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 entirely reassuring, something pretty confusing occurs. We come across people who triumphed at school but flunked at life, and vice 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 provincial town in the hope of finding something better. The path that seemed guaranteed to lead to success has run into the sand.
我們都為了一個很顯然的原因想要在學校表現好，因為，就像人們常跟我們說的一樣，那是成為人生勝利組的主要途徑。我們很少人是真心熱愛好成績本身。我們想要得到好成績，因為可以理解我們全都想要有天能有成功的事業、一幢舒適的房子，以及獲得他人的尊敬。不過有時候會發生滿令人困惑的事，讓人感到不安。我們會遇到資優生在人生的課題中不及格，也會碰到相反的情況。曾知道該怎麼讓老師滿意的前明星學生，現在可能落到一間律師事務所裡，或搬到一個鄉野小鎮，期望能找到更好的生活。以往看似保證能通往成功的道路變成一場空。
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 random forces over hundreds of years of evolution, shaped by, among other things, the curricula of medieval monasteries, the ideas of some 19th-century German educationalists, and the concerns of aristocratic court societies.
我們其實不該感到訝異。學校課程不見得是由這樣的人編排的，那些對學校以外的世界有所閱歷或有天賦的人。學校課程不是參考現在成功大人的人生逆向策劃出來的。數百年的發展過程中，它們在知識方面受到略為隨機的各式力量所影響，此外也受中世紀修道院的課程所影響，一些十九世紀德國教育家的理念，以及貴族宮廷社會的顧忌也有影響。
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 originality. 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 circumference of a circle long before they teach us these core subjects: work and love.
這有助說明學校可能會灌輸的許多壞習慣。他們暗示最重要的事物已被了解；一切就是這樣。他們忍不住警告我們獨創性的危險。他們想要我們舉手然後等著被問問題。他們想要我們不斷徵求他人同意。他們教我們達成而非改變期望。他們教我們重新利用而非自己想出點子。他們教我們尊重位高權重的人，而不是要我們想像，這其實滿讓人振奮的，其實沒有人什麼都了解。他們什麼都教我們，但卻漏掉了兩項真正決定成人生活品質的技能：知道如何為自己選擇對的工作，以及知道如何建立讓人滿足的關係。他們教我們拉丁文以及量圓周長的方法，遠在他們教我們這些核心科目前：工作與愛。
That said, it isn't that all we need to do to succeed at life is flunk school. A good life requires us to do two very tricky things: be a very good boy or girl for 20 years, and simultaneously, 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 rebellious.
儘管如此，並不是說我們只要在學校不及格就會有成功的人生。一個美好的人生需要我們做兩件很困難的事：當個乖男孩或乖女孩二十年，同時，永遠不要盲目相信學問有著長遠的正確性或重要性，那些我們被要求學習的事物。我們得看起來乖巧順從，但內心卻聰明且坦然地叛逆。
