每日英语练习 - 2026-06-22（星期一）
📌 今日主题
TED 经典演讲 — Sir Ken Robinson：学校扼杀创造力吗？（Do schools kill creativity?） 本次练习节选自动画领域最具影响力的 TED 演讲之一（累计观看超 7500 万次）。Robinson 爵士以幽默深邃的口吻，探讨教育体系如何系统性地磨灭儿童的创造力。本期聚焦他关于”犯错”与”学科等级”的精彩论述。
📝 英文原文
If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original. And by the time they get to be adults, most kids have lost that capacity. They have become frightened of being wrong. And we run our companies like this. We stigmatize mistakes. And we’re now running national education systems where mistakes are the worst thing you can make. And the result is that we are educating people out of their creative capacities.
Picasso once said that all children are born artists. The problem is to remain an artist as we grow up. I believe this passionately, that we don’t grow into creativity, we grow out of it. Or rather, we get educated out of it.
Every education system on earth has the same hierarchy of subjects. At the top are mathematics and languages, then the humanities. At the bottom are the arts. Everywhere on earth. And there’s a hierarchy within the arts, too. Art and music are normally given a higher status in schools than drama and dance. There isn’t an education system on the planet that teaches dance every day to children the way we teach them mathematics. Why? Why not? I think this is rather important. I think math is very important, but so is dance. Children dance all the time if they’re allowed to, we all do. We all have bodies, don’t we? Truthfully, what happens is, as children grow up, we start to educate them progressively from the waist up. And then we focus on their heads. And slightly to one side.
🔍 重点词汇
| 单词/短语 | 音标 | 中文释义 | 例句 |
|---|---|---|---|
| prepared to be wrong | /prɪˈpeəd tə biː rɒŋ/ | 准备好犯错；不怕犯错 | If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never innovate. |
| stigmatize | /ˈstɪɡmətaɪz/ | 污名化；把…视为耻辱 | We stigmatize mistakes in our education system. |
| creative capacity | /kriˈeɪtɪv kəˈpæsəti/ | 创造能力 | Schools are educating people out of their creative capacities. |
| hierarchy | /ˈhaɪərɑːki/ | 等级制度；层级 | Every education system has the same hierarchy of subjects. |
| humanities | /hjuːˈmænətiz/ | 人文学科 | At the top are mathematics, then the humanities. |
| status | /ˈsteɪtəs/ | 地位；重要性 | Math is given a higher status than dance in most schools. |
| discipline | /ˈdɪsəplɪn/ | 学科；（本文中）训练方式 | Dance is a discipline that should be taught every day. |
| progressively | /prəˈɡresɪvli/ | 逐步地；渐进地 | We educate children progressively from the waist up. |
| born artist | /bɔːn ˈɑːtɪst/ | 天生的艺术家 | All children are born artists, said Picasso. |
| passionately | /ˈpæʃənətli/ | 充满激情地 | I believe this passionately. |
| to remain | /tə rɪˈmeɪn/ | 保持；仍然做… | The problem is to remain an artist as we grow up. |
| waist up | /weɪst ʌp/ | 腰部以上 | We start to educate them progressively from the waist up. |
💡 实用表达
- “If you’re not prepared to…” — 如果你没准备好做某事…（用于引出关键条件）
- If you’re not prepared to fail, you’ll never succeed big.
- “The result is that we are… out of…” — 结果是我们在把人从某方面”教育”出去
- The result is that we are programming people out of their curiosity.
- “I believe this passionately” — 我坚信这一点（强烈表达观点时的黄金句型）
- I believe this passionately: that learning should be joyful, not painful.
- “Why? Why not?” — 为什么？为什么不呢？（极简有力的反问修辞）
- We never question why we do things this way. Why? Why not?
- “We all have ____, don’t we?” — 我们都有……难道不是吗？（拉近距离的反问）
- We all have dreams, don’t we?
🎯 练习步骤
- 通读全文：先完整读一遍英文原文，理解大意
- 精读标记：逐句阅读，标记不熟悉的词汇和表达
- 跟读练习：大声朗读 3 遍，注意断句、重音和语调，尤其注意以下节奏感强的句子：
- If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original.
- We don’t grow INTO creativity, we grow OUT of it.
- We all have bodies, don’t we? Did I miss a meeting?
- 脱稿复述：合上文本，用自己的话复述大意（中英文都可以）
- 结构化输出：用以下框架组织你的复述：
- 这段话在说什么？（一句话概括）
- 主要观点是什么？（列 2-3 个要点）
- 我的感受/看法？（一句话）
🗣️ 口才小贴士
反问修辞（Rhetorical Question）的力量
Ken Robinson 在这段演讲中使用了大量反问句（“Why? Why not?”、“We all have bodies, don’t we?”）。这种技巧在口语表达中有三个作用：
- 引发思考 — 强迫听众暂时停下来思考
- 拉近距离 — 创造对话感，而非单向灌输
- 强化观点 — 反问句比陈述句更有冲击力
💡 今日练习建议：选一段你今天讨论的话题，在结尾加一个反问句。例如：“We all want better communication, don’t we?” 或 “So why do we keep using email when nobody reads it?” 试试看，效果立竿见影。