One Laptop per Child

向娅宁

A fleeting roadside scene in Lima, Peru, sticks in my mind. A very little girl, perhaps four, stood on a narrow traffic island bisecting a congested thoroughfare amid choking dust, soot, and fumes. With the girl was a woman I took to be her mother. The mother, a street peddler, was unpacking a crate full of something. Around them roared 1970-era buses and battered vehicles, passing below concrete habitations creeping up dismal, denuded hillsides in one of the city’s vast slums. The child was energetically scooping up plastic bags for her mother, her shaggy brown hair flopping forward.
I though of her as I passed through steel gates manned by armed guards at Peru’s Ministry of Education to talk to Oscar Becerra, General Director for Educational Technologies. Peru is poised to deliver 486.500 laptops to its poorest children under the One Laptop per Child program (OLPC). It is the largest such OLPC purchase in the world. I asked Becerra whether children in Lima’s slums would receive the green-and-white machines. “No,” he said, “They are not poor enough.” At first I thought he was making a hard-hearted joke. But he went on to explain that Lima residents generally have electricity and (in theory) access to city services, even Internet cafes. The laptops are headed to 9,000 tiny schools in remote regions in the Andes, an arduous 12-hour bus ride over rocky roads southeast of Lima, and villages in the Amazon region, days away. By the standards of children in those areas, the girl on the traffic island enjoyed enviable opportunity.
在秘鲁首都利马, 一段在马路上快速闪过的镜头却一直萦绕在我的心头. 那是一个大约4岁的小女孩, 站在那狭小的安全岛上, 安全岛两边挤满了车,将她包围在了呛人的灰尘烟雾之中. 站在小女孩旁边的我想应该是她的妈妈, 一个街头小贩, 正在打开一个装满东西的柳条框. 上个世纪70年代生产的巴士和其他破旧的车辆从她们身边呼哮而过.道路的四周是荒凉的且光秃秃的山坡, 遍布其上的水泥楼房是利马最大的贫民窟. 小女孩起劲地弯下身子帮妈妈掏出塑料袋, 她那蓬松的棕发猛得向前滑去.
当我还想着她时, 我的车穿过了秘鲁教育部那扇有持枪保安把守的的铁门. 我是来见奥斯卡.贝斯拉先生的,秘鲁教育部负责教育技术的主管. 秘鲁将展开 “每个孩子一台手提电脑”的计划, 即将486500台手提电脑发到最穷困的孩子手中.这也是OLPC全球最大的项目.我问贝斯拉在利马贫民窟里的孩子们能否得到这么一台绿白双色的电脑. 他回答说: “不行, 他们还不够穷”. 起初我以为他是在狠着心说一个笑话.但是他又接着解释道, 一般说来利马居民都是可以享受电力的, 并且(理论上来说)还能享受社会服务, 甚至能进网吧. 而这些手提电脑主要是面向9000个小型学校的, 他们分布在安第斯山脉的偏远地区(乘巴士从利马出发,需要沿东南面崎岖山路熬12个小时才能到)和亚马逊地区的村落(需要好几天才能到).和那些地方的孩子比起来, 在安全岛上的小女孩已算是拥有让他们 “羡慕不已”的机会了..

背景知识:
“每个孩子一台手提电脑” (One Laptop per Child, 简称OLPC) 是个旨在通过提供廉价笔记本电脑, 帮助发展中国家儿童享受信息化时代教育的慈善计划. 在秘鲁, 超过48万台手提电脑正被送往世界最穷困的地方, 为部分全球受教育水平最低的孩子带来全新的学习体验.

Cinderella