耶魯大學校長開學日演講：心存敬畏 保持好奇 優(yōu)質(zhì)提問

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Good morning! To all Eli Whitney students, transfer students, visiting international students, and first-year Yale College students: Welcome to Yale!

早上好！向所有Eli Whitney項目的學生，所有的交換生，國際訪問學生以及我們新一屆的耶魯新生致敬，歡迎你們來到耶魯！

On behalf of my colleagues here on stage, I extend a warm greeting to the families here today and thank you for joining us. Please remember these first moments of your loved one’s college career, a very special and a pleasure can share them with us today.

在這里，我謹代表學校里的同事，對今天來參加活動的家庭致以誠摯的問候。請諸位謹記與家人共度大學第一段特殊而快樂的美好時光。

Usually in an opening address, university presidents tell undergraduates that they are amazing individuals, selected from among the most talented high school students in the world today.

通常來說，在開學演講中，校長都會告訴學生：你們是從世界上萬千的精英高中生里選拔出來的，都是能獨擋一面的個體。

That is, of course, true, but it is not the point I want to make. Instead, I want to encourage you to approach college unimpressed by how impressive you are; have more questions than answers; admit to being puzzled or confused; be willing to say, “I don’t know…but I want to find out.” And, most important, have the courage to say, “Perhaps I am wrong, and others are right.”

當然，這是事實，不過這并非我今天想要表達的觀點。相比之下，我更鼓勵你們：不要因為自己的獨特而怡然自得,學生們應當多接觸我們的校園；相比答案，能更多地提出自己的問題；能承認自己處于迷?；蚶Щ蟮臓顟B(tài)；愿意表達：“雖然我不太了解... ... 但我會去尋找答案。”并且，最重要的是，我們的學生要勇于承認：“或許我錯了，或許其他人的觀點是正確的?！?/p>

This is how you will learn the most from your teachers and classmates. And this is why we have all come to this place. We are here to ask questions—questions about one another and about the world around us. We are here at Yale to nurture a culture of curiosity.

這是新生們從老師與同學處最能學到的東西。并且，這也是我們聚集于此的原因。我們來耶魯是為了提出問題，提出關于彼此；關于我們所處世界的問題。在耶魯，我們著重對好奇文化的培養(yǎng)。

This summer I read a story about Isidor Isaac Rabi, one of this country’s most extraordinary scientists. He remembered an important question his mother asked him. Brought to this country as an infant, Rabi conducted research into particle beams that led to the development of the MRI and many other scientific advances. He won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1944.

在剛剛度過的夏天里，我閱讀了一個有關于伊西多·艾薩克·拉比（Isidor Isaac Rabi）的故事。作為一個嬰兒，拉比于1898年誕生在美國。在這之后，他開始注重對粒子束的研究，他的相關研究讓MRI（核磁共振）以及諸多學科獲得了提升。1944年，拉比還因為自身的成就獲得了諾貝爾物理學獎。

Rabi’s parents ran a small grocery store in Brooklyn. His mother had no formal education. The other moms, he remembered, asked their children every afternoon if they had learned anything in school. “Not my mother,” he recalled. “She always asked me a different question. ‘Izzy,’ she would say, ‘did you ask a good question today?’” He believed her reminder to ask good questions helped set him on a path to becoming a distinguished scientist.

拉比的父母在布魯克林經(jīng)營著一家小雜貨店。他的母親沒有受過正規(guī)教育。普通的家長，每天下午都會向孩子提問：“你今天在學校里學到了什么？”拉比表示，自己的母親與其他家長不同。“她只會問我一件事：你今天有提出一個優(yōu)質(zhì)的問題么？”拉比認為，正是母親的這一舉動，讓他養(yǎng)成了不斷提出優(yōu)秀問題的習慣，為邁向杰出科學家的道路埋下了伏筆。

So, to all the families here today, when you call your Yale students—when you ask them about their classes and their roommates and the food—remember also to ask them about their questions.

所以，我建議在場的所有家長，當你們給孩子打電話的時候，在關注他們的同學、室友與就餐情況之外，請記得問問孩子，看他們近期提出過怎樣的問題。

Imagine all the great discoveries that have come from asking a question—from Newton’s theory of gravity to the astonishing breakthroughs in quantum science—some of which are happening at Yale.

從牛頓的萬有引力到量力科學的重大突破，這些或來自耶魯或來自其他頂尖高校的偉大發(fā)現(xiàn)，其實都是基于提問所產(chǎn)生的。

When a musician experiments with a new melody, or a sociologist observes a social interaction, they ask “why” and “what would happen if…?”

當音樂家開始采用一段新的旋律；當社會學家開始觀察一段社交行為時，他們都會問“為什么？”，“如果這樣/那樣的話，會發(fā)生什么事情呢？”

Their curiosity lights up our world and points us in new directions. Self-discoveries come from asking questions, too. What do you learn when you ask yourself, “Why do I believe that?” or “Why did I do that?”

正是他們的好奇心，點燃了人們心中的火苗，并且引領世界往全新的方向前進。對自我的發(fā)掘與提升，同樣來自于提問。舉例來說，當我們質(zhì)疑一件事并表示“為什么我要相信它？”，“為什么我要這么做？”的時候，我們其實已經(jīng)學會了反思，并獲得了成長。

I think of these lines from the poet Billy Collins: “the trouble with poetry is / that it encourages the writing of more poetry.”

我想起了詩人比利·柯林斯（Billy Collins）的話語：“詩歌存在的問題，就是在鼓勵更多詩歌的出現(xiàn)?！?/p>

I would say the same of asking questions. One leads to another, which opens doors to still another. Sometimes our questions lead us to a dead-end. We realize the question we asked wasn’t quite right, and a door closes. But along the way we have learned something. Perhaps in the future we will ask better questions.

我覺得這一言論同樣適用于提問。詩歌和提問，都是通過一個點，去點亮另一個點；通過一扇門，去打開更多的門。有些時候，我們問題會把我們引向一條死胡同。這個問題或許并不能帶來正確的解答，一扇知識的大門也因此無法打開。但請你們牢記，沿途中的那些收獲，能幫助我們在將來提出更優(yōu)秀的問題。

In a well-known scene in the movie The Pink Panther, Inspector Clouseau checks into a hotel in Germany. He sees a dachshund in the lobby and asks the hotel owner,

電影“粉紅豹”（The Pink Panther）中有這么一個著名的場景：“烏龍?zhí)介L”克魯索(Clouseau）在一家德國酒店檢查，他在酒店大堂看到了一只臘腸犬，所以向酒店老板詢問：

“Does your dog bite?” The owner replies, “No.”

“你的狗咬人么？”“我的狗不會咬人，先生?！?/p>

when Clouseau goes to pet the dog, it bites his hand—hard! Shocked, he tells the hotel owner,

得到答復的克魯索便放開戒備逗狗，沒想到自己的手卻被深深地咬了一口。他開始與老板對峙：

“I thought you said your dog doesn’t bite!”

“我記得你告訴過我，你的小狗不咬人。”

The owner responds, “That is not my dog.”

“那只臘腸犬并不是我的狗，先生?！?/p>

Inspector Clouseau simply hadn't asked the right question.

Clouseau根本就沒有問對問題。

Years ago, I co-taught an undergraduate seminar. One of the questions on the application to the course was, “What is the most important thing you’ve changed your mind about?”

很多年前，我曾參與組織了一場本科研討會。這個課程討論的其中一個問題是——你曾為哪一件重要的事情改變過自己的想法？

We were surprised that quite a few students had not changed their minds about anything at all! We decided to accept to the class only students who had changed their minds about something important.

令我感到驚奇的是，有少部分學生從來沒有為任何一件事而改變自身最初的想法！最終，我們決定，這門課只接收那些改變過想法的學生。

So, be willing to change your mind. Ask questions and embrace Yale’s culture of curiosity. Be open to different viewpoints and experiences, and see them as opportunities to learn—even if sometimes you get your hand bit.

所以，我們的學生應當樂于轉(zhuǎn)變自身的觀念；勇于提問并且擁抱耶魯?shù)摹昂闷嫖幕?；對不同的觀點與經(jīng)驗持開放的態(tài)度，并將其視為一種學習的契機，即使有時會因此受到一些傷害（像克魯索一樣被臘腸犬咬）。

I am a social psychologist. As a graduate student at Yale, my curiosity was sparked by the study of emotions, and by a question my undergraduate advisor first asked me: “Peter, why do you think humans even have emotions? What do they do for us?” One of my major areas of research almost ever since then has been emotional intelligence.

我是一名社會心理學家。作為從耶魯畢業(yè)的一員，我的好奇心是在情緒相關的研究中迸發(fā)的。當然，我的好奇心也受到了本科顧問的啟發(fā)，他曾問過我“皮特，你覺得人類為什么會有情感？情感對我們產(chǎn)生了怎樣的作用？” 從那時起，我與團隊的課題之一，就是情商研究。

In our earliest work, we described emotional intelligence as a set of skills that one could learn that would help a person extract the information—the “data”—contained in emotions, either one’s own or those of another person.

在早期的工作中，我們將情商視為一種技能——通過系統(tǒng)性的學習，人們可以掌握情商這項能力，并借此解析人們情感中所包含的那些“數(shù)據(jù)”。

After a few years of research, it was obvious to me and my collaborators that we weren’t asking exactly the right questions. We needed to be able to show that emotional intelligence predicted outcomes in life—the ability to form friendships, succeed in school, work as part of a team, and the like.

多年的相關研究后，我和同事們意識到：我們并沒有找到那個正確的提問。我們需要確保情商能在日常生活中展現(xiàn)出來——能組建朋友圈、能在學校成功學習、能融入團隊工作等，諸如此類的能力。

Trouble was, how do you measure the skills of emotional intelligence? We asked ourselves a series of questions starting with, “How are personal characteristics typically measured by psychologists? The answer is by asking people to rate themselves—what are called “self-reports.”

問題來了：我們?nèi)绾芜M行情商能力的評級？就此，團隊進行了內(nèi)部提問，“通常而言，心理學家如何進行個人特征的測量？”答案是他們經(jīng)常讓人們給自己打分，即一份稱之為“自我評估”的報告。

But this led to approaches that disappointed us: How would someone know if they were the kind of person who was especially good at identifying, understanding, managing, and using emotions? Perhaps thinking you had spectacular emotional intelligence was a sign of not having much of it at all!

然而，這一答案使得我們更為沮喪，人們怎么樣才能知道自己是一個善于識別、理解、管理并且運用情緒的人呢？我們有沒有想過，或許自己以為的高情感張力，對他人而言卻是情商缺乏的表現(xiàn)呢？

That door closed, and so we asked ourselves another question: If we wanted to know if someone possessed the skills of a great baseball player—hitting, throwing, and catching a ball; running bases effectively—how confident would we be of self-report?

我們（將情商視為可量化的技能這一）錯誤的提問，使得真理之門無法打開。為此，團隊提出了一個新的問題：如果我們想要了解一個人是否具備優(yōu)秀的棒球運動員的能力（比如：擊球、投擲、接球、高效地跑壘等），那么，此時的“自我評估”有多少的可信度呢？

Not very: All ball players think they are the next A-Rod! As a child, I thought I would be the next Carl Yastrzemski when playing in the backyard with my brother, but, in fact, I barely got out of Little League with my pride intact.

顯然，可信度不高，因為所有的球員都認為自己是下一位A-Rod。我小時候和哥哥在家中后院玩耍時，還自認為是下一位卡爾·雅澤姆斯基，還好，我從未因為自己的這種驕傲而被排擠。

Why would emotional intelligence be any different than baseball? If we wanted to know whether someone had high E.I., we needed to assess these skills as abilities. And what would an ability measure of emotional intelligence look like?

為什么情商（技能）的評級與棒球不同呢？如果我們想要知道某人是否具備高情商，我們就需要將這些技能視為能力。那怎樣的標準可以用來衡量情商能力呢？

Asking ourselves these questions led to an answer that made sense, and our ability-based measure of emotional intelligence has now been used in hundreds of studies. Knowing we didn’t have all the answers and taking an inquisitive, curious attitude allowed us the opportunity to create something new.

自我反思上述這些問題，有助于我們更加接近正確的答案。（目前，耶魯基于能力形成的情商測試，已經(jīng)被應用于數(shù)百項科學研究之中。）承認我們并未尋得所有的答案，并采取一個好學的、好奇的態(tài)度，這有助于我們?nèi)?chuàng)造或發(fā)現(xiàn)全新的事物。

So, what questions will you ask? What will spark your curiosity?

所以，身為學生的你們將會提出什么樣的問題呢？你們將來的好奇心又會因何而啟發(fā)呢？

Not long ago, I received an email from a very proud Yale College parent. He told me about his son, who heard seventy-seven different speakers during his first year at Yale.

不久前，我收到了封來自一位耶魯家長的電子郵件。這位家長在郵件中十分驕傲的跟我分享：自己的兒子在耶魯?shù)牡谝荒?，就已?jīng)聽完了77位不同演講者的講座。

Seventy-seven! He had learned from thinkers and leaders across the political spectrum and attended events organized by a wide range of campus organizations. What a way to spend your first year! Could you do this and not change your mind about something important?

77位！他從這些政治領域的思想家和領導者那里學到了很多，并且還參加了由各種社團舉行的活動。這是怎樣的一種度過第一學年的方法呀！在場的諸位，你們能堅持這樣的舉動一年，并且不改初心么？

And it turns out this student is also very good at asking questions: in the past year, he has interviewed dozens of people—scholars and activists, journalists and entrepreneurs from many different sectors.

事實證明，這位學生還十分擅于提問。他在過去的一年中采訪了數(shù)十人，這其中，有來自不同領域的學者、活動家、記者以及企業(yè)家。

Like so many students, faculty, and staff, he is nurturing a culture of curiosity at Yale.

在耶魯，這位同學就像許多學生與教職工一樣，培養(yǎng)自身的一種好奇文化。

Indeed, the Yalies who have come before you have asked a dazzling array of questions. I think of the pioneers of coeducation. Fifty years ago, in 1969, 588 women came to study in Yale College.

往屆的耶魯人已經(jīng)提出了許多的問題。比如，那些提出男女同校的先驅(qū)們。五十年前，在1969年，588名婦女來到耶魯大學學習。

They entered what had long been an all-male institution, and they asked questions that hadn’t been asked before. We will commemorate this milestone—along with the 150th anniversary of women enrolling at Yale in the School of Art—throughout this year.

她們進入了一個長期以來一直被男性占領領地，并且她們提出了從未被提及的問題（即男女同校）。今年，在女性入讀耶魯藝術(shù)學院150周年之際，我們也將紀念這一具有里程碑意義的事件。

I think of Margaret Warner, Class of 1971. An award-winning journalist, she knows how to ask brilliant questions. She has reported from warzones for decades, witnessing history firsthand and trying to understand our world.

我還想起1971屆的瑪格麗特·華納（Margaret·Warner），她是一位屢獲殊榮的記者，知道如何提出那些精彩的問題。她從事戰(zhàn)區(qū)報道數(shù)十年，親眼目睹了歷史并試圖借此了解我們世界的真實模樣。

I think, too, of Alice Young, Class of 1971. She looked around this campus and asked why there weren’t more students from public schools, so she became an ambassador for Yale back in her home state of Hawaii. She was also one of the founders of the Asian American Students Alliance, which also celebrates its 50th anniversary this year.

我也想起1971屆的愛麗絲·楊（Alice·Young），她曾環(huán)顧整個校園，并疑惑為什么沒有更多來自公立學校的學生入學。后來，她成為了耶魯大使并回到家鄉(xiāng)夏威夷州進行宣傳。她還是亞裔美國學生聯(lián)盟的創(chuàng)始人之一，今年，是該聯(lián)盟成立的50周年。

And we remember other important anniversaries and the curious students who were part of these changes. In 1969, thanks to student efforts, the Afro-American Cultural Center, known as “the House,” opened, and what is now the Department of African American Studies was created.

我們還記得其他重要的紀念日，以及參與這些變化的，那些好奇的學生。1969年，由于學生的努力，被稱為“The House”的美國黑人文化中心開業(yè)，這一中心現(xiàn)在正在創(chuàng)建非裔美國人研究系。

And that same year, students established the Yale chapter of Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán, also known as MEChA. I believe we owe a debt of gratitude to all the courageous pioneers, throughout our history, who have made Yale what it is today.

同年，學生們建立了MEChA的耶魯分會（Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán，是一個致力于促進高等教育、文化和歷史交流的學生組織）。我相信，我們應該感謝所有勇敢的開拓者?？v觀整個耶魯?shù)臍v史，他們是今天耶魯之所以能成為耶魯?shù)闹饕颉?/p>

What questions will you ask? And how will your questions transform Yale and improve our world?

我再次回到剛才的提問：你將會提出什么樣的問題呢？你的問題又會如何改變耶魯與我們的世界呢？

Your time at Yale is an unparalleled opportunity to engage with a wide range of people, ideas, and experiences. More than at any other point in your life, you will have the means and the opportunity to hear from—and converse with—world-renowned experts in many fields.

你們在耶魯度過的這些時光，是與眾多人、眾多思想以及眾多經(jīng)驗進行互動的最佳時光。在這里，你能與諸多領域中世界知名的專家進行交談。

You will have the chance to create knowledge through rigorous research, and attend arts, literary, and athletics events that challenge and inspire you. You will spend time with peers whose lives have been wildly different from your own.

你們將有機會通過嚴謹?shù)难芯咳?chuàng)造出知識，并且參加那些能挑戰(zhàn)自我、激發(fā)靈感的藝術(shù)、文學或體育活動類項目。在耶魯大學，你們將會度過一段，與同齡人完全不同的生活！

What if you nurtured your own curiosity by pushing yourself beyond the familiar and the comfortable? What would that look like?

勇敢走出舒適與安全區(qū)，并借此培養(yǎng)自己的好奇心。那樣的你們該如何耀眼？我很難去想象。

It might mean attending a talk on a topic you don’t know much about or by someone who doesn’t share your beliefs. Or conducting research in a Yale laboratory or collaborating on an exhibit at one of our amazing museums. Or perhaps your curiosity will be sparked having coffee with a classmate who comes from a different part of the world or a different place on the political spectrum.

走出安全區(qū)，意味著你們能在耶魯大學實驗室或某一展覽中進行研究；意味著你能接觸到來自世界不同地區(qū)，不同政治領域的同學。

And when you do these things, when you take advantage of the opportunities Yale makes possible, what questions will you ask?

當你做這些事情時，當你利用這些耶魯帶來的機會時，你會提出怎樣的問題呢？

There is so much we do not know. Let us embrace, together, our humility—our willingness to admit what we have yet to discover. After all, if you knew all the answers, you would not need Yale. And if humanity knew all the answers, the world would not need Yale.

世界上存在著太多的未知，因此，我們需要為自身的謙遜而慶賀——我們愿意承認目前存在許多我們尚未能發(fā)現(xiàn)的事物。畢竟，如果你知道所有的答案，你就不需要耶魯。如果人類知道所有的答案，世界就不需要耶魯。

So, what questions will you ask today? Tomorrow? The next day? And in the days, months, and years after I have shaken your hand at Commencement, let me know what questions you’ve asked that have changed your life.

所以，今天我們的學生會提出什么樣的問題呢？明天呢？后天呢？

耶魯?shù)男律鷤儯ㄎ蚁Ｍ┰诋厴I(yè)典禮我與你握手之后的幾天、幾個月、或者幾年之內(nèi)，你能告訴我，那些你所提出來的、切實地改變了你生活的問題。

Good luck, Class of 2023!

2023屆的耶魯新生們，祝你們好運！