Answer the following questions. Functional vocabulary

 

1. What do you learn about the names independent schools and public schools?

2. What changes have taken place in public school life?

3. What is said about the curriculum, especially in relation to classics, sports, science and computers?

4. Do you get the impression that academic success is still important or not?

5. What is said about discipline?

6. To what extent are public schools involved with the local community and with the rest of the world at large?

 

Reading three

 

An alternative in education – the City-as-School – has been started in New York , USA . Below is an article about the school. Before you read it, try to predict from the name, what kind of schooling it might provide and discuss your ideas with the rest of the class. Read the article to find out how accurate your predictions were.

 

 

T he City-as-School

 

The City-as-School idea itself is not new but the New York programme is generally recognised as being the most successful of its kind.

Three hundred and fifty high school students between 15 and 18 attend the City-as-School: it's a school without walls and its classroom is the city itself. Students spend their days in the theatres, museums, government offices and businesses of New York in a programme of part-time apprenticeships that are individually tailored to their interests and needs.

Pam Bruno, 16, for example, spends part of her time in the City Council press office, finding out about New York politics as she helps prepare press releases and assists in the running of the office. Another day is spent at New York University where she takes first year courses in sociology and main themes in contemporary world history. She also works for a Women’s Centre, travelling about the City interviewing women in business for a report that’s soon to be published. Yet another day is spent at a television casting agency, learning what show business is all about.

Students are accepted into City-as-School after an interview; the only academic requirement is two years of basic mathematics and science at a high school.

Credits are given, for satisfactory completion of each assignment, so that the students stand as good a chance of getting into an American college as their counterparts in ordinary high schools. In fact it was shown recently that 80–85 per cent of CAS graduates are going on to college without problems.

As might be expected, many of the CAS students are young people who, for one reason or another, were unhappy with conventional education. Pam Bruno dropped out of the conventional system because she was bored: “I felt stifled by an educational system that didn’t seem to care about me. I was jut a number.”

 

The New York City-as-School is viewed as a useful alternative way of dealing with these final and often troublesome school years. There are, however, still some lingering doubts as to whether this kind of life experience can totally replace the academic development acquired in a classroom.

Alan Mathews. Themes. 1992

 

Functional vocabulary

counterpart n	зд. человек, занимающий аналогичное положение
credit n	зд. зачет, удостоверение о прохождении какого-л. курса в учебном заведении
linger v	медлить, засиживаться (on, over – над чем-л.); задерживаться
stifle v	душить, задыхаться
scrape through v (school, college)	с трудом закончить (школу, колледж)
tailor to v	зд. приспосабливать, изменять для определенной цели

 

 

Language focus

Find in the text the word or words which have a similar meaning to the following.

– to make sth suitable for a particular purpose by changing the details;

– to leave an institution without finishing a course or task;

– a period of time when a person gains experience in a particular area of activity or work;

– a document about a successful completion of a part of a higher education course.

 

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