美国大学的本科教育应该教给学生什么？是实用的职业技能，还是更为全面和广泛的基础技能？考虑到当下学生面对未来漫长的人类发展漫长，如何才能在不断变化的市场环境中，保持自己未来的职场竞争力？耶鲁大学的网红经济学教授——罗伯特·希勒（Robert J. Shiller）对此提出了自己的看法。作者介绍：
本文作者罗伯特·希勒（Robert J. Shiller），麻省理工学院（MIT）经济学博士学位。如今是耶鲁大学经济系著名教授之一，也是耶鲁管理学院国际金融中心的金融学教授和研究员。2013年他因“资产价格实证分析方面的贡献”获得诺贝尔经济学奖。耶鲁最著名的网课之一Financial Market即由Shiller教授主讲。
在2015年《纽约时报》的"What to Learn in College to Stay One Step Ahead of Computers"（在大学里学习什么才能领先于计算机）一文中，罗伯特·希勒（Robert J. Shiller）发表了自己对于大学教育的观点。
随着时代发展，计算机和机器人已经取代了许多工人。年轻人现在能学到什么，学到些将不会在他们的一生中被取代的技能，并能在未来的20年，30年或50年内确保他们获得良好的工作和稳定的收入？在大学里，我们正在努力回答这个问题。Computers and robots are already replacing many workers. What can young people learn now that won’t be superseded within their lifetimes by these devices and that will secure them good jobs and solid income over the next 20, 30 or 50 years? In the universities, we are struggling to answer that question.大部分人在20岁出头时就完成了大部分的正规教育，并期望在今后一个世纪的大部分时间里利用起这些教育。但是，一台计算机却可以在几秒钟内，就学会人们在高中和大学里学到的大部分事实信息，并且在人类一辈子的寿命过去之前，将会有成千上万的新一代计算机和机器人以指数级的速度发展。Most people complete the majority of their formal education by their early 20s and expect to draw on it for the better part of a century. But a computer can learn in seconds most of the factual information that people get in high school and college, and there will be a great many generations of new computers and robots, improving at an exponential rate, before one long human lifetime has passed.解决人类与计算机的问题似乎有2种思路。首先是我们的老师应该定义并向学生提供某种普遍的、灵活的、具有洞察力的人类学习方式，我们希望这种学习方式是计算机所不能取代的。第二，我们需要让教育更加以商业为导向，教授有关真实世界的知识，并实现一个创造性的过程，且这个过程应该是电脑无法复制的。而这两种想法不一定冲突。Two strains of thought seem to dominate the effort to deal with this problem. The first is that we teachers should define and provide to our students a certain kind of general, flexible, insight-bearing human learning that, we hope, cannot be replaced by computers. The second is that we need to make education more business-oriented, teaching about the real world and enabling a creative entrepreneurial process that, presumably, computers cannot duplicate. These two ideas are not necessarily in conflict.对此，一些学者正在试图辨别哪些类型的学习比其他类型更能经受住技术更新的考验。理查德·穆纳内（Richard J. Murnane）和弗兰克·列维（Frank Levy）在他们《新劳动分工》(普林斯顿大学，2004年)的一书中，研究了在最近的信息革命中扩张的职业。其中包括汽车经销商的服务经理等职位，而不是电话接线员等职位。Some scholars are trying to discern what kinds of learning have survived technological replacement better than others. Richard J. Murnane and Frank Levy in their book “The New Division of Labor” (Princeton, 2004) studied occupations that expanded during the information revolution of the recent past. They included jobs like service manager at an auto dealership, as opposed to jobs that have declined, like telephone operator.随着当前经济衰退的结束，许多工人将不再重返曾经担任的工作，甚至有些工作岗位已经消失了。在《新劳动分工》（The New Division of Labor）中，弗兰克·利维和理查德·默纳内展示了计算机如何改变就业形势，以及正确的教育方式如何帮助人们顺利过渡到全新的就业市场。
按照这种（人工不可被机器替代）标准衡量，成功的职业具有某些共同特征：从事这些职业的人需要复杂的沟通技巧和专业知识。这些技能包括传达“不仅是信息，而且是对信息的特定解读”的能力。他们说，专家知识是广泛，深入和实用的，可以解决“未知的问题”。The successful occupations, by this measure, shared certain characteristics: People who practiced them needed complex communication skills and expert knowledge. Such skills included an ability to convey “not just information but a particular interpretation of information.” They said that expert knowledge was broad, deep and practical, allowing the solution of “uncharted problems.”这些特性在未来可能不会那么有用。但这项研究无疑表明，大学教育应该是广泛而全面的，而不是由教授组成的独立院系的传统结构来定义，尤其是许多教授都只希望在自己狭窄的学科领域处于最前沿。但是这种旧的院系结构仍然是大学的基础，目前很难改变。These attributes may not be as beneficial in the future. But the study certainly suggests that a college education needs to be broad and general, and not defined primarily by the traditional structure of separate departments staffed by professors who want, most of all, to be at the forefront of their own narrow disciplines. But this old departmental structure is still fundamental at universities, and it is hard to change.想想哈佛大学关于通识教育项目（General Education）的争议，其前身可追溯到1946年。通识教育的课程要求哈佛大学的本科生修读旨在使他们为大学毕业后的各种生活做好准备的课程。但批评人士说，这个项目没有取得成功，很多参与这个项目的教授只教授本系的学术材料，而没有关注更广泛的目标。至今为止，哈佛大学都会在本科招生网中强调：通识教育是哈佛大学课程的基石。Consider the controversy at Harvard College over the Program in General Education, whose antecedents date to 1946. The program requires Harvard undergraduates to take courses devised to prepare them for a broad range of issues in life after college. But critics have said that the program is not succeeding, and that many professors who participate in it teach only their own department’s scholarly material, without attention to wider aims.哈佛大学的路易斯·梅南德（Louis Menand）教授在2015年5月5日的一份声明中指出，专注于狭窄学科的教育是不够的：“只有不到20％的学生会继续学习并获得博士学位，”他说。许多学生最终进入了商业界或工业界，而不是学术界。Prof. Louis Menand of Harvard, in a May 5 statement, argued that an education focused on narrow academic disciplines was inadequate: “Less than 20 percent of our students go on to get Ph.D.s,” he said. Many students end up in the business world, broadly construed, not in academia.普通教育审查委员会主席肖恩·凯利（Sean D. Kelly）教授在5月5日的另一份声明中说，哈佛教育应该给学生“一种在这个世界生活的艺术”。In a separate May 5 statement, Prof. Sean D. Kelly, chairman of the General Education Review Committee, said a Harvard education should give students “an art of living in the world.”但是教授应该怎么做呢？也许我们应该让学生为自己学科所建议的创业机会做好准备。即使是与商业完全分离的学术部门也可以通过建议企业、非营利组织和活动来做到这一点，这样学生以后可以在这些活动中运用他们的专业知识。But how should professors do this? Perhaps we should prepare students for entrepreneurial opportunities suggested by our own disciplines. Even departments entirely divorced from business could do this by suggesting enterprises, nonprofits and activities in which students can later use their specialized knowledge.这些问题中有许多是在我自己的学术生活中出现的。几十年来，我的教学方法发生了变化。我试图让它在面对工作世界中的创造力和道德问题时更加有用。Many of these issues have arisen in my own academic life. My teaching has changed over the decades. I try to make it more useful in confronting issues of creativity and morality in the work world.当我于1982年到达耶鲁大学时，还没有金融方面的本科课程。我在1985年秋天开了一门金融课，至今仍在继续。我越来越多地尝试将数学理论与金融中的实际应用联系起来。When I arrived at Yale in 1982, there were no undergraduate courses in finance. I started one in the fall of 1985, and it continues today. Increasingly, I’ve tried to connect mathematical theory to actual applications in finance.自开始以来，这门课程就变得越来越自动化：它就像一个真实的、动态的教学体验，但是在执行过程中，大部分课程内容都是预先录制的，并且练习和考试都是通过计算机进行的。学生们可以不需要我的在场就可以学习。耶鲁大学在免费的在线网站上向公众开放了我的课程：2002年的AllLearn ，2008年和2011 年的Open Yale，以及现在的Coursera。Since its beginnings, the course has gradually become more robotic: It resembles a real, dynamic, teaching experience, but in execution, much of it is prerecorded, and exercises and examinations are computerized. Students can take it without need of my physical presence. Yale made my course available to the broader public on free online sites: AllLearn in 2002, Open Yale in 2008 and 2011, and now on Coursera.调整和改进课程以使其更好地适应数字框架的过程使我有时间来反思我为学生们做了什么。我现在可以退休了，让他们看我的讲座，并用剩下的电子资料。但是我发现，我应该为他们做更多的事情。The process of tweaking and improving the course to fit better in a digital framework has given me time to reflect about what I am doing for my students. I could just retire now and let them watch my lectures and use the rest of the digitized material. But I find myself thinking that I should be doing something more for them.所以，我继续更新课程，思考如何将课程融入到“在这个世界生活的艺术”中。我试图让我的学生增强这样的意识，即金融应该是一种为重要人类活动提供资金的艺术，让人们（在某天和机器人）一起工作，共同完成我们真正想做的事情。So I continue to update the course, thinking about how I can integrate its lessons into an “art of living in the world.” I have tried to enhance my students’ sense that finance should be the art of financing important human activities, of getting people (and robots someday) working together to accomplish things that we really want done.像哈佛和其他高等院校一样，耶鲁大学在很长一段时间内一直在努力解决广泛的问题。它曾尝试开设一个商业本科课程，为学生大学毕业后的生活做准备，但在1954年关闭了该课程。在1960年代越南战争期间，人们对商业机构的反感增加了。根据耶鲁大学前研究生院院长约翰·佩里·米勒（John Perry Miller）在自己的著作《创建学术环境》（J. Simeon Press，1991）中表示，耶鲁大学公开“反对”以商业为导向的教育理念。Like Harvard and other colleges and universities, Yale has been struggling with the broad issues for a very long time. It once experimented with an undergraduate business program, to prepare students for life beyond college, but shut down that program in 1954. In the 1960s, during the Vietnam War, antipathy to the business establishment increased. According to the former Yale Graduate School dean John Perry Miller, in his book “Creating Academic Settings” (J. Simeon Press, 1991), there was open “hostility” to the idea of business-oriented education at Yale.尽管如此，耶鲁大学还是培养出了许多优秀的商人。但是由于这种敌对情绪，耶鲁大学直到1976年才开办商学院，甚至后来否认它只是一所商学院：它最初只授予听起来更理想的公共和私人管理硕士学位（Master of Public and Private Management），而不是工商管理硕士学位（Master of Business Administration）。1976年以前，这所大学有一个伟大的经济学系，充满了纯粹的理论和数学的崇高意识，但它并不专注于实用的商业教育。Nonetheless, Yale produced many fine businesspeople. But because of this hostility, Yale did not start a business school until 1976, and even then denied that it was just a business school: Instead of offering a Master of Business Administration, it initially conferred only the more idealistic-sounding Master of Public and Private Management. Before 1976, the university had a great economics department, imbued with a lofty sense of pure theory and mathematics, but it was not focused on practical business education.对高等教育的不断重新定义应带来持续几十年的好处。随着信息技术的进步，我们将不得不做出调整。与此同时，我们必须不断地重新评估人类学习和计算机学习之间的内在差异，以及从长远来看什么对学生是实用和有用的。我们将不得不面对这样的现实:“生活在这个世界的艺术”至少需要一些商业教育的元素。The developing redefinition of higher education should provide benefits that will continue for decades into the future. We will have to adapt as information technology advances. At the same time, we must continually re-evaluate what is inherently different between human and computer learning, and what is practical and useful to students for the long haul. And we will have to face the reality that the “art of living in the world” requires at least some elements of a business education.随着科技的不断发展，相比看上去更为实用的计算机科学来说，人文学科在近几年来逐步被看做“无用”的学科。这也引发了大家在职业教育和博雅教育的选择上的讨论。而在耶鲁教授罗伯特·希勒（Robert J. Shiller）看来，教育从来就不是简单地把知识组装起来，对于任何一个真正想要追求知识的人来说，教育首先应该教会一个人如何思考，而不只是为了求职做准备。对于绝大部分的美国顶尖院校来说，通识教育都是本科生必修的课程。课程包括了历史、哲学、美学艺术、社会科学等广泛的领域。学生们需要涉猎广泛学科知识，逐渐起自己对世界更为全面的认知，以不断锻炼自己的批判思维能力。而这样的教育，是电脑永远不能取代你在课堂上学到，比如：如何清晰地沟通，如何批判性地思考，以及如何欣赏他人的美学和智力成就等等。所以从长远来看，大家应该通过平衡的教育、培养受益终身的技能、激发对科技更深层次的思考，你才能保持未来职场的竞争力，不会成为一个会轻易被机器所替代的“工具人”。
参考来源：
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/24/upshot/what-to-learn-in-college-to-stay-one-step-ahead-of-computers.html
