中式教育+美式教育＝IB?(双语版 Bilingual Version)

图片来源：topit.me

龚老师说：今晚，龚老师的爱徒之一Devon Hsiao (萧艾琳)，作客我们公众号，来和大家聊聊她的就学经历。Devon 现就读于美国得克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校，同时主修国际关系及亚洲研究双学士学位课程。Devon今年夏天刚在联合国教科文组织的北京分部完成了她的大一暑期实习，与她一起共事的同伴都来自美国顶尖大学（哈佛大学，普林斯顿大学等），她可是实习成员里年龄最小的喔。今天她将结合自己的故事，以一个学生的视角和大家谈谈她游刃于IB、中式、及美式教育系统里的一些体验和感想。

Message from Helen: Tonight I've invited one of my favourite students Devon Hsiao to talk about her pervious study experience via our wechat public platform. Devon is currently a student at the University of Texas at Austin and double majoring in International Relations and Asian Studies .Devon just completed her internship experience at UNESCO's Beijing's branch office as a freshman student. All of her internship colleagues are from top universities in the U.S (Harvard, Princeton,etc) and she is the youngest member among the group. Today Devon is going to share her thoughts from a student's perspective about Chinese, U.S as well as IB's education system through her own story.

以下G代表龚老师的提问，D代表Devon的回答。另外，我们的公众号已经开通了留言功能，大家现在可以直接在文章下面留言了喔。期待与你们有更直接的互动。周末愉快！:-)

Below G stands for Ms. Gong's questions and D stands for Devon's answers. Besides, we have now successfully opened our readers' message function, which means you can leave your message directly after each article. Look forward to interacting with you all.

G: 欢迎Devon，你之前的学习经历是怎样的？

(Welcome Devon, can you introduce a little bit about your pervious study experience? )

D:我的背景是小学在台湾当地学校读到五年级，六年级搬到美国读，然后初中和高中后来在北京的国际学校读。

(I completed elementary school up to fifth grade in the Taiwanese local system, which is similar to the Chinese local system, and then took sixth grade in the American public system before beginning the IB in seventh grade at an international school in Beijing. )

G: 先说说你在台湾的经历吧。

(Let's start from your education in Taiwan?)

D: 在台湾的小学里，通过中式的教育我学会了背诵。小时候要背九九乘法表、唐诗、还有孔子的论语，经常会有抄写的作业。时不时老师还会通过听写小考抽查我们平常有没有认真的背单词和成语。虽然小时候觉得每天背东西很没意思，但我后来发觉我在小学慢慢培训出来的背诵能力其实对于我高中的学习有着很大的帮助。在上历史和生物这种内容重多的课程时，我能够在比大部分同学短的时间内把重要的知识背下来。

(My experience in Taiwan in elementary school, I would not have the memorizing ability I have today. Lots of our assignments would focus on the repeated copying of texts until we could write them out word-for-word from memory. This ability to memorize, although not particularly useful in my literature classes, helped me excel in history and biology in the IB, because I was able to quickly memorize key information.)

G: 你的美式教育呢？

(How about your study in America? )

D: 六年级那年在美国威斯康星州入学，让我接触到了与中式教育迥然不同的学习方式。相对于台湾老师让我们尽可能的死记硬背，美国的老师反而鼓励我们多多有创意的思考。有一个经历在我脑海中留下了深刻的印象，就是我历史课的古埃及单元。比起看课本听老师讲课，我在美国的老师认为让学生自己动手做东西会让我们比较投入课程，学生对上课的内容有兴趣的话自然学习也会比较好。所以老师让我们每个人自己选一位古埃及历史里的有名人物，要打扮成他们。我们举办了一个大活动，邀请了全校的师生来采访我们，问问我们打扮成谁、选择那个人物的原因、他们在古埃及是因为做了什么而成名的等等一些问题。这个活动真的很有趣，而且进一步激发了我对古埃及历史直到现在仍然抱持兴趣。

(With my experience in the American public system, I was exposed to a different side of education. Rather than focusing as much on memorization, my teachers encouraged us to be creative. One particular lesson that left a deep impression on me was my social studies unit on Ancient Egypt. Instead of having us read a textbook and then lecturing us on the content, our teacher had us pick a famous figure from Ancient Egyptian history, be it a famous priest, ruler, or even god, and we had to dress up as them. We held a big fair, and the rest of the school was invited to come and talk to us and ask us about the historical figure we were dressed as. This activity was really fun, and it helped me develop an interest in Ancient Egypt that I still have today.)

G:那你怎么看后来经历的IB课程？

(How do you view your experience with IB education system? )

D: IB教育系统对我来说就是中式和美式教育的快乐婚姻组合。虽然学习中是避不开有些科目的题材背诵这个事实，但是在IB的课里面学生还是有许多自由发挥的机会。在我九年级（初三）的数学课里，我们学习的一个单元是三角学。上数学课时，学生还是必须要背一些数学程式。但因为我们的老师想让我们看到像三角学这种比较抽象的概念也可以运用在我们的日常生活中，所以布置了一份作业给我们，让我们用三角学画出来的曲线图去模拟在北京日出和日落太阳的轨道，我个人觉得这样就很有意思。

(The IB to me was a happy marriage of the two systems. I still needed to memorize information, but I also had many opportunities to be creative and think outside of the box. For example, in math class in 9th grade, one of our topics was trigonometry. There is no avoiding memorization and repetition in math, as there are formulas you must memorize, and you must repeatedly solve practice problems in order to familiarize yourself with the mathematical method. However, our teacher had us think about creative ways we could apply the abstract concept of trigonometry to our everyday lives, and we ended up using the mathematical concepts we had learned to model the sunrise and sunset patterns in Beijing, which I think was very interesting. )

不得不承认，IBDP最后两年的课程非常难，对于绝大多数人来讲都很具有挑战性。因为我们的大考很多是基于过去两年的知识学习，当然还有之前功底的累积。我们不仅要考试，还要参加课外活动并且完成堆积如山的作业、口头报告、和研究论文。我能熬过这段辛苦的时光，并以优异成绩毕业，完全是靠着我小学在中式和美式的教育系统里学到的技能。

(However, I have to admit, the IBDP was exceedingly difficult. Our final exams are based on two years’ worth of material, so the pressure and stress students feel to do well is immense. Not only are we assessed on our exam performance, but there are many written assignments, oral presentations, and a research paper as well as extracurricular requirements. Trying to juggle everything was a real struggle. However, I was able to make it through and graduated at the top of my class. I attribute my success to the skills I learned in both the Chinese and American educational systems. )

G：听说IB DP最后两年的选课是一件挺纠结的事，你怎么看？你自己都选了哪些课？

(It is said that courses' choice of IB DP can be very hard to made. How do you think of that? What courses did you take? )

D:我高中最后两年读的则是IB 的 Diploma Programme （IBDP）。我选择上的IBDP HL （高级）课是英文、中文、和历史，而我选择上的 SL （标准级）课是数学、生物学、和美术。我选课的时候考虑了我自己的优势。因为我比较偏向文科，擅长阅读和写作，所以我的高级课程选为语言和历史课。而我比较不擅长的理科类，例如数学和生物学，则选择上标准级的课程。

(In the IBDP, my higher level classes were English A, Chinese B, and History; my standard level classes were Math, Biology, and Visual Arts. I chose these classes based on my own strengths, which are reading and writing, therefore I chose higher level for both language and history while standard level for Maths and Biology.)

我选课时也有考虑我的大学目标。我觉得这点很重要，因为不同的大学会有不同的入学标准。例如英国的大学可能比较没办法接受Studies级的数学课，但是大多数的美国大学就可以。选课时不但要考虑每所大学的入学标准，还要考虑自己选择的主修。我那时打算在大学主修国际关系。由于国际关系的课程都比较偏向于文科类，我选择的IBDP高级课程也自然的偏向了英文、中文、和历史。

(In addition, I also took my university goal into consideration, which I think is very important, because different universities have different entrance requirements. For example, universities in U.K may find it hard to accept Studies level of Maths while many universities in the U.S can say yes. Besides, one should also think of the majors you are going to study. I've already made up my mind that I want to study international relations by then. And because many of the courses in relation to this major tend to be liberal arts, therefore my DP courses' choice naturally favoured English, Chinese and History.)

G：还有什么想和大家分享的吗？

(Anything else to share with us all? )

D: 在我亲身体验过的教育系统里，我个人最喜欢的是IB的教学风格，因为它最符合我个人的学习方式。虽然总体来说我最喜欢IB，但是我也很感激中式和美式的教学系统交给我的技能。请记得，以上只是我个人的感想，并不是每位学生都会有和我一样的体验。我觉得无论在哪个系统里面学习，只要有家长和老师的支持，学生一定会学到对于他们未来有利的知识和技能。

(Personally, I like the IB system the most, because it was the best fit for my learning, but I am also grateful for the skills my experiences with the Chinese and American systems taught me. Please keep in mind these are just my own personal opinions, and that not every student will have the same experiences as I did. Ultimately, I think that no matter the education system they are in, with support from parents and teachers, any student will be able to learn valuable skills at school that can help them succeed.)

好的，今天的问答环节就先到这儿吧，我们会陆续邀请Devon来更具体的聊聊IB与她现在所学专业的联系以及她今年夏天有趣的实习经历及具体的申请步骤，希望能对关注假期实习及大学申请的学生和家长们有一点帮助，这样就是我们莫大的开心了。

Well, let's stop from here. We'll invite Devon to talk about her IB experience in relation to her double majors at university as well as her interesting internship experience and application procedures gradually. We hope this can help students and parents who are interested in internship and university application and preparation a little bit.

当然，回到我们今天聊天的主题，龚老师认为，正如Devon所说，不管是中式教育，还是美式教育，都各有其利弊，而这也是一个在被持续探讨的话题。那么IB呢，对于Devon来讲，她看到了这个课程体系后的灵活与严格，开心的称之为中式与美式的"happy marriage"(快乐婚姻组合)，无疑，她是一个懂得如何在各种教育体系下趋利避害的正面学生，但是如果我们用更加客观的角度来看，或者用IB课程下本身设置的一门课，认识论(TOK)的方法来看，IB本身也并不完美，即使所谓的教材选文，也有明显的IB视角或IB偏向。借此机会，也想向大家说明，我们的公众号并不想做IB的口舌，如我们的首篇文章里提到的，我们希望有多种声音分享给大家。所以，接下来，我和苏老师也会致力于给大家提供更多不同的教育体系及课程的介绍，也欢迎亲爱的老师，家长，学生们来稿，与大家分享。独乐乐不如众乐乐喔。么么哒。

Finally, let's come back to our today's main topic.  Just as Devon said, be it Chinese education, or American education system, they both have its merits and demerits, which is an ongoing discussion topic for many years. Well, then, what about IB itself? To Devon, she saw the flexibilty and seriousness behind the IB system and called it as a happy marriage of both Chinese and American education system. Undoubtedly, she is a positive example of students who know how to draw on the advantages and avoid disadvantages. However, if we view all the systems in a more objective way, or just use the TOK way under the IB curriculum, we'll easily find that IB itself is not perfect. Even comes to the text choices of IB, there is an obvious IB perspective or preference. With this opportunity, we would also like to clarify, just as what we've said in our first article, we don't want to be the official tongue of IB and we want to offer different voices for you all. Therefore, Ms. Su and myself will endeavor to provide  more different perspectives about different education systems and curriculums. And we welcome teachers, students and parents to share your thoughts. In Chinese, we have an idiom "It is much joyful to share the joy than enjoy alone." Love to hear from you all. Cheers ~