How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity and the Hidden Power of Character. By Paul Tough. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 256 pages; $27. Random House; 12.99. Buy from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk孩子怎样能赢：持之以恒，好奇心和性格中隐藏的力量，作者Paul Tough，霍顿米夫林 哈考特 （ Houghton Mifflin Harcourt ）出版社：全书256页，售价27美元；兰登书屋，售价12.99英镑。美国和英国亚马逊有售。THE young teenagers who graduated from a special South Bronx middle school in 1999 became nationally famous. All black and Hispanic and largely from low-income families, the students had been recruited four years earlier to participate in an experimental programme called KIPP (ie, the Knowledge Is Power Program), designed to close the achievement gap between privileged and poor students. The experience seemed to pay off: in a citywide test, these students earned the highest scores of any school in the Bronx, and the fifth-highest in all of New York City. Most won admission to top high schools, often with full scholarships. They all seemed destined for college, and for successful, precedent-bucking, demographic-defying lives.1999年毕业于南布朗克斯的一所特殊中学的青少年闻名全国。他们都是来自低收入家庭的西班牙裔黑人，四年前被征集参加了KIPP实验项目（即“知识就是力量项目”）。该项目旨在缩小富裕家庭和贫困家庭的学生成就间的差距。试验似乎取得了成效：在布朗克斯市的所有学校中，这些学生的分数是最高的，在整个纽约市排名第五。其中大多通常以全额奖学金被顶级高中录取。看上去，他们注定了会上大学，注定会一直过着成功的生活。But six years after their high-school graduation, only about a fifth of KIPPs first class had completed a four-year college degree. Most ended up dropping out, reaffirming Americas growing class divide on college campuses. KIPPs founders were distraught, particularly because a college degree has never been more valuable, enabling Americans to earn some 80% more than people with only a high-school diploma. So how had KIPP failed to prepare these students for college? What did they do wrong?然而，在他们高中毕业的六年后，KIPP最好的一批学生中完成了四年的大学学业的仅有五分之一。大部分人最终辍学了，再度证实了美国大学校园里的等级分化在日益增长，KIPP的创始人对此感到忧心如焚。造成这种情况的主要原因就在于大学学历的含金量不如从前，曾经大学文凭的美国人比仅有高中文凭的能多赚80%左右。那么为何KIPP项目没能使这些学生完成大学呢？他们做错了什么？Paul Tough, a journalist and former editor at the New York Times Magazine, aims to answer these thorny questions in “How Children Succeed”, an ambitious and elegantly written new book, now out in Britain. The problem, he writes, is that academic success is believed to be a product of cognitive skillsthe kind of intelligence that gets measured in IQ tests. This view has spawned a vibrant market for brain-building baby toys, and an education-reform movement that sweats over test scores. But new research from a spate of economists, psychologists, neuroscientists and educators has found that the skills that see a student through college and beyond have less to do with smarts than with more ordinary personality traits, like an ability to stay focused and control impulses. The KIPP students who graduated from college were not the academic stars but the workhorses, the ones who plugged away at problems and resolved to do better.Paul Tough是纽约时报杂志的前任编辑，现在是一名记者。在他的孩子怎样能赢这本书中，为我们解答了这些复杂难懂的疑问。这部新作品精雕细琢，文笔优美，现在畅销于英国。书中他指出，学术成就被认为是认知能力（一种在IQ测试中被评估的理解力）的产物，这也是问题所在。该观点促进了儿童益智玩具市场的活跃，同时也引起了努力对测验分数进行的教育改革运动。但是大量的经济学家、心理学家、神经学科学家以及教育家的最新研究发现，看一个学生是否能通过并超过大学的技能与学生的智力水平无关，更多的是普通的人格特质，比如说集中精力和克制冲动的能力。KIPP项目中大学毕业的学生并不是学术尖子，而是那些能吃苦耐劳的人，他们一直努力地解决问题并下定决心要做的更好。So non-cognitive skills like persistence and curiosity are highly predictive of future success. But where do these traits come from? And how can they be developed? In search of answers, Mr Tough first looks at the problem on a neurological level. Apparently medical reasons explain why children who grow up in abusive or dysfunctional environments generally find it harder to concentrate, sit still and rebound from disappointments. The part of the brain most affected by early stress is the prefrontal cortex, which is critical for regulating thoughts and mediating behaviour. When this region is damageda common condition for children living amid the pressures of povertyit is tougher to suppress unproductive instincts.所以，诸如坚持和好奇心等非认知能力才能准确地预测未来能否成功。但这些特质是怎样形成的？又该如何培养呢？为了找到答案，Mr Tough首先从神经学角度来看这个问题。为何在充斥着咒骂或者不正常的环境中成长的孩子更难集中精力、静坐和从失望中走出来，医学的原因对此给出了明显的解释。大脑中的前额皮质层受早期压力的影响最大，前额皮质对于日常思考和行为调节起到重要的作用。如果该区域受到损伤对于生活中饱受贫困压力的孩子来说这很常见他们抑制那些负面的本能更困难。The science seems daunting, but it also points the way forward. Studies show that early nurturing from parents or caregivers helps combat the biochemical effects of stress. And educators can push better habits and self control. The “prefrontal cortex is more responsive to intervention than other parts of the brain,” writes Mr Tough. It stays malleable well into early adulthood. Character can be taught.科学上的解释似乎令人生畏，但也给我们指明了前进的方向。研究显示，早期从父母吸取的营养和获得的关爱能够帮助削弱压力生物化学上的影响。“大脑中对行为干预起最重要作用的部分是前额皮质层，”Mr Tough如是写道。童年早期时前额皮质层仍然是容易改变的。性格能被调教出来。But schools have experience creating classes that raise test scores. Figuring out the best way to help youths develop “grit”a passionate dedication to a goalis trickier. Psychological interventions require more sophistication than teaching maths, and one of the big problems facing un