美国当地时间4月9日上午，新东方创始人兼董事长俞敏洪受邀在第十届ASU+GSV教育科技峰会主会场发表演讲，演讲主题为“What does Education Mean to Me？”，受到了与会者的关注。

“when we are talking about education, what are we talking about?”现场，俞敏洪从教育的定义出发，通过讲述自己从少年到大学受教育的过程，以及在北大任教和创办新东方的经历，阐释了家庭教育、学校教育等不同阶段的教育如何成就了今天的自己，自己又如何理解教育真正的目标和意义。在他看来，好的教育的标准是世界共通的。

在国内，很多人对于俞敏洪的奋斗经历已经耳熟能详，而在国际的舞台上，这些励志故事依旧有着打动人心的力量。当他谈到通过努力，自己第三次高考终于考上北京大学时，收获了台下最热烈的掌声。俞敏洪阐述的很多教育理念和思考，也引发了现场观众的共鸣。

此外，俞敏洪在演讲中也总结了新东方在四个发展阶段的不同使命，他认为像新东方这样的教育机构，必须有为国家和社会服务的能力。当下新东方发展的任务不仅是培养学生独立思考的能力，良好的个性，扎实的知识和创造力。更重要的是赋予学生终身学习、全球视野、独立人格和社会责任方面的能力，探索和开展“全人教育”。而未来，新东方希望能够成为中国和世界优秀教育内容、系统和学习平台的集成者，提供从学前教育到终身教育的高科技产品，并不断推动中国教育的均衡发展。

演讲最后，俞敏洪还提出了自己未来要关注和实现的四个目标，一是为中国儿童的“全人教育”和全面发展做出贡献；二是在家庭教育方面多做些工作；三是为科技与教育的结合做出贡献；四是更多帮助农村儿童获得更好的教育。他透露，今年计划到贫困地区的一所农村高中担任名誉校长，将注入新东方最优质的教育资源，开启一段助力教育均衡的“试验”。

以下为经整理后的俞敏洪英文演讲全文，附中文翻译。

Distinguished friends, Ladies and Gentlemen, Good morning.

尊敬的朋友们，女士们，先生们，早上好。

Today I come here to introduce a bit about New Oriental , a bit about me and a bit about education. I think most of you here are doing something for education. But education is the one of the most difficult things to define. If we say hospital is a place to cure people’s disease, and medicine is for the goodness and health of the people. But when we are talking about education, what are we talking about? When we look for it in the dictionary, we’ll find that the definition is very vague, “education is a process of being educated”. And when we find what’s “being educated”, “being educated is a process of education”. So what does that mean?

今天我来这里为大家介绍一下新东方，我自己，以及教育。我想在座的大多数人都在为教育做些事情。但教育是最难定义的事情之一。比如说医院是治疗人们疾病的地方，药品是对人们健康有益的东西。但是，当我们谈到教育时，我们在谈论什么呢？我们在字典中寻找它的含义时，我们会发现它的定义非常模糊，“教育是一个受教育的过程”。当我们查询什么是“受教育”时，会发现字典的解释是“受教育就是一个教育的过程”。那么，教育的定义到底是什么？

So human being have made great progress. From Aristotle’s time, He insisted that the earth is the center of the universe. And then, the Copernicus came into being, he said that he sun is the center of the universe. And then we came to the Natural law of Newton. And then we came to the theory of relativity by Einstein. So every step of the way we are making progress, we are understanding the world more and more. Coming back to us today is still full of ignorance and stupidity. We are not making much more progress in humanity as a human being. Sometimes, we still insist some wrong ideas in our mind. So what is all education about. Education has existed almost three thousand years. About more than two thousand years ago, we already have those wise people like Plato, like Aristotle, like Confucius, like Buddha, like Jesus, a lot so wise people in this world. But today we are still talking about education. We are still trying to understand what we can do for us, what we can do for our generations, how can we make the world a better place to live in, How can we at most understand each other but not killing each other. That is what we want to do.

我们知道，人类已经取得了很大的进步。从亚里士多德的时代起，他坚持地球是宇宙的中心。然后，哥白尼诞生了，他说太阳是宇宙的中心。然后我们有了牛顿的自然定律。后来我们又有了爱因斯坦的相对论。因此，在我们前进的每一步中，我们对世界的理解越来越多。回到今天，当今的世界仍然充满了无知和愚昧。有时候，我们的头脑中仍然坚持一些错误的观念，所以教育的内涵到底是什么？教育已有近三千年的历史。大约两千多年前，我们已经有了像柏拉图、亚里士多德、孔子、佛陀、耶稣这样的智者，在这个世界上有很多如此聪明的人。但今天我们仍在讨论教育问题。我们仍在努力理解我们能为我们自己做些什么，我们能为我们的后代做些什么，我们怎样才能让世界变得更美好，我们如何互相了解而不是互相伤害。这就是我们想做的。

I want to take myself as an example. First and foremost, I want to talk about my mother. Everyone has a guide in his or her journey in education. In fact, my mother is a peasant. She cannot read. The immediate question one may ask is: since your mom is illiterate, how can she educate you? What I want to say is that, as a mom, she wants her children to become someone with a promising future. In order for her children to have a good future, she set goals for them. And, that’s exactly what my mom did to me. Because in China, life as a peasant can be very hard. Generations after generations, peasants’ toils in the fields with back-breaking hard labour. My mom didn’t want me to live a peasant life, instead she wanted me to be a teacher. In her mind at the time, that means a teacher in a village. Since ancient times in China, there has been a tradition of respecting teachers. Teachers don’t have to do farm work, and often people in the neighborhood give teachers food to eat. So, my mom always thought teachers were well respected. So, she wanted me to be a teacher when I grew up. When I was young, she asked me to read as much as I could, even though she was unable to read herself.  From the age of four or five, I remembered she never bought me a toy, but palm-sized comic books -- that’s how I started my own life in reading from the age of four or five.