The Linguistic Culture-9-10 (Political Parties and Elections_ Media_ Soap Operas)(Education and Science in the USA) (1157935), страница 4
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Over the pastyears television soap operas have attracted a large audience. Approximately thirty million peoplewatch soap operas, 70 percent of them female. Millions of American teenagers are “hooked” onsoap operas. “General Hospital” soap has been the number one for several years among teens –partly because its 3:00 airtime means they can dash from school bus to the living room in time totune in. Another most popular soap example is the Romance of Helen Trent.
Miss Trent is justan average American girl. She has been thirty-two for the last twenty years. She is intelligent,beautiful and employed as a designer by one of the Hollywood film companies. In spite of thefact that she is begged to become a film star she has never been. Instead she solves life’sproblems for anyone who happens to come near her or pass down the street in front of herwindow.
There is for example a young man who has charming manners and an admirablecharacter. He is a graduate of Princeton University, has an income of four million dollars peryear, loves Helen Trent’s colleague madly. She loves him too, and their parents agree to theirmarriage – what are they to do? Everybody is at a loss until Helen, with a few simple, calm, wisewords arranges their lives and separates them forever.Studies among teens in the US Northeast have given some surprising conclusions. In thelong run, soap operas with all the shortcomings uphold many traditional American values.Despite the scandals, the good guys always win in the end, and villains lose, die, or are banishedto a prison or a mental hospital.
Some psychiatrists think that soaps bridge the gap betweengenerations. Grandparents and parents can watch the serials together and talk about difficultproblems with their kids.1. Answer the questions.1.What are the major broadcasting networks in the USA?2. Which American newspapers and magazines do you know?3. Do you think that now people get more news from the Internet than from traditional sources?4. How much of TV and radio air time is given to commercials in the USA and in Russia?5. What is the main function of commercials?6. Why is advertising called a fine art sometimes?7. What effects do TV commercials use?8. What is the origin of “soap-operas”?9.
Is there anything positive about soaps?10.What do you think of the T.V. and internet influence on young children?2. Find the English equivalents corresponding to the Russian ones:1. Освещать какое-либо событие в прессе; 2.освещать новости и события объективно3.малоформатная газета со сжатым текстом и многими иллюстрациями; 4.
аудитория,имеющая одинаковые возрастные и социальные характеристики; 5. место (в газете),отводимое рекламе; 6. занимать позицию по какому-либо вопросу; 7. предоставлятьодинаковое время (на радио и телевидении).3. Discussion problems:1. Television and radio are one of the most powerful forces for good or evil in modern life.2. “Detailed information about television content can help us make informed choices”.3. The televiewers have a right to control television content if the content is harmful tosociety.4. Television, internet and young generation.Lecture N 10Education and science in the USAThe key words and phrases: “Melting Pot”, to be enrolled in, high and higher education,curriculum, extra-curricular activities, vocational courses.One of the fundamental parts of the American “Melting Pot or “Americanization” is itseducation. According to the ideas of the creators of American Constitution the education of theircountry should reflect the nation’s basic values and ideals.
Equality of opportunities fordeveloping the nation’s greatest potential has become the most important aspect of Americansystem of education. As many historians believe a great deal of economic, political, scientific,and cultural progress America has made in its relatively short history is due to its commitment tothe ideal of equal opportunity. This is the ideal of educating as many Americans as possible, tothe best of their abilities.Millions of immigrants coming to America often tied their hopes for a better life to a goodeducation for themselves and, most importantly, for their children.
They view the education as away of “rising in the world”, as a fundamental part of the American Dream.In the whole American society there has always been the belief, that the more schooling a personhas, the more material success he or she will achieve in the future. The colonists of Northern andWestern states showed a great concern for education.
In these states there were many literatepeople at a time, when education was still uncommon in many countries of Europe. Already inthe 17 th century they required all towns with more than 50 families to provide a schoolmaster atPPpublic expense. Other colonies also made provisions for free public schools. In the course of the17 th century, for instance, free schools had been established in a number of places such as NewPPHaven, Hartford, New London, and Fairfield.
In 1636 more than a hundred years beforeAmerican independence several Cambridge graduates founded in the Massachusetts Bay Colonythe first college, called after the name of Harvard.Before the revolution nine colleges of higher learning had been opened in North America to trainmen for service in the church and civil state and later they became universities. Special emphasiswas laid on classical education and only those who knew Latin and Greek were considerededucated. American colleges in those days tried to duplicate the English ones, but unlike oldEnglish universities they were not self-governing bodies.The American Revolution brought a lot of changes. The independence of the states raised newquestions about what American education should be.The first state universities were founded, though their flowering came a century later, after theCivil War.
Rapid development of industry, agriculture and transportation brought about greatchanges. The technological needs of agriculture and business stimulated the creation ofagricultural and engineering colleges. The mid-nineteenth century saw the foundation of privateschool known as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) (1861).Gradually universities, private and public, became the dominant and most influentialstructure of higher education, a position they still hold.
Many of the oldest and best-knownliberal arts colleges, such as Yale, Columbia and Harvard, became universities during thisperiod. In 1862, Congress passed a law, which provided states with public (federal) lands to beused for higher education, especially for the establishment of agricultural so-called “cow” andmechanical-arts colleges. Many “land-grant colleges” were established. These new statesupported institutions joined the large number of older, well-established, and well-to-do privatelyfunded universities.
They were important in the democratization of higher education in theUnited States.By 1900, there were almost a thousand institutions of higher education in the U.S. Among themwere law and medical “schools” and hundreds of small, four-year liberal arts colleges. One of thelatter, Oberlin College in Ohio, was the first to admit women on an equal basis with men in1837. There were many other institutions of higher learning, which emphasized everything fromthe training of teachers to the pulling of teeth.The United States have never had a national system of education although there is a FederalDepartment of Education, which in some ways corresponds to the Russian ministry of Education.Its function is merely to gather information, to advise, and to help finance certain educationalprograms. Education, Americans say, is “a national concern, a state responsibility, and a localfunction”.
Since the Constitution does not state that education is a responsibility of the federalgovernment, all education matters are left to the individual states.In turn, however, state constitutions give the actual administrative control of the schools tothe local communities. In 1986, an average of 50 percent of the funds for elementary andsecondary education came from state sources, 43 percent from local funds, and only about 6percent the federal government. There are some 16, 000 school districts within the 50 states.School boards made up of individual citizens elected from each community oversee the schoolsin each district.
They, not the state, set school policy and actually decide what is to be taught.The major result of this situation is that there is an enormous amount of variety andflexibility in elementary, secondary, and higher (university) education throughout the nation.Elementary and Secondary Education.Because of the great variety of schools and the many differences among them, no oneinstitution can be singled out as typical one.There exist private and public schools. Since separation of church and state is a principle ofAmerican democracy and therefore religion cannot be taught in state-supported schools, there arealso many schools, supported by the church. These are often Catholic, but there are Protestantand Jewish schools as well.Because of the inequalities inherent in society as a whole, however, the goal of equal opportunityin education remains an ideal rather than a reality. As the tuition fees are rather high in privateschools they are attended primarily by upper-class children.
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