第一篇：Ted英語演講稿：On what we think we know？我們以為自己知道的

Ted英語演講稿：On what we think we know？我們以為自己

知道的

i'm going to try and explain why it is that perhaps we don't understand as much as we think we do.i'd like to begin with four questions.this is not some sort of cultural thing for the time of year.that's an in-joke, by the way.我會試著解釋為何 我們知道的東西很可能并沒有我們自以為知道的多 我想從四個問題開始,不是那種今年流行的文化問題 對了，剛剛那句是個圈內笑話

but these four questions, actually, are ones that people who even know quite a lot about science find quite hard.and they're questions that i've asked of science television producers, of audiences of science educators--so that's science teachers--and also of seven-year-olds, and i find that the seven-year-olds do marginally better than the other audiences, which is somewhat surprising.不過這四個問題，事實上 即使是很懂科學的人也會覺得很難應答 我拿這些問題去問科學節目制片人 問那些有科學教育背景的觀眾 也問教科學的老師還有七歲孩童 我發現七歲孩童答得比其他人好 這是有些令人驚訝

so the first question, and you might want to write this down, either on a bit of paper, physically, or a virtual piece of paper in your head.and, for viewers at home, you can try this as well.第一個問題，我建議你把問題記下來 抄在紙上，或想像中的紙上 坐在電腦海量資料分享

前的你也可以試著作答.a little seed weighs next to nothing and a tree weighs a lot, right? i think we agree on that.where does the tree get the stuff that makes up this chair, right? where does all this stuff come from?

種籽很輕，而大樹很重，是嗎?我想我們都同意吧，大樹用來制成椅子的東西是從哪來的? 對吧?這些東西都是怎么來的?

(knocks)

(敲椅聲)

and your next question is, can you light a little torch-bulb with a battery, a bulb and one piece of wire? and would you be able to, kind of, draw a--you don't have to draw the diagram, but would you be able to draw the diagram, if you had to do it? or would you just say, that's actually not possible?

問題二，你能否點亮一個小燈泡 只用1個電池、1個燈泡、和1條電線? 那你能畫出上述問題的圖解嗎?不用真的畫 但如果需要的話，你能畫出來嗎? 還是你會說 這個不可能?

the third question is, why is it hotter in summer than in winter? i think we can probably agree that it is hotter in summer than in winter, but why? and finally, would you be able to--and you can sort of scribble it, if you like--scribble a plan diagram of the solar system, showing the shape of the planets' orbits? would you be able to do that? and if you can, just scribble a pattern.海量資料分享

第三個問題，為什么夏天比冬天熱? 大家應該都同意夏天比冬天還熱 但為何如此?最后，你能不能 簡單的勾勒出 太陽系的平面圖...呈現出行星軌道運行的形狀 你可以畫得出來嗎? 你畫得出來的話，就把形狀畫出來

ok.now, children get their ideas not from teachers, as teachers often think, but actually from common sense, from experience of the world around them, from all the things that go on between them and their peers, and their carers, and their parents, and all of that.experience.and one of the great experts in this field, of course, was, bless him, cardinal wolsey.be very careful what you get into people's heads because it's virtually impossible to shift it afterwards, right?

好，孩童對事物的概念不是老師教的 老師時常這么以為，但實際上概念來自于常理 來自于孩童對周遭世界的體驗 來自于他們跟同伴彼此交流 還有跟保姆、父母親、所有人交流的經驗 這個領域中的一個專家，對了，愿他安息 就是渥西主教，他說要你將東西放進其他人的鬧袋里的時候要小心 因為那些東西幾乎不會再改變，對吧?

(laughter)

(笑聲)

i'm not quite sure how he died, actually.was he beheaded in the end, or hung?

我不太清楚他的死因，真的 他最后上了斷頭臺?還是被吊死? 海量資料分享

(laughter)

(笑聲)

now, those questions, which, of course, you've got right, and you haven't been conferring, and so on.and i--you know, normally, i would pick people out and humiliate, but maybe not in this instance.現在回到那四個問題，大家都知道是什么問題了 你們彼此之間也沒有討論答案 我平時習慣點人站起來回答讓他丟臉 不過這次就不點了

a little seed weighs a lot and, basically, all this stuff, 99 percent of this stuff, came out of the air.now, i guarantee that about 85 percent of you, or maybe it's fewer at ted, will have said it comes out of the ground.and some people, probably two of you, will come up and argue with me afterwards, and say that actually, it comes out of the ground.now, if that was true, we'd have trucks going round the country, filling people's gardens in with soil, it'd be a fantastic business.but, actually, we don't do that.the mass of this comes out of the air.now, i passed all my biology exams in britain.i passed them really well, but i still came out of school thinking that that stuff came out of the ground.種籽可以很重，基本上所有的這些 99%都來自于空氣 我相信有85%的人，或許在你們ted會比較少 會說木材來自于大地，而有些人 也許你們中的一兩位，可能結束后會來找我爭論 說木材其實是來自于大地 若是如此，那我們就會有讓卡車跑來跑去 把人們的花園都填上土，那會是很棒的生意。不過實際上我們不會那么做 因為木材的材料大部分其實是從空氣中來的 我在英國念書時考生物海量資料分享

每考必過 我的成績很好，但畢業后 還是以為木材來自于大地

second one: can you light a little torch-bulb with a battery bulb and one piece of wire? yes, you can, and i'll show you in a second how to do that.now, i have some rather bad news, which is that i had a piece of video that i was about to show you, which unfortunately--the sound doesn't work in this room, so i'm going to describe to you, in true “monty python” fashion, what happens in the video.and in the video, a group of researchers go to mit on graduation day.we chose mit because, obviously, that's a very long way away from here, and you wouldn't mind too much, but it sort of works the same way in britain and in the west coast of the usa.and we asked them these questions, and we asked those questions of science graduates, and they couldn't answer them.and so, there's a whole lot of people saying, “i'd be very surprised if you told me that this came out of the air.that's very surprising to me.” and those are science graduates.and we intercut it with, “we are the premier science university in the world,” because of british-like hubris.你能用一枚電池和一根電線點亮燈泡嗎? 是，你可以，我會示范怎么做。不過，現在有個壞消息 本來有個影片要給大家看 可惜在這邊聲音放不出來 所以我就口頭描述一下的，用巨蟒劇團的表演方式，影片內容是這樣的，在影片里有一群研究員 在畢業典禮那天去麻省理工學院 為什么是麻省理工呢?因為它離這里很遠 大家也就不會太介意 不過場景設在英國結果也差不多 或是設在美國西岸 我們問了麻省理工的畢業生這四個問題 這些理工科畢業生也答不出來 而且還有很多學生表示 “我很驚訝你說木材是從空氣中來的 ”這真的讓我很吃驚“，那些理工的畢業生這么說 我們用”我們是全球第一的理工大學“來作影片的結尾。因為英國人很傲慢

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(laughter)

(笑聲)

and when we gave graduate engineers that question, they said it couldn't be done.and when we gave them a battery, and a piece of wire, and a bulb, and said, “can you do it?” they couldn't do it.right? and that's no different from imperial college in london, by the way, it's not some sort of anti-american thing going on.我們拿第二個問題去問碩士畢業的工程師們 他們說這不可能做得到 我們拿了電池、電線、和燈泡 問他們”你能做到嗎?“，他們沒辦法，是吧? 順道一提，倫敦的帝國學院的情況估計也差不多如此 我們不是在做什么反美的事

as if.now, the reason this matters is we pay lots and lots of money for teaching people--we might as well get it right.and there are also some societal reasons why we might want people to understand what it is that's happening in photosynthesis.for example, one half of the carbon equation is how much we emit, and the other half of the carbon equation, as i'm very conscious as a trustee of kew, is how much things soak up, and they soak up carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.雖然聽來頗像。問題的關鍵是我們花了很多錢 來教育大眾，我們應該正確地來做這件事。其中也有一些社會因素 讓我們想使大眾了解光合作用如何運作 例如，有一半的碳儲量是人類排放的 而另一半碳儲量 我相當關切，身為皇家植物園的受托管理人

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that's what plants actually do for a living.and, for any finnish people in the audience, this is a finnish pun: we are, both literally and metaphorically, skating on thin ice if we don't understand that kind of thing.now, here's how you do the battery and the bulb.it's so easy, isn't it? of course, you all knew that.but if you haven't played with a battery and a bulb, if you've only seen a circuit diagram, you might not be able to do that, and that's one of the problems.是植物吸收多少二氧化碳 植物就是以此維生的 如果在場有芬蘭人，這是芬蘭話的雙關語 我們無論在實際上或隱喻上，都是如履薄冰 要是我們不明白那些事 電池和燈泡只要這要做就行 很簡單，不是嗎?你們都懂了 但要是你沒有親手碰過電池和燈泡 如果你只看過電路圖 你可能就做不出來，這是個麻煩

so, why is it hotter in summer than in winter? we learn, as children, that you get closer to something that's hot, and it burns you.it's a very powerful bit of learning, and it happens pretty early on.by extension, we think to ourselves, “why it's hotter in summer than in winter must be because we're closer to the sun.” i promise you that most of you will have got that.oh, you're all shaking your heads, but only a few of you are shaking your heads very firmly.那么，為何夏天比冬天熱? 我們從小就知道，離熱的東西太近你就被燙到，這真很有效的教育方法 很小的時候大家就學到了 延伸這個論點，我們覺得夏天比冬天熱 一定是因為我們離太陽比較近我相信大多人都懂了 哦，大家都在搖頭 不過只有幾個人搖得很堅定

other ones are kind of going like this.all right.it's hotter in summer than in winter because the rays from the sun are spread out more, right, because of the tilt 海量資料分享

of the earth.and if you think the tilt is tilting us closer, no, it isn't.the sun is 93 million miles away, and we're tilting like this, right? it makes no odds.in fact, in the northern hemisphere, we're further from the sun in summer, as it happens, but it makes no odds, the difference.其他人只是這樣子搖而已，好吧 夏天比冬天熱是因為太陽的輻射線 傳播得比較多，地球傾斜的關系 如果你以為是朝太陽的方向傾斜，那就錯了 太陽離地球1億5千萬公里，地球傾斜角度大略如此 傾斜不是差別所在，在北半球 夏天時我們離太陽更遠 跟傾斜沒有關系

ok, now, the scribble of the diagram of the solar system.if you believe, as most of you probably do, that it's hotter in summer than in winter because we're closer to the sun, you must have drawn an ellipse.right? that would explain it, right? except, in your--you're nodding--now, in your ellipse, have you thought, “well, what happens during the night?”

好，問題四是畫出太陽系的平面圖 如果大家相信，大多數可能都相信 夏天比冬天熱是因為地球離太陽較近大家應該都畫了橢圓形 對吧?這就能解釋了吧? 除非，你點頭了，你畫了個橢圓形 你有想過，「夜晚又是怎么回事」?

between australia and here, right, they've got summer and we've got winter, and what--does the earth kind of rush towards the sun at night, and then rush back again? i mean, it's a very strange thing going on, and we hold these two models in our head, of what's right and what isn't right, and we do that, as human beings, in all sorts of fields.澳洲和美國這邊，澳洲是夏天 這邊是冬天，難道說 地球在晚上會沖向太陽

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然后再沖回來?這實在很奇怪 我們腦中有兩種思考模式，對的和錯的 身為人類，我們在很多領域都這樣思考

so, here's copernicus' view of what the solar system looked like as a plan.that's pretty much what you should have on your piece of paper.right? and this is nasa's view.they're stunningly similar.i hope you notice the coincidence here.左邊是哥白尼畫的太陽系平面圖 跟你們紙上畫的差不多，對吧 右邊是nasa的版本，兩張圖非常相似 我希望大家注意其中的巧合 要是你知道人們有錯誤觀念

what would you do if you knew that people had this misconception, right, in their heads, of elliptical orbits caused by our experiences as children? what sort of diagram would you show them of the solar system, to show that it's not really like that? you'd show them something like this, wouldn't you? it's a plan, looking down from above.but, no, look what i found in the textbooks.that's what you show people, right?

你會怎么做 在他們腦中，楕圓形的軌道 是他們兒時經驗教的嗎? 你會給他們看什么樣的太陽系示意圖? 證明太陽系不是他們想的那樣 你會給他們看這種圖嗎? 這是俯瞰的平面圖 可是并非如此，瞧瞧我在教科書里找到的 你會給他們看這種圖對吧?

these are from textbooks, from websites, educational websites--and almost anything you pick up is like that.and the reason it's like that is because it's dead boring to have a load of concentric circles, whereas that's much more 海量資料分享

exciting, to look at something at that angle, isn't it? right?

出自教科書 出自教育網站 你找得到的幾乎都是這種圖 會以這種視角呈現是因為 只有一堆同心圓太死板無趣 從這種視角看太陽系比較新鮮刺激 不是嗎?

and by doing it at that angle, if you've got that misconception in your head, then that two-dimensional representation of a three-dimensional thing will be ellipses.so you've--it's crap, isn't it really? as we say.因為弄成這種視角 如果你腦中有了這種誤解 用二度空間來呈現三度空間就會變成橢圓形 這真是糟糕，可不是嗎?

so, these mental models--we look for evidence that reinforces our models.we do this, of course, with matters of race, and politics, and everything else, and we do it in science as well.so we look, just look--and scientists do it, constantly--we look for evidence that reinforces our models, and some folks are just all too able and willing to provide the evidence that reinforces the models.因此，我們尋求證據來增強我們的心智模式 我們用這種方式處理種族、政治、所有事 當然也用這種方式處理科學，我們只觀看 是科學家在這么做，我們不斷尋求證據 來增強我們的心智模式，有些人很有辦法 也樂意提供證據來增強那些模式

so, being i'm in the united states, i'll have a dig at the europeans.these are examples of what i would say is bad practice in science teaching centers.海量資料分享

所以我現在人在美國，就會說歐洲人的壞話 這些圖片都是我認為不良的科學教育

these pictures are from la villette in france and the welcome wing of the science museum in london.and, if you look at the, kind of the way these things are constructed, there's a lot of mediation by glass, and it's very blue, and kind of professional--in that way that, you know, woody allen comes up from under the sheets in that scene in “annie hall,” and said, “god, that's so professional.” and that you don't--there's no passion in it, and it's not hands on, right, and, you know, pun intended.類似教學中心，這些圖取自法國維葉特科博館 以及倫敦科博館的迎賓翼展示區 你看看這些東西建成的模樣 有很多玻璃隔板，藍光色調，弄得很專業似的 那種方式，就像是伍迪艾倫從床單里冒出來 在《安妮霍爾》戲中的那一幕 他說“老天，這真是太專業了” 這其中沒有熱情，沒有動手參與，是嗎 這是個雙關，不過也有好的教學方法

whereas good interpretation--i'll use an example from nearby--is san francisco exploratorium, where all the things that--the demonstrations, and so on, are made out of everyday objects that children can understand, it's very hands-on, and they can engage with, and experiment with.and i know that if the graduates at mit and in the imperial college in london had had the battery and the wire and the bit of stuff, and you know, been able to do it, they would have learned how it actually works, rather than thinking that they follow circuit diagrams and can't do it.so good interpretation is more about things that are bodged and stuffed and of my world, right? and things that--where there isn't an extra barrier of a piece of glass or machined titanium, and it all looks fantastic, ok? 海量資料分享

我舉一個例子，離這里很近，舊金山探索館 在那里所有的東西，展示品之類的 都是用孩子能懂的日常用品做成的 都可以動手玩，孩子們可以專心玩好好體驗 我知道麻省理工畢業生 以及倫敦帝國學院畢業生 手上有電池電線點亮燈泡的話 他們會明白其中的原理 而不是覺得他們照著電路圖來做是做不到的 好的教學方法不是 沉溺陶醉在自己世界里對吧? 那些東西也不該被隔著 用玻璃或是鈦制品隔開 看起來很漂亮就好，好嗎?

and the exploratorium does that really, really well.and it's amateur, but amateur in the best sense, in other words, the root of the word being of love and passion.舊金山探索館在這點做得非常好 看上去很業余，但業余得很對頭 也就是說，根本的出發點是出自愛和熱情

so, children are not empty vessels, ok?so, as “monty python” would have it, this is a bit lord privy seal to say so, but this is--children are not empty vessels.所以，孩童不是空瓶子 用“巨蟒劇團”的說法 就是有點像英國掌璽大臣會說的 意思是說孩童不是空無一物的瓶子

they come with their own ideas and their own theories, and unless you work with those, then you won't be able to shift them, right?

他們生來就有自己的想法和理念 如果你沒從這些地方著手，就改變不了他們 對吧?

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and i probably haven't shifted your ideas of how the world and universe operates, either.but this applies, equally, to matters of trying to sell new technology.我大概沒有改變大家的想法 對于世界和宇宙到底如何運作 不過這些道理同樣可以用在推銷新科技上也

for example, we are, in britain, we're trying to do a digital switchover of the whole population into digital technology [for television].例如，在英國，我們試著把全部的電視 都換成新科技的數位電視

and it's one of the difficult things is that when people have preconceptions of how it all works, it's quite difficult to shift those.有個難題是 人們對事物運作的方式一旦有了成見 就很難去改變

so we're not empty vessels;the mental models that we have as children persist into adulthood.poor teaching actually does more harm than good.我們不是空瓶子，我們保有心智模式 從幼年到成年一直都存在 不良的教學是弊多于利

in this country and in britain, magnetism is understood better by children before they've been to school than afterwards, ok? same for gravity, two concepts, so it's--which is quite humbling, as a, you know, if you're a teacher, and you look before and after, that's quite worrying.they do worse in tests afterwards, after the teaching.海量資料分享

在美國和英國，在磁力知識上 孩童在就學前學得比較好 重力知識也一樣，兩個不同概念，這實在可悲 如果你是個老師，看見受教前和受教后的差別 實在令人憂心，學童在受教后考得更差

and we collude.we design tests, or at least in britain, so that people pass them.right? and governments do very well.they pat themselves on the back.ok?

我們都是共犯，我們設計測驗方式 至少在英國是這樣，好讓人們能通過考試 政府也幫了不少忙，他們推波助瀾 懂嗎?

we collude, and actually if you--if someone had designed a test for me when i was doing my biology exams, to really understand, to see whether i'd understood more than just kind of putting starch and iodine together and seeing it go blue, and really understood that plants took their mass out of the air, then i might have done better at science.so the most important thing is to get people to articulate their models.我們都是共犯 如果有人替我設計測驗 在我要考生物的時候 讓我能真正明白，明白我是否真的懂了 不是只在淀粉中加入碘液 看著反應呈現藍色 而且能真正明白植物是從空氣中茁壯的 我的科學可能就會學得比較好 所以，最重要的是要讓人們能表述清楚他們的模型

your homework is--you know, how does an aircraft's wing create lift? an obvious question, and you'll have an answer now in your heads.and the second question to that then is, ensure you've explained how it is that planes can fly upside down.ah ha, right.海量資料分享

回家作業是，機翼是怎樣幫助飛機起飛的? 這問題很好懂，大家心中也有答案了 注意事項是 你要確保自己能解釋為何飛機頭向下的時候也能飛，對吧

second question is, why is the sea blue? all right? and you've all got an idea in your head of the answer.so, why is it blue on cloudy days? ah, see.問題二，海為何是藍色的? 大家心中應該都有答案了 那么，為什么陰天時海還是藍的?看吧(笑聲)我一直想在美國講這句話

(laughter)

(笑聲)

i've always wanted to say that in this country.(laughter)finally, my plea to you is to allow yourselves, and your children, and anyone you know, to kind of fiddle with stuff, because it's by fiddling with things that you, you know, you complement your other learning.it's not a replacement, it's just part of learning that's important.thank you very much.now--oh, oh yeah, go on then, go on.最后，我希望大家能讓自己，還有孩子 以及任何你認識的人，去動手接觸事物 因為親自接觸了事物，你知道的 你就補足了其他方面的學習不足，這不是替換 這只是學習中很重要的一部分 謝謝大家 那么，噢，沒關系，繼續吧

(applause)

海量資料分享

(鼓掌)

TED英語演講稿：內向性格的力量 TED英語演講稿：改善工作的快樂之道 TED英語演講稿：你能控制他人的注意力嗎？ TED英語演講稿：如何逃出教育的“死亡谷” TED英語演講稿：如何讓選擇更容易 TED英語演講稿：科技如何幫我閱讀

Ted英語演講稿:Be an Opportunity Maker機會創造者 TED英語演講稿：四種影響我們的聲音方式 TED英語演講稿：我們為什么快樂？

Ted英語演講稿：How I held my breath for 17 minutes如何憋氣17

海量資料分享

第二篇：TED英語演講稿：我們為什么快樂？

TED英語演講稿：我們為什么快樂？

When you have 21 minutes to speak, two million years seems like a really long time. But evolutionarily, two million years is nothing. And yet in two million years the human brain has nearly tripled in mass, going from the one-and-a-quarter pound brain of our ancestor here, Habilis, to the almost three-pound meatloaf that everybody here has between their ears. What is it about a big brain that nature was so eager for every one of us to have one?

Well, it turns out when brains triple in size, they don't just get three times bigger; they gain new structures. And one of the main reasons our brain got so big is because it got a new part, called the “frontal lobe.” And particularly, a part called the “pre-frontal cortex.” Now what does a pre-frontal cortex do for you that should justify the entire architectural overhaul of the human skull in the blink of evolutionary time?

Well, it turns out the pre-frontal cortex does lots of things, but one of the most important things it does is it is an experience simulator. Flight pilots practice in flight simulators so that they don't make real mistakes in planes. Human beings have this marvelous adaptation that they can actually have experiences in their heads before they try them out in real life. This is a trick that none of our ancestors could do, and that no other animal can do quite like we can. It's a marvelous adaptation. It's up there with opposable thumbs and standing upright and language as one of the things that got our species out of the trees and into the shopping mall.

Now -- (Laughter) -- all of you have done this. I mean, you know, Ben and Jerry's doesn't have liver-and-onion ice cream, and it's not because they whipped some up, tried it and went, “Yuck.” It's because, without leaving your armchair, you can simulate that flavor and say “yuck” before you make it.

Let's see how your experience simulators are working. Let's just run a quick diagnostic before I proceed with the rest of the talk. Here's two different futures that I invite you to contemplate, and you can try to simulate them and tell me which one you think you might prefer. One of them is winning the lottery. This is about 314 million dollars. And the other is becoming paraplegic. So, just give it a moment of thought. You probably don't feel like you need a moment of thought.

Interestingly, there are data on these two groups of people, data on how happy they are. And this is exactly what you expected, isn't it? But these aren't the data. I made these up!

These are the data. You failed the pop quiz, and you're hardly five minutes into the lecture. Because the fact is that a year after losing the use of their legs, and a year after winning the lotto, lottery winners and paraplegics are equally happy with their lives.

Now, don't feel too bad about failing the first pop quiz, because everybody fails all of the pop quizzes all of the time. The research that my laboratory has been doing, that economists and psychologists around the country have been doing, have revealed something really quite startling to us, something we call the “impact bias,” which is the tendency for the simulator to work badly. For the simulator to make you believe that different outcomes are more different than in fact they really are.

From field studies to laboratory studies, we see that winning or losing an election, gaining or losing a romantic partner, getting or not getting a promotion, passing or not passing a college test, on and on, have far less impact, less intensity and much less duration than people expect them to have. In fact, a recent study -- this almost floors me -- a recent study showing how major life traumas affect people suggests that if it happened over three months ago, with only a few exceptions, it has no impact whatsoever on your happiness.

Why? Because happiness can be synthesized. Sir Thomas Brown wrote in 1642, “I am the happiest man alive. I have that in me that can convert poverty to riches, adversity to prosperity. I am more invulnerable than Achilles; fortune hath not one place to hit me.” What kind of remarkable machinery does this guy have in his head?

Well, it turns out it's precisely the same remarkable machinery that all off us have. Human beings have something that we might think of as a “psychological immune system.” A system of cognitive processes, largely non-conscious cognitive processes, that help them change their views of the world, so that they can feel better about the worlds in which they find themselves. Like Sir Thomas, you have this machine. Unlike Sir Thomas, you seem not to know it. (Laughter)

We synthesize happiness, but we think happiness is a thing to be found. Now, you don't need me to give you too many examples of people synthesizing happiness, I suspect. Though I'm going to show you some experimental evidence, you don't have to look very far for evidence.

第三篇：我們一直以為自己在成就孩子,卻不知道是孩子成就了我們

上帝說，每一個小孩都是天使，都是落入人間的精靈，他們：善良、美麗、活潑、可愛、聰明、樂觀、勇敢也許你覺得自己并不完美，但在爸爸媽媽眼里，你是獨一無二的，你永遠是他們的小心肝。你的微笑，你的歡樂，你的眼淚，你的成長，時時刻刻都牽動著他們的心，你健康快樂地成長是對他們最好的回報。

前幾天晚上，我給孩子拉上蚊帳前，親了親他的額頭。“媽媽，你看！”他大聲地說。“怎么啦！”“你看，我的腳能碰到床沿那邊了，我都有床這么長了。”“是呀！你又長高了，時間可過得真快呀！”我要走的時候，他拉住我說要我陪他聊一會兒。“媽媽，你小時候有沒有希望快快長大？”“我那時候天天盼著自己長大，可是如今我卻總覺得不要那么快就好了。”“為什么呢？”“因為小時候的時光是一生中最輕松快樂的。你要好好享受它。”

“我覺得最快樂的是跟爸爸媽媽在一起。謝謝媽媽！”“謝謝媽媽什么呢？”“謝謝你做我的媽媽呀！”我輕輕地拍了拍他的肩，跟他說，“謝謝你，愿意做我的孩子。”這時，感覺眼睛澀澀的。

我常常想，眼前的這個小家伙為何會成為我的孩子？他為什么會選擇我做他的媽媽呢？是我足夠好，還是我本身還不夠好呢？ 曾經有一首叫《挑媽媽》的詩走紅網絡，戳中了無數人的淚腺。你問我出生前在做什么 我答

我在天上挑媽媽 看見你了 覺得你特別好 想做你的兒子

又覺得自己可能沒那個運氣 沒想到 第二天一早 我已經在你肚子里

我們都說自己愛孩子，但是我們愛的方式和方法是對的嗎？有時候，我們會不會借著愛的名義，逾越了為人父母的界限呢？ 其實你的孩子遠比想象中更愛你 情景一：

某天帶著孩子逛商場，孩子鬧情緒不肯回家，調皮搗蛋各種作。勸了半天忍不住了，把他扔在地上說你走吧，媽媽不要你了！孩子一邊追一邊哭，走到哪跟到哪，就算是對他兇，他還是賴著你。還從路邊撿起一朵小花，一邊哭一邊還要送給媽媽做禮物。其實孩子很生氣，但他們從來都不怪你，你在孩子心里，永遠都是第一位的。我當時就感動哭了，還發誓再也不那樣兇孩子了。很多人說，父母對孩子的愛是有條件的，但孩子對爸爸媽媽的愛卻是無條件的。因為對孩子來說，我們就是他們的全部。情景二：

我們以為小孩子什么都不懂，盼望孩子們快樂成長就夠了。但有時候孩子為了爸爸媽媽，會做出很多你意想不到的事情。吃飯的時候，孩子他爸爸故意把孩子最愛吃的香腸夾到了自己碗里。本以為孩子會不高興，可沒想到，孩子的反應卻是：把自己碗里所有的香腸都夾給了爸爸。

父母這個職業，是不需要考試的，只要你愿意，就能獲取，可是，并不是每個人都能勝任。從第一天做爸爸媽媽開始，我們就開始了一段成長的旅途。父母子女一場，真的是一場修行。我們足夠好，孩子才選中了我們做他的父母，而我們要做的，就是把自己變得更強大。

別用大人的標準衡量孩子，想想自己小時候就懂了 我曾經也是個叛逆的小孩。

小時候父母對我特別嚴格，我總覺得他們不夠愛我。在很小的時候，我就咬著牙發誓，以后一定要努力，遠離爸媽的城市，遠離他們的束縛。念念不忘，必有回響，后來我終于得償所愿，過上了自由的生活。一度我曾洋洋得意，以為自己無比正確。

直到后來，我有了孩子。在無數次筋疲力盡的哄睡中，在孩子生病時焦頭爛額的陪伴中，我總能看到媽媽將幼時的我抱在懷中微笑的樣子。原來，我也曾被溫柔對待，只是，都忘記了。

后來，我的孩子長大，學會了交流，學會了搗蛋，也學會了叛逆。

當我控制不住自己沖他大發雷霆時，我的意識總是及時跳出來提醒我：看，你變成了你父母當初的樣子。

發現，我并不比父母高明多少。

在繁瑣家務的磨練中，在和孩子的交鋒中，我開始回憶父母曾面對的生活。那個年代，賺錢不容易，生活不便捷。

爸爸的世界里只有一個問題：怎么才能給孩子們賺到更多的錢？而媽媽，每天要生火做飯，洗碗洗衣，指導孩子寫作業，閑時還要給三個孩子打毛衣做衣服。在這樣的生活條件下，他們還為我們爭取到一個又一個受更好教育的機會。而我，卻一直抱怨他們的嚴格和情緒化。多么自大，又多么無知！

終于，我心中的戾氣漸漸消失，日漸濃厚的，是對孩子和父母的愛意。直到這時，我才真正開始長大。

我也終于明白，原來孩子，是上天派來拯救我們這些那些庸碌愚蠢的大人的。他們赤條條地來，卻帶著生活的真相；他們總是保持索取的姿態，卻總在不覺中，彌補了大人心中的空缺。他們帶著我們重新過一次童年，引領我們憶起曾經擁有的愛和豐盛。

而借由孩子，我們將童年重演一遍，拾起被遺忘的幸福，補全日漸殘缺的靈魂。嘔心瀝血地教養孩子，最后發現，一起長大的還有自己。

所謂父母子女一場，不過是相互滋養。我們一直以為自己在成就孩子，卻不知道是孩子成就了我們。End

第四篇：TED英語演講稿

TED英語演講稿

TED英語演講稿

I was one of the only kids in college who had a reason to go to the P.O.box at the end of the day, and that was mainly because my mother has never believed in email, in Facebook, in texting or cell phones in general.And so while other kids were BBM-ing their parents, I was literally waiting by the mailbox to get a letter from home to see how the weekend had gone, which was a little frustrating when Grandma was in the hospital, but I was just looking for some sort of scribble, some unkempt cursive from my mother.And so when I moved to New York City after college and got completely sucker-punched in the face by depression, I did the only thing I could think of at the time.I wrote those same kinds of letters that my mother had written me for strangers, and tucked them all throughout the city, dozens and dozens of them.I left them everywhere, in cafes and in libraries, at the U.N., everywhere.I blogged about those letters and the days when they were necessary, and I posed a kind of crazy promise to the Internet: that if you asked me for a hand-written letter, I would write you one, no questions asked.Overnight, my inbox morphed into this harbor of heartbreak--a single mother in Sacramento, a girl being bullied in rural Kansas, all asking me, a 22-year-old girl who barely even knew her own coffee order, to write them a love letter and give them a reason to wait by the mailbox.Well, today I fuel a global organization that is fueled by those trips to the mailbox, fueled by the ways in which we can harness social media like never before to write and mail strangers letters when they need them most, but most of all, fueled by crates of mail like this one, my trusty mail crate, filled with the scriptings of ordinary people, strangers writing letters to other strangers not because they're ever going to meet and laugh over a cup of coffee, but because they have found one another by way of letter-writing.But, you know, the thing that always gets me about these letters is that most of them have been written by people that have never known themselves loved on a piece of paper.They could not tell you about the ink of their own love letters.They're the ones from my generation, the ones of us that have grown up into a world where everything is paperless, and where some of our best conversations have happened upon a screen.We have learned to diary our pain onto Facebook, and we speak swiftly in 140 characters or less.But what if it's not about efficiency this time? I was on the subway yesterday with this mail crate, which is a conversation starter, let me tell you.If you ever need one, just carry one of these.(Laughter)And a man just stared at me, and he was like, “Well, why don't you use the Internet?” And I thought, “Well, sir, I am not a strategist, nor am I specialist.I am merely a storyteller.” And so I could tell you about a woman whose husband has just come home from Afghanistan, and she is having a hard time unearthing this thing called conversation, and so she tucks love letters throughout the house as a way to say, “Come back to me.Find me when you can.” Or a girl who decides that she is going to leave love letters around her campus in Dubuque, Iowa, only to find her efforts ripple-effected the next day when she walks out onto the quad and finds love letters hanging from the trees, tucked in the bushes and the benches.Or the man who decides that he is going to take his life, uses Facebook as a way to say goodbye to friends and family.Well, tonight he sleeps safely with a stack of letters just like this one tucked beneath his pillow, scripted by strangers who were there for him when.These are the kinds of stories that convinced me that letter-writing will never again need to flip back her hair and talk about efficiency, because she is an art form now, all the parts of her, the signing, the scripting, the mailing, the doodles in the margins.The mere fact that somebody would even just sit down, pull out a piece of paper and think about someone the whole way through, with an intention that is so much harder to unearth when the browser is up and the iPhone is pinging and we've got six conversations rolling in at once, that is an art form that does not fall down to the Goliath of “get faster,” no matter how many social networks we might join.We still clutch close these letters to our chest, to the words that speak louder than loud, when we turn pages into palettes to say the things that we have needed to say, the words that we have needed to write, to sisters and brothers and even to strangers, for far too long.Thank you.(Applause)(Applause)

第五篇：TED英語演講稿

01.Remember to say thank you

Hi.I'm here to talk to you about the importance of praise, admiration and thank you, and having it be specific and genuine.And the way I got interested in this was, I noticed in myself, when I was growing up, and until about a few years ago, that I would want to say thank you to someone, I would want to praise them, I would want to take in their praise of me and I'd just stop it.And I asked myself, why? I felt shy, I felt embarrassed.And then my question became, am I the only one who does this? So, I decided to investigate.I'm fortunate enough to work in the rehab facility, so I get to see people who are facing life and death with addiction.And sometimes it comes down to something as simple as, their core wound is their father died without ever saying he's proud of them.But then, they hear from all the family and friends that the father told everybody else that he was proud of him, but he never told the son.It's because he didn't know that his son needed to hear it.So my question is, why don't we ask for the things that we need? I know a gentleman, married for 25 years, who's longing to hear his wife say, “Thank you for being the breadwinner, so I can stay home with the kids,” but won't ask.I know a woman who's good at this.She, once a week, meets with her husband and says, “I'd really like you to thank me for all these things I did in the house and with the kids.” And he goes, “Oh, this is great, this is great.” And praise really does have to be genuine, but she takes responsibility for that.And a friend of mine, April, who I've had since kindergarten, she thanks her children for doing their chores.And she said, “Why wouldn't I thank it, even though they're supposed to do it?”

So, the question is, why was I blocking it? Why were other people blocking it? Why can I say, “I'll take my steak medium rare, I need size six shoes,” but I won't say, “Would you praise me this way?” And it's because I'm giving you critical data about me.I'm telling you where I'm insecure.I'm telling you where I need your help.And I'm treating you, my inner circle, like you're the enemy.Because what can you do with that data? You could neglect me.You could abuse it.Or you could actually meet my need.And I took my bike into the bike store--I love this--same bike, and they'd do something called “truing” the wheels.The guy said, “You know, when you true the wheels, it's going to make the bike so much better.” I get the same bike back, and they've taken all the little warps out of those same wheels I've had for two and a half years, and my bike is like new.So, I'm going to challenge all of you.I want you to true your wheels: be honest about the praise that you need to hear.What do you need to hear? Go home to your wife--go ask her, what does she need? Go home to your husband--what does he need? Go home and ask those questions, and then help the people around you.And it's simple.And why should we care about this? We talk about world peace.How can we have world peace with different cultures, different languages? I think it starts household by household, under the same roof.So, let's make it right in our own backyard.And I want to thank all of you in the audience for being great husbands, great mothers, friends, daughters, sons.And maybe somebody's never said that to you, but you've done a really, really good job.And thank you for being here, just showing up and changing the world with your ideas.02.The benefits of a bilingual brain

?Hablas espa?ol? Parlez-vous fran?ais? ni hui shuo zhong wen ma? If you answered “si”,”oui” or ”hui” and you are watching this in English, chances are you belong to the world bilingual and multilingual majority.And besides having an easier time traveling, or watching movies without subtitles, knowing two or more languages means that your brain may actually look and work differently than those of your monolingual friends.So what does it really mean to know a language?

Language ability is typically measured in two active parts, speaking and writing, and two passive parts, listening and reading.While a balanced bilingual has near equal abilities across the board in two languages, most bilinguals around the world know and use their languages in vary proportions.And depending on their situation and how they acquired each language, they can be classified into three general types.For example, let’s take Gabriella, whose family immigrates to the US from Peru when she was two-years old.As a compound bilingual, Gabriella develops two linguistic codes simultaneously, with a single set of concepts, learning both English and Spanish as she begins to process the world around her.Her teenage brother, on the other hand, might be a coordinate bilingual, working with two sets of concepts, learning English in school, while continuing to speak Spanish at home and with friends.Finally, Gabriella’s parents are likely to be subordinate bilinguals who learned a secondary language by filtering it through their primary language.Because all types of bilingual people can become fully proficient in a language regardless of accent and pronunciation, the difference may not be apparent to be a casual observer.But recent advances in imaging technology have given neurolinguists a glimpse into how specific aspects of language learning affect the bilingual brain.It’s well known that the brain’s left hemisphere is more dominant and analytical in logical processes, while the right hemisphere is more active in emotional and social ones, though this is a matter of degree, not an absolute split.The fact that language involves both types of functions while lateralization develops gradually with age, has lead to the critical period hypothesis.According to this theory, children learn languages more easily because the plasticity of their developing brains let them use both hemispheres in language acquisition, while in most adults, language is lateralized to one hemisphere, usually the left.If this is true, learning a language in childhood may give you a more holistic grasp of its social and emotional contexts.Conversely, recent research showed that people who learned a second language in adulthood exhibit less emotional bias and a more rational approach when confronting problems in the second language than their native one.But regardless of when you acquire additional languages, being multilingual gives your brain some remarkable advantages.Some of these are even visible, such higher density of the gray matter that contains most of your brain’s neurons and synapses, and more activity in certain regions when engaging a second language.The heightened workout a bilingual brain receives throughout its life can also help delay the onset of diseases, like Alzheimers and Dementia by as much as 5 years.The idea of major cognitive benefits to bilingualism may seem intuitive now, but it would have surprised earlier experts.Before the 1960s, bilingualism was considered a handicap that slowed the child’s development by forcing them to spend them too much energy distinguishing between languages, a view based largely on flawed studies.And while a more recent study did show that reaction times and errors increase for some bilingual students in cross-language tests, it also showed that the effort and attention needed to switch between languages triggered more activity in, and potentially strengthened, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex.This is the part of brain that plays a large role in executive function, problem solving, switching between tasks, and focusing while filtering out irrelevant information.So, while bilingual may not necessarily make you smarter, it does make your brain more healthy, complex and actively engaged, and even if you didn’t have the good fortune of learning a second language like a child, it’s never too late to do yourself a favor and make the linguistic leap from, ”Hello,” to “Hola”, ”Bonjour” or “ninhao’s” because when it comes to our brains a little exercise can go a long way.03.Feats of memory anyone can do

I'd like to invite you to close your eyes.Imagine yourself standing outside the front door of your home.I'd like you to notice the color of the door, the material that it's made out of.Now visualize a pack of overweight nudists on bicycles.They are competing in a naked bicycle race, and they are headed straight for your front door.I need you to actually see this.They are pedaling really hard, they're sweaty, they're bouncing around a lot.And they crash straight into the front door of your home.Bicycles fly everywhere, wheels roll past you, spokes end up in awkward places.Step over the threshold of your door into your foyer, your hallway, whatever's on the other side, and appreciate the quality of the light.The light is shining down on Cookie Monster.Cookie Monster is waving at you from his perch on top of a tan horse.It's a talking horse.You can practically feel his blue fur tickling your nose.You can smell the oatmeal raisin cookie that he's about to shovel into his mouth.Walk past him.Walk past him into your living room.In your living room, in full imaginative broadband, picture Britney Spears.She is scantily clad, she's dancing on your coffee table, and she's singing “Hit Me Baby One More Time.” And then, follow me into your kitchen.In your kitchen, the floor has been paved over with a yellow brick road, and out of your oven are coming towards you Dorothy, the Tin Man, the Scarecrow and the Lion from “The Wizard of Oz,” hand-in-hand, skipping straight towards you.Okay.Open your eyes.I want to tell you about a very bizarre contest that is held every spring in New York City.It's called the United States Memory Championship.And I had gone to cover this contest a few years back as a science journalist, expecting, I guess, that this was going to be like the Superbowl of savants.This was a bunch of guys and a few ladies, widely varying in both age and hygienic upkeep.They were memorizing hundreds of random numbers, looking at them just once.They were memorizing the names of dozens and dozens and dozens of strangers.They were memorizing entire poems in just a few minutes.They were competing to see who could memorize the order of a shuffled pack of playing cards the fastest.I was like, this is unbelievable.These people must be freaks of nature.And I started talking to a few of the competitors.This is a guy called Ed Cook, who had come over from England, where he had one of the best-trained memories.And I said to him, “Ed, when did you realize that you were a savant?” And Ed was like, “I'm not a savant.In fact, I have just an average memory.Everybody who competes in this contest will tell you that they have just an average memory.We've all trained ourselves to perform these utterly miraculous feats of memory using a set of ancient techniques, techniques invented 2,500 years ago in Greece, the same techniques that Cicero had used to memorize his speeches, that medieval scholars had used to memorize entire books.” And I said, “Whoa.How come I never heard of this before?”

And we were standing outside the competition hall, and Ed, who is a wonderful, brilliant, but somewhat eccentric English guy, says to me, “Josh, you're an American journalist.Do you know Britney Spears?” I'm like, “What? No.Why?” “Because I really want to teach Britney Spears how to memorize the order of a shuffled pack of playing cards on U.S.national television.It will prove to the world that anybody can do this.”

I was like, “Well, I'm not Britney Spears, but maybe you could teach me.I mean, you've got to start somewhere, right?” And that was the beginning of a very strange journey for me.I ended up spending the better part of the next year not only training my memory, but also investigating it, trying to understand how it works, why it sometimes doesn't work, and what its potential might be.And I met a host of really interesting people.This is a guy called E.P.He's an amnesic who had, very possibly, the worst memory in the world.His memory was so bad, that he didn't even remember he had a memory problem, which is amazing.And he was this incredibly tragic figure, but he was a window into the extent to which our memories make us who we are.At the other end of the spectrum, I met this guy.This is Kim Peek, he was the basis for Dustin Hoffman's character in the movie “Rain Man.” We spent an afternoon together in the Salt Lake City Public Library memorizing phone books, which was scintillating.And I went back and I read a whole host of memory treatises, treatises written 2,000-plus years ago in Latin, in antiquity, and then later, in the Middle Ages.And I learned a whole bunch of really interesting stuff.One of the really interesting things that I learned is that once upon a time, this idea of having a trained, disciplined, cultivated memory was not nearly so alien as it would seem to us to be today.Once upon a time, people invested in their memories, in laboriously furnishing their minds.Over the last few millenia, we've invented a series of technologies--from the alphabet, to the scroll, to the codex, the printing press, photography, the computer, the smartphone--that have made it progressively easier and easier for us to externalize our memories, for us to essentially outsource this fundamental human capacity.These technologies have made our modern world possible, but they've also changed us.They've changed us culturally, and I would argue that they've changed us cognitively.Having little need to remember anymore, it sometimes seems like we've forgotten how.One of the last places on Earth where you still find people passionate about this idea of a trained, disciplined, cultivated memory, is at this totally singular memory contest.It's actually not that singular, there are contests held all over the world.And I was fascinated, I wanted to know how do these guys do it.A few years back a group of researchers at University College London brought a bunch of memory champions into the lab.They wanted to know: Do these guys have brains that are somehow structurally, anatomically different from the rest of ours? The answer was no.Are they smarter than the rest of us? They gave them a bunch of cognitive tests, and the answer was: not really.There was, however, one really interesting and telling difference between the brains of the memory champions and the control subjects that they were comparing them to.When they put these guys in an fMRI machine, scanned their brains while they were memorizing numbers and people's faces and pictures of snowflakes, they found that the memory champions were lighting up different parts of the brain than everyone else.Of note, they were using, or they seemed to be using, a part of the brain that's involved in spatial memory and navigation.Why? And is there something that the rest of us can learn from this?

The sport of competitive memorizing is driven by a kind of arms race where, every year, somebody comes up with a new way to remember more stuff more quickly, and then the rest of the field has to play catch-up.This is my friend Ben Pridmore, three-time world memory champion.On his desk in front of him are 36 shuffled packs of playing cards that he is about to try to memorize in one hour, using a technique that he invented and he alone has mastered.He used a similar technique to memorize the precise order of 4,140 random binary digits in half an hour.Yeah.And while there are a whole host of ways of remembering stuff in these competitions, everything, all of the techniques that are being used, ultimately come down to a concept that psychologists refer to as “elaborative encoding.”

And it's well-illustrated by a nifty paradox known as the Baker/baker paradox, which goes like this: If I tell two people to remember the same word, if I say to you, “Remember that there is a guy named Baker.” That's his name.And I say to you, “Remember that there is a guy who is a baker.” Okay? And I come back to you at some point later on, and I say, “Do you remember that word that I told you a while back? Do you remember what it was?” The person who was told his name is Baker is less likely to remember the same word than the person was told his job is a baker.Same word, different amount of remembering;that's weird.What's going on here?

Well, the name Baker doesn't actually mean anything to you.It is entirely untethered from all of the other memories floating around in your skull.But the common noun “baker”--we know bakers.Bakers wear funny white hats.Bakers have flour on their hands.Bakers smell good when they come home from work.Maybe we even know a baker.And when we first hear that word, we start putting these associational hooks into it, that make it easier to fish it back out at some later date.The entire art of what is going on in these memory contests, and the entire art of remembering stuff better in everyday life, is figuring out ways to transform capital B Bakers into lower-case B bakers--to take information that is lacking in context, in significance, in meaning, and transform it in some way, so that it becomes meaningful in the light of all the other things that you have in your mind.One of the more elaborate techniques for doing this dates back 2,500 years to Ancient Greece.It came to be known as the memory palace.The story behind its creation goes like this:

There was a poet called Simonides, who was attending a banquet.He was actually the hired entertainment, because back then, if you wanted to throw a really slamming party, you didn't hire a D.J., you hired a poet.And he stands up, delivers his poem from memory, walks out the door, and at the moment he does, the banquet hall collapses.Kills everybody inside.It doesn't just kill everybody, it mangles the bodies beyond all recognition.Nobody can say who was inside, nobody can say where they were sitting.The bodies can't be properly buried.It's one tragedy compounding another.Simonides, standing outside, the sole survivor amid the wreckage, closes his eyes and has this realization, which is that in his mind's eye, he can see where each of the guests at the banquet had been sitting.And he takes the relatives by the hand, and guides them each to their loved ones amid the wreckage.What Simonides figured out at that moment, is something that I think we all kind of intuitively know, which is that, as bad as we are at remembering names and phone numbers, and word-for-word instructions from our colleagues, we have really exceptional visual and spatial memories.If I asked you to recount the first 10 words of the story that I just told you about Simonides, chances are you would have a tough time with it.But, I would wager that if I asked you to recall who is sitting on top of a talking tan horse in your foyer right now, you would be able to see that.The idea behind the memory palace is to create this imagined edifice in your mind's eye, and populate it with images of the things that you want to remember--the crazier, weirder, more bizarre, funnier, raunchier, stinkier the image is, the more unforgettable it's likely to be.This is advice that goes back 2,000-plus years to the earliest Latin memory treatises.So how does this work? Let's say that you've been invited to TED center stage to give a speech, and you want to do it from memory, and you want to do it the way that Cicero would have done it, if he had been invited to TEDxRome 2,000 years ago.What you might do is picture yourself at the front door of your house.And you'd come up with some sort of crazy, ridiculous, unforgettable image, to remind you that the first thing you want to talk about is this totally bizarre contest.And then you'd go inside your house, and you would see an image of Cookie Monster on top of Mister Ed.And that would remind you that you would want to then introduce your friend Ed Cook.And then you'd see an image of Britney Spears to remind you of this funny anecdote you want to tell.And you'd go into your kitchen, and the fourth topic you were going to talk about was this strange journey that you went on for a year, and you'd have some friends to help you remember that.This is how Roman orators memorized their speeches--not word-for-word, which is just going to screw you up, but topic-for-topic.In fact, the phrase “topic sentence”--that comes from the Greek word “topos,” which means “place.” That's a vestige of when people used to think about oratory and rhetoric in these sorts of spatial terms.The phrase “in the first place,” that's like “in the first place of your memory palace.”

I thought this was just fascinating, and I got really into it.And I went to a few more of these memory contests, and I had this notion that I might write something longer about this subculture of competitive memorizers.But there was a problem.The problem was that a memory contest is a pathologically boring event.Truly, it is like a bunch of people sitting around taking the SATs--I mean, the most dramatic it gets is when somebody starts massaging their temples.And I'm a journalist, I need something to write about.I know that there's incredible stuff happening in these people's minds, but I don't have access to it.And I realized, if I was going to tell this story, I needed to walk in their shoes a little bit.And so I started trying to spend 15 or 20 minutes every morning, before I sat down with my New York Times, just trying to remember something.Maybe it was a poem, maybe it was names from an old yearbook that I bought at a flea market.And I found that this was shockingly fun.I never would have expected that.It was fun because this is actually not about training your memory.What you're doing, is you're trying to get better and better at creating, at dreaming up, these utterly ludicrous, raunchy, hilarious, and hopefully unforgettable images in your mind's eye.And I got pretty into it.This is me wearing my standard competitive memorizer's training kit.It's a pair of earmuffs and a set of safety goggles that have been masked over except for two small pinholes, because distraction is the competitive memorizer's greatest enemy.I ended up coming back to that same contest that I had covered a year earlier, and I had this notion that I might enter it, sort of as an experiment in participatory journalism.It'd make, I thought, maybe a nice epilogue to all my research.Problem was, the experiment went haywire.I won the contest--which really wasn't supposed to happen.Now, it is nice to be able to memorize speeches and phone numbers and shopping lists, but it's actually kind of beside the point.These are just tricks.They work because they're based on some pretty basic principles about how our brains work.And you don't have to be building memory palaces or memorizing packs of playing cards to benefit from a little bit of insight about how your mind works.We often talk about people with great memories as though it were some sort of an innate gift, but that is not the case.Great memories are learned.At the most basic level, we remember when we pay attention.We remember when we are deeply engaged.We remember when we are able to take a piece of information and experience, and figure out why it is meaningful to us, why it is significant, why it's colorful, when we're able to transform it in some way that makes sense in the light of all of the other things floating around in our minds, when we're able to transform Bakers into bakers.The memory palace, these memory techniques--they're just shortcuts.In fact, they're not even really shortcuts.They work because they make you work.They force a kind of depth of processing, a kind of mindfulness, that most of us don't normally walk around exercising.But there actually are no shortcuts.This is how stuff is made memorable.And I think if there's one thing that I want to leave you with, it's what E.P., the amnesic who couldn't even remember he had a memory problem, left me with, which is the notion that our lives are the sum of our memories.How much are we willing to lose from our already short lives, by losing ourselves in our Blackberries, our iPhones, by not paying attention to the human being across from us who is talking with us, by being so lazy that we're not willing to process deeply?

I learned firsthand that there are incredible memory capacities latent in all of us.But if you want to live a memorable life, you have to be the kind of person who remembers to remember.Thank you.01.請別忘記感謝身邊的人

嗨。我在這里要和大家談談向別人表達贊美，傾佩和謝意的重要性。并使它們聽來真誠，具體。

之所以我對此感興趣是因為我從我自己的成長中注意到幾年前，當我想要對某個人說聲謝謝時，當我想要贊美他們時，當我想接受他們對我的贊揚，但我卻沒有說出口。我問我自己，這是為什么？我感到害羞，我感到尷尬。接著我產生了一個問題難道我是唯一一個這么做的人嗎？所以我決定做些探究。

我非常幸運的在一家康復中心工作，所以我可以看到那些因為上癮而面臨生與死的人。有時候這一切可以非常簡單地歸結為，他們最核心的創傷來自于他們父親到死都未說過“他為他們而自豪”。但他們從所有其它家庭或朋友那里得知他的父親告訴其他人為他感到自豪，但這個父親從沒告訴過他兒子。因為他不知道他的兒子需要聽到這一切。

因此我的問題是，為什么我們不索求我們需要的東西呢？我認識一個結婚25年的男士渴望聽到他妻子說，“感謝你為這個家在外賺錢，這樣我才能在家陪伴著孩子，”但他從來不去問。我認識一個精于此道的女士。每周一次，她見到丈夫后會說，“我真的希望你為我對這個家和孩子們付出的努力而感謝我。”他會應和到“哦，真是太棒了，真是太棒了。”贊揚別人一定要真誠，但她對贊美承擔了責任。一個從我上幼兒園就一直是朋友的叫April的人，她會感謝她的孩子們做了家務。她說：“為什么我不表示感謝呢，即使他們本來就要做那些事情？”

因此我的問題是，為什么我不說呢？為什么其它人不說呢？為什么我能說：“我要一塊中等厚度的牛排，我需要6號尺寸的鞋子，”但我卻不能說：“你可以贊揚我嗎？”因為這會使我把我的重要信息與你分享。會讓我告訴了你我內心的不安。會讓你認為我需要你的幫助。雖然你是我最貼心的人，我卻把你當作是敵人。你會用我托付給你的重要信息做些什么呢？你可以忽視我。你可以濫用它。或者你可以滿足我的要求。

我把我的自行車拿到車行－－我喜歡這么做－－同樣的自行車，他們會對車輪做整形。那里的人說：“當你對車輪做整形時，它會使自行車變成更好。”我把這輛自行車拿回來，他們把有小小彎曲的鐵絲從輪子上拿走這輛車我用了2年半，現在還像新的一樣。所以我要問在場的所有人，我希望你們把你們的車輪整形一下：真誠面對對你們想聽到的贊美。你們想聽到什么呢？回家問問你們的妻子，她想聽到什么？回家問問你們的丈夫，他想聽到什么？回家問問這些問題，并幫助身邊的人實現它們。

非常簡單。為什么要關心這個呢？我們談論世界和平。我們怎么用不同的文化，不同的語言來保持世界和平？我想要從每個小家庭開始。所以讓我們在家里就把這件事情做好。我想要感謝所有在這里的人們因為你們是好丈夫，好母親，好伙伴，好女兒和好兒子。或許有些人從沒跟你們說過但你們已經做得非常非常得出色了。感謝你們來到這里，向世界顯示著你們的智慧，并用它們改變著世界。

02.雙語能力對大腦的益處驚人

你會說中文嗎？如果你能回答“si”、“oui”或者“是的”，而且能看懂這個英文短片，那么你就跟世界上很多人一樣、具備雙語能力或是多語能力。除了旅游時溝通比較方便、看電影不需要字幕這些好處之外，通曉兩種或者三種以上的語言，意味著你的大腦在結構上或運作上與你那些單一語言的朋友有著明顯的不同。所以到底什么才能算通曉一門語言呢？

衡量語言能力，主要包含兩個主動部分——說和寫，和兩個被動部分——聽和讀。雖然一個出色的雙語者對于兩種語言都有著相近的使用能力，但是大多數的雙語者對兩個語種的認知和使用能力是有差異的。根據個人所處的環境以及他們具體學語言的方法，雙語者通常可以分成三類。

舉個例子來說，Gabriella在兩歲時跟著家人由秘魯移民到美國。她屬于復合型雙語者，Gabriella在剛接觸這個世界時就同時學英語和西班牙語，所以給她一個概念、她的大腦就能同時喚起兩種語言信號。她有一個十幾歲的哥哥，則屬于協調型雙語使用者，他運用兩種不同的概念，一方面在學校學習英語，另一方面用西班牙語和家人、朋友交流。

最后，Gabriella的父母，則屬于從屬型雙語者。當他們學習外語（英語）時，需要通過母語進行翻譯再進行學習。

如果不考慮口音和發音問題，這三種類型的雙語者至少都算能精通一門語言。因此，一般人很難發現這三種類型的差異。然而現在，由于大腦成像技術不斷進步，神經語言學家能夠知道語言學習對雙語使用者的大腦產生什么樣的影響。

大家都知道，大腦的左半球是掌管數據和邏輯分析的，而大腦的右半球則掌管情感與社交，但這并不是絕對的、只是比例多少的問題。

語言同時包括了左腦和右腦的功能，而隨著年齡的增長，大腦的功能會逐漸側重其中的一邊，語言學習的關鍵時期假說就是由這個事實引申出來的。根據這個理論，兒童學習語言更容易，是因為他們的大腦仍在發展、可塑性更強，他們可以同時調用左右兩邊大腦的機能來學習語言；然而多數成年人只通過大腦的一邊（通常是左腦）學習語言。

如果這個假說是真的，那么在兒童時期學習語言可以讓你對其社會和情感內涵有著更整體的把握。另一方面，近期的研究表明，成年人學習外語時的情緒性偏見沒那么多，同時相比于母語環境，他們在外語環境中遇到問題時也更為理性。

無論如何，當你學習一門新的語言時，多語能力都會給你的大腦帶來明顯的好處。有些好處甚至是可視化的，比如大腦灰白質的密度增加，那里包含了大多數的神經元和突觸，而且在學習外語時，大腦的部分區域會變得更加活躍。雙語者的大腦可以持續不斷地接收強化訓練，這能讓一些病癥（如阿茲海默癡呆癥和失智癥）的發作推遲至5年以后。

雙語能力對認知能力的有所幫助在現代來看是很好理解的，但是過去的專家一定會對這個觀點大吃一驚。在1960年之前，人們認為使用雙語對于兒童的成長來說是一種障礙，因為這需要兒童花費精力去分辨別不同語言，這種觀點的產生源自有瑕疵的研究方法。

最新的研究的確顯示，在跨語言測驗當中，使用雙語的學生的反應時間與錯誤次數增加了；同時也表明，學生需要花費更多的努力和注意力進行語言的轉換，這也使得前額葉腦區更加活躍、進而強化其機能。前額葉腦區主要影響執行、解決問題、多任務轉換、集中注意力、排除無關信息的能力。

雖然學習雙語不一定能讓你更聰明，但是它可以讓你的大腦更加健康、多元和活躍。即使你在年幼時沒有機會學習第二語言，但是現在學習永遠不會太晚。從現在開始學一門外語吧，把“hello”轉換成“Hola”、“Bonjour”、“你好”(本文作者母語為英語)等外語問候，即使只是小小的訓練，也能對大腦有所幫助。03.每個人都能掌握的記憶技巧

請大家跟我一起閉上眼睛，象一下。

你站在，自己家門口的外面，請留心一下門的顏色，以及門的材質，現在請想象一群超重的裸騎者，正在進行一場裸體自行車賽，向你的前門直沖而來，盡量讓畫面想象得栩栩如生近在眼前，他們都在奮力地踩腳踏板汗流浹背，路面非常顛簸，然后徑直撞進了你家前門，自行車四下飛散車輪從你身旁滾過，輻條扎進了各種尷尬角落，跨過門檻，進到門廳、走廊和門里的其他地方，室內光線柔和舒適，光線灑在甜餅怪物身上，他坐在一匹棕色駿馬的馬背上，正向你招手，這匹馬會說話，你可以感覺到他的藍色鬃毛讓你鼻子發癢，你可以聞到他正要扔進嘴里的葡萄燕麥曲奇的香氣，繞過他繞過他走進客廳，站在客廳里把你的想象力調到最大檔，想象小甜甜布蘭妮，她衣著暴露在你咖啡桌上跳舞，并唱著“Hit Me Baby One More Time”，接下來跟著我走進你的廚房，廚房的地面被一道黃磚路覆蓋，依次鉆出你的烤箱向你走來的是，《綠野仙蹤》里的多蘿西鐵皮人，稻草人和獅子，他們手挽著手蹦蹦跳跳地向你走來，好了睜開眼睛吧，我要給你們講一個每年春天在紐約，都會舉辦的奇異競賽，叫做全美記憶冠軍賽，幾年前我作為一名科技類記者，去報道這項競賽，心里想著大概那兒得像，怪才的“超級碗冠軍賽”一樣熱鬧吧，一大堆男人和屈指可數的女性，從小孩兒到老人有些還不怎么注意個人衛生，有的奮力在只看一次的情況下，記下上百個任意列出的數字，有的在努力記住成群的陌生人的名字，有的想在幾分鐘內努力背下整篇詩歌，還有的在比賽誰能以最快速度，記下一整副打亂的牌的順序，我當時覺得這太不可思議了，這些人肯定天賦異稟。

所以我開始采訪參賽者，這位叫Ed Cook，是從英格蘭來的，他在那兒接受了最好的記憶訓練，我問他 “Ed 你是什么時候開始意識到，自己是記憶天才的?”，Ed答道“我并不是什么專家，其實我的記憶力很一般，來參賽的每一個人，都會告訴你他們的記憶力只是一般水平，我們都在訓練自己后才能，完成這些奇跡般的記憶游戲，我們運用了一系列古老的技巧，這些技巧是希臘人在兩千五百年前發明的，西塞羅正是用了這些技巧，來記憶他的演講稿的，中世紀學者用這種技巧來背誦正本書籍的內容“，我驚訝不已 ”哇噻怎么我從來沒聽說過呢?“，我們站在競技大廳外，聰明過人令人驚嘆，而又稍有些古怪的英國人Ed，對我說 ”Josh 你是個美國記者，你知道小甜甜布蘭妮吧?”，我茫然不解 “什么? 當然為什么要問這個?”，“因為我真的很想在，美國國家電臺上教會布蘭妮，怎樣記住一整副打亂的牌的順序，就能證明這是人人都可以做到的了“，我說 ”雖然我不是布蘭妮，但你也可以教教我呀，總得找個人開教嘛不是嗎?“，接著一段非常奇特的歷程在我面前展開了序幕，結果第二年的大部分時間，我都花在了訓練自己的記憶力，同時調查研究記憶上，我想嘗試理解產生記憶的原理，為何有時會記了又忘，及其它到底隱藏著什么樣的潛力，途中我遇到了很多有趣的人，其中一個叫E.P.，他患有健忘癥他的記憶力，恐怕是世界上最差的了，他的記憶能力差到，甚至記不得自己有健忘癥，真的很神奇，雖然他是個悲劇角色，但通過他我們能了解到，記憶在何種程度上塑造了我們的人格，情況的另一個極端是我遇到了這樣一個人，他叫Kim Peek，他是Dustin Hoffman在電影《雨人》里的角色的原型，我和他花了一下午，在鹽湖城公共圖書館里背電話簿，讓我大開眼界，回家后我讀了許多關于記憶的論文，寫于兩千多年前的論文，用拉丁文寫的從古代，一直到后來中世紀期間，我學到很多很有意思的事兒，其中一個就是，曾經，訓練規束培養記憶力的這種概念，完全不像如今那樣陌生，曾幾何時人們寄希望于自己的記憶，能不遺余力地裝飾自己的心靈，近幾千年來，人類發明了一系列技術，從字母表到卷軸，到法典印刷機攝影技術，電腦智能手機，讓我們能越來越輕松地，外化記憶能力，讓我們從根本上，把這種基礎的人類能力拱手讓出，這些技術讓現代生活變為可能，但同時也改變了我們，不僅在文化上，我覺得也在認知上，不再需要費勁去記憶，有時會覺得我們已經忘了如何去記憶，在這片地球上已經很少有地方，能讓你覺得人們仍熱衷于，訓練規束培養記憶力了，那非同尋常的記憶大賽算是一個，其實它也沒有那么非同尋常，世界各地都開始舉辦這樣的競賽，我對此深深著迷想要知道這些人是怎么做到的，幾年前倫敦大學學院的一組研究人員，請來一批記憶大賽的冠軍接受研究，他們想要弄明白，這些人的大腦，是否跟我們其他人在解剖學上的結構不一樣?，答案是否定的，那他們比我們都聰明嗎?，他們給研究對象實施了一系列認知測試，依舊得出了否定結論，但對比受控制的比對目標的大腦，記憶大賽冠軍們的大腦，確實有一處很有趣的不同很說明問題，這些人被送去做功能磁共振，掃描大腦時，當他們在記憶數字或人臉或雪花圖案時，研究人員發現記憶大賽冠軍們，的大腦激活的區域，跟普通人不太一樣，值得注意的是他們看來是在用，腦中在空間記憶和導航時會用到的部分，為什么? 我們可以從中得出什么樣的結論呢?，競爭性記憶的較量，被一種類似軍事比賽的方式推向了白熱化，每年都會有人，帶著更有效的記憶方法現身賽場，而其他人就必須迎頭趕上，這是我的朋友Ben Pridmore，贏得過三次國際記憶大賽冠軍，在他的臺前，有三十六副打亂順序的牌，他要在一個小時內記下全部，用的是一種他自己發明的也只有他會的技巧，用與此類似的方法，他曾一字不差地背下了，4140個任意排列的二進制數，只用了半個小時，很牛吧，參賽者在這些競賽中，運用過很多不同的記憶方法，各式各樣被運用到的所有技巧，最終都能歸化為一個概念，心理學家稱之為”精細編碼“，這個概念能用一則幽默的悖論完美詮釋，叫做Baker/baker悖論，簡單說來就是，假設我讓兩個人去記同一個詞，我跟你說，”記住有個人叫Baker“，Baker是人名，我又來告訴你 ”記住有個人是面包師(baker)“，過了一段時間我又回來找到你們，問 ”還記得我之前，叫你們記住的那個詞嗎?“，”還記得是什么詞嗎?“，被告知人名是Baker的人，記住這個詞的可能性遠不如，被告知職業是面包師的那個人，同樣的詞導致不同的記憶程度，到底是為什么呢，是因為人名Baker沒有任何特殊含義，沒法跟你腦海里，零碎繁雜的記憶產生任何聯系，但是面包師(baker)作為一個常用名詞，我們都知道面包師是什么，面包師帶著搞笑的白帽子，他們手上沾滿了面粉，他們下班回到家帶著撲鼻的烤面包香，甚至可能有些人有朋友就是面包師，我們初次聽到這個詞時，馬上就會產生各種各樣的聯想，這使我們能在一段時間后還能回憶起來，其實要理解記憶競賽中的，一切奧妙，或在日常生活中改善記憶力的秘訣，僅僅在于想辦法把Baker中的大寫B，變為面包師(baker)中的小寫b，把沒有前因后果，沒有重要性沒有涵義的信息，用某種方法轉化為，有意義的內容，跟腦海里的其他記憶串聯起來，這種精確記憶的技巧，在兩千五百年前的古希臘就已出現，后來將其稱為記憶宮殿，發明這種技巧的過程如下，有個叫做Simonides的詩人，他要去參加一個晚宴，其實他算是被請去做表演嘉賓的，因為在那個年代炫酷派對的標準，不是請D.J.來打碟而是要請詩人來頌詩，他站起來背出了他的全篇詩作然后瀟灑離去，他剛走出門口晚宴大廳就塌了，砸死了里面所有的人，不僅全體死亡，所有的死者都被砸得面目全非，沒人說得清死者都有些誰，沒人說得清誰坐在哪兒，導致死者的尸體沒法得到合適的殉葬安置，這又加重了整件事的悲劇色彩，Simonides站在外面，作為廢墟中的唯一幸存者，閉上眼睛猛然意識到，在他的腦海中，他眼前出現了所有賓客所坐的位置，他就牽著親屬們的手，穿過廢墟把他們帶到了親人身邊，Simonides當時猛然醒悟的事，大概我們大家也都猜到了，其實是不管我們，有多不善于記住姓名電話號碼，或是同事的每句指令，我們都擁有異常敏銳的視覺或空間記憶能力，要是我讓你們逐字逐句地重述，我剛才講的Simonides故事的前十個字，應該沒幾個人會記得，但我敢打賭，如果我讓你們現在回想下，在你的門廳里坐在會講話的棕色駿馬上的，是誰，你們就明白我剛才說的意思了，記憶宮殿的原理，就是在你的腦海里建立一棟想象大廈，并讓你想記住的東西，的影像充滿其中，越是瘋狂古怪奇詭，荒誕搞笑亂七八糟招人厭惡的影像，就越容易記住，這個建議來自于兩千多年前，拉丁最早的記憶學者，那么這種說法的原理到底是什么呢，假設你被邀請，站上TED的中心講臺演講，而你想脫稿完成，如西塞羅在兩千年前在TEDx羅馬上的演講一般，他就會這么霸氣走一回而你也想這樣，你要做的就是，想象自己站在自家門前，然后憑空想象出，一段完全荒誕瘋狂難忘的景象，用來提示你上臺要提的第一件事，就是這場詭異的裸騎大賽，然后你走進房子里，想到甜餅怪物，坐在Ed先生背上的樣子，這個景象會提醒你，要介紹你的朋友Ed Cook，然后你腦海里出現了小甜甜布蘭妮的樣子，你就會想起要講那個關于布蘭妮的小故事，然后你走進廚房，你要說到的第四個話題是，你花了一整年走過的奇妙歷程，通過綠野仙蹤就可以聯想得到，這就是羅馬演說家背誦演講稿的秘訣，并非一字不差逐字背誦只會平添麻煩，而是記住一個個主題，其實短語”主題句“，就來源于希臘詞”topos“，意思是”地點“，這是古時候，人們談到演講或是修辭時，會用到的空間術語，短語 ”第一"，就意味著你的記憶宮殿的第一層，這簡直太有意思了，我對這起了很大的興趣，后來我又去了更多記憶大賽，我開始萌發了要更詳細描寫，這種競技記憶文化的念頭，但有一個問題，問題是記憶大賽，其實過程很無聊的，(大笑)，真的就像一群人坐那兒高考一樣，最最激動人心的時刻，也不過就是有人揉了揉太陽穴，我是個記者總得有東西可寫呀，我知道這些人腦子里肯定是驚濤駭浪，但我作為外人無法得見，我意識到若我真的想報道這事兒，一定得親身體驗才行，所以我開始嘗試著每天早上坐下來看紐約時報前，花上十五到二十分鐘，嘗試記憶一些事，背背小詩，背背我在跳蚤市場買來的，舊年鑒里的人名，我驚奇地發現這其實非常帶勁，要不去嘗試根本想不到，有趣在于其實目標并不是要通過訓練提高記憶力，而是你在努力培養改善，創造力想象力，在你的腦海里憑空造出，那些完全滑稽荒誕胡亂最好是難忘的影像，而它成為了我的樂趣，這是我戴著標準競賽記憶者訓練套裝的樣子，它有一對耳塞，一副護目鏡鏡面全部遮黑，就留了兩個小孔，因為競技記憶者最大的敵人就是注意力分散，最后我再次回到了一年前報道的那場競賽場上，我一時沖動也想報名參加，就當做參與性新聞報道的實驗了，我當時想到時能在前言里調侃一下自己也好，問題是實驗最后得到了意想不到的結果，那場競賽我贏了，真是完全出乎我預料之外，對我來說現在，背演講稿電話號碼或是購物單，都是小菜一碟倒是很不錯，但其實這些都不重要了，這些都是小伎倆，這些記憶伎倆之所以有效，是因為它們依仗人類大腦運轉的，一些基本原理，并不用真的去建立記憶宮殿，或記下幾副牌的順序，你也完全可以從了解大腦運轉原理中，獲得一些益處，我們總會議論記憶力很好的人，總覺得那些人是天賦異稟，事實并不是這樣，強大的記憶力是可以習得的，從最根本的說起專心致志就能記住，全心投入時就能記住，只要能想辦法把信息和經歷，轉化為有意義的事，就能記住，想它為何重要為何多彩，當我們能把它轉化成為，有前因后果的事，并跟我們腦海中繁雜瑣碎的其他事產生聯想時，當我們能把人名Baker轉化為面包師baker時，記憶宮殿或是那些記憶技巧，都只是捷徑而已，其實說到底它們都不能算捷徑，這方法有效是因為它迫使你思考，它迫使你往更深層次去想，讓你更加專注，大部分人平時并不會費力去訓練這個，其實捷徑并不存在，這一直就是我們能記住事物的原因，有一件事我希望你們能記住，就是E.P.，那個連自己患了健忘癥都想不起來的人，讓我深思，得出了一個感想，人生就是我們個人記憶的合集，在短暫的人生里，你還愿意因為黑莓 iPhone，喪失多少瞬間，忽略對面坐著的人，在跟我們交談的人，變得越發懶惰不愿意，深究任何事？，通過親身經歷我發現，我們的身體里潛藏著，不可思議的記憶能力，但若你想活得難忘，就得做那種，記得時常記憶的人。

謝謝。