A Adults/Teachers: educational goals

To broaden/deepen smb’s outlook/scope/knowledge

To be a (one’s) guide/guardian

To be concerned with/in charge of/to have the charge of the educational development of children

To educate/to bring up/to raise the younger generation

To maintain a correct sense of values

To mould somebody’s character/personality/a worthy person

To nurture/to cultivate/to bring out personal truthfulness, generosity, compassion

 

Adults/Teachers:

 

Desirable qualities	Efficient behaviour and success	Establishing order and discipline
Affectionate	To act wisely	To assert/establish one’s authority
Amiable	To afford smb freedom/privacy	To bring smb before the school-board/the form meeting
Artistic	To capture smb’s attention	To detain the wrong doer after class
Benevolent	To coax/cajole/talk smb into/out of doing smth	To forbid smb to do smth
Broad-minded	To excite/evoke/stimulate interest	To lecture smb
Competent	To establish/create a mood/a business-like atmosphere	To maintain/keep up/establish discipline/order
Consistent	To develop/encourage/welcome smb’s inquisitiveness	To notify one’s parents
Creative	To direct smb’s energy/ideas/inquisitiveness/creativity/vigour into constructive/noble/the right channels	To pass over petty/minor offences
Cultivated	To find a way with somebody	To report to the Head-teacher
Cultured	To gain respect/affection/confidence	To reprimand smb/smb’s behaviour
Efficient	To get adjusted to	To show smb/to make smb see who’s boss
Enthusiastic	To have all makings of a teacher/to be cut out for teaching	To send the wrong-doer away from the lesson
Exacting	To have confidence in somebody	To sentence the wrong-doer to some work
Flexible	To handle smb gently and subtly	To set one’s class in order
Generous	To involve smb in work/purposeful activity	To summon the wrong-doer’s parents to the school
Honest	To impart knowledge	To take firm action
Impartial	To provide an incentive for creativity/learning	To take smb in hand
Intelligent	To outweigh the evil of the outside world/damaging unfavourable influences/surroundings/environment	To take up a firm attitude from the very beginning
Inventive	To put up with smb/smth	To tell somebody off
Lenient	To reason with smb
Patient	To show flexibility and impartiality/adequate response/understanding/respect/consideration
Proficient	To take a different line of behaviour
Prudent	To treat with respect/trust/confidence
Punctual	To welcome smb under the school roof
Resourceful	To win love/respect/affection/confidence
Reasonable Sensible	To work/to do wonders/magic/miracles
Responsible	To imbue smb with love
Self-sacrificing
Sympathetic
Tactful
Tolerant
Well-read
Witty

 

Undesirable qualities	Inefficient behaviour and failure
Unreasonable	To fall in one’s duty
Incompetent	To neglect/corrupt/spoil smb
Devoid of pedagogical ability	To give too much rope
Inefficient	To damage/hamper/hinder (the development of smb’s personality)
Uncultured	To overindulge smb’s desires/whims
Narrow-minded	To lavish smb with creature comforts/praise
Shallow	To pamper/to baby/to make too much of smb
Uninspiring	To be too lenient/peremtory
Negligent	To give too much rope
Intolerant	To play right into smb’s hand
Impatient	To shield smb from life
Imprudent	To be too much of a dictator
Tactless	To use parental pressure/ strict supervision
Inconsistent	To deny smb’s freedom/independence
Dishonest	To use corporal punishment
Unpunctual	To punish/smack/spank/beat/cane smb severely
Irresponsible	To rap on one’s knuckles
Unresponsive	To extract obedience through fear/threat/scaring/mistreat
Callous	To be hard on smb
Irritable	To humiliate/to hurt one’s feelings
Arrogant	To make a fuss about a trifle
Resentful	To find fault with
Hostile	To speak down to smb
Permissive	To give smb a dressing down
(Over)indulgent	To take one’s irritation out on smb
Over-strict	To lose touch with/alienate from/embitter smb
Over-exacting	To put an ugly creak into smb’s relations
Ill-mannered	To laugh smb/smth off
	To induce cramming

 

& Reading 1

Read the text and comment upon the teacher’s behaviour, using the topical vocabulary.

Assistant Teacher

Ursula was a bright girl of seventeen. She stood in the-near end of the great room. It was her classroom. There was a small high teacher’s desk, some long benches, two high windows in the wall opposite. This was a new world, a new life, with which she was threatened. She sat down at the teacher’s desk. Here she would sit. Here she would realize her dream of being the beloved teacher bringing light and joy to her children! Then she returned to the teachers’ room. There was Mr Harby. The schoolmaster was a short man with a fine head. He took no notice of her. No one took any notice of her.

The first week passed in confusion.She did not know how to teach, and she felt she never would know. Mr Harby sometimes came down to her class, to see what she was doing. She felt so incompetent as he stood by. He said nothing, he made her go on teaching. She felt she had no soul in her body. The class was his class. She was only a substitute. He was hated. But he was master. Though she was gentle and always considerate of her class, yet they belonged to Mr Harby, and did not belong to her. He kept all power to himself. And in school it was power, and power alone that mattered.

Then she began to hate him. All the other teachers hated him, for he was master of them and the children.

So she taught on. She was getting used to the surroundings, though she was still a foreigner in herself.

“If I were you, Miss Brangwen, ” Mr. Brunt, one of the teachers told her once, “I should get a bit tighter hand over my class. Because they’ll get you down if you don’t tackle them pretty quick.

“Oh, but —“

“Harby will not help you. This is what he’ll do — he’ll let you go on, getting worse and worse, till either you clear out or he clears you out.”

“You have to keep order if you want to teach, ” said another teacher.

As the weeks passed on, there was no Ursula Brangwen, free and cheerful. There was only a girl of that name who could not manage her class of children. She did not tell anybody how horrible she found it to be a schoolteacher.

The headmaster only wanted her gone. His system, which was his very life in school, was attacked and threatened at the point where Ursula was included. She was the danger. And he decided to get rid of her.

When he punished one of her children for an offence against himself, he made the punishment very heavy. When he punished for an offence against her, he punished lightly, as if offences against her were not important. All the children knew this, and they behaved accordingly.

This was coming up to a crisis. While he punished the class, he made her the cause of the punishment and her class began to pay her back with disobedience. And one evening, as she went home, they threw stones at her. Because of the darkness she could not see who were those that threw. But she did not want to know.

Only in her soul a change took place. Never more would she give herself as individual to her class. Never would she, Ursula Brangwen, come into contact with those boys. She was going to fight.

She knew by now her enemies in the class. The one she hated most was Williams. He was a sort of defective, not bad enough to be so classified. Once he had thrown an inkwell at her, twice he had run home out of class. He was a well-known character.

During the geography lesson, as she was standing at the map with the cane, the boy did everything to attract the attention of other boys.

“Williams, ” she said, gathering her courage, “what are you doing? ”

“Nothing, ” he replied, feeling a triumph. Ursula turned to the map again, to go on with the geography lesson.

“Please Miss” — called a voice. She turned round.

“Please Miss, Williams has nipped me.”

“Come in front, Williams, ” she said. The rat-like boy sat with his pale smile and did not move.

“Come in front, ” she repeated.

“I shan’t, “ he cried, rat-like.

Something broke in Ursula’s soul. She took her cane from the desk, and brought it down on him. He was twisting and kicking. She saw his white face, with eyes like the eyes of a fish, stony, yet full of hate and fear. She brought down the cane again and again. A few times, madly, he kicked her. But again the cane broke him, he fell down and lay on the floor like a beaten animal.

“Get up, ” she said. He stood up slowly. “Go and stand by the radiator.” As if mechanically, he went.

“If you do the same with Clarke and Lewis, Miss Brangwen, you’ll be all right, ” said Mr Brunt after the lesson.

The next morning Williams came to school, looking paler than ever, very neat and nicely dressed. He looked at Ursula with a half smile, ready to do as she told him.

Now Ursula did not send her children to the headmaster for punishment. She took the cane, and struck the boy over head and hands. And at last, they were afraid of her, she had them in order.

But she had paid a great price out of her own soul, to do this. Sometimes she felt as if she would go mad. She did not want to see them beaten and broken. She did not want to hurt them. Yet she had to. Oh why, why had she accepted his cruel system? Why had she become a schoolteacher, why, why?

(After The Rainbow by D. H. Lawrence)

 

Answer the questions:

1) What was Ursula’s dream? 2) How did the schoolmaster treat Ursula? 3) What were the relations between Mr Harby and his pupils (and the teachers of the school)? 4) Could Ursula manage her class? 5) Why did the schoolmaster decide to get rid of Ursula? 6) How did the schoolmaster make the boys hate Ursula? 7) Why did Ursula have to accept the schoolmaster’s system?

 

B Youngsters: Desirable qualities

 

Mature	To be well-brought up
Inquisitive	To look up to smb/one’s elders
Inventive	To have to share duties/chores
Resourceful	To go one’s way
Truthful	To work out one’s problems
Self-reliant	To segregate into groups
Sensitive	To assert oneself
Sympathetic	To strive/long for a separate existence
Amiable	Self-assertion/self-expression
Sociable	To test out adults/one’s teacher
Gregarious	To have/show respect for smb/smth
Respectful	To develop/form complex skills
Generous	To exhibit one’s native intelligence
Considerate	To show adequate response/understanding
Industrious	To speak one’s mind freely
Diligent	To tolerate the opinions of others
Persevering	To realize one’s gift for smth
Conscientious	To be well read/to read widely
Alert	To seek more and more knowledge
Unselfish	To show initiative
Selfless
Outgoing
Self-directive
Grateful
Obedient

 

Undesirable qualities	Problems of behavior and character
Submissive	To dislike routine work
Unrestrained	To look down on smb
Immature	To have/to develop complexes/ the inferiority
Inactive	To be opposed to authority/ challenge/resist smb’s authority
Sulky	To talk back
Irresponsive	To disobey/distrust/despise/resent smb/smth
Irresponsible	To undermine/break (the) discipline
Fearful	To be/to get out of control/hand
Impudent	To go astray
Inconsistent	To go to extremes
Insolent	To run wild
Willful	To break/defeat smb
Revolting	To fall/lag behind
Misbehaving	To develop acquisitive tendencies/a “want” disease
Unadjusted	To have no sense of decency
Ruthless	To get under one’s skin
Violent	To demonstrate a chilly lack of response
Resentful	To bully smb
Callous	To rag a teacher
Arrogant	To be badly looked after
Unruly	To be neglected
Defiant	To be a real abuse of concern
Hostile	Breach of discipline
Mischievous	Tardiness
Disrespectful	Misbehaviour/misdeed
Ill-mannered	Wrong-doing/offence
Disobedient	Delinquency
Naughty	Rowdyism
	Hanging about
	Pinching

4 Do the following exercises

 

1. Study the vocabulary (pp. 17-22) and arrange the words into chains of synonyms. Comment on the shift of meaning, if any.

2. Arrange the vocabulary into antonyms.

3. Give all possible verbs which can form collocations with the following nouns:

the younger generation; character, personality; personality development; creativity, independent thinking; respect, affection, confidence; authority; wrong-doer; discipline; knowledge.

4. Give English equivalents of the following words and expressions:

наглый, дерзкий, своевольный; снисходительный, потворствующий, потакающий; благожелательный, великодушный, любезный; беспристрастный; рассудительный, благоразумный; общительный; отзывчивый; находчивый, изобретательный; добросовестный, сознательный; сообщить родителям; вызвать родителей в школу; сделать выговор, отругать, дать нагоняй; быть слишком строгим к кому-то; баловать; давать слишком много свободы; прививать любовь; передавать знания; уговорить; нарушение дисциплины, проступок; слоняться без дела; отбиться от рук; вымещать раздражение на ком-то; обижать, задирать; тормозить развитие; побуждать к зубрежке; отставать от одноклассников; самоутверждаться.

5. Read these personality evaluation profiles of different pupils and using the topical vocabulary (see above), give detailed characteristics of your own.

 

Smoky. “Nobody’s going to hurt me now. If they want to treat me O.K., all right, if not, all right. It’s not going to bother me any more. I don’t show any consideration for other people — not as much as I should, I guess —but if they want to be nice to me, I’ll be nice to them. Otherwise, what difference does it make? ” And that is Smoky. He knows he has been hurt; but, if he can help it, he won’t be hurt again. Unfortunately, he cannot help it. He has even less faith in himself than he has in others. He continues to be dependent and unhappy, while he struggles for independence chiefly by taking a negative and defiant attitude toward society. He is known to be openly critical of teachers and other authorities. The boy has none of the accepted standards of conduct.

Shortly after Smoky entered elementary school his parents separated, and since that time he has lived with his mother in the home of her married brother. Some people say: “His aunt and uncle spoiled him.” Others say: “They always expected too much of him. They’ve thought he ought to act like a grown-up ever since he was a kid.” He failed to find in his family the kind of affection and security that he needed, and he is not a strong enough person to face the world and make an adequate adjustment without that security.

Smoky’s academic record in high school is very poor though he is above average in intelligence. His teachers recognize that he has more ability than he makes use of, but their attitude toward him is colored by the fact that he has been a behaviour problem.

Lester. Lester is a rather colourless boy, both in appearance and in personality. He is of average height, neither handsome nor unattractive. There is nothing about his behavior, either negative or positive, that serves to differentiate him to the casual observer. He is shy and passive.

Lester seems to have had considerable affection from his family but not a great deal of guidance and direction. He has a feeling of dependence upon his parents and a feeling of obligation to them.

He is an insignificant member of the school group. But he makes a definite effort to enter into activities and; wants to be friendly. His lack of success in this respect is probably because his peers find him uninteresting. He is not seriously concerned about his poor school achievement, it is not very important to him. He is concerned about his health and his appearance; his relations with the opposite sex; about family financial difficulties.

 

Daniel. “The best thing that could happen to me is to become important in the college or university I hope to go to, ” writes Daniel at the age of sixteen.

He is an ordinary-looking boy. He is one of several children in a middle-class family. His father is a professional man and is said to be “one of the finest men in town.” The family training has been rather strict, and the boy has learned to obey his parents and to depend on them.

He is still very uneasy in the presence of girls. He has difficulty in talking to girls and he does not go out with girls much. For several years Daniel was a Boy Scout, and he spent his free time with three friends of his own age, hunting, fishing, and practising photography. When he realized that he was being left out of the developing social life of his class, Daniel did the characteristic thing. He thought the situation over carefully, and then decided to learn to dance and to make himself take part in social activities. These things he did, with surprising success. He developed his social skills and became one of the leaders of his class.

On tests of intelligence and academic achievement Daniel does extraordinarily well. He likes science and mathematics and plans to become an engineer.

 

Sally. Sally is a pretty girl, very graceful and quick. Her parents haven’t had much education, but they are good intelligent people. They are not active in social life, but it is a friendly family. Sally’s home environment is a permissive one. She is free to go out with boys, to go to movies, to dances, and to parties. She says: “I never was punished, and so I never was afraid of my parents like some of the kids are.” As the girl grows older she shows herself to be more and more independent of her parents. Affection for her family remains, but their authority is gradually weakening.

At school Sally takes part in everything. She and her friends are the leaders in practically all school activities. She has an excellent school record, which is in keeping with her high intelligence. But her main ambition is to make a successful marriage.

In summary, Sally is mature for her age, self-confident and unusually secure in her social relations.

 

 

& Reading 2

Getting Along with Pupils (Part I)

 

You probably have noticed that teachers are talkative. This is not surprising, since teachers need to be communicative in order to enjoy teaching, but it is at the same time unfortunate, for teachers should listen and observe. Epictetus said two thousand years ago that man was given one tongue but two ears so that he might hear from others twice as much as he spoke. This should be the rule for teachers, who necessarily have to listen to pupils in order to know them.

In too many classrooms the teacher is the star performer, probably because he is working under the idea that since he is paid for teaching, he should do all of the work. The teacher’s relation to pupils should be one of direction, and help through a series of planned experiences that have value for the pupils.

It is the teacher’s responsibility to see to it that pupils “catch” positive, constructive feelings and thoughts that will help them in learning. Just as an interested, enthusiastic teacher has an interested, enthusiastic group of pupils, so do problem teachers have problem pupils — the emotional balance of the teacher is more important than his knowledge. Teachers must have optimistic thoughts and emotions to project, since constructive ideas and feelings provide the drive for real achievement, just as negative ideas and feelings retard the development of children.

What weakens the effectiveness of potentially effective teachers is the thought that the main function of the teacher is to discover mistakes and to stop them from the very beginning. Such teachers work in a spirit of constant, criticism; their attention is directed to the negative aspects of the child’s work. A youngster may have in a project or paper ten excellent qualities worthy of comment but the teacher gives a detailed analysis of the one or two weaknesses to be noted. A chronic attitude of faultfinding is as harmful to classroom achievement as it is to any constructive effort, and the teacher who displays it is the most pitiful victim of all.

In happy contrast is the teacher who realizes that mistakes are part of the learning process. The self-confidence of pupils must be built through recognition and development of strong qualifies, with tactful yet persistent attention to mistakes that cause trouble. The situation should be work-centered and free from personality-centered comments and comparisons. No good teacher causes a pupil to “lose face”. In such an atmosphere, pupils are then free to turn their attention to the work at hand in the security that they do not have to defend themselves from the teacher in order to save face with the class, nor do they have to worry about pleasing the teacher. The way to please the teacher is to do the work as well as possible. The teacher, in turn, plans and conducts lessons in such a way that pupils experience success, which helps to keep interest and build confidence.

In addition to responsibilities connected with subject-matter learning, teachers have a guidance function. Take, for example, the matter of health habits. The teacher should discuss health habits with his pupils: proper diet, enough time for sleep, time for recreation, plenty of outdoor exercises, etc.

We should be interested professionally in all matters, which are important to pupils. Take, for example, the matter of failure. It is hard to admit one’s own failure. Yet surely all experienced teachers know that failure, properly used, can be an instructive and constructive force in our lives. The person who really thinks learns quite as much from his failures as from his successes.

The teacher who hopes to feel secure in classroom relations needs a consistent philosophy of life and a few guiding principles in classroom conduct that are clear to pupils. This matter of consistency is of the greatest importance. If a teacher is neurotic or uncertain, or has the kind of open mind which all the winds blow through, he is not the sort of person who can safely handle conflicts and tensions in others.

Certainly there can be no security for a teacher in a situation in which there is no security for the pupils, and there is no security for anyone if there are no guiding principles that all members of the group understand and to which all members obey.

 

4 Do the following exercises

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