00:00
So, I want to talk to you about the forgotten middle. To me, they are the students, coworkers and plain old regular folks who are often overlooked because they're seen as neither exceptional nor problematic. They're the kids we think we can ignore because their needs for support don't seem particularly urgent. They're the coworkers who actually keep the engines of our organizations running, but who aren't seen as the innovators who drive excellence. In many ways, we overlook the folks in the middle because they don't keep us up awake at night wondering what crazy thing they're going to come up with next.
（所以，我想和你们谈谈被遗忘的中间人群。 对我来说，他们是学生，同事和普通的普通老百姓，他们经常被忽视，因为他们被认为既不是特别优秀凡，也没有什么大问题。 他们是我们认为可以忽略的孩子，因为他们的需求似乎并不特别紧迫。 他们是使我们的组织的引擎真正运转的同事，但并没有被视为推动卓越发展的创新者。 在许多方面，我们忽略了中间人群，因为他们不会让我们彻夜难眠，不会担心他们接下来会做什么疯狂的事情。）
00:48
(Laughter)
（笑声）
00:50
And the truth is that we've come to rely on their complacency and sense of disconnection because it makes our work easier.
（但事实是，我们依赖他们的自足和脱离感，因为这让我们工作的更容易）
01:02
You see, I know a little bit about the forgotten middle. As a junior high school student, I hung out in the middle. For a long time, I had been a good student. But seventh grade was a game changer. I spent my days gossiping, passing notes, generally goofing off with my friends. I spent my homework time on the phone, reviewing each day's events. And in many ways, although I was a typical 12-year-old girl, my ambivalence about my education led to pretty average grades.
（如你所见，我对中间人群比较了解。在初中，我是中间人群的一员。在过去的很长时间了，我都是一个好学生，但七年级是一个转折点， 我在传八卦，传纸条，和朋友嬉戏打闹中荒度时光。我将我的作业时间花费在了手机上，浏览每天的事件。在很多方面，尽管我是一个典型 的12岁小女孩，我对我教育的矛盾态度导致我成绩平平 ）
01:47
Luckily for me, my mother understood something important, and that was that my location was not my destination. As a former research librarian and an educator, my mother knew that I was capable of accomplishing a lot more. But she also understood that because I was a young black woman in America, I might not have opportunities out of the middle if she wasn't intentional about creating them.
（令我幸运的是，我妈明白有些事情很重要，就是我现在所处的位置不是我的目的地。作为一个前 研究 图书馆员和一个教育工作者，我妈妈知道我有能力去完成更多事情。但是他也知道因为我是一个年轻的美国黑人女孩，我可能不会有机会从中间人群中脱颖而出如果她不刻意创造机会的话。）
02:24
So she moved me to a different school. She signed me up for leadership activities in my neighborhood. And she began to talk to me more seriously about college and career options I could aspire to. My mother's formula for getting me out of the middle was pretty simple. She started with high expectations. She made it her business to figure out how to set me up for success. She held me accountable and, along the way, she convinced me that I had the power to create my own story. That formula didn't just help me get out of my seventh grade slump -- I used it later on in New York City, when I was working with kids who had a lot of potential, but not a lot of opportunities to go to and complete college.
（ 所以他将我转学到另外一个学校，她为我报名参加社区的领导活动，并且她开始更认真的和我谈论我可以渴望的学校和职业选择。我妈妈将我从中坚人群中走出的方法非常简单。她从一个高的期望开始。她把如果让我成功当做自己的事业。她让我负起责任，于此同时，她说服我说我有能力去创造我自己的故事。这个方法不但帮助我走出了7年级的低谷。我后来在纽约城也使用了他它，当我和很多有潜能，但是没有很多机会去上和完成大学的孩子一起工作时。）
03:26
You see, high-performing students tend to have access to additional resources, like summer enrichment activities, internships and an expansive curriculum that takes them out of the cla***oom and into the world in ways that look great on college applications. But we're not providing those kinds of opportunities for everyone. And the result isn't just that some kids miss out. I think we, as a society, miss out too.
（你知道，表现优秀的同学趋向于获得额外的资源，比如夏季的充实活动、 实习和一个广阔的课程，把他们带出教室，走向世界，这些经历在大学申请时非常占优。但我们没有向每个人提供这样的机会，结果不止导致一些孩子掉队了，我认为作为一个社会，也掉队了。 ）
03:59
You see, I've got a crazy theory about the folks in the middle. I think there are some unclaimed winning lottery tickets in the middle. I think the cure for cancer and the path to world peace might very well reside there. Now, as a former middle school teacher, I'm not saying that magically everyone is suddenly going to become an A student. But I also believe that most folks in the middle are capable of a lot more. And I think people stay in the middle because that's where we relegated them to and, sometimes, that's just where they're kind of chilling while they figure things out.
（你知道，我有一个关于中间人的疯狂理论。我想这里有很多无人认领的彩票在中间人群。我认为癌症的治疗和事业的和平很可能就在这里。现在，作为一个前中学老师，我不是说每个人都会神奇的立马成为a类学生。但我认为处于中间的大多数人能够做的更多。同时我认为人们处于中间是因为我们把他们降级于此，并且很多时候，中间地带只是人们思考人生是喜欢冷静的地方）
04:42
All of our journeys are made up of a series of rest stops, accelerations, losses and wins. We have a responsibility to make sure that one's racial, gender, cultural and socioeconomic identity is never the reason you didn't have access out of the middle.
（我们所有的旅途都是由一系列休息、加速、损失和获得组成的。我们有责任去确保一个人的种族，性别，文化和社会身份永远不会是你不能跳出中间人群的原因。）
05:07
So, just as my mother did with me, I began with high expectations with my young people. And I started with a question. I stopped asking kids, "Hey, do you want to go to college?" I started asking them, "What college would you like to attend?" You see, the first question --
（所以，就像我妈妈对我的那样，我开始对年轻人有更高的期待，我从一个问题开始，我不再问孩子们你是否想要去上大学，我开始问他们，你想上哪一个大学。如你所见，第一个问题。。。）
05:28
(Applause)
（掌声）
05:33
The first question leaves a lot of vague possibilities open. But the second question says something about what I thought my young people were capable of. On a basic level, it assumes that they're going to graduate from high school successfully. It also assumed that they would have the kinds of academic records that could get them college and university admissions. And I'm proud to say that the high expectations worked. While black and Latinx students nationally tend to graduate from college in six years or less, at a percent of 38, we were recognized by the College Board for our ability not to just get kids into college but to get them through college.
（第一个问题留下了很多模糊的不确性。但是第二个问题说了一些我认为年轻人有能力做的事情。在基本层面，这句话假定他们能够成功从高中毕业。它也同时假设他们的学业成绩能够获得大学录取通知书。我可以很自豪的说高期待奏效了，虽然全国的黑人和拉丁裔学生在6年或者更短的时间从大学毕业的比例是38%。我们帮助学生进入大学和帮助他们顺利毕业的能力得到了美国大学理事会的认可。）
06:25
(Applause)
（掌声）
06:31
But I also understand that high expectations are great, but it takes a little bit more than that. You wouldn't ask a pastry chef to bake a cake without an oven. And we should not be asking the folks in the middle to make the leap without providing them with the tools, strategies and support they deserve to make progress in their lives.
（但我也知道高期待是好，但是这需要更多的东西。你不能够让一个糕点师傅在没有烤箱的情况下烤蛋糕。并且也不能够要求中间*去飞跃二不提供工具、策略和支持给他们，让他们的生活取得进步。）
06:56
A young woman I had been mentoring for a long time, Nicole, came to my office one day, after her guidance counselor looked at her pretty strong transcript and expressed utter shock and amazement that she was even interested in going to college. What the guidance counselor didn't know was that through her community, Nicole had had access to college prep work, SAT prep and international travel programs. Not only was college in her future, but I'm proud to say that Nicole went on to earn two master's degrees after graduating from Purdue University.
（妮可，一个我长期辅导的女人，有一天来到我的办公室，就在他的指导顾问看到他优异的成绩，并对他上大学产生了兴趣表现出极度惊讶和震惊之后。指导顾问不知道的是，通过他的社区，妮可可以参加大学预科、SAT预科和大学旅行项目。她的未来不止有大学，我很自豪的说，妮可从普渡大学毕业后又获得了两个硕士学位。）
07:39
(Applause)
（鼓掌）
07:45
We also made it our business to hold our young people accountable, but also to instill a sense of accountability in those young people to themselves, to each other, to their families and their communities. We doubled down on asset-based youth development. We went on leadership retreats and did high ropes courses and low ropes courses and tackled life's biggest questions together. The result was that the kids really bought into the notion that they were accountable for achieving these college degrees. It was so gratifying to see the kids calling each other and texting each other to say, "Hey, why are you late for SAT prep?" And, "What are you packing for the college tour tomorrow?"
（我们的工作是教导年轻人负责，灌输责任感给这些年轻人，让每一个人对自己、家人和社区负责。我们加倍重视基于资产的青年人成长。我们参加领导力静修课程，参加高绳课程和低绳课程，一起应对生活中的最大问题。结果是这些孩子真的接受了他们有责任去获得大学学位的观念。我们非常振奋的看孩子们打电话和发短信说：嗨，为什么你的SAT备考迟了那么久，和你为明天的大学参观准备了什么东西。）
08:41
We really worked to kind of make college the thing to do. We began to create programs on college campuses and events that allow young people to really visualize themselves as college students and college graduates. Me and my staff rocked our own college gear and had lots of fun, healthy competition about whose school was better than whose. The kids really bought into it, and they began to see that something more was possible for their lives. Not only that -- they could look around at that college-going community and see kids who came from the same backgrounds and the same neighborhoods and who were aspiring to the same things.
（我们真的努力让上大学成为一件可以实现的事。我们开始在大学校园里创建项目和活动，让年轻人真的把自己想象成的大学生和大学毕业生，我们穿着大学装备，玩的开心，就谁的学校比谁好展开健康有趣的竞争。孩子们真的乐于其中。并且开始看到人生中更多的可能性。不仅仅如此，他们可以观察进大学社群，看到那些来自相同背景和街区，具有同样抱负的孩子们。）
09:30
That sense of belonging was really key, and it showed up in a remarkable, beautiful way one day when we were in the Johannesburg airport, waiting to go through customs on our way to Botswana for a service learning trip. I saw a group of kids kind of huddled in a circle. Usually, with teens, that means something's going on.
（那种归属感真的非常重要，有一天，它以非凡美妙的方式出现了，当我们在约翰里斯堡机场，等待通过海关前往 Botswana的服务学习之旅。我看到一群孩子挤成一圈，通常对于十多岁的孩子，这意味着发生了什么。）
09:52
(Laughter)
（笑声）
09:54
So I kind of walked up behind the kids to figure out what they were talking about. They were comparing passport stamps.
（所以我特意走到孩子后面想弄清楚他们在讨论什么。他们在比较护照上的盖戳。）
10:02
(Laughter)
（笑声）
10:03
And they were dreaming out loud about all the other countries they planned to visit in the future. And seeing these young people from New York City go on to not just become college students but to participate in study abroad programs and to then take jobs around the world was incredibly gratifying.
（他们大声的梦想着未来要去的其他国家。看到这些来自纽约的年轻人不仅仅努力成为大学生，并且在参加海外的项目，然后在全球工作，确实鼓舞人心）
10:27
When I think of my kids and all the doctors, lawyers, teachers, social workers, journalists and artists who came from our little nook in New York City, I hate to think of what would have happened if we hadn't invested in the middle. Just think about all that their communities and the world would have missed out on.
（当我想到我的孩子们，还有所有的一声，律师，教师，社会职员，记者和艺术家，想到他们都来自纽约的小角落。我不愿去想如果我们不投资中间人群会发生什么，只是想想他们的社区和世界将会错过的一切。）
10:52
This formula for the middle doesn't just work with young people. It can transform our organizations as well. We can be more bold in coming up and articulating a mission that inspires everyone. We can authentically invite our colleagues to the table to come up with a strategy to meet the mission. We can give meaningful feedback to folks along the way, and -- and sometimes most importantly -- make sure that you're sharing credit for everyone's contributions.
（这个针对中间人群的方法不止对年轻人有效。它也会改变我们的组织。我们可以更大胆去倡导和阐明一个使命，激励每一个人。我们可以真诚地邀请我们的同事参加会议，一起谋划实现使命的战略。我们可以给途中的人们提供有意义的反馈。并且很多时候更重要的是，确保你在分享每个人的贡献。）
11:33
What happened when my staff aimed high for themselves is that what they were able to do for young people was pretty transformational. And it's been so wonderful to look back and see all of my former colleagues who've gone on to get doctorates and assume leadership roles in other organizations.
（当我的员工把目标定得很高的时候，他们能够为年轻人做的事情是非常具有变革意义的。我回顾过去感觉很好，看到以前所有的同事获得了博士学位并在其它组织中担任领导角色。）
11:56
We have what it takes to inspire and uplift the folks in the middle. We can extend love to the people in the middle. We can challenge our own biases about who deserves a hand-up, and how. We can structure our organizations, communities and institutions in ways that are inclusive and that uphold principles of equity. Because, in the final analysis, what is often mistaken for a period is really just a comma.
（我们有能力激励和提升中间人群，我们可以把爱传播到中间人群中，我们可以挑战自己的偏见，即谁该举手，及如何举手。我们可以以包容和坚持公平原则的方式来构建我们的组织，社区和机构。因为，归根结底，生活没有句号，只有逗号。）
12:36
Thank you.
（谢谢）
12:37
(Applause)
（鼓掌）