TED演讲 | 为什么学校应该推迟上课？

hello大家好，我是达达。温迪·特罗塞尔（Wendy Troxel）说，青少年睡眠不足，并不是因为Snapchat，社交生活或荷尔蒙，而是因为公共政策。 Troxel从她作为睡眠研究员，临床医生和十几岁的母亲的经历中汲取了经验，并讨论了早期的入学时间如何剥夺青少年在他们一生中最需要的睡眠时间。 Wendy Troxel专门从事失眠和其他睡眠障碍的行为治疗。 演讲者： Wendy Troxel 为什么学校应该推迟上课？ 来自TED英语演说优选 00:00 10:55

中英文对照翻译

It's six o'clock in the morning,pitch black outside.My 14-year-old son is fast asleep in his bed,sleeping the reckless, deep sleep of a teenager. 早上六点，外面一片漆黑，我十四岁的儿子正在床上熟睡着，睡意正浓，这是少年特有的沉睡。
I flip on the light and physically shake the poor boy awake,because I know that, like ripping off a Band-Aid,it's better to get it over with quickly. 我打开了灯并摇醒了这可怜的孩子，因为我知道这就如同撕掉创口贴一样，最好速战速决。 I have a friend who yells 'Fire!' just to rouse her sleeping teen.And another who got so fed upthat she had to dump cold water on her son's headjust to get him out of bed.Sound brutal ...but perhaps familiar? 我有个朋友为了叫醒她处于青少年期的孩子不得不喊'着火了'，另一位更是无可奈何，她直接把冷水浇到儿子的头上，只为了让他起床，听起来很残忍，但是却如此熟悉? Every morning I ask myself,'How can I --knowing what I knowand doing what I do for a living --be doing this to my own son?'You see,I'm a sleep researcher. 每天早上我都会问自己：“我怎么能...无视我所知道的事实、我赖以为生的技能，但却如此对待我自己的儿子？”你瞧，我是一名睡眠研究员。
So I know far too much about sleepand the consequences of sleep loss.I know that I'm depriving my son of the sleep he desperately needsas a rapidly growing teenager. 我知道太多关于睡眠和睡眠不足的后果，我知道我正在剥夺我儿子急切需要的睡眠，做为一名迅速成长的青少年。
I also know that by waking him uphours before his natural biological clock tells him he's ready,I'm literally robbing him of his dreams --the type of sleep most associated with learning, memory consolidationand emotional processing. 我也知道当他生物钟叫他自然醒的几小时前，我实际上是在夺走他的梦想——这种与学习、记忆整合、情绪处理等能力密切相关的睡眠。 But it's not just my kid that's being deprived of sleep.Sleep deprivation among American teenagers is an epidemic.Only about one in 10 gets the eight to 10 hours of sleep per nightrecommended by sleep scientists and pediatricians. 但不只是我的孩子被剥夺了睡眠，大多美国青少年的睡眠都在被剥夺，只有不到十分之一的孩子平均每晚能睡八到十小时，这是睡眠科学家和儿科医生推荐的睡眠时长。 Now, if you're thinking to yourself,'Phew, we're doing good, my kid's getting eight hours,'remember,eight hours is the minimum recommendation.You're barely passing.Eight hours is kind of like getting a C on your report card. 现在，想想你的情况，“呼，我们做得很好，我的孩子可以睡八个小时。”记住，八小时只是最低标准。你仅仅及格，八小时相当于你的报告得了个C。 There are many factors contributing to this epidemic,but a major factor preventing teens from getting the sleep they needis actually a matter of public policy.Not hormones, social lives or Snapchat. 造成这种情况的因素有很多，但剥夺青少年所需要的睡眠，实际上是公共政策问题。不是荷尔蒙、社交生活或者Snapchat (即时通讯工具)。
Across the country,many schools are starting around 7:30am or earlier,despite the fact that major medical organizations recommendthat middle and high school start no earlier than 8:30am.These early start policies have a direct effect on how much --or really how little sleep American teenagers are getting. 全国各地，很多学校都在早上7:30开始或者更早，尽管大型医疗机构建议，中学和高中不应早于上午8:30开课。学校过早要求上学直接影响了美国青少年的睡眠时间有多“少”。 They're also pitting teenagers and their parentsin a fundamentally unwinnable fight against their own bodies.Around the time of puberty,teenagers experience a delay in their biological clock,which determines when we feel most awake and when we feel most sleepy. 这导致青少年和他们的家长不得不与他们的身体做一场难以战胜的对抗。正处于青春期的孩子，他们的生物钟会被扰乱——它决定着我们何时清醒、何时困倦。
This is driven in part by a shift in the release of the hormone melatonin.Teenagers' bodies wait to start releasing melatonin until around 11pm,which is two hours later than what we see in adults or younger children.This means that waking a teenager up at 6am is the biological equivalentof waking an adult up at 4am. 这一部分是由于褪黑激素的释放所引起的，青少年的身体一般在晚上11点左右开始释放褪黑激素，这比一个成年人或是小孩子晚了近两小时。这意味着你在早上六点钟叫醒一个青少年，生理上等于说是在凌晨四点叫醒一个成年人。
On the unfortunate days when I have to wake up at 4am,I'm a zombie.Functionally useless.I can't think straight,I'm irritable,and I probably shouldn't be driving a car.But this is how many American teenagers feel every single school day. 特别是在某些悲惨的时候，我还不得不凌晨四点起床。那我简直就像是个僵尸了。整个身体都是麻木的。我简直无法思考，我会烦躁，我可能连车都开不好。但这就是每天上学的无数美国青少年所要面对的。
In fact, many of the, shall we say,unpleasant characteristics that we chalk up to being a teenager --moodiness, irritability, laziness, depression --could be a product of chronic sleep deprivation.For many teens battling chronic sleep loss, 事实上，我们很多人都认为青少年有很多不好的特质——像是情绪低落，烦躁， 慵懒，抑郁——这都是由于睡眠被长期剥夺所造成的。对于很多青少年来说，为了对抗缺失的睡眠时间，
their go-to strategy to compensate is consuming large quantities of caffeinein the form of venti frappuccinos,or energy drinks and shots.So essentially,we've got an entire population of tired but wired youth. 他们通过摄入大量的咖啡因，比如说是大杯的星冰乐，或者功能饮料。所以基本上来说，我们所有的年轻人都很疲惫，但同时却又极度兴奋。 Advocates of sleep-friendly start times knowthat adolescence is a period of dramatic brain development,particularly in the parts of the brainthat are responsible for those higher order thinking processes,including reasoning, problem-solving and good judgment. 支持需要更多睡眠时间的人们明白，青春期是大脑发育极其重要的一个时期，特别是大脑的某些部分，那些负责更高层次思考的部分，包括推理能力，解决问题能力和良好的判断能力。
In other words, the very type of brain activity that's responsiblefor reining in those impulsive and often risky behaviorsthat are so characteristic of adolescenceand that are so terrifying to us parents of teenagers. 换句话说，就是这些负责大脑活动的部分，它们能够抑制冲动及危险行为，这也是青春期的某些不良特征，也是那些造成父母无比困扰的行为。
They know that like the rest of us,when teenagers don't get the sleep they need,their brains, their bodies and behaviors sufferwith both immediate and lasting effects.They can't concentrate,their attention plummetsand many will even show behavioral signs that mimic ADHD. 他们明白就像我们一样，如果青少年得不到充足的睡眠，他们的大脑、身体和行为都会受到立竿见影的影响。他们不能集中精力，注意力直线下降，甚至一部分青少年出现了注意缺陷多动障碍(ADHD）， But the consequences of teen sleep loss go well beyond the classroom,sadly contributing to many of the mental health problemsthat skyrocket during adolescence,including substance use,depression and suicide.In our work with teens from LA Unified School District,we found that teens with sleep problemswere 55 percent more likely to have used alcohol in the past month. 而且青少年缺乏睡眠的不良后果还远远不只是局限于学习上，还可悲地促成了许多心理健康问题，这些在青春期显得极为严重，包括滥用药物，抑郁和自杀。对来自洛杉矶联合学区的青少年做的研究显示，那些睡眠不足的青少年中，百分之五十五在过去一个月中酗酒的现象更严重。
In another study with over 30,000 high school students,they found that for each hour of lost sleep,there was a 38 percent increase in feeling sad or hopeless,and a 58 percent increase in teen suicide attempts. 另一项对三万名高中生的研究显示，每缺少一个小时的睡眠，沮丧和忧伤的情绪就会增长百分之三十八，同时自杀倾向也增长百分之五十八。
And if that's not enough,teens who skip out on sleep are at increased riskfor a host of physical health problems that plague our country,including obesity, heart disease and diabetes. 而这还没完，那些缺乏睡眠的青少年更有可能患上身体上的健康疾病，这些疾病困扰着我们的国家，包括肥胖、心血管疾病和糖尿病。
Then there's the risk of putting a sleep-deprived teen,with a newly minted driver's license,behind the wheel.Studies have shown that getting five hours or less of sleep per nightis the equivalent of driving with a blood alcohol content above the legal limit. 这些所带来的威胁就像是一个昏昏欲睡的青少年拿着刚刚考出的驾照，开车上路一样。研究显示每晚少于五小时的睡眠时间，就和非法酒驾没什么区别。 Advocates of sleep-friendly start times,and researchers in this area,have produced tremendous scienceshowing the tremendous benefits of later start times.The findings are unequivocal,and as a sleep scientist,I rarely get to speak with that kind of certainty. 提倡更多睡眠时间的人，以及这块地区的研究者们，用大量的科学数据证明学生应该晚点上课的巨大好处，调查结果非常明确。作为一位睡眠研究人员，我很少用如此肯定的态度发表演说。
Teens from districts with later start times get more sleep.To the naysayers who may think that if schools start later,teens will just stay up later,the truth is,their bedtimes stay the same,but their wake-up times get extended,resulting in more sleep. 青少年应该晚些上课，因为他们需要更多的睡眠时间。对于那些反对者，也许他们会想如果学习推迟上课时间，青少年就会熬夜到更晚。可事实告诉我们却是，他们睡觉时间并没有改变，但是他们的起床时间晚了，也就拥有了更多睡眠时间。
They're more likely to show up for school;school absences dropped by 25 percent in one district.And they're less likely to drop out.Not surprisingly, they do better academically. 他们也更有可能去学校而非逃课；缺席率至少降低了百分之二十五，他们退学率也降低了。不出意外，他们的成绩也提高了。 So this has real implications for reducing the achievement gap.Standardized test scores in math and readinggo up by two to three percentage points.That's as powerful as reducing class sizes by one-third fewer students,or replacing a so-so teacher in the classroomwith a truly outstanding one. 所以这对减少“成就落差”也有好处。数学及阅读的标准化测验显示，他们的得分提高了两到三个百分点。这简直比小班化教育带来的成果还要显著，或是给一个班换一个更优秀的老师。
Their mental and physical health improves,and even their families are happier.I mean, who wouldn't enjoy a little more pleasantness from our teens,and a little less crankiness?Even their communities are saferbecause car crash rates go down --a 70 percent reduction in one district. 他们不管是在心理还是身体上都得到了提升，甚至家庭都变得更和睦了。我的的意思是，谁不会喜欢我们的孩子多一些健康快乐，少一些偏执狂妄呢？甚至他们的生活都变得更安全，因为至少撞车率可以低一些——至少一个街区可以少百分之七十。 Given these tremendous benefits,you might think,well, this is a no-brainer, right?So why have we as a society failed to heed this call?Often the argument against later start times goes something like this: 有如此诸多的益处，你或许会想，这简直百利而无一害，不是吗？那为什么我们的社会没有响应这样的号召？往往那些反对推迟上课的声音会说: 'Why should we delay start times for teenagers?We need to toughen them up so they're ready for the real world!'But that's like saying to the parent of a two-year-old,'Don't let Johnny nap,or he won't be ready for kindergarten.' “为什么我们要推迟青少年的上课时间呢？我们应该好好锻炼他们，让他们早点适应这个真实残酷的世界!”但这就等于一个两岁孩子的父母说，“别让约翰尼午睡，否则他怎么能适应幼儿园生活呢。” Delaying start times also presents many logistical challenges.Not just for students and their families,but for communities as a whole.Updating bus routes,increased transportation costs,impact on sports,care before or after school. 推迟上课时间也要面对很多后勤方面的挑战，不只是学生和他们的家庭，也是对于整个社会来说。更新校车路线，提高交通开销，影响课余时间的体育培训和托管。
These are the same concerns that come up in district after district,time and again around the countryas school start times are debated. 这些需要考虑的因素在全国各地讨论“推迟上课时间” 的时候都会被提到。
And they're legitimate concerns,but these are problems we have to work through.They are not valid excusesfor failing to do the right thing for our children,which is to start middle and high schools no earlier than 8:30am. 这在法律上也存在问题。但是这些是我们需要面对的问题它们不是放弃为我们的孩子做正确的事情的借口，那就是要让初中和高中的上课时间不早于八点半。
And in districts around the country,big and small, who have made this change,they found that these fears are often unfoundedand far outweighed by the tremendous benefits for student healthand performance,and our collective public safety. 每一个学区，到全国都是如此，不管大小城市，我们必须做出改变，因为我们对于改革的恐惧，常常是没有道理的，远远没有学生的健康、他们的表现，和整个社会的公共安全来的重要。 So tomorrow morning,when coincidentally we get to set our clocks back by an hourand you get that delicious extra hour of sleep,and the day seems a little longer,and a little more full of hope,think about the tremendous power of sleep. 所以我多希望从明天早上起，我们碰巧一不小心都把自己的闹钟推迟了一小时，我们多了一个小时甜美的睡眠，我们的日子似乎长了一点，多了一些希望，想想睡眠能赐予我们的力量。
And think about what a gift it would befor our children to be able to wake up naturally,in harmony with their own biology.Thank you,and pleasant dreams. 想想这会是一个多好的礼物我们能送给孩子的：让他们能被自己的生物钟温柔地从睡梦中唤醒。谢谢大家，祝大家好梦。