School

被遺棄和被選擇 學(xué)校

Even before Jobs started elementary school, his mother had taught him how to read. This, however, led to some problems once he got to school. “I was kind of bored for the first few years, so I occupied myself by getting into trouble.” It also soon became clear that Jobs, by both nature and nurture, was not disposed to accept authority. “I encountered authority of a different kind than I had ever encountered before, and I did not like it. And they really almost got me. They came close to really beating any curiosity out of me.”

在喬布斯上小學(xué)之前，母親就已經(jīng)教他閱讀了。但這反而造成了一些麻煩。“在學(xué)校的最初幾年我覺得很無聊，所以我就不斷惹麻煩。”很快大家就發(fā)現(xiàn)，不論是從天性還是他接受的教育上，喬布斯都不是一個(gè)愿意接受權(quán)威的孩子。“我遭遇的是自己從未遇到過的另一種形式的權(quán)威，而且我不喜歡它。他們幾乎都要制服我了。差一點(diǎn)兒他們就把我身上所有的好奇心都趕走了。”

His school, Monta Loma Elementary, was a series of low-slung 1950s buildings four blocks from his house. He countered his boredom by playing pranks. “I had a good friend named Rick Ferrentino, and we’d get into all sorts of trouble,” he recalled. “Like we made little posters announcing ‘Bring Your Pet to School Day.’ It was crazy, with dogs chasing cats all over, and the teachers were beside themselves.” Another time they convinced some kids to tell them the combination numbers for their bike locks. “Then we went outside and switched all of the locks, and nobody could get their bikes. It took them until late that night to straighten things out.” When he was in third grade, the pranks became a bit more dangerous. “One time we set off an explosive under the chair of our teacher, Mrs. Thurman. We gave her a nervous twitch.”

他就讀的學(xué)校，蒙塔·洛馬小學(xué)，在他家四條街之外，是由一群20世紀(jì)50年代的低矮建筑組成的。他靠玩惡作劇來打發(fā)自己的無聊。“我有個(gè)叫里克·費(fèi)倫蒂諾（RickFerrentino）的好朋友，我們會(huì)惹上各種各樣的麻煩，”他回憶說，“比如我們會(huì)制作小海報(bào)，上面寫著‘帶寵物上學(xué)日’。那太瘋狂了，到處都能看到狗攆貓。老師們都?xì)獐偭恕！边€有一次，他們?cè)O(shè)法讓別的孩子說出了自己自行車鎖的密碼。“然后我們跑出去把所有的鎖都調(diào)換了位置，沒人能騎走自己的車。他們直到那天晚上才解決了問題。”到他三年級(jí)的時(shí)候，惡作劇開始有了一點(diǎn)兒危險(xiǎn)的成分。“有一次，我們?cè)诶蠋熒蛉耍∕rs.Thurman）的椅子下面點(diǎn)燃了炸藥。她嚇得都抽搐了。”

Not surprisingly, he was sent home two or three times before he finished third grade. By then, however, his father had begun to treat him as special, and in his calm but firm manner he made it clear that he expected the school to do the same. “Look, it’s not his fault,” Paul Jobs told the teachers, his son recalled. “If you can’t keep him interested, it’s your fault.” His parents never punished him for his transgressions at school. “My father’s father was an alcoholic and whipped him with a belt, but I’m not sure if I ever got spanked.” Both of his parents, he added, “knew the school was at fault for trying to make me memorize stupid stuff rather than stimulating me.” He was already starting to show the admixture of sensitivity and insensitivity, bristliness and detachment, that would mark him for the rest of his life.

不出意料，喬布斯在讀完三年級(jí)之前被送回家兩三次。不過父親當(dāng)時(shí)已經(jīng)把他當(dāng)做特殊的孩子來對(duì)待了，他以平靜但有力的態(tài)度向?qū)W校闡明，他希望學(xué)校也能這么對(duì)待自己的孩子。“聽著，這不是他的錯(cuò)，”喬布斯回憶當(dāng)時(shí)父親是這么對(duì)老師說的，“如果你提不起他的興趣，那是你的錯(cuò)。”喬布斯的記憶中，父母從來沒有因?yàn)樗趯W(xué)校犯錯(cuò)而懲罰過他。“我父親的父親是個(gè)酒鬼，還會(huì)用皮帶抽他，但是我連一巴掌都沒有挨過。”他又補(bǔ)充說，他的父母“都知道責(zé)任在學(xué)校，學(xué)校沒有激發(fā)我學(xué)習(xí)的興趣，而是讓我去背一些沒用的東西”。他開始展現(xiàn)出性格中的多面性，敏感又偶爾遲鈍，易怒而又超然，這也是他以后生活中的狀態(tài)。

When it came time for him to go into fourth grade, the school decided it was best to put Jobs and Ferrentino into separate classes. The teacher for the advanced class was a spunky woman named Imogene Hill, known as “Teddy,” and she became, Jobs said, “one of the saints of my life.” After watching him for a couple of weeks, she figured that the best way to handle him was to bribe him. “After school one day, she gave me this workbook with math problems in it, and she said, ‘I want you to take it home and do this.’ And I thought, ‘Are you nuts?’ And then she pulled out one of these giant lollipops that seemed as big as the world. And she said, ‘When you’re done with it, if you get it mostly right, I will give you this and five dollars.’ And I handed it back within two days.” After a few months, he no longer required the bribes. “I just wanted to learn and to please her.”

等到他即將進(jìn)入四年級(jí)的時(shí)候，校方認(rèn)為最好將喬布斯和費(fèi)倫蒂諾放到不同的班級(jí)里。教高級(jí)課程的是一名干勁十足的女教師伊莫金·希爾（ImogeneHill）,人稱“泰迪”，用喬布斯的話說，她成為了“我生命中的圣人之一”。在觀察了喬布斯幾個(gè)星期后，她意識(shí)到對(duì)付他最好的方法就是收買他。“有一天放學(xué)后，她給了我一本練習(xí)簿，上面都是數(shù)學(xué)題，她說要我?guī)Щ丶野杨}目解出來。我心想：‘你是不是瘋了？’這時(shí)她拿出一只超大的棒棒糖，在我看來地球也不過這么大吧。她說，你把題目做完之后，如果大多數(shù)都做對(duì)了，我就把這個(gè)給你，再送你5美元。我用了不到兩天就做完交給她了。”幾個(gè)月之后，他不想再要獎(jiǎng)勵(lì)了。“我只想學(xué)習(xí)和讓她髙興。”

She reciprocated by getting him a hobby kit for grinding a lens and making a camera. “I learned more from her than any other teacher, and if it hadn’t been for her I’m sure I would have gone to jail.” It reinforced, once again, the idea that he was special. “In my class, it was just me she cared about. She saw something in me.”

她會(huì)幫他弄到一些小工具，讓他可以做些打磨鏡頭、制作相機(jī)之類的事情。“我從她身上學(xué)到的東西比從其他任何老師那兒學(xué)到的都要多，如果沒有她的話，我一定會(huì)坐牢的。”這再一次印證了喬布斯是個(gè)特殊的孩子。“在我們班，她只關(guān)心我一個(gè)人。她在我身上看到了一些東西。”

It was not merely intelligence that she saw. Years later she liked to show off a picture of that year’s class on Hawaii Day. Jobs had shown up without the suggested Hawaiian shirt, but in the picture he is front and center wearing one. He had, literally, been able to talk the shirt off another kid’s back.

她看到的不僅是喬布斯的智慧。多年后，她很喜歡展示當(dāng)年的班級(jí)在“夏威夷日”拍的一張照片。那天喬布斯出現(xiàn)的時(shí)候沒有按要求穿夏威夷衫，但在照片中，他穿著一件夏威夷衫坐在前排中央。原來，他成功說服另一個(gè)孩子把自己的衣服脫下來給了他。

Near the end of fourth grade, Mrs. Hill had Jobs tested. “I scored at the high school sophomore level,” he recalled. Now that it was clear, not only to himself and his parents but also to his teachers, that he was intellectually special, the school made the remarkable proposal that he skip two grades and go right into seventh; it would be the easiest way to keep him challenged and stimulated. His parents decided, more sensibly, to have him skip only one grade.

四年級(jí)快結(jié)束時(shí)，希爾夫人給喬布斯作了測(cè)試。“我的得分是髙中二年級(jí)水平。”他回憶說。不光是他自己和他的父母，連老師們也發(fā)現(xiàn)了，他在智力上真的是非常特別，學(xué)校允許他連跳兩級(jí)，直接升入七年級(jí)。這也是可以讓他挑戰(zhàn)自我并受到激勵(lì)最簡(jiǎn)單的方法了。他的父母明智地決定讓他只跳一級(jí)。

The transition was wrenching. He was a socially awkward loner who found himself with kids a year older. Worse yet, the sixth grade was in a different school, Crittenden Middle. It was only eight blocks from Monta Loma Elementary, but in many ways it was a world apart, located in a neighborhood filled with ethnic gangs. “Fights were a daily occurrence; as were shakedowns in bathrooms,” wrote the Silicon Valley journalist Michael S. Malone. “Knives were regularly brought to school as a show of macho.” Around the time that Jobs arrived, a group of students were jailed for a gang rape, and the bus of a neighboring school was destroyed after its team beat Crittenden’s in a wrestling match.

這樣一種過渡有些突然。這個(gè)有點(diǎn)兒社交障礙的不合群的孩子發(fā)現(xiàn)自己身處一群比自己大一歲的人中間。更糟糕的是，他讀六年級(jí)的地方是另一所學(xué)校：克里滕登中學(xué)。這所學(xué)校離原來的蒙塔·洛馬小學(xué)不過八條街之隔，但在很多方面這里就像另一個(gè)世界，這所學(xué)校地處一個(gè)充斥著少數(shù)族裔幫派的社區(qū)。“打架幾乎天天發(fā)生，廁所里的敲詐也是如此，”硅谷記者邁克爾·S·馬隆（MichaelS.Malone）這樣寫道，“學(xué)生們經(jīng)常把刀帶到學(xué)校來展現(xiàn)自己的男子氣概。”喬布斯到這里的時(shí)候，一群學(xué)生剛因?yàn)檩喖槎槐O(jiān)禁，隔壁學(xué)校因?yàn)樵谝粓?chǎng)摔跤比賽中打敗了克里滕登而導(dǎo)致己方的校車被毀。