SPARTAN KIDS | 每个孩子都应该有块属于自己的奖牌！

我从来都不喜欢给参加活动的孩子颁发同样的奖赏。我只是不明白这样做如何能激励他们，或者说鼓励他们今天做得一天比一天好。如果每个孩子都得到相同的奖励，不管他们表现得怎么样，他们还能学到什么？他们还会变强吗？他们变勇敢了么？

I’ve never been a fan of giving the same award to every kid who participates in an activity. I just don’t see how that inspires them or encourages them to do better today than yesterday, and better tomorrow than today. If every kid gets the same award, regardless of how they perform, are they learning anything? Are they getting any stronger? Are they developing grit?

但最近几次谈话让我深思。不久前，我与四次代表新西兰参加奥运会的马拉松选手Rod Dixon进行了交谈。现年65岁的罗德创立了KiDsMARATHON，目标是让孩子们热爱跑步，拥有和他自己一样对跑步的热爱。方法就是让他们训练和参加儿童级别的马拉松赛，然后激励他们参加全程的马拉松比赛。

But a couple of recent conversations got me thinking. A short while ago I spoke with New Zealand native Rod Dixon, a four-time Olympic marathoner and bronze medal winner (among other accolades). Now 65, Rod founded KiDSMARATHON with the goal of getting young kids to love running, hopefully with a passion that matches his own. The idea is to get them to train for and to run kid-sized marathons, and to then be inspired to train for and to compete in full-length, 26.2 mile races.

Rod认为孩子变得活跃是必须的，当孩子们不活跃时，他们在生活的各个方面都会很挣扎。他说：“当我和孩子们坐在教室里谈话的时候，我每五分钟就让他们活动一下，然后再集中注意力。如果我和他们连续交谈20分钟，他们就开始坐立不安了。

Rod believes that a child’s need to be active is hardwired and that when kids are not active they struggle in all aspects of life. He says, “When I’m sitting in classrooms with kids, when I’m talking to them, I get them up every five minutes to do some exercise and then I’ve got their attention for another five minutes. If I try to talk to them for 20 minutes straight, they’re squirming.”

他解释说这和年轻时老师历练他的时候如出一辙。老师让我出去办事的时候我总是乱转，等我可以集中注意力的时候回来。他用运动来锻炼让我集中注意力。之前我的档案上写着我很顽皮，是个熊孩子，有多动症等等。如果没有老师的帮助，我怕是已经需要进行药物治疗了。但是现在我只需要锻炼克服就行了！

He explains that when he was young a teacher took this same approach with him. “He would send me out to do something and I would run around while I did it, and then I could focus when I got back. He used exercise to recalibrate me. Up to then, my reports had words like ‘fidgets,’ ‘lacks concentration,’ ‘looks out the window,’ and ‘disturbs others’ written all over them. Today I would be medicated. But all I needed was some exercise.”

我有四个孩子，我完全同意他的观点。孩子们越活跃，就会表现得越好，包括做作业。

I have four kids of my own, and I couldn’t agree more. The more active they are, the better they do in everything. Including schoolwork.

当然，很多孩子害怕跑步，所以我问Rod他是如何让他们保持兴趣的。他回应道：“让它失去竞争力。不要告诉他们，第一，第二，第三。告诉他们完成就是胜利。”这样一来，每个孩子都得到了同样的奖章（Rod的奖章来自奥运会的复制品）。当我听到这个，我差点喷了我的果汁。

Of course, lots of kids dread the thought of running, so I asked Rod how he keeps it fun for them. His immediate response: “Make it noncompetitive. Don’t tell them first, second, third. Tell them finishing is winning and winning is finishing.” To this end, everybody gets the same medal (a replica of Rod’s medal from the Olympics). When I heard this, I almost coughed up my juice. 

“我知道，”他说。“但这只是开始。我这样做，因为这是在我身上发生过的。我跑步是因为我喜欢它。后来，当我上了高中，竞争就来了。但当我们年轻的时候，只是想让孩子们有事情做。当然，我们有一大群孩子，而且孩子的发展要看他们自己的造化。但必须要让孩子做的事变得有趣，否则孩子就落后了。”

“I know,” he said. “But this is how it starts. And I’m only doing it this way because this is how it happened with me. I ran because I loved it. Later, when I went to high school, the competitiveness clicked in. But at a young age we just want to get kids engaged. Sure, we get a giant pool of kids and the cream is always going to rise to the top. But it has to be fun or we lose them.”

这真的是正确的方法吗？我采访了宾夕法尼亚大学副教授Angela Duckworth，一位著名的研究者，看看她是怎么想的。“我有一个11岁和12岁的孩子，我不怕看到他们努力工作后失败，”、“我也不害怕告诉他们我很失望。我可不觉得我的孩子是玻璃心。”

So is this really the way to go? I checked in with Angela Duckworth, associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania and a noted researcher on grit, to see what she thinks. “I have an 11- and a 12-year-old and I am not afraid to see them work hard on things and fail,” she said. “Nor am I afraid of telling them I’m disappointed. I don’t think kids are made of glass.”

她还告诉我，她女儿带着第八名奖品一条丝带回家后，她说：“难道只有8个小朋友参赛？”“她希望女儿知道的是，只要你想：我想做得更好。下次我能做得更好！最后一名也是可以的！”

She also told me that after her daughter came home from track with a ribbon for eighth place, she said, “Weren’t there only eight kids in the race?” What she wanted her daughter to know was that it’s okay to come in last as long as you think, “I want to do better. What can I do better next time?”

安吉拉的信念是：如果你想在孩子身上培养出勇气，就要让一群在努力克服困难的孩子围绕着他，无论这些孩子做的怎么样。创造出一种勇敢文化，这样孩子们从中学习，无论他们成功还是失败，他们都把经验带到下一次的体验当中。他们学会了克服消极因素，把注意力集中在他们能改变的事情上，从而最终达到终点。

Angela’s belief is that if you want to develop grit in a child, it makes sense to surround that child with other kids who are attempting difficult tasks, regardless of how well they do with those tasks. This creates a culture of grit, where kids learn from one experience, whether they succeed or fail, and they take that to their next experience. They learn to push past the negative and to focus on what they can change for the better, so ultimately they reach the finish line.

这也是Rod Dixon教孩子们爱上一件事并且坚持下去方法。这也是我们在斯巴达勇士儿童赛赛中所做的。

That’s also what Rod Dixon is doing—teaching kids to love something and to persevere even when it’s difficult. It’s also what we do at Spartan Kids Race.

傍晚，我的对“让每个孩子获得奖章”的想法有了一些改变，这种理念贯穿了我们的文化。我现在相信，当我们谈论真正的小孩子时，奖励每个人并告诉他们“完成就是胜利”可能会有用。毕竟，研究表明，当孩子们被夸奖说他们很勤奋，他们为此受到表扬时，他们比那些单纯因成绩好而被奖励的孩子更聪明、积极。因此，对孩子们说的话，尤其是小孩子，应该把注意力集中在他们的努力上，并坚持下去，以达到目标，即发展孩子的勇气与决心。

At the end of the day, my thinking has changed a little bit on the “every kids gets a medal” philosophy that permeates our culture. I now believe that maybe, when we’re talking about really young kids, rewarding everyone and telling them that “finishing is winning” may serve a useful purpose. After all, studies have shown that when kids are told they’re hard workers and they’re praised for that, they do better than kids who are praised just for winning, or for being smart, or whatever. So the message for kids, especially young kids, should focus on effort and hard work and sticking it out to reach a goal—i.e., on the development of grit.

我不希望结果那么平淡，这不是比赛应该有的，我认为比赛必须得分出个所以然，但是对于少年参赛者，我认为主要目的是让他们自信起来，给他们信心。对于比赛对于生活亦是如此。虽然有可能他们不是冠军，但是他们全力以赴了，努力就好！

No, I don’t want every game to end in a tie. That would be awful. And I definitely think there is an age cutoff where we have to start recognizing that some people finish first and other people don’t. But we also need to meet kids where they’re at in life, allowing the young ones to have lots of fun while keeping their focus on the idea that if they give it 100 percent they’re a winner. They might not be the champion, but they’re still a winner because they gave it everything they had.

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