Deep among the streams and Kauri trees of rural south Auckland, New Zealand’s newest and most alternative school is in session. The weather is fine so a bout of fishing is in order, followed by lunch cooked on an open fire. Homework and classes? Indefinitely dismissed.
在南奥克兰乡间的溪流边和贝壳杉树下，新西兰最新最另类的学校正在“上课”。天气很好，所以学生们将会去钓鱼，接着大家会在野外生火做午饭。作业和听课呢？无限期取消了。
“We are called a school but we look nothing like any school out there,” says Joey Moncarz, co-founder and head teacher at Deep Green Bush School, which is in term two of its inaugural year.深绿丛林学校的联合创始人、校长乔伊?蒙卡兹说：“我们名为学校，但一点也不像其他学校。”现在是学校创办以来的第二学期。“We don’t do things like telling kids it is time to write or learn maths. When they are interested in doing it, they do it.”“我们不会告诉孩子该写字或该学数学了。当他们感兴趣的时候，他们就会去学。”Moncarz is an ex-mainstream teacher. After five frustrating years in mainstream schools in New Zealand he quit to found Deep Green Bush school, which has a roll of eight, and no classroom walls, time-out chairs or tests.蒙卡兹以前也是一个主流学校的老师。在新西兰的主流学校里待了五年后他觉得很灰心，于是就辞职创办了深绿丛林学校。这个学校只有八名学生，没有教室，没有罚坐椅，也没有考试。Concerned that mainstream schools were not preparing children for the global problems of the future – such as climate change – Moncarz envisioned a radically different kind of education, rooted in the primal skills of hunting, gathering and survival.由于担心主流学校没有指导孩子为将来的全球性问题——比如气候变化——做好准备，蒙卡兹设想出了一种截然不同的教育，这种教育基于打猎、觅食和生存等原始技能。If the weather allows, pupils spend the majority of their day outdoors, exploring the New Zealand bush, learning to fish and hunt, trapping possums (which are considered a pest) and learning about the flora and fauna of their home.如果天气允许的话，学生大半天都会在户外活动，探索新西兰的丛林，学习钓鱼和打猎，抓捕负鼠（负鼠被认为是害畜），学习了解自家附近的动植物。The more traditional school skills, such as reading, writing and arithmetic, are acquired at their own pace, after they begin showing an interest in them. Not, says Moncarz, when the teacher dictates it is time to learn.至于那些更传统的学校技能，比如阅读、写作和算术，学生将在产生兴趣之后，按照自己的节奏来学习。而不是由老师来发号施令说该学习了，蒙卡兹说道。“We don’t have what you’d traditionally consider problem kids,” says Moncarz.蒙卡兹说：“我们没有人们传统意义上认为的问题小孩。”“Our parents saw their kids were unhappy and stressed in mainstream education and they started questioning; is it normal or right for kids to come home stressed and unhappy? Having taught in a mainstream school, I’d say most kids are stressed and unhappy.”“我们学校的家长看见他们的孩子在主流学校里不快乐，压力也很大，于是他们开始质疑：孩子们每天回家时都压力重重、不开心，这难道是正常的、是对的吗？因为我自己就在主流学校里教过书，所以我敢说大部分孩子都有压力，都不快乐。”Bush school is registered with the Ministry of Education as an independent school, and therefore does not have to abide by the standard New Zealand curriculum, although it is subject to ministerial oversight.丛林学校在教育部登记为私立学校，因此不必按新西兰标准课程来教，不过它也要接受教育部的监督。Loosely inspired by the Sudbury Valley School in the US, which in turn was inspired by A.S Neill’s Summerhill school in the UK, since launching in January Moncarz has been fielding requests from around New Zealand and abroad to open chapters of Bush School in places as far afield as China and Europe.
这所学校是受到美国瑟谷学校的启发，而瑟谷学校又是受到英国AS奈尔夏山学校的启发。自从一月份建校以来，蒙卡兹就不断收到新西兰各地和国外请求开立丛林学校分校的请求，这其中也有来自中国和欧洲的请求。Dr David Berg, a senior lecturer in education at the University of Otago, says there is a growing precedent for alternative “bush” schools worldwide, especially in Scandinavia, where some kindergarten children go ice-fishing during the school day.奥塔哥大学教育系的高级讲师戴维?伯格博士说，世界各地和丛林学校类似的先锋学校越来越多，尤其是在斯堪的纳维亚，那里有些幼儿园的孩子在教学日去冰上钓鱼。Moncarz insists that the school isn’t an “experiment” in education, and is based on two million years of evidence of how parents have raised their kids, at one with nature.蒙卡兹坚称，这所学校并不是教育上的“实验”，而是基于200万年来父母养育孩子的自然经验。“We don’t want to be one of a kind, we want to replace mainstream schools,” said Moncarz.蒙卡兹说：“我们不想做独一无二的学校，我们想替代主流学校。”“We are using the same wisdom parents have used to teach their kids for millions of years. Locking kids in a classroom and forcing them to learn just causes a lot of problems.”“我们用的是数百万年来父母教育孩子的智慧。把孩子关在教室里，强迫他们学习只会导致很多问题。”