The School Curriculum and Academic Programs

I. Read the text and define the main idea of it.

III. Make up a plan of the text in the form of questions.

II. Write down new words into your vocabulary.

IV. Give translations to the following words and word-combinations:

to emerge, education, user-friendly technology, to expand, access, interaction, impact, to transfer, electronic workstation, education technology, conduit, facility, to provide, advancement, to achieve.

TEXT 10

The School Curriculum. We see the cur­riculum in terms of what teachers do and what children learn from it, namely expe­rience and understanding. Our goal is to make children learn and our aim is to provide the ideas and information they will encounter. We teach in order to develop the children's language through both their experience and a stimulating environment, so that they learn to speak fluently, accu­rately and with confidence, to read, write and spell accurately and to think imagina­tively, to question and discuss. We work to engender love to books and a desire to read for pleasure and information.

Academic Programs. The academic pro­grams differ greatly in various universities. Students may concentrate in any academ­ic departments and must take a special number of compulsory courses. However, they may simultaneously be involved in one or more interdepartmental pro­grams. Students are free in selecting all courses available, which provides them with considerable flexibility in creating their own academic programs. Thus, no two identical undergraduate curricula exist, especially in prestigious universities.

Nowadays, most college programs are in the form of what is called liberal arts. In liberal arts education, the emphasis is placed on literacy in science, appreciation of arts, the development of critical think­ing and an understanding of our own and other cultures. It is aimed at giving the stu­dents a broad-based education. This means that over four years students take courses in history and humanities, social and polit­ical sciences, economics and psychology, natural science and mathematics, and even fine arts (music, sculpture, painting). Such liberal education provides an enormous advantage in fierce competition for entrance to the job market or professional and graduate schools, for many employers nowadays look for young people with ana­lytic, problem-solving and interpersonal skills, broad knowledge background and flexibility of mind complemented by the ability to learn and adjust to changes.

The tuition fees alone are rather high (ranging from $10,000 for an academic year at Harvard or Yale to under $1,000 at small public institutions). However, col­leges are eager to help needy students who are able and highly motivated with schol­arships, loans, as well as special programs (e.g. work-study programs, financial assis­tance programs) that are provided by the state and federal governments. In addition, an ever-increasing number of students hold jobs besides studying. These part-time jobs may be either ‘on campus’ (in the dor­mitories, cafeterias, services, in research and teaching) or ‘off campus’ (with local firms, in offices, etc.). In this way, for exam­ple, more than half of all students at Stanford University earn a significant part of their college expenses during the school year and the average scholarship is $4,500 per year. Thus, any student who really wants to can finance his education.

Most universities require mid-semester and final (end-of-semester) examinations. They are usually written. Mid-terms are given during class time, finals are held during the last week of the semester and each lasts three hours. Students may have two finals a day, which means six hours of writing. For class­es like history, literature or even science there are essay questions; for math there are prob­lems to solve. Since it takes time for teachers to grade such written exams, students receive their grades in the mail a month or two later. It is possible, as many students have learned, to ‘flunk out’ of the university that is to be asked to leave because of poor grades. So, many students who have scholarships must maintain a certain grade average to keep their scholarships.

Дата добавления: 2015-05-24