哈佛校长毕业演讲：为什么每年我都会带孩子去一个陌生的地方？（附视频&演讲稿）

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一个人生活的广度

决定了他的优秀程度

“上车睡觉，下车拍照”，相比陷入走形式怪圈的中国式旅行，哈佛女校长才真正践行了旅行的意义：行万里路前读万卷书，行万里路中阅人无数，行万里路后思索回顾。

生活的广度决定优秀程度，身临其境的旅行，便是一个人更为高级的成长方式。

https://v.qq.com/txp/iframe/player.html?vid=u0016qvbca8&width=500&height=375&auto=0

一句“我不是什么哈佛的女校长，我就是哈佛的校长”，让人们记住了哈佛三百多年唯一一位女校长德鲁·福斯特。

以下是这位校长在哈佛的一次演讲。

她用自己的亲身经历告诉我们，我们到底为什么一定要走出去，看这个世界。

我不是什么哈佛的女校长，我就是哈佛的校长

每年要去一个陌生的地方。

——这是我对自己的一个要求，也算是一个规划。

这个习惯似乎从小就有，一直持续到现在。直至今日，我每年都会和孩子们一起去一个陌生的地方。

对我来说，用学习的方式来旅行已成为一种传统，而它的意义在于自己的成长。

旅行让我们真正认识这个世界。

世界越来越小，我们几乎每天都在和陌生人打交道，都在熟悉各种的第一次。

孩子们身处的世界已经成为了一个家庭，科技让我们的国籍变得模糊，让通讯变得快捷，让我们不得不适应各种多变的社会环境。

所以，孩子们的将来必定是和各种国家不同文化背景的人在一起工作和生活，所以，了解整个世界也成为了他们的必修课。

前不久，由教育界、商界领袖共同组成的“美国新劳动力技能委员会”刚颁布的二十一世纪人才的四大技能中把“了解整个世界”作为首项标准列举出来。

世界有太多的内容需要我们去熟悉和探索，绝对不仅仅局限于学习他国的语言。语言只是一种工具，比它更重要的是学习陌生的文化与历史，他国的人文与生活。

所以，孩子们和我一起品尝其他国家的食物；熟悉交通路线和公共标志；欣赏形式各异的建筑；体会种类不同的宗教现象；体验和陌生人的相处；适应各种气候状况；甚至是那里的空气中弥漫的不同味道。

到一个陌生的地方，总会听到孩子们这样的话，这个和我们那里不一样，这个一样，也总会比较，什么地方好，什么地方不好。

我们在这样的比较中睁大了自己的眼睛，扩张了自己的毛孔，也扩展了彼此的胸怀。

当我们看到的世界大了，才能更加宽容，才能更加坦荡。实际上，接受彼此的不同，尊重相互的差异已经成为“了解世界”的重点。

 我们应该怎样旅行？

了解世界的方法有很多种，通过书籍、影像资料和别人聊天都能让我们了解世界，但哪一种都没有身临其境的学习更重要。

古人云：读万卷书不如行万里路，行万里路不如阅人无数。而我们的一贯做法是“行万里路前读万卷书，行万里路中阅人无数，行万里路后思索回顾。”

每次到一个陌生国家之前，我们都会和孩子们一起进行长达一周的培训，其中包括语言、文化、当地情况和摄影技巧。

印象很深的是去意大利之前的一个月就让孩子们开始阅读相关的书籍，并且在培训中很好的让孩子们对文艺复兴有基本的了解，和孩子们一起分享了卢浮宫的神秘和拿破仑的传奇。

简单的语言培训让孩子们可以自己通过海关简单的询问，可以让他们自己找到方向，而当地公交行政标志减弱了他们的陌生感。

到陌生的国家之后，孩子们开始验证之前获悉的资料是否和眼前的一切吻合，开始在陌生的城里使用那些自己熟悉的工具开始行走，开始和当地人和事之间有了碰撞和交流，开始需要借助当地人的帮助来完成一件件我们事先策划好的任务。

在陌生的城市，一定要融入他们真实的社会。

我还记得在慕尼黑他们使用地铁公车的运用自如；在柏林到科隆火车站转车的时候他们的忙中有序；在玛丽娅广场写毛笔字引来老外们的围观；在罗马奔波于各种喷泉之间完成城市任务；在菲森的草坪上和外国小孩们踢球。

只有让他们充分自由的接触这个社会，在交流的过程中充分调动自己的沟通能力，加强团队合作，才能真正提高自己。

孩子们需要和当地的人接触，更重要的是要用当地人的方式生活，使用他们的交通工具，看他们经常去的博物馆，不仅仅是在那里走马观花，而是停留在那里，认真地欣赏。

如同我们在卢浮宫整整呆了三天，相比较旅行团对于“卢浮三宝”的照相工作，我们是何等的自由。夜晚，我们在埃菲尔铁塔前草坪上的游戏，看到这个雄伟的铁质建筑夜晚的亮灯后，踩着巴黎夜晚的灯光晃晃悠悠的坐着地铁后来青年旅社。

带着激动和疲惫、收获与成长，我们完成了旅程，但这并不是一个结束，我们离开了那里，但却把对陌生国度的思考也一并带了回来。

除了留在脑子里的回忆，我们还有日记、明信片、相片，我们还有各种类型的小组讨论，这些都会让一次旅程的收获变得更长更厚重，直至我们下一段的重新开始。

 “认识自己，了解世界”

每一次到陌生城市或者国家，从学习和成长入手的旅行方式都能有效的帮助孩子们在大脑里构建自己的思考模式。

他们知道在陌生的地方需要向哪些机构需求帮助，他们知道如何运用自己的资源去完成任务，而当一个人处于陌生环境下，他的优点和弱点都会显示的异常清晰，这无疑给了我们一个认识自己的机会。

不仅是孩子们，每次，当我和孩子们面对这样的陌生冲击时，我也在成长，我也每一次都看到了更加清晰的自己。

当孩子们在成长中一次次的面对陌生的环境，那么，当他们长大后要面对的各种陌生环境都不会让他感到害怕，因为他已经拥有了属于自己的一种模式。

很多人会说，孩子太小了，让他们在七八岁出国他们能记住什么？更别说在低幼的孩子了。他们什么都不懂。

其实，这是我们对孩子们的误解，通常情况下，我们判断一个人是否获得什么，我们会通过他的表达或者他的改变作为判断的标准。

但对于一个生理和心理成长期的孩子们来说，他们的表达能力不足以让他们清楚有效地表达他们的收获反映他们的成长。

于是大人们很武断地说，他们年龄太小了，对他们来说没有用，以后都记不得。其实，也许对于一个四五岁的孩子来说，等到十多岁的时候他不记得了，但对于他在接下来一年的成长绝对意义非凡。

也许我们不用带他们出国，但是经常到不同的环境看到、听到、感受到一样和不一样，能适应各种不同的交通工具，能在陌生喧闹的人群中鼓起勇气去听去看去感受，本身就是一种成长。

一个人生活的广度决定他的优秀程度。

从小开始的一种旅程是扩展生活的广度的起点，我喜欢那句话：

Life is not a destination,but a journey

生活不是目的，而是旅程

哈佛校长2015年毕业演讲英文版

Thank you, President Torres. Welcome, Governor Patrick. Thank you, everyone, for being here.

The 146th annual meeting of the Harvard Alumni Association at the 364th Commencement of Harvard University. It’s a particular pleasure to welcome former Governor Deval Patrick of the College Class of 1978 and the Harvard Law School Class of 1982. Throughout his distinguished career in government, he forcefully argued for the power of education to transform lives. Nothing made that case more persuasively than his own remarkable life – from Chicago’s South Side to the Massachusetts State House. When he was sworn in as governor, he took the oath of office with the Mendi Bible,presented in 1841 by the African captives who had seized the slave ship Amistad to the man who had won their legal right to freedom, John Quincy Adams. Governor Patrick can claim connection with both the African heritage of the Amistad rebels and the institutional roots of their defender. Adams, as you heard before from President Torres, was a member of the Harvard College Class of 1787, and was both the first president of this alumni association, and himself the son of an earlier alumnus, John Adams, of the Class of 1755. That kind of continuity across the centuries is not the least of the reasons that we congregate here every spring to renew and reinforce our ties to this extraordinary place.

Let me start by noticing what is both obvious and curious: We are here today together. We are here in association. It is an association of many people, and many generations. We celebrate a connection across time in these festival rites, singing our alma mater, adorning ourselves in medieval robes to mark the deep-rooted traditions of Harvard, and of universities more generally. Even in the age of the online and the virtual, an institution has brought us together, and brings us back.

We have also sung – or rather the magnificent Renée Fleming has sung – “America the Beautiful,” to honor another institution, our democratic republic, which the men and women whose names are carved in stone in Memorial Church right behind me – and Memorial Hall just behind that – gave their lives to protect and uphold.

When the founders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony arrived on these shores in 1630, they came as dissenters – rejecting institutions of their English homeland. But I have always found it striking that here in the wilderness, where mere survival was the foremost challenge, they so rapidly felt compelled to found this seat of learning so that New England, in the words of William Hubbard of the Class of 1642, so the New England “might be supplied with persons fit to manage the affairs of both church and state.” Church, state, and College. Three institutions they deemed essential to this Massachusetts experiment. Three institutions to ensure that the colonists, as Governor John Winthrop urged, could be “knit together as one” in a new society in a brave new world.

Dozens of generations have come and gone since then, and the University’s footprint has expanded considerably beyond a small cluster of wooden buildings. But we have never lost faith in the capacity of each generation to build a better society than the one it was born into. We have never lost faith in the capacity of this College to help make that possible. As an early founder, Thomas Shepard put it, we hope to graduate into the world people who are, in his words, “enlarged toward the country and the good of it.”

Yet now, nearly four centuries later, we find ourselves in a challenging historical moment. How do we “enlarge” our graduates in a way that benefits others as well? Shepard spoke of enlarging “toward” – toward, as he put it, “the country and the good of it.” Are we succeeding in educating students oriented  toward the betterment of others? Or have we all become so caught up in individual and personal achievements, opportunities, and appearances that we risk forgetting our interdependence, our responsibilities to one another and to the institutions meant to promote the common good?

This is the era of the selfie – and the selfie stick. Now don’t get me wrong: There is much to love about selfies, and two years ago in my Baccalaureate address I concluded by urging the graduates to send such pictures along so we could keep up with them and their post-Harvard lives. But think for a moment about the implications of a society that goes through life taking its own picture. That seems to me a quite literal embodiment of “self-regarding” – a term not often used as a compliment. In fact, Merriam-Webster’s dictionary offers “egocentric,” “narcissistic,” and “selfish” as synonyms. We direct endless attention to ourselves, our image, our “Likes,” just as we are encouraged – and in fact encourage our students – to burnish resumes and fill first college and then job or graduate school applications with endless lists of achievements – with examples, to borrow Shepard’s language, of constant enlargements of self. As one socialcommentator has observed, we are ceaselessly at work building our own brands. We spend time looking at screens instead of one another. Large portions of our lives are hardly experienced: They are curated, shared, Snapchatted and Instagrammed – rendered as a kind of composite selfie.

Now, a certain amount of self-absorption is in our nature. As Harvard’s own E.O. Wilson has recently written, and I quote him, “We are an insatiably curious species – provided the subjects are our personal selves and people we would know or would like to know.” But I want to underscore two troubling aspects of this obsession with ourselves.

The first is it undermines our sense of responsibility to others – the ethos of service at the heart of Thomas Shepard’s phrase describing Harvard’s enduring commitment to graduate students who are “enlarged” to be about more than themselves. Not just enlarged for their own sake and betterment – but enlarged toward others and toward the world. This is part of the essence of what this university has always strived to be. Our students and faculty have embodied that spirit through their work to serve in ourneighborhood and around the world. From tutoring at the Harvard Ed Portal in Allston to working in Liberia to mitigate the Ebola crisis, they make a difference in the lives of countless individuals. The Dexter Gate across the Yard invites students to “Enter to grow in wisdom. Depart to serve better thy country and thy kind.” Today, some 6,500 graduates go forth. May each of them remember that it is in some way to serve.

There is yet another danger we should note as well. Self-absorption may obscure not only our responsibilities to others but our dependence upon them. And this is troubling for Harvard, for higher education and for fundamental social institutions whose purposes and necessity we forget at our peril.

Why do we even need college, critics demand? Can’t we do it all on our own? Peter Thiel, Silicon Valley entrepreneur, has urged students to drop out and has even subsidized them – including several of our undergraduates – to leave college and pursue their individual entrepreneurial dreams. After all, the logic goes, Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates dropped out and they seem to have done OK. Well, yes. But we should remember: Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg had Harvard to drop out of. Harvard to serve as the place where their world-changing discoveries were born. Harvard and institutions like it to train the physicists, mathematicians, computer scientists, business analysts, lawyers, and thousands of other skilled individuals upon whom Facebook and Microsoft depend. Harvard to enlighten public servants to lead a country in which Facebook, Microsoft, and companies like them can thrive. Harvard to nurture the writers and filmmakers and journalists who create the storied “content” that gives the Internet its substance. And we must recognize as well that universities have served as sources of discoveries essential to the work of the companies advancing the revolutions in technology that have changed our lives – from early successes in creating and programming computers to development of prototypes that laid the groundwork for the now-ubiquitous touchscreen.

We are told, too, that universities are about to be unbundled, disrupted by innovations that enable individuals to teach themselves, selecting from a buffet of massive open online courses and building do-it-yourself degrees. But online opportunities and residential learning are not at odds; the former can strengthen – but does not supplant – the latter. And through initiatives like edX and HarvardX, we are sharing intellectual riches that are the creations of institutions of higher learning, sharing them with millions of people around the globe. Intriguingly, we have found that a highly-represented group among these online learners around the world is teachers – who will use this knowledge to enrich their own schools and face-to-face classrooms.

Assertions about the irrelevance of universities are part of a broader and growing mistrust of institutions more generally, one fuelled by our intoxication with the power and charisma of the individual and the cult of celebrity. Government, business, non-profits are joined with universities as targets of suspicion and criticism.

There are few countervailing voices to remind us how institutions serve and support us. We tend to take what they do for granted. Your food was safe; your blood test was reliable; your polling place was open; electricity was available when you flipped the switch. Your flight to Boston took off and landed according to rules and systems and organizations responsible for safe air travel. Just imagine a week or a month without this “civic infrastructure” – without the institutions that undergird our society and without the commitment to our interdependence that created these structures of commonality in the first place. Think of the countries in West Africa that lacked the public health systems to contain Ebola and the devastation that resulted. Contrast that with the network of institutions that so rapidly saved lives and contained spread of the disease when it appeared in the United States. Think about other elements of our civicinfrastructure – the libraries, the museums, the school committees, the religious organizations that are as vital to moving us forward as are our roads and railways and bridges.

Institutions embody our present and enduring connections to one other. They bring our disparate talents and capacities to the pursuit of common purpose. At the same time, they link us to both what has come before and what will follow. They are repositories of values – values that precede, transcend, and outlast the self. They challenge us to look beyond the immediate, the instantly gratifying, to think about the bigger picture, the longer run, the larger whole. They remind us that the world is only temporarily ours, that we are stewards entrusted with the past and responsible to the future. We are larger than ourselves and our selfies.

That responsibility is quintessentially the work of universities – calling upon our shared human heritage to invent a new future – the future that will be created by the thousands of graduates who leave here today. Our work is about that ongoing commitment – not to a single individual or even one generation or one era – but to a larger world and to the service of the age that is waiting before it.

In 1884, my predecessor Charles William Eliot unveiled a statue of John Harvard and spoke of the good that can come from the study of what we might call the “enlarged” life of the man whose name this university bears.

Eliot said: “He will teach that the good which men do lives after them, fructified and multiplied beyond all power of measurement or computation. He will teach that from the seed which he planted … have sprung joy, strength, and energy ever fresh, blooming year after year in this garden of learning, and flourishing … as time goes on, in all fields of human activity.”

In other words, that statue we paraded past this afternoon is not simply a monument to an individual, but to a community and an institution constantly renewing itself. Your presence here today represents an act of connection and of affirmation of thatcommunity and of this institution. It is a recognition of Harvard’s capacity to propel you toward lives and worlds beyond your own. I thank you for the commitment that brought you here today and for all it means and sustains. I wish you joy, strength, and energy ever fresh.

Thank you very much.

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