約翰·洛克的教育思想(中英對照)-20: 強迫與循循善誘

COMPULSION | We formerly observed, that variety and freedom was that that delighted children, and recommended their plays to them; and that therefore their book or any thing we would have them learn, should not be enjoined them as business. This their parents, tutors, and teachers are apt to forget; and their impatience to have them busied in what is fit for them to do, suffers them not to deceive them into it: but by the repeated injunctions they meet with, children quickly distinguish between what is required of them, and what not. When this mistake has once made his book uneasy to him, the cure is to be applied at the other end. And since it will be then too late to endeavour to make it a play to him, you must take the contrary course: observe what play he is most delighted with; enjoin that, and make him play so many hours every day, not as a punishment for playing, but as if it were the business required of him. This, if I mistake not, will in a few days make him so weary of his most beloved sport, that he will prefer his book, or any thing to it, especially if it may redeem him from any part of the task of play is set him, and he may be suffered to employ some part of the time destined to his task of play in his book, or such other exercise as is really useful to him. This I at least think a better cure than that forbidding, (which usually increases the desire) or any other punishment should be made use of to remedy it: for when you have once glutted his appetite (which may safely be done in all things but eating and drinking) and made him surfeit of what you would have him avoid, you have put into him a principle of aversion, and you need not so much fear afterwards his longing for the same thing again.

強迫 |  我們以前評論說，孩子喜歡變化與自由，我們向他們推薦遊戲；所以他們的書本，或者我們想讓他們學習的任何東西，都不能作為任務強加給他們。他們的父母、導師與教師慣於忘記這一點；他們總是急於讓小孩忙著做他們該做的事情，而不是設法誘導他們去做；但是通過他們受到的重複命令，小孩很快就能區分什麽是對他們的要求，什麽不是。一旦錯誤已經造成，小孩不再喜歡讀書，你要用反麵的方法來矯治。因為讓他把讀書當作遊戲已經為時過晚，你必須用相反的處理方式：看看他最喜歡什麽遊戲；讓他每天玩很多小時的那種遊戲，不是作為遊玩的懲罰，而是作為一種任務要求他玩。假如我沒有弄錯的話，這樣過不了幾天他就會厭惡他最喜愛的遊戲，他會寧願去讀書或做任何別的事情，特別是如果他能夠從被要求的遊戲任務中解放出來，他可以把遊戲任務的一部分時間用在書本，或者其它真正對他有益的事情上。我認為這至少比禁止的方法好(禁止常常增加他的欲望)，或者比任何用來矯治它的懲罰方法好；因為一旦你使他的欲望得到過度滿足(除了吃喝以外，一切欲望都可以這樣安全地處理)，並且使他對你想讓他避免的事情做得過多而生厭，你在他心中建立了厭棄的原則，你就不需要擔心他以後會再渴望同樣的事情了。

This I think is sufficiently evident, that children generally hate to be idle. All the care then is, that their busy humour should be constantly employed in something of use to them; which, if you will attain, you must make what you would have them do a recreation to them, and not a business. The way to do this, so that they may not perceive you have any hand in it, is this proposed here, viz. to make them weary of that which you would not have them do, by enjoining and making them under some pretence or other do it, till they are surfeited. For example: Does your son play at top and scourge too much? Enjoin him to play so many hours every day, and look that he do it; and you shall see he will quickly be sick of it, and willing to leave it. By this means making the recreations you dislike a business to him, he will of himself with delight betake himself to those things you would have him do, especially if they be proposed as rewards for having performed his task in that play which is commanded him. For if he be ordered every day to whip his top so long as to make him sufficiently weary, do you not think he will apply himself with eagerness to his book, and wish for it, if you promise it him as a reward of having whipped his top lustily, quite out all the time that is set him? Children, in the things they do, if they comport with their age, find little difference so they may be doing: the esteem they have for one thing above another they borrow from others; so that what those about them make to be a reward to them, will really be so. By this art it is in their governor's choice, whether scotchhoppers shall reward their dancing, or dancing their scotchhoppers; whether peg-top, or reading; playing at trap, or studying the globes, shall be more acceptable and pleasing to them; all that they desire being to be busy, and busy, as they imagine, in things of their own choice, and which they receive as favours from their parents or others for whom they have respect and with whom they would be in credit. A set of children thus ordered and kept from the ill example of others, would all of them, I suppose, with as much earnestness and delight, learn to read, write, and what else one would have them, as others do their ordinary plays: and the eldest being thus entered, and this made the fashion of the place, it would be as impossible to hinder them from learning the one, as it is ordinarily to keep them from the other.

我認為很明顯，小孩一般是憎惡無事可做的。那麽要注意的隻是他們的好動性情應該用在對他們有用的事情上；如果你想遂你所願，你必須把你想讓他們做的事情作為他們的一種休閑娛樂，而不是作為一種工作任務。為了不讓他們感覺你在插手其間，這裏建議的方法是，找一些借口或別的人來強迫他們做那你不願意他們做的事情，直到他們做得過多，使他們因此厭倦那事情。例如，你的兒子是否太喜歡抽陀螺？命令他每天玩很多小時，並且要看著他玩；你很快會發現他厭倦它，甘願不玩了。通過這種方法，把你不喜歡的娛樂當作工作讓他做，他會自己高高興興地去做你想讓他做的事情，特別是這些事情是作為他完成吩咐他做的遊戲任務的獎勵。因為如果他每天被命令去抽陀螺，不到疲倦不讓他停止，假如你答應讀書作為他用力抽打陀螺的時間之外獎勵，你難道不認為他會熱心讀書，希望讀書嗎？小孩做的事情，隻要適合他們的年紀，他們做什麽事情是沒有多少差別的：他們所以看重某件事情高於另一件事，他們是從別人那裏學來的；所以他們周圍的人獎勵他們的事情，就會真正成為獎勵。通過這種技巧，導師可以選擇，是把跳房作為跳舞的獎勵，還是把跳舞作為跳房的獎勵；是讓他們玩陀螺，還是讓他們閱讀；是讓他們喜歡玩射球遊戲，還是讓他們喜歡學習地理；他們所要的隻是忙碌，忙他們以為他們自己選擇的事，和從他們父母或他們所尊重、所願得到好評的人那裏接受的作為恩惠的事情。我想，這樣安排並且不受壞榜樣影響的小孩，他們都會熱忱快樂地去學習讀書、寫作以及你願意他們學的別的東西，就像其他人玩他們通常的遊戲一樣：而且年紀最大的孩子這樣做，形成了風氣以後，那就很難阻止他們不學著這樣做，就像通常不能防止他們玩遊戲一樣。

 

摘自Some Thoughts Concerning Education (English-Chinese Edition)(ISBN-10: 1537479857)