The petition appeared on a Monday, taped to the noticeboard outside the history room. It asked the school to remove the bronze statue in the courtyard, a man in a long coat who had founded the school in 1921. The petition gave three reasons: the founder had also been a landlord; the statue's plaque described him only as a benefactor; and the courtyard was the only place students could sit at lunch. By Wednesday, it had ninety signatures.
请愿书是星期一出现的，贴在历史教室外的公告栏上。它要求学校移走院子里的铜像，一个穿长外套的男人，一九二一年创办了这所学校。请愿书给了三条理由：这位创办人同时也是地主；铜像的铭牌只称他为“捐资人”；院子是学生午饭时唯一能坐的地方。到星期三，上面有九十个签名。
Jing, who chaired the history club, thought the petition was careless. Rui, who had written it, thought the statue was careless. They were friends, which made the argument worse. In the club meeting, Jing said that the founder had given the land on which the school stood, and that removing him would be a way of refusing to understand the past. Rui said that understanding the past was exactly the reason to take him down.
历史社社长静觉得这份请愿很轻率。写请愿的睿觉得那座铜像很轻率。他们是朋友，这让争论更糟。社团会上，静说创办人捐出了校址所在的地，移走他就是拒绝理解过去。睿说，理解过去，恰恰是把他移走的理由。
Our teacher, Ms. Han, listened to both and then did something infuriating. She asked us to write down, separately, the facts, the values, and the predictions. "You are not disagreeing about facts," she said. "You are disagreeing about which facts matter and what should follow from them. Until you can say which, you are only shouting with good grammar."
韩老师听完两边，然后做了一件让人恼火的事。她让我们分开写下事实、价值和预测。“你们争的不是事实，”她说，“你们争的是哪些事实重要、以及该从中推出什么。在你们能说清是哪一种之前，你们只是用正确的语法在喊。”
The three columns were harder than they looked. Under facts, we agreed on almost everything: the founder's name, the year, the land transfer, the rents he had collected from tenants in the same decade, the plaque's wording, the number of benches in the courtyard. Under values, we disagreed immediately. Jing valued continuity and the school's obligation to its own history. Rui valued honesty and the equal claim of every student to a place to sit.
三栏比看上去难。事实栏里，我们几乎什么都一致：创办人的名字、年份、土地转让、他在同一个十年里向租户收的租、铭牌上的措辞、院子里长椅的数量。价值栏里，我们立刻分歧。静看重延续，看重学校对自己历史的义务。睿看重诚实，看重每个学生坐下来吃饭的平等权利。
The predictions were stranger still. Jing predicted that removal would make the school forget the man entirely, and that forgetting was not justice. Rui predicted that keeping the statue unchanged would teach students that wealth excuses everything, and that a new plaque would be read by no one. Both predictions were guesses. Neither of us had evidence, and we discovered that we had been presenting guesses as though they were facts.
预测栏更奇怪。静预测，移走会让学生彻底忘掉这个人，而遗忘不是正义。睿预测，原样保留会教学生财富可以抵消一切，而新铭牌没人会读。两个预测都是猜的。我们都没有证据，而我们发现自己一直把猜测当成事实在陈述。
Ms. Han asked us to swap columns and argue the other side. Jing had to write Rui's case; Rui had to write Jing's. It was the most useful homework of the year, and the least enjoyable. When Rui read Jing's version of her argument, she went quiet, not because it was wrong, but because it was better than hers.
韩老师让我们交换栏目，替对方辩护。静要写睿的论点；睿要写静的。这是那年最有用的作业，也是最不愉快的。睿读静替她写的版本时，安静了很久——不是因为它是错的，而是因为它比她自己写的更好。
In the end we presented together, which surprised the club. Our recommendation was to keep the statue and change the courtyard: a second plaque with the rents and the tenants, benches along the south wall, and a small archive in the library where the petition and the founder's letters could sit side by side. It was a compromise, and we said so. It did not satisfy everyone, including, on some days, us.
最后我们一起做了陈述，这让社团很意外。我们的建议是保留铜像，改变院子：加一块第二铭牌，写上租金和租户；南墙加长椅；图书馆设一个小档案角，把请愿书和创办人的信件放在一起。这是一个折中，我们也这么说了。它没有让所有人满意，包括有些日子里的我们自己。
The head teacher approved the benches and the archive and postponed the plaque for a year. Rui called the postponement a defeat; Jing called it a process. They were both describing the same decision, which was, Ms. Han pointed out, the whole point of the exercise. At the assembly, we said one sentence each. Rui said the facts had not changed her mind. Jing said they had changed his.
校长批准了长椅和档案角，把铭牌推迟一年。睿说推迟是失败；静说推迟是过程。他们描述的是同一个决定——韩老师指出，这正是这次练习的意义。在全校集会上，我们各说了一句话。睿说，事实没有改变她的想法。静说，事实改变了他的。
A year later the second plaque was installed, smaller than the first and lower down, where you had to bend to read it. Students sat on the new benches with their backs to the statue. I do not know whether the school became more honest. I know that we learned to say, precisely, where our agreement ended and our argument began, and that this is rarer than either a statue or a petition.
一年后，第二块铭牌装上了，比第一块小，位置更低，要弯腰才读得到。学生坐在新长椅上，背对着铜像。我不知道学校有没有变得更诚实。我知道我们学会了准确地说出：我们的共识到哪里结束，我们的争论从哪里开始；而这比一座铜像或一份请愿都更少见。