The Linguistic Culture-2 (british media) (1157941), страница 16
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The American Revolution brought a lot of changes. The independence of the states raised new questions about what American education should be.
The first state universities were founded, though their flowering did not come until after the Civil War, a century later. Rapid development of industry, agriculture and transportation brought about great changes. The technological needs of agriculture and business stimulated the creation of agricultural and engineering colleges and caused the improvement of the early nineteen-century universities. The mid-nineteenth century saw the foundation of private school known as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) (1861).
Gradually universities, private or public, became the dominant and most influential structure of higher education, a position they still hold. Many of the oldest and best-known liberal arts colleges, such as Yale, Columbia and Harvard, became universities during this period. By the same time state-supported colleges and universities had been established in many states, including recently settled states such as Florida. Jota and Wisconsin and Michigan.
In 1862, Congress passed a law, which provided states with public (federal) lands to be used for higher education, especially for the establishment of agricultural so-called “cow” and mechanical-arts colleges. Many “land-grant colleges” were established. These new state-supported institutions joined the large number of older, well-established, and well-to-do privately funded universities. They were important in the democratization of higher education in the United States.
By 1900, there were almost a thousand institutions of higher education in the U.S. Among them were law and medical “schools” and hundreds of small, four-year liberal arts colleges. One of the latter, Oberlin College in Ohio, was the first to admit women on an equal basis with men, in 1837. There were many other institutions of higher learning, which emphasized everything from the training of teachers to the pulling of teeth.
The United States have never had a national system of education although there is a Federal Department 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 educational programs. Education, Americans say, is “a national concern, a state responsibility, and a local function”. Since the Constitution does not state that education is a responsibility of the federal government, all education matters are left to the individual states.
In turn, however, state constitutions give the actual administrative control of the schools to the local communities. In 1986, an average of 50 percent of the funds for elementary and secondary education came from state sources, 43 percent from local funds, and only about 6 percent 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 schools in 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 and flexibility 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 one institution can be singled out as typical or even representative.
There exist private and public schools. Since separation of church and state is a principle of American democracy and therefore religion cannot be taught in state-supported schools, there are also many parochial schools, which are supported by the church. These are often Catholic, but there are Protestant and Jewish schools as well.
Because of the inequalities inherent in society as a whole, however, the goal of equal opportunity in education remains an ideal rather than a reality. As the tuition fees are rather high in private schools they are attended primarily by upper-class children. The reason why parents send their children to these schools is that they often believe they will receive a better education in them and/or they will associate with other children of their own background. However, these private schools are few in number, and they do not by any means displace the public schools, which are truly the central educational institution in the United States.
Today there are 6 million pupils in private schools and 43 million pupils and students in public schools at the elementary and secondary levels throughout the country. In other words 88 percent of American children attend public schools and only 12 percent go to private schools.
The divisions or stages a child passes in his school educational ladder are elementary, junior high school or middle school, and high school. American children begin to attend school by the age of five or six. There are also pre-school classes called kindergarten. Before this they may attend nursery school or a day care center.
Schooling is divided into twelve academic levels or grades, each of which lasts one year. Elementary school usually covers grades one through six or seven. Middle school or junior high school is from grades seven to nine or seven to eight. The concluding three or four grades form high school.
There are more or less definite demands at each level. In some areas and at more advanced levels, students can choose some subject. Students take classes in major subjects such as English, Math, History and Science. They must also take classes in physical education and a foreign language. Then they can usually choose an elective in subjects like art or music. At the end of term students get a grade of A, B, C, D, or F (fail) foe each subject. Grades are based on test scores, class participation, and class and homework assignments. As they finish each class in a subject students get a credit. When they have enough pf these, they can go further.
The apostle of American school education is considered to be John Dewey. This philosopher and educator believed that conveying factual information to students is secondary
to teaching them thinking processes and skills, which they will use in the future. He also greatly influenced teaching techniques by stressing that activity and experimentation should come first. So, in American schools much attention is given to creative activities. Students are encouraged to be creative both during class time and extra-curricular hours.
American high schools try to adapt to the needs of society. Learning computer skills starts early. As life is becoming more complex, new subjects are introduced. Schools are initiating programs previously viewed as a part of home education. These include subjects such as driver’s education, sewing and cooking classes called home economics, consumer education, and health and sex education, where issues like drug and alcohol abuse and smoking may be treated.
American high schools offer different branches of education for their students. The public school tries to bring more minority children into advanced levels of university education and into the professions. Some might be following pre-university programs, with an emphasis on those academic subjects required for college work. Others might well be taking coursework, which prepares them for vocational or technical positions.
In addition to bilingual and bicultural education programs, many schools have special programs for those with learning and reading difficulties. Many schools also support summer classes, where students can make up for failed courses or even take extra courses. They also attempt to integrate students with varying abilities and backgrounds into an educational system shared by all. At the same time, many high school students are given special advanced coursework in sciences. Nationwide talent searches for minority group children with special abilities and academic promise began on a large scale in the 1960s.
Like schools in Britain and other English-speaking countries, those in the U. S. have also always stressed “character” or “social skills” through extracurricular activities, including organized sports. Because most schools start at around 8 o’clock every morning and classes often do not finish until 3 or 4 o’clock in the afternoon, such activities mean that many students do not return home until the early evening. There is usually a very broad range of extracurricular activities available. Most schools, for instance, publish their own student newspapers, and some have their own radio stations. Almost all have student orchestras, bands, and choirs, which give public performances. There are theater and drama groups, chess and debating clubs, Latin, French, Spanish, or German clubs, groups which meet after school to discuss computers, or chemistry, or amateur radio, or the raising of prize horses, and cows. Students can learn flying, skin-diving, and mountain - climbing. They can act as volunteers in hospitals and homes for the aged and do other public-service work.
Often the students themselves organize and support school activities and raise money through “car washes”, baby-sitting, bake sales, or by mowing lawns. Parents and local businesses often also help a group that, for example, has a chance to go to a state championship, or take a camping trip. Such activities not only give pupils a chance to be together outside of normal classes, they also help develop a feeling of “school spirit” among the students and in the community.
Whichever varieties of school curricula exist all of them envisage standardized examinations at every level of education.
There are two widely used and nationally administered tests for high school students who wish to attend a college or university. One is the SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test), which attempts to measure aptitudes in verbal and mathematical fields through multiple-choice questions marked by computer. The other is the ACT (American College Testing program), which attempts to measure skills in English, mathematics, and the social and natural sciences. Both tests are given at specific dates and locations throughout the U. S. by non-profit, non-governmental organizations. The tests are used by universities as standards for comparison, but are not in any way “official”.
Each year, the SAT is taken by some two million high school students. One million of these students are in their last year of high school. Another million are in their next-to-last year. The ACT, more commonly used in the western part of the U.S., is taken each year by another million high school students. With so many different types of high schools and programs, with so many differences in subjects and standards, these tests provide common, nationwide measuring sticks. Many universities publish the average scores achieved on these tests by the students they admit. This indicates the “quality” or level of ability expected of those who apply.
Needless to say, those children who have attended better schools, or who come from families with better educated parents; often have an advantage over those who don’t. This remains a problem in the U. S., where equality of opportunity is a central cultural goal. Not surprisingly, the members of racial minorities are the most deprived in this respect.
Higher Education.
According to American statistics over 41 percent of high school leavers apply to colleges and universities. Every year, about 12 million Americans are enrolled in the over 3,000 colleges and universities of every type: private, public, church-related, small and large, in cities, counties, and states. Close to 80 percent of the college students attend public institutions, while a little over 20 percent are enrolled in privately supported universities and colleges. United Nations figures (1980) show that in the amount spent on education per capita, the U. S. is in ninth place in the world (behind Qatar, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Denmark, Switzerland, and Canada).
Every state in the US maintains at least one institution of university rank. Programs in them are often adapted to serve local needs. State universities provide opportunities of higher education usually at a cost considerably below the cost of education in private institutions.
The institutions, which provide higher education, do not constitute any coordinate system and are not controlled by any centralized national authority. Each state has the right to found new public or private institutions of higher education within its borders. However, cooperative efforts of colleges and universities have created a number of unifying factors, which reduce the diversity of American system of higher education.
The Types of Higher Educational Institutions:
Junior Colleges (The world “college” refers either to an independent institution offering undergraduate education or to a part of a university, such as a College of Arts and Sciences or a College of Engineering). These institutions of higher education offer two-year programs beyond the secondary school level. Courses are divided into two programs, one leading to a transfer to a four-year college at the end of two years, the other intended to be terminal at the completion of the junior college, usually leading to a profession (shop work, office work, etc.)
Colleges of Liberal Arts, which generally offer four years of work beyond the secondary school level. Their programs are aimed at providing a broad educational base in philosophy, science, and culture. Course work is often organized so that students may choose some specialization or concentration in one particular field during the third and fourth years of the program. Some of these colleges are private; others are run by the state.
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