Cook the Books

Jingyi 评注：2005 年刊登在 The Guardian 上的文章。文章先从 Jamie Oliver 开展提升伙食运动入手，声称英国公立学校体系需要更多的预算在为学生购买书籍上。并从政府如何对待每年的预算，为什么学校购买书籍这件事情不再议事日程上。2005年的时候，英国政府对于公立学校买书的态度，还是以多余预算拨款为主，买书这件事情是没有预算的（可调节的），即 No funds ring-fenced for books。

随着许多权威被排除在决策权之外（out of the loop on school spending decision），学校开始自发组织教育资源预算，为期三年。虽然可以自己决定预算，有意思的是，学校也开始沿袭政府的做法，将买书这件事，作为 soft target within the budget，以及 could be adjusted downwards if any other unforeseen expenditure arises。接着，作者提到科学技术带来的设备更新预算，与买书预算起冲突。

作者写道，家长会更加关注设备更新，比起 well-stocked library。文章还写道，关于政府对学校的打分，也会更加关注设备使得足够先进。

此时，社会热心人士及机构做了几项调研。例如，设备更新与教学结果之间的相关性较弱，很多学校电脑使用率最多也只有20%，电脑无益于基本学习技能培养之类的。怎么办？

在教育工作者 Morpurgo 看来，上述调研不过是对常识加以佐证。一方面，书本让人更加专注，培养人批判性思考；另一方面，电脑使人更加被动，人在点击网页的时候，更多是接受被投喂以及更短记忆的信息。因此，书本的信息可能当下无关、未来有关；而网络信息，永远都是在一定的相关性之下，逐层展开。如果说为什么电脑对于学习帮助不显著，一个可能原因是，即便资源最好的学校也只用20%，需求没到位；另一个可能的原因，不富裕的学生离开学校就没电脑，不利于教育公平。

之后援引两位教育工作者的话，一方面，对许多教育工作者而言，预算是找一个折中方案；另一方面，他们不会评价电脑和书谁更加重要，两种资源都需要。因此，特别地强调买书重要性显得有些可笑，而研究也显示，学校书不够是会影响学生成绩的。

作者用一种近乎嘲讽的方式指出，英国每个家长在每个小孩身上每年用于买书的预算是31英镑，比政府好，每个部长承担的买书预算是，小学18英镑每年、中学24英镑每年。作者得出结论，这样的现状不足以去开展任何活动和倡议，因为那是个平均数字。富裕家庭为小孩花的买书预算远超31英镑，而有些家庭几乎不支出；某些英国的公立学校的买书预算，摊销到部长头上，无论是小学还是中学，连10英镑都不到。

最后，作者重申，要关注买书这件事情。

WORD NOTES

• Periodical bouts of hand-wringing = a short time filled with intensive actions
• Juggle the school book number = adjust a bit of school book number
• Headline = a motif of a campaign, at least in this article
• Is anything but = is definitely not the easy task
• It is time to take a stand. = It is time to show your stance / tell what you think.
• Rarely an embedded culture of = hardly an atmosphere of
• It it entirely down to ... = It is entirely shranked in to / dedimensionized as
• Inhabit one's ability to ... = form a ability to
• A narrow remit = a narrow range / ambit
• No funds ring-fenced for = no margin alarming for
• In the run up to the election = in the campaign for the election

口译全篇

Cook the Books

Jamie Oliver embarrassed ministers into stumping up the cash for decent school meals. Now we need somebody to do the same for the school book budget, writes John Crace. -- John Crace

1.Sometimes you miss what's right under your nose. For years, there was no great mystery to school dinners: everyone knew they were disgusting and bad for children, but no one could quite summon up the energy to do anything about them. And then along came Jamie Oliver and school dinners went to the top of the political agenda, the government found £280m and everyone lived healthily ever after.

2.Something similar needs to happen now for school books. It's been no secret for as long as most teachers care to remember that school don’t have anything like enough of them, but apart from periodical bouts of hand-writing, nothing ever changes. Except for the worse.

3.Most educationalists agree that whichever way you juggle the school book numbers, the answers always come out the same: total embarrassment. “Jamie Oliver ran his school dinners campaign on the headline figure of 37p per kid per day,”says Graham Taylor, director of the Educational Publisher’s Council (EPC). “That works out at about 74 pounds per year per pupil for meals that were accepted as sub-standard. Now look at what we spend on books.”

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