网络公开课无法解决美国教育危机

Optimists have scoured the dictionary for superlatives to describe the future of internet education. But the cult of the Mooc – massive online open courses – took a blow last week when one of its leading Silicon Valley pioneers, Sebastian Thrun, described it as a “lousy product”.

对于互联网教育的未来，乐观者用尽了词典中所有最高级形容词予以赞美。然而，对大型开放式网络课程(Massive Online Open Courses，简称MOOC)的崇拜最近遭遇了一次巨大打击：该领域的硅谷先驱之一塞巴斯蒂安•特伦(Sebastian Thrun)称其为一种“十分糟糕的产品”。

Students taking Mr Thrun’s online courses at Udacity performed far worse – and dropped out in far higher numbers – than those with a human instructor. Mr Thrun, who invented the self-driving car, is at least temporarily dropping out of the business. Luddites everywhere will be feeling vindicated.

在特伦的Udacity网站注册在线课程的学生，成绩远远差于那些当堂听课的学生，退课的比例也大得多。曾经发明自动驾驶汽车的特伦，至少暂时退出了这一业务。对此，世界各地反对技术进步的人将觉得自己的观点被证明正确。

Yet the need to reinvent US education is more pressing than ever. If America’s college dropout rates are not persuasive enough – nearly half of US students fail to complete their four-year degree within six years – the fate of those who make it ought to be. Graduate earnings have fallen 5 per cent since 2000. The college premium is still there but only because the earnings of those with a high-school diploma have dropped by far more. Meanwhile, the costs of getting a degree continue to rise, which means the trade-off of taking on ever larger debt to boost future earnings keeps getting weaker.

然而，重塑美国教育的需求比以往任何时候都更加迫切。如果美国大学的退学率还不足以说明问题（近半数美国学生未能在6年内完成4年期的本科学位课程），那么成功完成学业的大学生的遭遇应该能说明问题。自2000年以来，美国毕业生的收入下跌了5%。大学带来的收入溢价依然存在，但只是因为只有高中文凭的人收入降幅更大。与此同时，获得学位的成本在继续上涨，这意味着为提高未来收入而背负更多债务的取舍越来越难了。

This is where online education comes in. Moocs can drive down costs to almost zero. Yet they will be hard-pressed to fix the cost problem if more than 90 per cent of their enrollees lose interest, which was the outcome of Udacity’s much-hyped experiment. This is twice the attrition of mainstream students.

这正是在线教育能够发挥作用的地方。MOOC能把教育成本压低到接近于零的地步。然而，如果超过90%的公开课注册者失去对课程的兴趣（这一比例是主流教育方式的两倍），他们必然为解决成本问题而焦头烂额。

Yet it makes only marginal difference whether a student gets his or her education from a computer or a real live human if the content is irrelevant to the jobs market. As the economist Tyler Cowen argues in his seminal book, Average is Over , there is a larger crisis in what US students are being taught. Content, rather than medium, is the problem.

然而，如果课程内容与就业市场无关，学生所受教育来自电脑还是来自真人只会有很小的差别。正如经济学家泰勒•考恩(Tyler Cowen)在他有巨大影响的《平均时代的终结》(Average is Over)一书中所称的，美国课堂里讲授的内容存在更大的危机。内容才是问题所在，而不是媒介。

Washington’s mindset is about getting students to be more like machines. But humans are destined to lose the race against the robots – just ask any chess grandmaster. The goal of education ought to be to complement rather than outrun the power of computers. Those unconvinced by Mr Tyler’s plea for a revival of humanities should take a look at the US jobs market. According to the Harvard Business Review, the US has shed 750,000 jobs in the information sector since the turn of the millennium – second only to manufacturing in percentage terms. Yet information is precisely the sector to which US college degrees are increasingly tailored.

美国政府的教育理念是让学生更像机器一些。然而人类是注定要在比赛中输给机器人的——只要问问那些国际象棋特级大师就知道了。教育的目标应该是弥补计算机能力的不足，而不是要超过计算机。那些对泰勒所提倡的复兴人文学科不以为然的人，应该看一看美国的就业市场。根据《哈佛商业评论》(Harvard Business Review)的数据，自新千年以来，美国信息产业领域失去了75万个工作岗位，降幅仅次于制造业。然而越来越多的美国本科专业恰恰是面向信息产业的。

Given its implications, the HBR study has attracted less attention than it deserves. Its results show that Washington’s goal of boosting the share of Americans who study science, technology, engineering and maths – the so-called Stem subjects – may be ill-conceived. It also puts Moocs in their place. Moocs can reduce costs and broaden access, both of which are highly desirable. But they have no special insight into tomorrow’s labour market.

从其潜在影响看，《哈佛商业评论》的这份研究报告得到的关注太少了。这份报告的结果表明，美国政府提出的目标——提高攻读理科、技术、工程及数学（所谓“STEM”学科）的人群比例——的出发点可能错了。这一研究结论也将MOOC打回原形。MOOC能降低教育成本和扩大接受教育的人群，这两大优势都是非常可取的。但它们对明日的就业市场并没有特别的洞察力。

The trends in today’s jobs market should be startling enough. Since 2000, the number of US computer-related jobs, including hardware and software engineers, has fallen by more than 100,000, according to the HRB, while those in telecoms, including equipment and line installers, has dropped by a stunning 567,000. These are big growth sectors, in terms of revenue and margins. But they are also most vulnerable to automation. The same is true of jobs in telemarketing (down 44 per cent), electrical engineers (37 per cent) and desktop publishers (39 per cent).

如今的就业市场发展趋势应该足够令人震惊。根据《哈佛商业评论》，自2000年以来，美国与计算机有关的工作岗位（包括硬件和软件工程师）数量减少了逾10万个，而电信行业工作岗位（包括设备和线路安装在内）减少了令人震惊的56.7万个。就营收和利润率来看，这些都是高增长行业。然而它们也是最容易受到自动化影响的行业。同样的结论对于远程销售、电气工程师和桌面出版行业也成立，它们的工作岗位分别减少了44%、37%和39%。

Contrast that with the jobs that grew. The number of library employees in America has risen a third since 2000. Jobs in acting were up 12 per cent, music directors and composers grew 35 per cent and writers and authors were up 6 per cent. Technology is reducing the need for most kinds of labour. At the same time it is vastly expanding the number of channels for creative output. That ought to make humanities – and the study of humans – more relevant. It makes no more sense for most people to study computer engineering than it does for air passengers to master avionics.

以上结论与那些出现增长的工作岗位形成反差。自2000年以来，美国图书馆员工的数目增加了三分之一。演艺类岗位增加了12%，音乐总监及作曲家增加了35%，而作家和文艺创作者增加了6%。技术进步正在降低多数工种的需求。与此同时，它为创意产出开辟了更多渠道。这应该令人文学科（以及以人为研究对象的学科）变得更加相关。对于多数人来说，学习计算机工程的意义并不比让民航乘客掌握航空技术大。

Where does all this leave the Moocs? As the techno-optimists keep pointing out, we can now download the Library of Congress and Ivy League lectures for free. A few motivated groups, such as older employees trying to keep pace, reservists in the US military and ambitious youngsters in places such as India, tend to finish online degrees. But most people, including Mr Thrun’s enrollees, rapidly lose interest. The real challenge facing US educators, in other words, is to motivate the unenthused majority. This is far easier said than done. You can lead a horse to water but you cannot make it drink.

这一切使MOOC处于什么地位呢？正如科技乐观主义者不断指出的，如今我们能免费下载整个美国国会图书馆(Library of Congress)的藏书和常青藤盟校(Ivy League)的课堂授课。少数有动力的人群——比如试图跟上时代的年长员工、美国军队的预备役人员以及印度等地有进取心的年轻人——倾向于完成在线学位课程。而包括特伦课程的注册者在内的多数人会迅速失去兴趣。换句话说，美国教育人士面临的真正挑战是如何鼓舞缺乏热情的大多数人。这一点说起来容易，做起来可就难多了。你可以把马牵到水边，但你没法强迫它喝水。

Insurance companies call America’s millennial generation the “invincibles”, because the young rarely worry about their health. But I prefer Mr Cowen’s moniker of the “limbo generation”, since they are worried sick about their financial prospects. The newest portion of the US workforce is saddled with more than $1tn of debts in a market that isn’t paying. Those who thrive in this less forgiving world will be savvy enough to tap the boundless resources they can get from Moocs in particular and the internet in general. Alas, Udacity’s setback reminds us that they are almost certainly in a minority. At best computers can offer a partial answer to America’s education crisis. Though we tend to cost more, the rest of it is down to human beings.

保险公司将美国新千年一代称为“不可战胜的一代”，因为这一代年轻人很少担心自己的健康。不过我更喜欢考恩提出的那个绰号——“无着落的一代”，因为他们对自己的财务前景担心得很。美国最新一代的劳动者背负着逾1万亿美元的债务，却面临一个薪资不怎么样的就业市场。在这个不那么顺当的世界如鱼得水的人，将是那些足够明智，能够充分利用MOOC乃至整个互联网的无限资源的人。可惜，Udacity的挫折提醒我们，这类人几乎可以肯定是少数。往好了说，电脑只能解决美国教育危机的部分问题。其他问题还是要由人来解决——尽管人的成本往往更高。