunk³ school. A good life requires us to do two very tricky¹¹ things: be a very good boy or girl for 20 years, and simultaneously¹², never really believe blindly in the long-term validity or seriousness of what we're being asked to study. We need to be outwardly entirely obedient while inwardly intelligently and unashamedly rebellious¹³.

尽管如此，并不是说我们只要在学校不及格就会有成功的人生。一个美好的人生需要我们做两件很困难的事：当个乖男孩或乖女孩二十年，同时，永远不要盲目相信学问有着长远的正确性或重要性，那些我们被要求学习的事物。我们得看起来乖巧顺从，但内心却聪明且坦然地叛逆。

 

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