449: Middle School - This American Life
You are using an outdated browser.
您正在使用过时的浏览器。
Please upgrade your browser or activate Google Chrome Frame to improve your experience.
请升级您的浏览器或激活 Google Chrome 浏览器内嵌框架以改善您的体验。
Sign up for a free Life Partners trial, and you can watch the video “A Night of Stories and Improv.”
注册免费试用《Life Partners》，您可以观看视频“故事与即兴表演之夜”。
00:00 00:00 Transcript Share This American Life Life Partners How to Listen Episodes Recommended About Overview Staff Announcements Fellowships Jobs Music Make Radio On The Road FAQ Submissions Merch Contact Us Our Other Shows Merch Follow Us Life Partners Subscribe to our newsletter Full episode Toggle Audio and Transcript Sync Transcript | Episode #449 | September 4, 2026 449: Middle School Note: This American Life is produced for the ear and designed to be heard.
00:00 00:00 文字记录 分享此 美国生活 生活伙伴 如何收听 剧集 推荐 关于 概述 员工公告 奖学金 工作 音乐 在路上制作电台 常见问题解答 提交 商品 联系我们 我们的其他节目 商品 关注我们 生活伙伴 订阅我们的时事通讯 整集 切换音频和文字记录同步 文字记录 | 内容第 449 集 | 2026 年 9 月 4 日 449：中学 注意：《美国生活》是为耳朵而制作的，旨在让人们听到。
If you are able, we strongly encourage you to listen to the audio, which includes emotion and emphasis that's not on the page.
如果可以的话，我们强烈建议您收听音频，其中包括页面上没有的情感和重点。
Transcripts are generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers, and may contain errors.
文字记录是使用语音识别软件和人工转录员结合生成的，可能包含错误。
Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print.
请在印刷版引用前检查相应的音频。
Prologue: Prologue Ira Glass Hey, everybody-- Ira Glass here.
序言： 序言 Ira Glass 嘿，大家好——这里是 Ira Glass。
So we got this email at a radio show near the end of the last school year from a 14-year-old.
我们在上学年快结束时的一个广播节目中收到了一位 14 岁孩子发来的这封电子邮件。
Yeah.
是的。
Ira Glass I called her up at her house in California and asked her to read it.
艾拉·格拉斯（Ira Glass）我给她在加利福尼亚州的家里打电话，请她读一下这本书。
Mm-hmm.
嗯嗯。
It says, "Dear This American Life, I just escaped the whitewashed, brick-walled, iron-gated prison that is commonly known as middle school, and I'm finally out for good.
上面写着：“亲爱的美国生活，我刚刚逃离了这座白色、砖墙、铁门的监狱，也就是俗称的中学，我终于永远出狱了。
But in all the time I have listened to your show, I have never heard an episode devoted to what goes on inside the walls of a middle school.
但在我听你的节目的所有时间里，我从未听过专门讲述中学围墙内发生的事情的一集。
I hope you'll think about it.
我希望你能考虑一下。
Anonymous."
匿名。”
Yeah, you signed it anonymous, but then you actually-- your email was signed with your name.
是的，你是匿名签署的，但实际上你的电子邮件是用你的名字签署的。
I had said anonymous because in middle school, everybody's so judgmental, and I didn't want the kids to judge me or anything if they heard me on the radio.
我之所以匿名，是因为在中学时，每个人都很挑剔，我不想让孩子们在广播中听到我的声音时评判我或其他任何事情。
Mainly, she says that she wrote to us because she and her friends were talking right after they left eighth grade about how terrible middle school was.
她说她写信给我们主要是因为她和她的朋友们在八年级毕业后就开始谈论中学是多么糟糕。
And she wondered, was it just as bad for other people as it was for them?
她想知道，这对其他人来说是否和他们一样糟糕？
You always wonder whether other people are going through the same thing as you, and it'd be cool to hear other people's stories about it and what they went through.
你总是想知道其他人是否正在经历和你一样的事情，听到其他人的故事和他们经历过的事情会很酷。
And if you had to explain to somebody, what are the worst things about middle school-- can I ask you to just walk me through it?
如果你必须向某人解释，中学里最糟糕的事情是什么——我可以请你带我经历一下吗？
What is so bad about middle school?
中学有什么不好？
Kids there are all in kind of socially awkward stages.
那里的孩子都处于社交尴尬阶段。
The drama every day can be frustrating.
每天的戏剧可能令人沮丧。
And girl-boy things, or if someone likes so-and-so.
还有女孩和男孩的事情，或者如果有人喜欢某某人。
And then no matter who you are or what you do, you'll get made fun of for it.
然后无论你是谁或做什么，你都会因此而被嘲笑。
Anything in the world, you can get made fun of for.
世界上任何事情，你都可能被取笑。
In Annie's case, she had friends who smoked, so she got criticized for smoking.
就安妮而言，她有朋友吸烟，因此她因吸烟而受到批评。
But then she also was made fun of for not smoking, for being too much of a sissy to start smoking.
但后来她也因为不吸烟而被嘲笑，因为她太娘娘腔而不敢吸烟。
She was made fun of for coming from a bilingual elementary school where everybody learned to speak Spanish and spoke it throughout the day.
她因为来自一所双语小学而被嘲笑，那里的每个人都学会说西班牙语，并且整天都在说西班牙语。
And leaving elementary school, I guess I thought that when I got to middle school, everyone would think it was really cool that I spoke Spanish.
离开小学后，我想我想当我进入中学时，每个人都会认为我说西班牙语真的很酷。
But when I got there, they mostly just thought it was dumb.
但当我到达那里时，他们大多认为这很愚蠢。
I don't know if they were jealous or what, but they would make fun of me for it.
我不知道他们是嫉妒还是什么，但他们会因此取笑我。
Then they'd say we're all full of ourselves that we spoke different languages and stuff.
然后他们会说我们都自以为是，说着不同的语言之类的东西。
Did it make you feel bad?
这让你感觉很糟糕吗？
Annie Yeah.
安妮 是啊。
I didn't want to stick out in that way.
我不想以这种方式脱颖而出。
If I got a new sweater or something, say for Christmas, that I really liked and I would really want to wear it to school or something, but I'd be nervous because what if someone didn't like my sweater or someone made fun of me for wearing it?
如果我买了一件新毛衣或其他东西，比如说圣诞节，我真的很喜欢，我真的很想穿着它去学校或其他什么东西，但我会很紧张，因为如果有人不喜欢我的毛衣或者有人因为我穿它而取笑我怎么办？
It can be hard to do even the smallest things because you're so nervous that people will tease you or judge you from it.
即使是最小的事情也可能很难做，因为你太紧张了，人们会因此取笑你或评判你。
That sweater example, is that a real example?
那个毛衣的例子，是真实的例子吗？
Yeah, it actually is.
是的，确实如此。
I worried about it so much.
我非常担心。
I also had a pair of moccasins that I had never worn, and they're kind of my signature now.
我还有一双从未穿过的莫卡辛鞋，现在它们已经成为我的标志了。
Everybody really likes them.
每个人都非常喜欢它们。
They're ankle-high, lace-up moccasins.
它们是及踝高的系带莫卡辛鞋。
And how long did you have the moccasins before you actually wore them?
在你真正穿上这双莫卡辛鞋之前，你已经穿了多久了？
A few months.
几个月。
Probably two months.
大概两个月吧
I guess I just thought if people didn't like them, they would all make fun of me for wearing them.
我想我只是想如果人们不喜欢它们，他们都会因为我穿它们而取笑我。
And I didn't want to stand out that much.
我并不想太引人注目。
What could be done to make middle school better?
怎样做才能让中学变得更好？
I don't think you can really do anything about it.
我认为你对此无能为力。
We talked about this for a little while.
我们讨论了一会儿这个问题。
She said, basically, everybody comes into middle school as a little kid, and then you're going to have to grow up and figure out who's in what group, and who you are, and who's above who.
她说，基本上，每个人进入中学时都是个小孩子，然后你就必须长大并弄清楚谁属于哪个群体，你是谁，以及谁高于谁。
And you'd have to figure that out somewhere at that age, right?
你必须在那个年纪的某个地方弄清楚这一点，对吗？
Might as well be middle school.
也可能是中学。
And it was terrible, she says, but now she's in high school.
她说，这太可怕了，但现在她已经上高中了。
Whatever middle school was, it worked.
无论中学是什么，它都有效。
Everyone's a lot friendlier, and it's-- everyone's lives are a lot better now.
每个人都变得更加友好，而且现在每个人的生活都变得更好了。
Well, today on our radio program, for Annie, we look at whatever it is that happens in those mysterious years that we call middle school.
好吧，今天在我们的广播节目《安妮》中，我们来看看在我们称之为中学的那些神秘岁月里发生的一切。
We have stories today from all over the country, people lurching their way through these years when you're figuring out so, so much.
今天我们有来自全国各地的故事，当你弄清楚这么多的时候，人们在这些年里蹒跚而行。
We go to middle school dances and classrooms and down to the Mexican border.
我们去中学的舞会和教室，一直到墨西哥边境。
From WBEZ Chicago, it's This American Life, distributed by Public Radio International.
这是来自芝加哥 WBEZ 的《This American Life》，由国际公共广播电台发行。
I'm Ira Glass.
我是艾拉·格拉斯。
Stay with us.
留在我们身边。
Act One, Life in the Middle Ages.
第一幕，中世纪的生活。
So we wanted to understand what is going on exactly physically and emotionally with middle school kids.
所以我们想了解中学生在身体和情感上到底发生了什么。
And we talked to all kinds of people about that this last few weeks, and one of the producers on our staff had a very strong opinion about all this.
在过去的几周里，我们与各种各样的人讨论了这个问题，我们的一位制作人对这一切都有非常强烈的看法。
Alex Blumberg, before he got into radio, he taught in a middle school in Chicago for four years.
亚历克斯·布隆伯格（Alex Blumberg）在进入广播行业之前，曾在芝加哥的一所中学任教四年。
He was a science teacher.
他是一名科学老师。
And he concluded from that experience--
他从那次经历中得出结论——
I don't know if they learned anything.
不知道他们有没有学到什么。
They are so consumed with learning all these other lessons about where they fit in, and the social order, and how their bodies are now working, and who they're attracted to, and who they're going to be, that facts, and figures, and geography, and all that other stuff that you teach in school, it just doesn't even penetrate.
他们如此专注于学习所有其他课程，包括他们的适应环境、社会秩序、他们的身体现在如何运作、他们被谁吸引、他们将成为谁，事实、数字、地理，以及你在学校教的所有其他东西，他们根本无法理解。
Wait, wait, are you saying we shouldn't even bother to have them in school?
等等，等等，你是说我们根本不应该让他们上学吗？
We should just basically put them to work in the factory for two or three years?
基本上就让他们在工厂干两三年吧？
Yeah.
是的。
I basically came away thinking, you're sort of wasting your time trying to teach middle school students anything.
我基本上在想，你试图教中学生任何东西都是在浪费时间。
That seems just insane.
这看起来简直太疯狂了。
Alex told me that Maria Montessori, who's the creator of the Montessori schools, who looked at what kids could learn at each developmental stage, at one point in her career, actually tossed out a similar suggestion.
亚历克斯告诉我，蒙特梭利学校的创始人玛丽亚·蒙特梭利在她职业生涯的某个阶段研究了孩子们在每个发展阶段可以学到什么，实际上也提出了类似的建议。
Perhaps, she said, young adolescents would be better off at a farm school, which she called an aired kinder, where they would work with the land.
她说，也许年轻的青少年在农场学校会过得更好，她称之为“空中幼儿园”，他们可以在那里耕种土地。
[LAUGHS] Has he just got a great sense of humor or what?
[笑]他只是很有幽默感还是什么？
I ran Alex's thoughts by Marion Strok, the principal of Evergreen Academy Middle School in Chicago, which was listed as one of the best middle schools in the country, a school to watch by the National Forum to Accelerate Middle Grades Reform.
我向芝加哥常青学院中学的校长马里昂·斯特罗克（Marion Strok）转述了亚历克斯的想法，该中学被列为全国最好的中学之一，是一所被全国加速中学成绩改革论坛关注的学校。
I have to say, well, I obviously don't agree, OK?
我不得不说，好吧，我显然不同意，好吗？
I think that we definitely have a way to stick knowledge in their heads.
我认为我们肯定有办法将知识牢记在他们的头脑中。
It's being creative about how we do it and taking into consideration all of those other things.
它是我们如何做到这一点的创造性并考虑所有其他事情。
I'm not going to lie, it's not easy.
我不会撒谎，这并不容易。
Can I ask you, how much of the stereotype around students's age is true?
请问，关于学生年龄的刻板印象有多少是真实的？
Are you saying that stereotype is true, you just got to deal with what it is?
你是说刻板印象是真的，你只需要面对它是什么？
It is true.
是真的。
And as the adult in the situation, you have to find a way to work around it, find a way to help them to grow up.
作为处于这种情况的成年人，你必须找到一种方法来解决它，找到一种方法来帮助他们成长。
They won't have to suffer if we do things right.
如果我们做正确的事，他们就不会受苦。
They won't have to suffer as much, let's say.
可以说，他们不必承受那么多痛苦。
I mean, you're going to go through emotional changes, and your body is changing.
我的意思是，你会经历情绪上的变化，你的身体也会发生变化。
That can't be helped.
这也是没办法的事。
The raging hormones, that can't be helped.
荷尔蒙汹涌，这是没有办法的。
All of that can't be helped.
这一切都没有办法。
It's the way that we react to it that will make such a difference in their lives.
我们对此的反应方式将对他们的生活产生如此大的影响。
It's our flexibility.
这是我们的灵活性。
It's our concern.
这是我们关心的。
It's our listening to them.
这是我们倾听他们的声音。
It's our hearing them out.
这是我们倾听他们的声音。
And so what's actually happening developmentally in the bodies and brains of kids when they're in middle school?
那么，当孩子们上中学时，他们的身体和大脑实际上发生了什么发育变化呢？
Let me give you the overview this way.
让我这样给你概述一下。
The terrible 12s are a complete analog to the terrible twos.
可怕的 12 与可怕的 2 完全相似。
They're just not as cute, right?
他们只是没有那么可爱，对吧？
This is Linda Pearlstein.
这是琳达·珀尔斯坦。
When she wrote a book called Not Much Just Chillin', the Hidden Lives of Middle Schoolers, following five middle school students very closely for a full year, she also incidentally researched everything she could find out about what is going on developmentally with kids that age that makes them so different from other ages, and it's fascinating.
当她写了一本名为《不那么冷，中学生的隐秘生活》的书时，她对五名中学生进行了整整一年的密切跟踪，她还顺便研究了她能找到的一切，了解这个年龄段的孩子在发展过程中发生了什么，使他们与其他年龄段的人如此不同，这很有趣。
This is the time of biggest growth for a human being aside from infancy.
这是人类除了婴儿期之外最大的成长时期。
So your bones are growing-- your bones are growing faster than your muscles, so you can't actually sit still.
所以你的骨头正在生长——你的骨头比肌肉生长得更快，所以你实际上不能坐以待毙。
But your brain, your gray matter, during the middle school years, what happens in your early stages of puberty, is this vast overproduction of brain cells and connections, far more than you actually need.
但是你的大脑，你的灰质，在中学时期，在你青春期的早期阶段发生的事情，是脑细胞和连接的大量过度生产，远远超过了你的实际需要。
And only some of them are going to survive puberty.
只有其中一些人能够度过青春期。
This growth in your frontal cortex, it peaks at 11 for girls and 12 for boys.
额叶皮质的生长速度在女孩 11 岁时达到顶峰，男孩在 12 岁时达到顶峰。
And then what happens is the cells just fight it out for survival.
然后细胞就会为了生存而奋战。
And the ones that last are the ones you exercise more.
那些能持续下去的，就是你锻炼得更多的那些。
In other words, during those years, your brain turns you into you-- the adult you.
换句话说，在那些年里，你的大脑把你变成了你——成年人的你。
The stuff you don't exercise just kind of goes away.
你不锻炼的东西就会消失。
And what stays?
留下什么？
So if you think about what you learned at the early stages of puberty-- I don't know what that was for you.
所以，如果你想想你在青春期早期学到的东西——我不知道那对你来说意味着什么。
For me, it was tap dancing and French.
对我来说，就是踢踏舞和法语。
It sticks.
它粘住了。
I know French much better than any language I learned after that, and not because I had a better teacher.
我对法语的了解比我之后学到的任何语言都要好，这并不是因为我有更好的老师。
I was learning it at the right time.
我在正确的时间学习了它。
I can still do tap dances, though I won't, that I learned when I was 12 or 13.
我仍然可以跳踢踏舞，尽管我不会，这是我在 12 或 13 岁时学会的。
Yeah, I can still do magic tricks that I learned at that age.
是的，我仍然可以表演那个年纪学到的魔术。
Exactly.
确切地。
It's embossed in your existence.
它已深深印刻在你的存在中。
It's this important time for your brain.
这对你的大脑来说是一个重要的时刻。
It's, like, this use it or lose it time.
就像，要么使用它，要么浪费时间。
Linda Perlstein agrees that all the stereotypes about middle schoolers, everything, in fact, that Annie complained about, all of that is true.
琳达·珀尔斯坦同意，所有关于中学生的刻板印象，事实上，安妮抱怨的一切，所有这些都是真的。
But she says that there's a flip side that people don't usually talk about.
但她说，还有人们通常不谈论的另一面。
Middle school is when kids open up to the world.
中学是孩子们向世界敞开心扉的时期。
It's when they think about bigger things.
这是他们思考更大事情的时候。
And they haven't formed their opinions on things yet.
他们还没有对事情形成自己的看法。
Everything is up for grabs, which is amazing to be around.
一切都可以争夺，这真是太棒了。
I just think kids that age are fun.
我只是觉得这个年龄段的孩子很有趣。
I like being around them.
我喜欢和他们在一起。
Middle schoolers are in that real nice spot of being interesting, but also being able to explain to you what's going on in their minds and why they do the things they do.
中学生确实很有趣，而且能够向你解释他们的想法以及他们为什么要做他们所做的事情。
They're self-reflective-- they're capable of self-reflection in a way that younger kids might not be.
他们善于自我反思——他们有能力以年幼的孩子可能无法做到的方式进行自我反思。
Older kids, she says, high school kids, by then, they can be jaded or cynical.
她说，年龄较大的孩子，高中生，到那时，他们可能会感到厌倦或愤世嫉俗。
They're settling into who they are.
他们正在适应自己的身份。
Middle school, everything's new.
初中了，一切都是新的。
You're probably picking your friends for the very first time.
您可能是第一次选择朋友。
For the first time, they aren't just the kids on your block, or your parents' friends' kids, or the kids who are around.
第一次，他们不仅仅是你所在街区的孩子，或者你父母朋友的孩子，或者周围的孩子。
And so you make a best friend one day who then you drop two weeks later.
所以有一天你结识了一位最好的朋友，但两周后你又抛弃了他。
You get obsessed with guitar, or computers, or dance for two weeks, and then two weeks later, you drop it.
你迷恋吉他、电脑或舞蹈两周，然后两周后，你就放弃了。
For everything that's awful about middle school, she says, that's the great thing about it.
她说，虽然中学有很多糟糕的事情，但这正是中学的伟大之处。
You experiment.
你实验一下。
Act Two, Stutter Steps.
第二幕，结结巴巴的脚步。
One good place to see the experiment that is life in middle school in action is a middle school dance.
观看中学生活实验的一个好地方是中学舞会。
Last Friday, there were middle school dances all over the country, all at the same time.
上周五，全国各地的中学舞会同时举行。
And we sent reporters to a half dozen of them to find out how kids were doing.
我们派记者前往其中六家，了解孩子们的情况。
They talked to them before the kids went inside to the field of battle.
在孩子们进入战场之前，他们与他们进行了交谈。
And no surprise, we found a lot of stress, a lot of uncertainty.
毫不奇怪，我们发现了很大的压力和很多不确定性。
Who's nervous about tonight?
今晚谁紧张？
Girl 1 I am.
女孩1 我是。
Well, just, I don't know.
嗯，只是，我不知道。
We don't know what's going to be like, and I'm just confused.
我们不知道会发生什么，我只是很困惑。
I just don't know.
我只是不知道。
Yeah.
是的。
We've gone to these things before, but they've never exactly had the term "dance" to it.
我们之前已经讨论过这些事情，但他们从来没有确切地使用“舞蹈”这个词。
These four girls are sixth graders, and they're in a car on the way to a neon-themed dance at Edgewood Middle School in Highland Park, Illinois, with their mom and reporter Rob Wildeboer.
这四个女孩是六年级学生，她们和妈妈兼记者罗布·维尔德波尔 (Rob Wildeboer) 一起开车前往伊利诺伊州高地公园的埃奇伍德中学参加霓虹灯主题舞会。
Who's going to dance with a boy tonight?
今晚谁要和一个男孩跳舞？
Nobody.
没有人。
I can tell you that.
我可以告诉你。
Girl 4 No one in this car.
女孩4 这辆车里没有人。
You don't know if it's going to be slow dancing or regular dancing.
你不知道是慢舞还是普通舞。
That's why we are nervous.
这就是我们感到紧张的原因。
Roughly 800 miles east in New Jersey, sixth grader Ethan DeRose was hoping that there would be at least one slow dance.
在新泽西州以东约 800 英里处，六年级学生伊森·德罗斯 (Ethan DeRose) 希望至少能有一场慢舞。
Though did he feel ready for a slow dance?
不过他准备好跳慢舞了吗？
Nope, not at all.
不，一点也不。
Brian Reed Why not?
布莱恩·里德 为什么不呢？
What are you worried about?
你担心什么？
I just don't know how to do it.
我只是不知道该怎么做。
I'm not sure that I'll do it correctly or-- yeah.
我不确定我是否会正确地做，或者——是的。
He's standing in front of the school with reporter Brian Reed as kids stream into the school.
当孩子们涌入学校时，他和记者布莱恩·里德站在学校门口。
Ethan is wearing a button-up shirt with green and black stripes that he is not happy with.
伊森穿着一件他不满意的绿黑条纹衬衫。
That was my mom.
那是我妈妈。
She made me wear it.
她让我穿上它。
She said that if I don't wear the two shirts that I am wearing right now that I can't go to the dance.
她说如果我不穿现在穿的两件衬衫我就不能去参加舞会。
What are you hoping happens at this dance?
你希望这场舞会发生什么？
I'm hoping I don't-- nothing bad happens-- no humiliation or not something that'll be a story for the next month or two, at least to me.
我希望我不会——没有什么不好的事情发生——不会受到羞辱，也不会成为接下来一两个月的故事，至少对我来说。
[LAUGHS] Ira Glass Of course, Ethan and the girls in that car in Illinois are sixth graders.
[笑] Ira Glass 当然，伊森和伊利诺伊州那辆车里的女孩们都是六年级学生。
In New York City, seventh graders Evelyn Benson and Alice Westerman are excited and feeling very grown up on their way to their school's Halloween dance.
在纽约市，七年级学生伊芙琳·本森和爱丽丝·韦斯特曼在参加学校万圣节舞会的路上很兴奋，感觉自己长大了。
I'm really happy, because last year, they split the gym in half so it's light on one side and pitch black on the other side.
我真的很高兴，因为去年，他们把健身房分成两半，所以一侧是明亮的，另一侧是漆黑的。
All the sixth graders are kind of banned from the dark side, but that's where all the cool kids are.
所有六年级学生都被禁止进入黑暗面，但这就是所有酷孩子所在的地方。
So now we're in seventh grade, we can dance on the dark side.
现在我们已经上七年级了，我们可以在黑暗面跳舞了。
So it's like, ooh, we're cool.
所以这就像是，哦，我们很酷。
Dance on the dark side.
在黑暗面跳舞。
Evelyn Benson Dance on the dark side.
伊芙琳·本森在黑暗面跳舞。
Some of the middle school boys got up the nerve to ask girls to be their dates to the dances, but because this is a new experience for the girls, too, being asked out on a date, they don't exactly know how to handle it.
一些中学男生鼓起勇气邀请女生去参加舞会，但因为这对女生来说也是一种全新的体验，被邀请出去约会，他们不知道该如何应对。
Here's a girl named Autumn talking with our producer, Lisa Pollak, in Delaware the afternoon of the dance.
舞会当天下午，一位名叫 Autumn 的女孩在特拉华州与我们的制片人丽莎·波拉克 (Lisa Pollak) 交谈。
Yes, I did.
是的，我做到了。
[LAUGHS] Lisa Pollak And what did you say?
[笑] Lisa Pollak 你说什么？
I said I don't know, but I probably won't say yes.
我说我不知道，但我可能不会说是。
Wait, you haven't told him yes or no yet?
等等，你还没告诉他是或不是吗？
No. Lisa Pollak OK, so it's 1:20, and the dance is at 7:00.
不，Lisa Pollak 好的，现在是 1:20，舞会时间是 7:00。
Yeah.
是的。
Lisa Pollak When do you have to let him know?
Lisa Pollak 你什么时候必须让他知道？
I probably won't answer.
我可能不会回答。
Lisa Pollak Are you serious?
丽莎·波拉克 你是认真的吗？
Yeah, I just kind of want to hang out with the girls.
是的，我只是想和女孩们一起出去玩。
Yeah.
是的。
Lisa Pollak You told all these guys, I don't know?
丽莎·波拉克：你告诉了所有这些人，我不知道？
Yeah.
是的。
[LAUGHS] Lisa Pollak What if they took that as a yes?
[笑] Lisa Pollak 如果他们认为这是肯定的怎么办？
Then they got the wrong answer.
然后他们得到了错误的答案。
[LAUGHS]
[笑]
Do you say I don't know because it feels too mean to say no?
你说我不知道是因为拒绝感觉太卑鄙了吗？
Of course, some of the boys are no better.
当然，有些男孩也好不了多少。
During the dance in Windham, Maine, our reporter Claire Holman pulled sixth grader Christopher Potter out of the action for a chat.
在缅因州温德姆的舞会期间，我们的记者克莱尔·霍尔曼 (Claire Holman) 将六年级学生克里斯托弗·波特 (Christopher Potter) 拉出舞台进行了交谈。
Yes, she does.
是的，她确实如此。
We're kind of dating at the time.
我们当时有点约会。
So how's that going?
那么进展如何呢？
Christopher Potter Good.
克里斯托弗·波特 好。
It just started, like, 20 minutes into this, so yeah.
事情才刚刚开始，大概20分钟后，所以是的。
You asked a girl to go out during this dance?
你在跳舞的时候邀请一个女孩出去吗？
OK, let's go minute by minute.
好吧，让我们一分钟一分钟地讲。
So where were you when this happened?
那么这件事发生时你在哪里？
I was in the cafeteria, just got a drink of root beer, and she walks up to me and asks me to go out.
我在自助餐厅，刚喝了一杯根汁汽水，她走到我面前，请我出去。
What did she say exactly?
她到底说了什么？
Christopher Potter She said, Chris, will you go out with me?
克里斯托弗·波特 她说，克里斯，你愿意和我出去吗？
And were you surprised?
你感到惊讶吗？
Christopher Potter Not really.
克里斯托弗·波特 事实并非如此。
We've kind of been on and off again.
我们又断断续续。
So it's not the first time?
所以这不是第一次了？
Christopher Potter Yeah, not the first time.
克里斯托弗·波特 是的，这不是第一次了。
Does she always ask you, or do you ever ask her?
她总是问你，还是你问过她？
Well, it's kind of weird because it's always, she wants me to ask her.
嗯，这有点奇怪，因为她总是想让我问她。
So it was weird that she asked me.
所以她问我很奇怪。
Usually, they don't last.
通常，它们不会持久。
It's a middle school relationship.
这是中学时期的关系。
Nothing really happens.
真的什么都没有发生。
What does that mean, a middle school relationship?
中学关系是什么意思？
What do you mean doesn't last?
你的意思是不会持久？
I don't--
我不——
It just is destined to fail, pretty much.
它几乎注定会失败。
Yeah, because it's a middle school.
是的，因为这是一所中学。
This isn't where you started your life with.
这不是你人生的起点。
You don't hear things about middle school sweethearts.
你不会听到关于中学恋人的事情。
In Richmond, outside Moody Middle School's dance, reporter Eric Mennel spoke with Elliott German and his stepbrother, Jonathan Lawton-- they're both eighth graders-- who ran through the official rules for the dance.
在里士满，穆迪中学的舞会外，记者埃里克·门内尔采访了埃利奥特·日尔曼和他的继兄弟乔纳森·劳顿——他们都是八年级学生——他们了解了舞会的官方规则。
So some of them are kind of funny.
所以其中一些有点有趣。
It's like no hands below the waist, no petting, which I thought was kind of funny.
就像腰部以下没有手，没有抚摸，我觉得这有点好笑。
No petting?
没有抚摸吗？
Jonathan Lawton Yeah, yeah, no petting.
乔纳森·劳顿 是的，是的，不准抚摸。
What does that mean?
这意味着什么？
Jonathan Lawton No one knows.
乔纳森·劳顿 没有人知道。
The flyer that they hand out, they give you the dress code, and then they give you the rules.
他们分发的传单会告诉你着装要求，然后他们会给你规则。
No petting.
不准抚摸。
And it's in quotations, and you never know what it means.
而且它在引号中，你永远不知道它意味着什么。
It's like, do people sit there at dances and just pet other people?
就像，人们会在舞会上坐在那里抚摸其他人吗？
That's actually really weird.
这其实真的很奇怪。
There are rules like this at all the dances, and some more comprehensible than others.
所有的舞蹈都有这样的规则，有些比其他的更容易理解。
As for whether or not the kids obey the rules and what actually happens inside the dance on the actual dance floor, one of our producers, Lisa Pollak, went inside to the dance floor at the fall costume dance in Lewis, Delaware.
至于孩子们是否遵守规则以及在实际舞池中舞蹈中实际发生的情况，我们的制作人之一丽莎·波拉克 (Lisa Pollak) 走进了特拉华州刘易斯秋季服装舞会的舞池。
And I'm going to hand it off to her.
我会把它交给她。
So the scene in the gym was pretty much the way you remember it.
所以健身房里的场景和你记忆中的一模一样。
Older kids dancing in the middle, younger kids at the periphery, a few aimlessly wandering around looking like they're not sure what to do.
年长的孩子在中间跳舞，年幼的孩子在外围跳舞，还有一些漫无目的地闲逛，看起来不知道该做什么。
Lots of kids were dancing, jumping up and down.
很多孩子在跳舞，上蹿下跳。
Occasionally, you'd see a fist pump.
有时，你会看到握拳的动作。
They danced in these tightly packed clusters with very little room between them.
他们紧密地聚集在一起跳舞，彼此之间的空间很小。
And outside the clusters were chaperones, ready to step in if they saw any grinding or suggestive dancing.
人群外面有监护人，如果他们看到任何磨蹭或挑逗性的舞蹈，他们随时准备介入。
Hovering outside one of the clusters was a teacher named John Gause, and he looked perplexed.
在其中一个集群外徘徊的是一位名叫约翰·高斯的老师，他看上去很困惑。
This knot has got me on edge at this point.
这个结此时让我感到紧张。
Why?
为什么？
John Gause Because they're trying to get away with stuff.
约翰·高斯：因为他们试图逃脱惩罚。
You can tell by the way they're looking at you.
你可以从他们看你的方式看出。
They have a guilty look because-- you're about to see me swoop.
他们一脸愧疚，因为——你即将看到我俯冲而下。
He actually did swoop.
他确实俯冲了。
He plunged into the pack of kids, pulled a boy aside, and talked to him.
他冲进一群孩子里，把一个男孩拉到一边，和他说话。
Then he told me why.
然后他告诉我原因。
He needed to be taken aside and told to stop being up against those girls like that.
他需要被叫到一边，告诉他不要再像那样与那些女孩对抗。
That's why-- I don't want to jump in too much, but I just want to give him the "whoa" with the flat hand.
这就是为什么——我不想介入太多，但我只想用平手给他“哇”一声。
Whoa.
哇哦。
Just whoa.
只是哇。
Just calm it down a little.
稍微冷静一下吧。
Usually, if I see it, then they're going to stop because they see me.
通常，如果我看到它，他们就会停下来，因为他们看到了我。
And then comes the moment of truth, the moment that forces every kid in the room to make a decision, the moment that separates the timid from the brave-- the slow song.
然后是关键时刻，迫使房间里的每个孩子做出决定的时刻，区分胆怯与勇敢的时刻——慢歌。
I watch it with teacher Brian Comroe.
我和 Brian Comroe 老师一起看的。
So we got our slow song.
这样我们就得到了我们的慢歌。
And just as I suspected, a majority of the students left the dance floor.
正如我所怀疑的，大多数学生离开了舞池。
All the couples are in the middle of the dance floor in a cluster, I suspect so they're not near an adult.
我怀疑所有的情侣都聚集在舞池中央，所以他们没有靠近成年人。
I love how the kids go up to the couples dancing and interrupt them.
我喜欢孩子们走到跳舞的情侣面前打断他们。
Oh, absolutely.
哦，绝对是。
Lisa Pollak Some of the couples didn't have much privacy.
丽莎·波拉克（Lisa Pollak） 有些夫妇没有多少隐私。
The friends were standing a foot away, hanging out and talking to them.
朋友们站在一英尺远的地方，闲逛并与他们交谈。
And every so often, a random kid would just cut across the dance floor.
每隔一段时间，就会有一个随机的孩子穿过舞池。
This girl right here just grabbed onto the back of her friend's neck while the friend is dancing with a boy.
当朋友和一个男孩跳舞时，这个女孩刚刚抓住了她朋友的脖子后面。
Yeah, yeah.
是啊是啊。
I don't know if she didn't want to be left out, or they came as friends, or-- I think at this stage of the game, it's hard when boys and girls pair off and then one friend is always left behind.
我不知道她是不想被排除在外，还是他们是作为朋友来的，或者——我认为在游戏的这个阶段，当男孩和女孩配对时，总是会留下一个朋友，这很难。
There's a few of these slow dances, but most of the songs are fast.
其中有一些慢舞，但大多数歌曲都很快。
And then suddenly, the song "Hit the Road Jack" starts playing and the lights snap on.
然后突然，歌曲“Hit the Road Jack”开始播放，灯光突然亮起。
[LAUGHS] Yeah, it ends very abruptly.
[笑]是的，结束得很突然。
It's 9:00.
现在是 9:00。
It's 9 o'clock.
现在是 9 点。
That's it?
就是这样？
Brian Comroe That's it.
布莱恩·科姆罗 就是这样。
There's no wind-down.
没有风停。
9 o'clock, lights come on, parents are waiting.
9点钟，灯亮了，家长们正在等待。
It'll be empty in another minute.
再过一分钟就会空了。
And he was right.
他是对的。
The experiment in mini adulthood that is the middle school dance was over.
中学舞蹈的迷你成人实验结束了。
The same kids who, minutes earlier, were holding each other and swaying awkwardly on the dance floor got into cars and said hi to their parents.
几分钟前，这些孩子还在舞池里互相拥抱、笨拙地摇摆，钻进车里向父母打招呼。
Lisa Pollock.
丽莎·波洛克。
Coming up, surviving middle school by pretending that you are from a completely different family.
即将到来，通过假装你来自一个完全不同的家庭来度过中学生活。
That is in a minute from Chicago Public Radio and Public Radio International when our program continues.
距离芝加哥公共广播电台和国际公共广播电台一分钟后，我们的节目仍在继续。
It's This American Life.
这就是美国生活。
I'm Ira Glass.
我是艾拉·格拉斯。
Each week on our show, of course, we choose a theme, bring you different kinds of stories on that theme.
当然，我们的节目每周都会选择一个主题，为您带来有关该主题的不同类型的故事。
Today's show, middle school.
今天的节目，中学。
A 14-year-old from California who just got out of middle school asked for a show on the horror that is middle school.
一名来自加利福尼亚州的 14 岁少年，刚从中学毕业，要求观看一部有关中学恐怖的节目。
It'd be cool to hear other people's stories about it and what they went through.
听到其他人的故事和他们经历过的事情会很酷。
We thought, you know, that's a pretty good idea.
我们认为，你知道，这是个好主意。
That is a place with a lot of stories.
那是一个有很多故事的地方。
We've arrived at act three of our show.
我们已经到了演出的第三幕了。
Act Three, Mimis in the Middle.
第三幕，米米斯在中间。
The place that Domingo Martinez went to middle school, they still called it junior high.
多明戈·马丁内斯上中学的地方，他们仍然称之为初中。
And he says that his sisters did something to cope with any feelings of inferiority they might have otherwise felt in their new school with all those new kids.
他说，他的姐妹们做了一些事情来应对任何自卑感，否则她们可能会在新学校和所有这些新孩子一起感受到自卑感。
When they started junior high, my sisters, Mary and Margie, invented the Mimis as a way to cope with any feelings of inferiority they might have otherwise experienced.
当我的姐妹玛丽和玛吉上初中时，他们发明了 Mimis，以此来应对她们可能经历的自卑感。
They were entering the sinister world of teenage girls, which in the mid 1980s in Brownsville, Texas, was tinged with border town racism.
他们正在进入少女的险恶世界，在 20 世纪 80 年代中期的德克萨斯州布朗斯维尔，这个世界充满了边境小镇的种族主义色彩。
Instead of being ashamed of who they were, my sisters decided to create a polite fiction and invited everyone to participate.
我的姐妹们没有为自己的身份感到羞耻，而是决定创作一部礼貌的小说，并邀请所有人参与。
First, they dyed their brown-black hair blonde until it turned the color and brittleness of hay.
首先，他们把棕黑色的头发染成金色，直到它变成干草的颜色和脆度。
Then they began dressing in Sergio Valenti and Gloria Vanderbilt.
然后他们开始穿着 Sergio Valenti 和 Gloria Vanderbilt 的衣服。
And finally, to cap it off, they decided to call each other simply Mimi.
最后，最后，他们决定简单地称呼对方为“咪咪”。
A typical conversation between them went like this.
他们之间的典型对话是这样的。
Mimi, do you like my new Jordache jeans?
咪咪，你喜欢我的新 Jordache 牛仔裤吗？
Yes, Mimi, I do.
是的，咪咪，我愿意。
Do I look rich in my new Nikes, Mimi?
咪咪，我穿着我的新耐克看起来很富有吗？
Mimi, you look like a tennis player, Mimi.
咪咪，你看起来像个网球运动员，咪咪。
I know, Mimi.
我知道，咪咪。
Maybe I should make mom buy me a racquet.
也许我应该让妈妈给我买一个球拍。
It was really that simple.
真的就是这么简单。
The Mimis made a conscious decision that they would be rich and white even if their family wasn't.
米米一家有意识地决定，即使他们的家人不是，他们也会成为富有的白人。
In other words, Marge and Mary had a small break from reality that we all participated in to help them through junior high.
换句话说，玛吉和玛丽从现实中得到了短暂的休息，我们都参与其中，以帮助他们度过初中。
We all helped in creating the Mimis.
我们都帮助创建了 Mimis。
At the time, the rest of the family had not fully realized that our job as relatively new Americans, and worse yet, Texans, was to be as white as possible.
当时，家里的其他人还没有完全意识到，作为相对较新的美国人，更糟糕的是，作为德克萨斯人，我们的工作就是尽可能成为白人。
And we honestly didn't see their delusion as anything other than another bewildering tactic in our sisters' quest for a higher level of superior fashion-- just teenage girls doing what teenage girls do.
老实说，我们并不认为她们的错觉只是我们姐妹们追求更高水平的卓越时尚的另一种令人困惑的策略——只是十几岁的女孩在做十几岁女孩所做的事情。
There had been a time when our family had been rich by barrio standards because our Grandpa, Dad's stepfather, fought in the Korean War and used his GI money to start a trucking business when he got back.
曾经有一段时间，我们的家庭按照社区标准来说很富有，因为我们的祖父，也就是父亲的继父，参加了朝鲜战争，回来后用他的退伍军人钱开始了货运业务。
He married Grandma, who was widowed from her first marriage at age 16 and gave both her and my dad citizenship.
他与祖母结婚，祖母在第一次婚姻中丧偶，16 岁时，他给了她和我父亲公民身份。
My siblings and I, we were all born in Brownsville as Americans, but really didn't understand what that meant.
我和我的兄弟姐妹都是美国人，出生在布朗斯维尔，但真的不明白这意味着什么。
Not really-- not in that area.
不完全是——不在那个领域。
Then Grandpa died in 1980, and our world began to crumble.
1980 年，爷爷去世了，我们的世界开始崩溃。
The trucking business began to disintegrate around Dad, and he was started on a slow road towards desperation and religion.
父亲周围的卡车运输业务开始瓦解，他开始走上一条通往绝望和宗教的缓慢道路。
Meanwhile, the Mimis had made their decision to be two blue-blooded, trust-funded tennis bunnies from Connecticut accidentally living in Brownsville, Texas, with us, a poor Mexican family they had somehow befriended while undergoing some Dickensian series of misfortunes.
与此同时，米米一家决定成为两只来自康涅狄格州的出身高贵、受信托资助的网球兔子，意外地和我们一起生活在德克萨斯州的布朗斯维尔，他们是一个贫穷的墨西哥家庭，在经历狄更斯式的一系列不幸时不知何故成为了朋友。
No one acted like it was peculiar, especially those in the family who didn't speak English or could not understand the Mimis when they showed up at family gatherings.
没有人表现得很奇怪，尤其是那些不会说英语或听不懂米米语的人出现在家庭聚会上。
[SPANISH], one of the Mimis would say to an uncle or cousin, who more often than not would linger lasciviously around them, at first conflicted by the idea of being turned on by so young a relative and then mentally calculating just how distantly related they were and tabulating his odds at scoring with this new white chick who just happened to show up at this barrio party, but only after two or three beers.
“[西班牙语]”，米米人中的一个会对叔叔或表弟说，他们常常在他们身边淫荡地徘徊，一开始因为被如此年轻的亲戚所激发而感到矛盾，然后在心里计算着他们的关系有多远，并列出了他与这个刚刚出现在这个巴里奥派对上的新白人小妞得分的几率，但只是在喝了两三杯啤酒之后。
Mimi, how did you like my Spanish?
咪咪，你喜欢我的西班牙语吗？
Oh, Mimi, it's getting really good.
哦，咪咪，真的越来越好了。
Mimi, do you think they understood me?
咪咪，你认为他们理解我吗？
Oh, Mimi, who cares?
哦，咪咪，谁在乎呢？
Soon, the Mimis were buzzing at a fever pitch, intoxicating everyone who came near and caught a whiff of the Mimis' Anais Anais perfume.
很快，米米人就开始狂热地嗡嗡作响，所有靠近并闻到米米人的阿奈阿奈香水气味的人都会陶醉其中。
We had all seen the commercials on network television while watching Dallas or Knots Landing, and it was a forbidden fragrance for rain-depressed English women with secret, muscular boyfriends who drove Jaguars dangerously through unpaved, one-lane Scottish roads.
我们在观看《达拉斯》或《Knots Landing》时都看过网络电视上的广告，对于那些阴雨郁郁的英国女性来说，这是一种禁忌香水，她们的秘密男友是肌肉发达的，她们开着捷豹汽车危险地穿过未铺砌的单车道苏格兰道路。
So the Mimis had to have it, and they found it at the local JCPenney and had Mom pay for it.
所以米米一家必须拥有它，他们在当地的杰西潘尼百货找到了它，并让妈妈付了钱。
Me and my brother, Dan, and our older sister, Sylvia, we just kind of stank from the heat and dealt with it.
我和我的兄弟丹，还有我们的姐姐西尔维娅，我们只是因为酷热而感到难受，并应对它。
Even Mom developed her own fascination with the Mimis, like she couldn't believe her luck now that she was related to royalty.
就连妈妈也对米米一家产生了自己的迷恋，就像她不敢相信自己现在和皇室有关系一样幸运。
Feeding into their fantasy gave one of her own, so she was always ready for an air-conditioned trip to the mall.
融入他们的幻想也给了她自己的幻想，所以她总是准备好去一次有空调的购物中心。
She took the little clothes budget reserved for us boys, my brother and me, and added it into the Mimis' wardrobe because to her, it was a sign of status for the family that the Mimis looked their best.
她把为我们男孩、我哥哥和我保留的一点衣服预算，把它添加到米米一家的衣柜里，因为对她来说，米米一家看起来最好，这是家庭地位的标志。
None of the rest of us would question it, even though it felt wrong.
我们其他人都不会质疑它，尽管感觉不对。
I was often left with the Mimis' recently stylish hand-me-downs.
我经常留下米米斯最近时尚的旧衣服。
No one else in my grade school was remotely label-conscious or capable of reading in English, really, so it passed unnoticed that most of my clothes were made for glamorous junior high school girls.
我小学里没有人对标签有意识，也没有人能读懂英语，真的，所以我的大部分衣服都是为迷人的初中女孩设计的，这一点没有引起人们的注意。
Almost every child at my school came from recently immigrated families, kids so poor they'd save half their free lunch to share with their younger siblings at home, their heads shaved to rid them of lice.
我学校的几乎每个孩子都来自最近移民的家庭，孩子们太穷了，他们会节省一半的免费午餐与家里的弟弟妹妹分享，他们的头发被剃光以去除虱子。
My best friend, Arthur, he noticed, though.
不过，我最好的朋友亚瑟注意到了。
He was part Black and part Mexican, had just moved to Brownsville from some big city slum in Michigan, where his mother's boyfriend had been employed at a GM factory, and he read labels.
他有一半黑人血统和一半墨西哥血统，刚刚从密歇根州的某个大城市贫民窟搬到布朗斯维尔，他母亲的男朋友曾受雇于那里的一家通用汽车工厂，他会阅读标签。
Hey, Dom, he said.
嘿，多姆，他说。
Yo, man, you're wearing a girl's shirt.
哟，伙计，你穿着一件女孩的衬衫。
Or is Esprit making baggy boy shirts now, too?
或者 Esprit 现在也生产宽松的男童衬衫吗？
So to change the subject, I slugged him high in the chest and ran away.
为了改变话题，我猛击了他的胸口，然后就跑开了。
He chased me down to punch me back and left me crying in my girl's blouse.
他追着我打回去，留下我穿着女孩的衬衫哭泣。
If she had any guilt about giving the Mimis the lion's share of the clothing budget, I imagine the justification my mother probably used was that my older brother and I would just ruin our clothes working with dad under the greasy trucks.
如果她对把大部分服装预算给米米斯一家感到内疚的话，我想我母亲可能会用的理由是，我和哥哥会在油腻的卡车下和爸爸一起工作，毁掉我们的衣服。
It made better sense for the Mimis to be in high fashion than for the feral boys to wreck new clothes.
米米一家穿高级时装比野性男孩毁坏新衣服更有意义。
Mimi, you look just like Jennifer Beals in Flashdance.
咪咪，你看起来就像《闪电舞》中的詹妮弗·比尔斯。
You should join the dance team at school.
你应该加入学校的舞蹈队。
I know, Mimi.
我知道，咪咪。
I think so, too.
我也这么认为。
Mimi, I think you should dye your hair back to its original color-- ash.
咪咪，我觉得你应该把头发染回原来的颜色——灰白色。
I know, Mimi.
我知道，咪咪。
I'm trying.
我想。
During this time, my brother Dan's eyesight was so bad he couldn't read the blackboard in school and constantly ran into corners or short, skinny people.
这段时间，我哥哥丹的视力很差，在学校看不清黑板，经常跑到角落里或者矮瘦的人身上。
People thought he was Asian, he squinted so much.
人们以为他是亚洲人，他眯着眼睛。
Every photo of him taken in junior high, he looks like he's trying to see into the photographer's eyes through the camera lens.
他在初中时拍摄的每一张照片，看起来都像是在试图通过相机镜头看到摄影师的眼睛。
This, of course, goes entirely unnoticed, and it is the younger Mimi, Mary, with the 20/20 vision, who gets vanity glasses with her name etched in gold script in the corner.
当然，这完全被忽视了，年轻的咪咪，玛丽，有着 20/20 的视力，她得到了一副梳妆镜，角落里刻着她的名字。
Dan wouldn't get glasses until he was in the military when he was 17.
丹 17 岁入伍后才戴上眼镜。
Eventually, Dad's failure at navigating the business and providing for his family intruded on the Mimis' fantasy.
最终，父亲在经营生意和养家糊口方面的失败打破了米米一家的幻想。
Dad made a decision that as soon as school ended, mom would take the Mimis and Syl and drive them to California to participate in the seasonal grape harvest with dad's cousins, people vaguely related to Grandma through marriage, I think.
爸爸决定，一放学，妈妈就带着米米斯和西尔一家开车去加州，和爸爸的表兄弟姐妹们一起参加季节性的葡萄收获活动，我想，这些人与奶奶有隐约的婚姻关系。
They would be treated like adults there, paid the same as everyone else.
他们在那里会受到像成年人一样的待遇，与其他人一样得到同样的报酬。
Mom, I remember, was horrified at the implications, at the shame of having to send her virginal and royal daughters out to the fields.
我记得，妈妈对其中的含义感到震惊，对不得不将她的处女和皇家女儿送到田野里感到羞耻。
Plus, Dad's extended family out in California were very different from us-- wild, and frightening, and Californian.
另外，爸爸在加州的大家庭与我们非常不同——狂野、可怕，是加州人。
The Mimis, though, were undaunted, did not understand the complications.
然而，米米斯夫妇毫不畏惧，并不理解其中的复杂性。
Mimi, we're going to California?
咪咪，我们要去加利福尼亚吗？
Oh, my god, Mimi, we're going to be Valley girls.
哦，天哪，咪咪，我们要成为山谷女孩了。
Mimi, gag me with a spoon, Mimi.
咪咪，用勺子堵住我的嘴，咪咪。
Mimi, your roots are showing.
咪咪，你的根显露出来了。
We packed up Mom, the Mimis, and Sylvia in the beige 1980 Pontiac Bonneville, already an antique on its second engine and failing transmission, and they drove out of Brownsville.
我们把妈妈、米米斯一家和西尔维娅开进了米色 1980 年庞蒂亚克博纳维尔车，这辆车的第二台发动机已经是古董了，而且变速箱也出问题了，他们开车离开了布朗斯维尔。
A year later, I took this ride as well and also ended up picking grapes for the summer, mostly out of envy.
一年后，我也参加了这次骑行，并最终在夏天摘了葡萄，主要是出于嫉妒。
That we were migrant workers for that period didn't occur to me, nor to anyone else.
我和其他人都没有想到我们在那段时期是农民工。
That label would never stick, could never stick.
这个标签永远贴不上，永远贴不上。
We couldn't descend to that level.
我们无法下降到那个水平。
We just had to do it to help out Dad.
我们必须这样做是为了帮助爸爸。
That was all.
仅此而已。
Desperate circumstances calling for desperate measures and all that.
绝望的情况需要采取绝望的措施等等。
But it was too much for the Mimis, the reality of this first trip.
但对于米米斯夫妇来说，这是第一次旅行的现实。
Sadly, I think it was childhood's end for the Mimis.
可悲的是，我认为米米斯一家的童年就结束了。
The vineyards had somehow inverted their secret garden, and the low door in the wall had closed shut behind them.
葡萄园不知何故颠倒了他们的秘密花园，墙上的低门在他们身后关上了。
When they first reached California, the Mimis did indeed become Valley girls, the hippest, cutest, best-dressed migrant workers of that year, and very likely for many years to come.
当她们第一次到达加州时，米米一家确实成为了山谷女孩，是当年最时髦、最可爱、穿着最好的移民工人，而且很可能在未来很多年里都是最时髦、最可爱、穿着最好的移民工人。
The older Mimi, Marge, continued to dress like Jennifer Beals in Flashdance out in the fields, where the sun sizzled any inch of exposed skin.
年长的咪咪，玛姬，继续穿着《闪电舞》中詹妮弗·比尔斯的衣服，在田野里，阳光晒着每一寸裸露的皮肤。
She wore a spaghetti-strapped red and white striped Esprit top, white cotton shorts, and a matching headband with her red and white leather Nike tennis shoes and took pictures of the vineyards and the workers with her Canon AE-1.
她穿着一件细肩带的红白条纹 Esprit 上衣、白色棉质短裤、一条配套的头带和红白耐克皮革网球鞋，并用她的佳能 AE-1 给葡萄园和工人拍照。
Her headband kept a white strip of skin on her forehead from tanning, and as a result, she was forced to wear headbands for a few months afterwards, way after headbands were out of fashion.
她的头带使额头上的白色皮肤免于晒黑，因此，在头带不再流行之后的几个月里，她被迫戴头带。
Eventually, though, even she started dressing like the rest of the migrant workers, wearing long-sleeved collared shirts buttoned all the way to the neck, thick, unstylish denim, and work boots, with a bandanna covering her nose and mouth, or else she would have died of heat stroke.
但最终，她也开始像其他农民工一样穿着，穿着长袖有领衬衫，扣子一直扣到脖子，穿着厚实、不时尚的牛仔布和工作靴，用大手帕遮住鼻子和嘴巴，否则她就会中暑而死。
There were no photos taken of that.
没有拍摄任何照片。
Mary, the younger Mimi, did not fare any better.
小咪咪玛丽的情况也好不到哪儿去。
Her vanity glasses with the fake lenses were scratched well beyond recovery.
她戴着假镜片的梳妆镜被划伤了，无法恢复。
Her roots grew out, and her hair turned a lighter brown as a result of the heat and the pesticides of the grape fields of Southern California.
由于南加州葡萄田的高温和杀虫剂的影响，她的根长出来了，头发变成了浅棕色。
The hard work went on all summer, and eventually it became bitter enough to breach even the walls of the Mimis' perfectly constructed fantasy.
艰苦的工作持续了整个夏天，最终变得非常痛苦，甚至冲破了米米夫妇完美构建的幻想之墙。
And so sadly, eventually, even they were humiliated, and the illusion of wealth that had kept the family's idea of itself buoyant was deflated.
可悲的是，最终，连他们都受到了羞辱，而让这个家族自负的财富幻想也破灭了。
When they returned to Brownsville, as happy as we were to see them, no one ever mentioned the Mimis again.
当他们回到布朗斯维尔时，我们很高兴见到他们，但没有人再提起米米一家。
They were gone, and it was Marge and Mary that returned in their place-- Mary rubbing her nose with the palm of her hand from allergies and snapping at anyone who tried to talk to her and Marge, who never went back to California and took a job at the bank the following summer instead.
他们走了，玛吉和玛丽回来了——玛丽因为过敏而用手掌揉鼻子，并对任何试图和她和玛吉说话的人厉声斥责，而玛吉再也没有回到加利福尼亚，而是在第二年夏天在银行找到了一份工作。
I was sorry to see the Mimis go.
看到米米一家离开我感到很遗憾。
We all were.
我们都是。
When they were at their peak, the Mimis had been capable of creating a real sort of magic around them, enchanting both people and places so that you could be looking at the same dreary landscape as them, the same terrible and hopeless event, and while you might be miserable and bitter, they would be beaming, enthralled, and enthusiastically hopeful.
当他们处于巅峰时，米米人能够在他们周围创造一种真正的魔力，让人们和地方着迷，这样你就可以看到和他们一样沉闷的风景，同样可怕和绝望的事件，而当你可能感到痛苦和痛苦时，他们会微笑，着迷，充满热情的希望。
And then if you got near them or were blessed enough to maybe talk to them, you would walk away feeling the same way as they felt, too.
然后，如果你走近他们，或者有幸与他们交谈，你离开时也会有和他们一样的感觉。
They were a gift to everyone who was lucky enough to get caught in their Anais Anais, the Mimis.
它们是送给每一个有幸被 Anais Anais（Mimis）捕获的人的礼物。
They made all of us Americans.
他们让我们所有人成为美国人。
Domingo Martinez reading an excerpt from his book The Boy Kings of Texas, which is a memoir and a finalist for the National Book Award.
多明戈·马丁内斯正在阅读他的《德克萨斯男孩国王》一书的摘录，该书是一本回忆录，也是国家图书奖的决赛入围作品。
Act Four, Anchor Babies.
第四幕，锚定婴儿。
So this week, as we were putting together the radio show and sending reporters out into middle schools, we discovered that in schools all over the country, there already were reporters on the ground, deep inside, covering the issues that middle school kids really care about.
所以这周，当我们准备广播节目，派记者去中学时，我们发现，在全国各地的学校里，已经有记者深入基层，报道中学生真正关心的问题。
Good afternoon, Huskies.
哈士奇们下午好。
It is Thursday, September 15, 2011.
今天是 2011 年 9 月 15 日，星期四。
After today, there are only 162 school days until summer vacation.
从今天起，距离暑假只剩下162个上课日了。
I'm Taylor, and I'm a--
我是泰勒，我是——
These are student newscasters from Hart Middle School in Pleasanton, California.
这些是来自加利福尼亚州普莱森顿哈特中学的学生新闻播音员。
I myself got my start on the mic on the morning announcements.
我自己是在早上的公告中开始使用麦克风的。
And this is what middle school morning announcements in some schools are like today.
这就是今天一些学校的中学早间公告的样子。
Students make these full-blown video productions.
学生们制作这些成熟的视频作品。
Some of them have music themes.
其中一些有音乐主题。
The kids stand in front of banners with their school logo, or sometimes it's a green screen backdrop so they make it look like they're on a local TV news set.
孩子们站在带有学校标志的横幅前，有时是绿屏背景，这样他们就可以让自己看起来像是在当地电视新闻节目中。
Our producer, Jonathan Menjivar, has been watching these newscasts all week with fascination, and he has noticed a few trends.
我们的制片人乔纳森·门吉瓦尔 (Jonathan Menjivar) 整个星期都着迷地观看这些新闻广播，他注意到了一些趋势。
Just like the local news, middle school newscasts tend to follow a formula.
就像当地新闻一样，中学新闻广播往往遵循一个公式。
They almost all start with the pledge of allegiance.
他们几乎都是从宣誓效忠开始的。
And to the republic-- Jonathan Menjivar This next segment from DMS News at Dibble Middle School in Dibble, Oklahoma, is a staple of almost every broadcast I watched.
致共和国——乔纳森·门吉瓦尔 (Jonathan Menjivar) 俄克拉荷马州迪布尔市迪布尔中学 DMS 新闻的下一段内容几乎是我观看的所有广播的主要内容。
OK.
好的。
We have late breaking news.
我们有最新的突发新闻。
You will be the first to know that we have two birthdays today.
你将是第一个知道我们今天有两个生日的人。
Happy birthday to both Gabriel Romero and Nathan Nido.
祝加布里埃尔·罗梅罗和内森·尼多生日快乐。
This has to qualify as breaking news because it's school.
这必须算是突发新闻，因为这是学校。
There's not a lot of exciting stuff for them to report.
他们没有太多令人兴奋的事情可以报告。
They have to tell their fellow students what the cafeteria is serving that day, when makeup pictures are being taken, and do the weather.
他们必须告诉同学当天食堂供应什么、何时拍摄化妆照以及天气情况。
My favorite comes from this girl, McKenna, near Buffalo, who's clearly had enough.
我最喜欢的是布法罗附近的这个女孩麦肯纳，她显然已经受够了。
Good morning, average middle schoolers.
早上好，普通中学生。
McKenna with today's weather.
麦肯纳 了解今天的天气。
It's going to be how it is-- like it is now pretty much all day.
事情就会是这样——就像现在几乎一整天都是这样。
In the afternoon, cold or windy and wet with heavier rain.
下午，寒冷或有风，潮湿，有大雨。
[SIGHS] In the evening, winds to the southwest.
[叹气] 傍晚，风向西南。
These newscasts are middle school in relief, like what you'd see if there was a middle school exhibit at the Natural History Museum.
这些新闻广播是中学的轻松，就像你在自然历史博物馆看到的中学展览一样。
There are tiny kids with big ears, shy, red-faced kids, jocks, computer club kids, completely normal, super sweet, overachieving ones.
有大耳朵的小孩子、害羞、红脸的孩子、运动员、电脑俱乐部的孩子、完全正常的、超级可爱的、成绩优异的孩子。
They were fun to watch.
他们看起来很有趣。
I'd forgotten that middle school kids can have this overconfident goofiness.
我忘了中学生也会有这种过于自信的愚蠢行为。
I spent days watching kids deliver these newscasts, and I was curious what they'd be like if they actually reported on the stories that mattered the most to them, stuff they'd never say on the morning announcements, the big headlines in their school that week.
我花了几天时间看着孩子们播报这些新闻广播，我很好奇，如果他们真的报道对他们来说最重要的故事，他们永远不会在早间公告中说的话，以及本周学校的头条新闻，他们会是什么样子。
So I found a school that was willing to play along.
于是我找到了一所愿意合作的学校。
Parkville Middle School is just north of Baltimore, and the students there do their morning announcements as a six-minute show called PTV.
帕克维尔中学 (Parkville Middle School) 位于巴尔的摩北部，那里的学生以名为 PTV 的六分钟节目形式进行早间公告。
With the help of their teacher, Ms. Davis, the kids put out a really involved production.
在老师戴维斯女士的帮助下，孩子们制作了一部真正投入的作品。
There's three TV cameras, a control room, and the anchors sit at one of those giant news desks.
那里有三个电视摄像机、一个控制室，主播坐在其中一个巨大的新闻台前。
It has a PTV logo on it.
上面有 PTV 标志。
Behind them, there's a backdrop of downtown Baltimore.
在他们身后，是巴尔的摩市中心的背景。
Girls, don't forget to watch your hair.
女孩们，别忘了注意自己的头发。
I see Amanda especially.
我尤其看到阿曼达。
I see you're sitting right on your mic.
我看到你正坐在麦克风前。
With Ms. Davis's help, I enlisted the kids in this experiment to write up a newscast with news from their lives and the stories they each cared about, and they delivered.
在戴维斯女士的帮助下，我让孩子们参与这个实验，用他们生活中的新闻和他们各自关心的故事来撰写新闻广播，并由他们发表。
They said they had fun doing it.
他们说他们这样做很有趣。
So I've heard that there is a new Martin Luther King, Jr., statue in Washington, DC.
我听说华盛顿特区有一座新的马丁·路德·金雕像。
That statue doesn't even look like him.
那个雕像根本就不像他。
It looks like he has a unibrow.
看起来他有一字眉。
Our school's getting their boiler fixed, and they talked over the announcements like it was an important thing, but it didn't really sound important to me.
我们学校正在修理锅炉，他们谈论公告就像这是一件重要的事情，但对我来说这听起来并不重要。
But I guess they thought it was important for some students and the teachers.
但我猜他们认为这对一些学生和老师来说很重要。
Kids were randomly clapping at lunch, and the teachers got fed up.
孩子们在午餐时随意鼓掌，老师们对此感到厌倦。
So last week, a rule was made that you're not allowed to clap.
所以上周制定了一条规则，不允许鼓掌。
So on lunch, this one kid, Raymond, clapped.
午餐时，雷蒙德这个孩子鼓掌了。
I think he got suspended.
我认为他被停职了。
The US Department of Agriculture is banning potatoes from school lunches.
美国农业部禁止在学校午餐中添加土豆。
I love potatoes.
我喜欢土豆。
They can just make them healthier or something.
他们只能让他们更健康什么的。
They don't have to ban them.
他们不必禁止它们。
The weather has been terribly cold lately.
最近天气特别冷。
I've had to wear my UGG boots five times in the past three weeks.
在过去的三周里，我不得不穿五次 UGG 靴子。
I swear, if I find any dirt on them anywhere, Mother Nature is going to hear from me.
我发誓，如果我在它们身上发现任何污垢，大自然会听到我的声音。
So over the weekend, my best friend told me he's still going trick or treating.
所以周末，我最好的朋友告诉我他仍然在玩“不给糖就捣蛋”游戏。
He says he is going with a friend from school.
他说他要和学校的一个朋友一起去。
Personally, I think we are all too old to be trick or treating.
就我个人而言，我认为我们都已经太老了，不适合“不给糖就捣蛋”。
Well, that is all I have for today.
好了，这就是我今天的全部内容。
I'm Billy Cochran.
我是比利·科克伦。
Have a good day.
祝你有美好的一天。
Zakiya Bryant decided to go hyperlocal with her news.
扎基亚·布莱恩特 (Zakiya Bryant) 决定以超本地化方式传播她的新闻。
She wears glasses, and she had her hair pulled back with a headband.
她戴着眼镜，头发用发带向后扎着。
In local news, a.k.a here at Parkville Middle, there is a lot of drama going on.
在当地新闻中，也就是帕克维尔中学，正在发生很多戏剧性的事情。
Me personally, I lost most of my friends.
就我个人而言，我失去了大部分朋友。
I really miss those chicks, but I don't think they feel the same.
我真的很想念那些小鸡，但我不认为她们有同样的感觉。
Cailyn and Jaya were my besties, and now they're gone.
凯琳和贾亚是我的好朋友，但现在他们走了。
I still love them, though.
但我仍然爱他们。
They're my sisters.
她们是我的姐妹。
Well, I don't really have too much more to say because my life is kind of boring, so deuces.
好吧，我真的没什么可说的，因为我的生活有点无聊，所以平分。
Zakiya and I talked for a while.
我和扎基亚聊了一会儿。
She told me that deuces is just another way of saying peace out.
她告诉我，“平局”只是表达和平的另一种方式。
Can I ask you about your friends?
我可以问一下你朋友的情况吗？
What happened?
发生了什么？
Well, it was a lot of drama going on.
嗯，发生了很多戏剧性的事情。
Some things got said, and people's feelings got hurt.
有些话被说了，人们的感情受到了伤害。
And some of us made up, some of us didn't, but I hope that we can.
我们中的一些人和好了，一些人没有，但我希望我们可以。
Yeah, it sucks.
是的，这很糟糕。
[LAUGHS]
[笑]
Well, actually, she's not talking to me, because I called her a name, and it hurt her feelings.
嗯，实际上，她没有跟我说话，因为我骂了她，这伤害了她的感情。
So yeah, she's very upset with me.
是的，她对我非常不满。
I need to apologize.
我需要道歉。
I didn't do that yet.
我还没那么做。
I feel kind of bad about that, so I'm going to.
我对此感到有点难过，所以我要去。
The very last kid I talked to was Jaya Wati.
我最后一个交谈的孩子是 Jaya Wati。
She sandwiched her most surprising news in between a couple other stories.
她将她最令人惊讶的消息夹在其他几个故事之间。
My brother goes to Penn State, and he's on the football team.
我哥哥去了宾夕法尼亚州立大学，他是橄榄球队的成员。
And I've been to all the home games, and they're a lot of fun.
我参加了所有的主场比赛，它们非常有趣。
The students are crazy, and they get dressed up in blue and white.
学生们都疯了，纷纷穿上蓝白相间的衣服。
It's really cool.
真的很酷。
So my friend is always depressed, and then she's mad at me all the time.
所以我的朋友总是很沮丧，然后她一直生我的气。
So I don't understand that.
所以我不明白。
I was watching the news the other day, and they were talking about how President Obama--
前几天我在看新闻，他们在谈论奥巴马总统如何——
Did you catch that about her depressed friend?
你注意到她抑郁的朋友了吗？
I asked Jaya if it was hard to write about her.
我问贾亚写她是否很难。
Yeah, because I didn't want to hurt her feelings.
是的，因为我不想伤害她的感情。
But she really doesn't care because she said she wrote about me, too.
但她真的不在乎，因为她说她也写过我的事。
Yeah, yeah.
是啊是啊。
Oh, wow.
哦，哇。
I didn't realize that her friends she was talking about were in this class.
我没有意识到她所说的她的朋友就在这个班。
Yeah, we are.
是的，我们是。
But I've known her since fifth grade, so we kind of fight a lot, but we always wind up being friends in the end.
但我从五年级起就认识她了，所以我们经常吵架，但最终我们总是成为朋友。
What happened exactly?
究竟发生了什么？
Jaya Wati Nothing, really.
Jaya Wati 没什么，真的。
Just people telling other people things, spreading rumors and drama.
只是人们告诉别人事情，传播谣言和戏剧。
Middle school.
中学。
Ms. Davis, the journalism teacher at Parkville Middle, is always stressing that her students be factual and truthful in their stories.
戴维斯女士是帕克维尔中学的新闻老师，她总是强调她的学生在报道故事时要真实、真实。
The news isn't rumors and opinions.
该新闻不是谣言和观点。
But in middle school, sometimes it's hard to remember that.
但在中学，有时很难记住这一点。
It's hard to step back and look at a story from different perspectives.
很难退后一步，从不同的角度来看待一个故事。
Jonathan Menjivar is one of the producers of our show.
乔纳森·门吉瓦尔 (Jonathan Menjivar) 是我们节目的制片人之一。
Act Five, Blue Kid on the Block.
第五幕，街区里的蓝色孩子。
Last September, a kid that we're going to call Leo-- not his real name-- started seventh grade at a new school, and he's having a more extreme experience.
去年九月，一个我们称之为利奥（不是他的真名）的孩子在一所新学校开始了七年级，他正在经历更加极端的经历。
He's having a harder time finding his place in middle school than other middle school kids because he's new to town.
他比其他中学生更难在中学找到自己的位置，因为他是新来的。
His family just arrived from Rochester, New York.
他的家人刚刚从纽约罗切斯特抵达。
He's got that on top of everything else.
他把这一点放在了其他一切之上。
Leo still loves Rochester.
里奥仍然爱着罗切斯特。
He loved his school there.
他喜欢他在那里的学校。
He loved his friends.
他爱他的朋友。
Suddenly, everything about his life is different and, according to Leo, much worse.
突然之间，他生活中的一切都变得不同了，据利奥说，情况变得更糟了。
The signature on his Gmail account now reads "Rochester is much better" in big red letters.
他的 Gmail 帐户上的签名现在用红色大字写着“罗切斯特好多了”。
Sarah Koenig knows Leo and his parents and visited them at home to see how Leo was doing.
莎拉·柯尼格认识利奥和他的父母，并拜访了他们的家，了解利奥的近况。
This is how much Leo does not want to be here.
这就是Leo多么不想待在这里的程度。
When I got to his house, he was on the sofa with a laptop investigating Greyhound bus schedules.
当我到达他家时，他正坐在沙发上，拿着笔记本电脑调查灰狗巴士时刻表。
His mother was going to drive him and his sister back to Rochester for the Columbus Day weekend, but not until Saturday morning.
他的母亲原本打算开车送他和他的妹妹回罗切斯特过哥伦布日周末，但要等到周六早上。
And Leo wanted to get there Friday for more time with his friends.
利奥想周五到达那里，以便有更多时间与朋友们在一起。
A multi-stage negotiation followed with his dad.
随后与他的父亲进行了多阶段谈判。
For one thing, a bus ticket costs money.
一方面，公交车票要花钱。
Not for you.
不适合你。
No, that wasn't a problem for you.
不，这对你来说不是问题。
No, but-- Father There isn't one, right?
没有，但是—— 父亲 没有，对吧？
There isn't one that's not at 6:15 in the morning, and you won't let me miss school on Friday.
没有一个不是早上 6 点 15 分，你不会让我错过周五的学校的。
The bus takes eight hours.
巴士需要八个小时。
Even if you left at noon, you'd be there-- are you going to do the math?
即使你中午走，你也会在那儿——你会做算术吗？
That's excellent.
那太好了。
Never mind that the bus takes twice as long as driving, and never mind that Leo would be alone and have to change buses and that his parents had no intention of letting him go through with this plan.
别介意坐公交车的时间是开车的两倍，也别介意利奥会孤身一人，不得不换乘公交车，也别介意他的父母无意让他完成这个计划。
But it's the kind of negotiation you indulge when your kid is miserable, and Leo is miserable.
但当你的孩子很痛苦，而狮子座也很痛苦时，你就会进行这种谈判。
He told me right away he was and that he had been from the moment he got here in August.
他立刻告诉我他是，而且从他八月份来到这里的那一刻起他就一直是。
Is this the first time in your life where you felt like you've been sad about something for this long?
这是你一生中第一次因为某件事而感到悲伤这么久吗？
I think so, except for maybe when my other cat died-- my old cat.
我想是的，除了我的另一只猫——我的老猫死了。
Mm-hmm.
嗯嗯。
I've never had long periods of sad until now.
直到现在我还没有经历过长时间的悲伤。
I don't know.
我不知道。
I don't know anyone here, really.
我真的不认识这里的任何人。
And I think it's just everything in general.
我认为这就是一般情况。
It's overwhelming.
这是压倒性的。
Back in Rochester, Leo had known all his best friends since kindergarten or before.
回到罗切斯特，利奥从幼儿园或以前就认识了他所有最好的朋友。
They played together at school, after school, on weekends.
他们在学校、放学后、周末都一起玩耍。
Everybody knew everybody.
每个人都认识每个人。
Everything was comfortable.
一切都很舒服。
And as a sixth grader in his old school, he and his friends were at the top of the heap.
作为他原来学校的六年级学生，他和他的朋友们都名列前茅。
They wore green sashes in the morning and got to be door monitors for the younger kids coming into the building.
他们早上戴着绿色腰带，充当门禁监视器，监视进入大楼的年幼的孩子。
So imagine now, Leo takes a school bus for the first time to his new school, a sprawling, one-story building full of sixth, seventh, and eighth graders.
现在想象一下，利奥第一次乘坐校车去他的新学校，这是一栋庞大的单层建筑，里面挤满了六年级、七年级和八年级的学生。
Leo's small for his age, only a hair taller than his sister, who's only nine years old.
就他的年龄而言，利奥个子矮小，只比他只有九岁的妹妹高一根头发。
On day one, he knows exactly no one.
第一天，他根本不认识任何人。
It was much louder than my old school.
比我原来的学校吵多了。
Much louder.
大声得多。
People talking, people closing and opening lockers, people walking.
人们说话，人们关闭和打开储物柜，人们散步。
It was just noise.
这只是噪音。
Just older kids, more kids, because my old school was tiny.
只是年龄较大的孩子，更多的孩子，因为我以前的学校很小。
Leo is between.
狮子座介于两者之间。
He's old enough to decipher Greyhound bus schedules, but not old enough to actually travel on one by himself, and old enough to know that if he's going to survive in middle school, he has to make friends, but that making those friends stands to be significantly more complicated than it was back in Rochester.
他已经足够大了，可以看懂灰狗巴士时刻表，但还没有大到可以自己单独乘坐灰狗巴士出行，也知道如果他要在中学生存，就必须交朋友，但结交这些朋友比在罗切斯特时要复杂得多。
Leo's sister, Auden, is in fourth grade.
利奥的妹妹奥登正在上四年级。
He says she's not having as hard a time of it.
他说她的日子没那么难受。
She hasn't been alive as long.
她已经活了那么久了。
She hasn't made as deep connections.
她还没有建立如此深厚的联系。
And she's already met some-- a friend in her school.
她已经认识了一些人——她学校里的一个朋友。
I think it's easier to make friends in elementary school than in middle school.
我认为小学比中学更容易交朋友。
Oh, really?
哦真的吗？
Why?
为什么？
Leo Because people care less about who you are.
狮子座 因为人们不太关心你是谁。
What do you mean by that?
你这是什么意思？
Leo The older you get, the more you judge people on their looks, their background, how they act, what cool is for kids, because in kindergarten, you could just walk up to someone and say do you want to be my friend?
狮子座 你年纪越大，你就越会根据别人的外表、背景、行为方式来评判他们，对孩子来说什么是酷，因为在幼儿园，你可以走到某人面前说你想成为我的朋友吗？
And they would-- that would be it.
他们会——就是这样。
But it's harder.
但这更难。
I just think people are more wary before they open up.
我只是认为人们在敞开心扉之前会更加谨慎。
I don't know.
我不知道。
In first grade, if I met someone, I wouldn't really care who they were.
一年级时，如果我遇到某人，我不会真正关心他们是谁。
I would just care if they were nice or not.
我只关心他们好不好。
The day I interviewed him, Leo had had a couple of breakthroughs.
在我采访 Leo 的那天，他取得了一些突破。
He emailed his parents during the school day to tell them the first piece of good news they'd had from him.
他在上学期间给父母发了电子邮件，告诉他们从他那里得到的第一个好消息。
Until that day, that emails had mostly been three desperate words-- I feel awful-- without even a period at the end to make the feeling finite.
直到那天之前，这些电子邮件大多都是三个绝望的词——我感觉很糟糕——甚至没有在末尾加上句号来让这种感觉变得有限。
It was an endless awful.
这是一种无尽的可怕。
But on this Thursday, he wrote to tell them the mashed potatoes they serve in the cafeteria were great, followed by four exclamation points.
但在这个星期四，他写信告诉他们，他们食堂提供的土豆泥很棒，后面还加上了四个感叹号。
Second-- and this was the big news-- he asked another kid if he wanted to come over.
其次——这是个大新闻——他问另一个孩子是否愿意过来。
Leo told me he'd thought about it first for a few days, then finally emailed the boy, whose name is Devin, another seventh grader.
利奥告诉我，他先考虑了几天，然后最后给这个男孩发了电子邮件，他的名字叫德文，是另一位七年级学生。
But now Leo didn't want to call Devin's house to finalize a plan.
但现在利奥不想打电话给德文家里敲定计划。
He dreaded the awkwardness of the phone, so his dad called Devin's parents, introduced himself as Leo's father.
他害怕电话里的尴尬，所以他的爸爸给德文的父母打电话，介绍自己是利奥的父亲。
He goes to school with your son, Evan, and we were-- Devin.
他和你的儿子埃文一起上学，我们是——德文。
I'm so sorry.
我很抱歉。
Devin.
德文.
I'm getting the evil look from my son.
我从我儿子那里看到了邪恶的眼神。
I apologize.
我道歉。
But we're hoping Devin can come over on Sunday.
但我们希望德文能在周日过来。
Thanks.
谢谢。
[LAUGHS] [?
[笑] [？
You did good.
你做得很好。
?] Father I panicked.
？] 父亲我惊慌失措。
[LAUGHS]
[笑]
You fool!
你这个傻瓜！
[LAUGHS] Sarah Koenig How'd that go?
[笑] Sarah Koenig 怎么样？
I thought Leo might be upset about it, maybe get sulky.
我想利奥可能会为此感到不安，也许会生闷气。
But here he was, cracking up, joking with his dad.
但他却在这里，开怀大笑，和他的父亲开玩笑。
It was such a relief to hear him laugh after he'd been so solemn in our interview.
在我们的采访中他如此严肃之后，听到他笑了，真是让人松了口气。
And I thought, this is all going to be OK.
我想，一切都会好起来的。
He's going to snap out of it.
他会振作起来。
He's almost there.
他快到了。
An afternoon with Devin is going to do the trick.
和德文一起度过一个下午就会有效果。
Then Sunday came.
然后周日到了。
OK, I'm going to tell my wolf to attack, then.
好吧，那我要告诉我的狼攻击了。
Leo taught Devin how to play Dungeons and Dragons.
里奥教德文如何玩龙与地下城。
Yay!
耶！
Go, wolfie!
走吧，小狼！
Go, wolfie!
走吧，小狼！
Go, wolfie!
走吧，小狼！
Oh, I am so weird.
哦，我真是太奇怪了。
On the drive home, Leo and Devin talk non-stop, a gentle rat-a-tat one-upmanship emanating from deep inside a computer game.
在开车回家的路上，利奥和德文不停地交谈，一种从电脑游戏深处散发出来的温和的争先恐后的态度。
I am a blood elf warlock.
我是一名血精灵术士。
Devin Warlocks are fun.
德文术士很有趣。
Can you summon your imp yet?
你能召唤你的小鬼了吗？
Yeah, you start with an imp.
是的，你从一个小鬼开始。
Devin Oh, right.
德文 哦，对了。
I had a goblin shaman.
我有一个妖精萨满。
I'm a night elf druid, and I can turn into a cat at level 8, which is nice.
我是暗夜精灵德鲁伊，8级就可以变成猫了，很不错。
And at level 12, you get a bear.
到了12级，你就会得到一只熊。
By the time they dropped Devin off, they were giggling.
当他们送德文下车时，他们都咯咯笑起来。
It's funny.
很有趣。
Devin Our cat responds to whatever you call.
德文 我们的猫会对你的任何呼唤做出反应。
His name is Pippin, but we can call him Football.
他的名字叫皮平，但我们可以称他为“足球”。
Thank you for inviting me.
谢谢你邀请我。
Leo See you tomorrow.
狮子座明天见。
See you.
再见。
Sarah Koenig So a perfect day, right?
莎拉·柯尼格 这是完美的一天，对吧？
Leo's parents were relieved, hopeful, but no.
利奥的父母松了口气，满怀希望，但事实并非如此。
It's Wednesday.
今天是星期三。
You had your friend over on Sunday.
周日你邀请你的朋友过来。
How did it go?
进展如何？
It went OK.
一切顺利。
Yeah, went OK.
是的，一切顺利。
Sarah Koenig Has it changed anything about being here?
Sarah Koenig 来到这里有什么改变吗？
A little bit.
一点点。
I don't think very much, but a little bit, yeah.
我想的不多，但有一点，是的。
That I know someone at school.
我在学校认识一个人。
It helps.
它有帮助。
Not all that much, but sort of.
不是那么多，但有点。
Yeah.
是的。
And this is when I realized I'd underestimated the depth of Leo's gloom, that he greets every morning of every school day with dread.
就在这时，我意识到我低估了利奥忧郁的深度，他在每个上学日的每个早晨都带着恐惧迎接他。
And not because he's being bullied or anyone's being mean to him.
并不是因为他被欺负或有人对他不好。
I feel sick because I know that I have the whole day ahead of me, and then I have the next day, and the next day, and the next day, and the next day, and the next day ahead of me.
我感到恶心，因为我知道我还有一整天的时间，然后还有第二天、后天、后天、后天、后天。
No, not really.
不，不是真的。
It usually increases to a climax around lunchtime, and then I-- actually, I've been throwing up recently.
通常在午餐时间左右会达到高潮，然后我——实际上，我最近一直在呕吐。
And then it just stays that level of sickness until I get home.
然后它就一直保持这种程度的疾病，直到我回家。
You're kidding me.
你在开玩笑吧。
You're throwing up at school?
你在学校呕吐吗？
Yeah.
是的。
Sarah Koenig Oh, that's awful.
莎拉·柯尼格 哦，那太糟糕了。
In the bathroom or where?
在浴室还是哪里？
Yeah, in the bathroom.
是的，在浴室里。
Usually at lunch, I feel really bad.
通常在午餐时，我感觉很糟糕。
And I go to the bathroom, and I throw up.
我去了洗手间，然后吐了。
Has that happened this week?
这周发生过这种事吗？
Leo Today, it did.
今天的狮子座，确实如此。
Do you tell your parents, I don't want to go, I don't want to go, or do you just-- you know you have to so you don't say anything?
你会告诉你的父母，我不想去，我不想去，还是你只是——你知道你必须去，所以你什么也不说？
No, I throw a screaming fit.
不，我尖叫起来。
Sarah Koenig Every morning?
莎拉·柯尼格 每天早上？
What was different about this morning?
今天早上有什么不同？
How come you didn't today?
今天怎么没来呢？
I felt resigned and I knew that I would have to go anyways, so I gave up.
我感到辞职，我知道无论如何我都必须走，所以我放弃了。
Here's the curse of being almost 13.
这就是快13岁的诅咒了。
Old enough to understand his life will supposedly get better with time, but not old enough to really believe he's going to feel any differently than he does right this minute.
随着时间的推移，他的生活应该会变得更好，但还没有到真正相信他此刻的感觉会有所不同的年龄。
Since making friends with Devin, Leo is one step toward being the kid he wants to be-- someone with pals, someone who's comfortable again.
自从与德文成为朋友后，利奥朝着成为他想成为的孩子迈出了一步——一个有朋友的人，一个再次感到舒适的人。
But he says right now, he's just worried he's going to be throwing up all year.
但他说现在他只是担心自己会呕吐一整年。
Sarah Koenig is one of the producers of our show.
莎拉·科尼格是我们节目的制片人之一。
Act Six, Grande With Sugar.
第六幕，格兰德加糖。
So I've been talking to educators, and one who had taught for years in high school and then moved to middle school told me that the key difference between teaching in the two environments was that in middle school, you have to be sympathetic to and patient with all of the emotional drama.
所以我一直在和教育工作者交谈，一位在高中教书多年然后转到中学的人告诉我，在这两种环境中教学的主要区别在于，在中学，你必须对所有的情感戏剧表示同情和耐心。
You have to deal with that directly if you want the classroom to work, which brings me to this next story of a student who was doing badly in a middle school in Newark, New Jersey.
如果你想让课堂正常运转，你就必须直接处理这个问题，这让我想到了下一个故事，一个学生在新泽西州纽瓦克市的一所中学表现不佳。
He was a mess.
他一团糟。
He would come in, his uniform would be dirty.
他进来时，他的制服会很脏。
He hadn't showered.
他没有洗澡。
He hadn't had breakfast.
他没有吃早餐。
His bookbag most likely had a hole in it, and all of his pens and pencils had fallen out.
他的书包很可能破了一个洞，所有的钢笔和铅笔都掉了出来。
His homework wasn't done.
他的作业没有完成。
And so of course, he'd come in, and he'd be angry.
当然，他进来了，他会生气。
This is Shannon Grande, who teaches at Rise Academy Middle School, which is a public school, 91% black and Latino and eligible for free lunches, one of the KIPP charter schools, hence the uniforms.
我是 Shannon Grande，在 Rise Academy 中学任教，这是一所公立学校，91% 是黑人和拉丁裔学生，有资格享受免费午餐，是 KIPP 特许学校之一，因此有校服。
I heard about this story from Elizabeth Green, who has been reporting on this school for journalism outfit called Gotham Schools.
我从伊丽莎白·格林那里听说了这个故事，她一直在报道这所名为“哥谭学校”的新闻机构学校。
Anyway, this teacher, Shannon Grande, says that this seventh grader would come in angry all the time.
不管怎样，这位老师，香农格兰德，说这个七年级学生总是生气地进来。
And usually, someone would say something little to him, like your shirt's not tucked in or--
通常，有人会对他说一些小话，比如你的衬衫没有塞进裤腰或者——
Another the kid would?
另一个孩子会吗？
Shannon Grande Yeah, because they do that.
Shannon Grande 是的，因为他们就是这么做的。
They just pick at each other.
他们只是互相挑剔。
And it would set him off, and then he would just be very loud and just be like, oh, why do you always have to say this to me, and slam his stuff down.
这会让他生气，然后他会大声说，哦，为什么你总是要对我说这些，然后把他的东西摔下来。
I hate this place.
我讨厌这个地方。
And he'd just go into these very general rants.
他只会发表这些非常笼统的咆哮。
And usually, that's an indicator to us, when they use those very general statements, that they're not processing through their emotions, that they're feeling overwhelmed.
通常，当他们使用这些非常笼统的陈述时，这对我们来说是一个指标，表明他们没有处理自己的情绪，他们感到不知所措。
So this kid was in an unfortunate spiral.
所以这个孩子陷入了不幸的漩涡。
He felt isolated from the other kids just inherently because his home situation was so bad.
他天生就感到与其他孩子隔绝，因为他的家庭条件太糟糕了。
And then he would get angry with the other kids, which then made them mad and made him more isolated.
然后他会对其他孩子生气，这让他们生气，也让他更加孤立。
And he got worse and worse-- threw some stuff across a room and hit a teacher.
他的情况越来越糟——把一些东西扔到房间的另一边，还袭击了一位老师。
There were points where he would come in and he would refuse to do anything all day long, and he'd just-- he would cry.
有时他会进来，整天拒绝做任何事，他只是——他会哭。
He would break out and cry in the middle of class.
他会在课堂上突然哭起来。
You didn't even know why.
你甚至不知道为什么。
And he couldn't explain why.
而他无法解释为什么。
One big problem for him, one reason that he was ostracized, he didn't wash.
对他来说，一个大问题，也是他被排斥的原因之一，就是他不洗澡。
Kids would whisper about it.
孩子们会窃窃私语谈论这件事。
And when he would get mad and then arguments would escalate, that is where it would go.
当他生气并且争论升级时，事情就会发生。
You're dirty, you smell.
你很脏，有臭味。
The kids would say it right to his face.
孩子们会当着他的面说出来。
Over time, the staff found all kinds of ways to address this.
随着时间的推移，工作人员找到了各种方法来解决这个问题。
They got him clean clothes and a place to clean up before school.
他们给他准备了干净的衣服和上学前清理的地方。
But the bigger problem, and that's the problem of his isolation and his anger, Ms. Grande says, it was not clear how to deal with that.
但格兰德女士说，更大的问题是他的孤立和愤怒的问题，目前尚不清楚如何处理这个问题。
They would try things, but nothing was working.
他们会尝试一些事情，但没有任何效果。
And then finally, one day in history class during a group work, he was trash talking, and one of the best girls in the class, one of Ms. Grande's best students, ended up in an argument with him, saying terrible things.
最后，有一天，在一次小组作业的历史课上，他说了垃圾话，班上最好的女孩之一，格兰德女士最好的学生之一，最终与他发生了争执，说了一些可怕的话。
And Ms. Grande felt like, really?
格兰德女士觉得，真的吗？
You, too?
你也是？
I pulled the girl, and she was like, well, he brings it on.
我拉了那个女孩，她说，好吧，他把它带上了。
He gets angry, and then what am I supposed to say?
他生气了，那我该怎么办呢？
I was like, well, you could not say that.
我当时想，好吧，你不能这么说。
And--
还有——
That being-- Shannon Grande That he's dirty and he smells.
那个人——香农·格兰德（Shannon Grande） 他很脏而且有臭味。
And she's like, well, he does.
她就像，嗯，他喜欢。
I was like, I think this is a bigger conversation.
我当时想，我认为这是一次更大的对话。
So Ms. Grande took this girl and the three other girls who had been doing group work with this boy, and she took those girls into the teacher's room-- and all four of these girls were academically strong, and all of them had shown good leadership qualities in the school in the past-- and she talked to them.
于是格兰德女士带着这个女孩和另外三个和这个男孩一起做小组作业的女孩，她把这些女孩带到了老师的房间——这四个女孩的学业都很优秀，而且她们过去都在学校表现出了良好的领导才能——她和她们交谈。
I had explained to them that he struggles just to get here every day, that I was like, you wake up in the morning, and you've got somebody that's getting you out of the door, giving you breakfast, making sure your clothes are clean, making sure you get here on time.
我向他们解释说，他每天都在努力到达这里，我就像，你早上醒来，有人送你出门，为你提供早餐，确保你的衣服干净，确保你准时到达这里。
He doesn't have that.
他没有那个。
He has nobody doing that for him.
没有人为他做这件事。
And at that time, I knew that the power had been off at his house, that the week before, the water was shut off, that they had had part of their roof cave in.
那时，我知道他家已经停电了，一周前，水也被切断了，他们的屋顶的一部分已经塌陷了。
He has an elderly grandmother that he tries to take care of, and she had been getting up in the middle of the night and wandering.
他有一位年迈的祖母，他要尽力照顾，而她却经常半夜起床四处游荡。
And he would hear her and get up and carry her back upstairs.
他会听到她的声音，站起来把她抱回楼上。
What was their reaction?
他们的反应是什么？
Shannon Grande Empathy.
香农格兰德同理心。
And she's like, I didn't know that.
她说，我不知道这一点。
And the other girls there were talking about that.
那里的其他女孩也在谈论这件事。
And I was like, I'm telling you something that I normally wouldn't tell another student.
我当时想，我正在告诉你一些我通常不会告诉其他学生的事情。
This is something very private, but I'm trusting that you're mature enough to handle this.
这是非常私密的事情，但我相信你足够成熟来处理这个问题。
And I was like, so you're kind of breaking him down when you're doing these things.
我当时想，当你做这些事情时，你有点让他崩溃了。
And she's like, well, can we talk to him?
她说，好吧，我们可以和他谈谈吗？
I was a little nervous, obviously.
显然我有点紧张。
I was really worried about it.
我真的很担心。
I was like, what am I doing here?
我当时想，我在这里做什么？
This could be really dangerous and backfire on me terribly.
这可能真的很危险，而且会对我产生严重的适得其反的效果。
They started to talk, and they're like, when you get angry, we get angry back.
他们开始说话，他们说，当你生气时，我们也会生气。
What do you expect us to say?
您希望我们说什么？
And it really was just a couple of minutes before the kids told Ms. Grande, we can take it from here.
确实就在几分钟后，孩子们告诉格兰德女士，我们可以从这里拿走了。
And she left them to talk.
然后她就让他们继续说话。
Afterwards, the boy told Ms. Grande that it felt good.
后来，男孩告诉格兰德女士，感觉很好。
It felt good that these girls knew that he was trying to deal with his anger.
这些女孩知道他正在努力应对他的愤怒，这感觉很好。
And since this conversation, over time, the entire class has entered this discussion with this kid.
而自从这次谈话之后，随着时间的推移，全班同学都进入了和这个孩子的讨论之中。
And when this kid has an outburst, they will all talk openly about his anger.
而当这小子发脾气的时候，他们都会公开谈论他的愤怒。
The students say, well, you've told us you're working on this.
学生们说，好吧，你已经告诉我们你正在研究这个。
What are you going to do differently now?
现在你打算采取什么不同的做法？
And then he'd try to explain, well, I'm trying to take deep breaths.
然后他会尝试解释，好吧，我正在尝试深呼吸。
I'm trying to journal when I'm getting angry.
当我生气的时候，我会尝试写日记。
I'm trying to do-- and he'd come up with whatever solutions he's trying to do.
我正在尝试做——而他会想出他想要做的任何解决方案。
But a lot of times, even, it wasn't about the solution, the peer pressure itself, and the feeling like he had come in and he's making these general statements, like everybody's against me.
但很多时候，甚至不是解决方案、同侪压力本身，以及他进来并发表这些一般性声明的感觉，就像每个人都反对我一样。
And then he's starting to feel like, OK, maybe everybody isn't against me.
然后他开始觉得，好吧，也许每个人都不反对我。
Maybe they are just frustrated with this behavior that I'm doing that I could be doing better.
也许他们只是对我的行为感到沮丧，因为我本可以做得更好。
We started to see that impact of peer pressure.
我们开始看到同侪压力的影响。
It's like you took the entire machinery of middle school dynamics, and you're harnessing it to help this kid.
这就像你掌握了中学动态的整个机制，并利用它来帮助这个孩子。
Exactly.
确切地。
Ira Glass To harness the fact that they'll listen to peers.
Ira Glass：利用他们愿意倾听同事意见的事实。
This is what the research shows, that in middle school, you listen to peers more than you listen to anybody else.
研究表明，在中学，你听同龄人说话的次数比听其他人说话的次数多。
And that is working with this kid.
那就是和这个孩子一起工作。
The other day, this kid got a detention for missing part of his uniform, and he started on a rant in class about how they're all against him and all the time they're on his back, and everybody's against him, and it was the end of the world.
有一天，这个孩子因为缺少制服而被留校察看，他开始在课堂上咆哮，说他们都在反对他，而他们一直在他的背上，每个人都反对他，那是世界末日。
And Ms. Grande finally asked him, who's they?
格兰德女士最后问他，他们是谁？
Who's everybody?
大家都是谁？
And he started smiling.
他开始微笑。
And she asked him, what's he really upset about?
她问他，他真正生气的是什么？
And unlike in the past, he could untangle it.
与过去不同的是，他可以解开它。
He could tell her.
他可以告诉她。
Peer pressure I don't want no peer pressure
同侪压力 我不想没有同侪压力
I don't want no peer pressure Peer pressure
我不希望没有同侪压力 同侪压力
Peer pressure I don't want no peer pressure
同侪压力 我不想没有同侪压力
Our program was produced today by Lisa Pollak with Ben Calhoun, Sarah Koenig, Jonathan Menjivar, Brian Reed, Robyn Semien, Alissa Shipp, and Nancy Updike.
今天我们的节目由 Lisa Pollak 与 Ben Calhoun、Sarah Koenig、Jonathan Menjivar、Brian Reed、Robyn Semien、Alissa Shipp 和 Nancy Updike 共同制作。
Our senior produce is Julie Snyder.
我们的资深制作人是朱莉·斯奈德。
Production help from Miki Meek.
Miki Meek 提供制作帮助。
Seth Lind is our production manager.
塞思·林德 (Seth Lind) 是我们的生产经理。
Emily Condon's our office manager.
艾米丽·康登是我们的办公室经理。
Music help from Damien Grave.
达米安·格雷夫 (Damien Grave) 的音乐帮助。
Our website, thisamericanlife.org.
我们的网站 thisamericanlife.org。
Special thanks today to Adrian Hayes, Gail Andrews, Clay Bolton, Nishat Kurwa, Zachary Barr, Gabe Spitzer, Alicia Zuckerman, Tony and Griffin from Radio K, Marcy Krever, Aaron Travis, Meredith Davis, and Will Yurman.
今天特别感谢 Adrian Hayes、Gail Andrews、Clay Bolton、Nishat Kurwa、Zachary Barr、Gabe Spitzer、Alicia Zuckerman、Radio K 的 Tony 和 Griffin、Marcy Krever、Aaron Travis、Meredith Davis 和 Will Yurman。
This American Life is distributed by Public Radio International.
《美国生活》由国际公共广播电台发行。
WBEZ management oversight for our show by our boss, Mr. Torey Malatia, who gets so confused at the beginning of every HR meeting.
我们的老板 Torey Malatia 先生对我们的演出进行 WBEZ 管理监督，他在每次人力资源会议开始时都会感到困惑。
They give you the dress code and they give you the rules.
他们给你着装要求，给你规则。
No petting.
不准抚摸。
And it's in quotations.
并且它在引号中。
I'm Ira Glass back next week with more stories of This American Life.
我是艾拉·格拉斯（Ira Glass），下周我将带着更多《美国生活》的故事回来。
Early morning meeting friends This American Life This American Life is produced in collaboration with WBEZ Chicago and delivered to stations by PRX The Public Radio Exchange.
清晨与朋友见面 《This American Life》 《This American Life》是与 WBEZ Chicago 合作制作的，并由 PRX 公共广播电台传送到各电台。