Every job has its pros and cons. The profession of a teacher is not an exception. On the one hand this work is varied, it requires a flexible approach to every lesson and good communication skills. This profession can be rewarded if you like dealing with children because children will love you too. If you like people you will like teaching. Moreover it’s a pleasure to work in modern well-repaired and well-equipped schools with special rooms for different subjects, computer classes, laboratories, gyms, sports grounds, and even swimming pools.
On the other hand most jobs are done within the usual office hours from 9 a.m. till 5 p.m. but not for teachers. They are devoted to their work and their evenings are usually spent in marking exercise books and preparing for the next lesson. Teachers always complain that they are overworked and underpaid. That’s true but there are summer holidays, which last almost two months and there is also hope that the economical situation in Russia will soon improve and the situation in payment will change.
To be a teacher is a great responsibility. A teacher is a person who is always mastering and learning herself while teaching others because every time you learn something new you become something new. An ignorant teacher teaches ignorance but a good teacher catalyzes in her pupils the burning desire to know. John Steinbeck wrote: “A great teacher is a great artist. Teaching might even be the greatest of arts since its medium is the human mind and the human spirit.”
I’m sure that a teacher should have such personal qualities as generosity, tolerance, flexibility and so on. A boring teacher teaches boredom, so a teacher cannot afford being dull, mean or narrow-minded. Only bright personalities are respected by audience. She has to be clever and obtain a set of specific skills to be able to explain difficult points in simple words because teachers must develop their pupils’ intellect, form their views and characters, their attitude to life and to other people.
I can’t say that all these qualities can be found in me but I’m keen on this profession and I’ll do my best to match it. It’s not easy, as it may seem at first but I think that love for children combined with the knowledge I’ll get at the University would be quite enough to succeed in my future work.
Answer the questions:
1. What is a profession?
2. Why is finishing school quite the right time to think about future profession?
3. How many professions exist in the world?
4. What do schoolchildren do to choose a career?
5. Did you make your choice long ago?
6. Why is teaching a real challenge to a person?
7. Do people respect teachers greatly?
8. Is it easy to teach modern children?
9. What is the aim of modern school?
10. What must teacher know?
11. What are some pros and cons of this profession?
12. How are modern schools equipped?
13. What kind of person should a teacher be?
14. What personal qualities can be found in you?
15. Do you think you will succeed in your future work?
Read about some school policies of one of the English schools
Discipline. We aim to base our discipline on a spirit of cooperation between pupils and staff, and to train the pupils in self-discipline and responsibility. Where this fails, and a punishment is necessary, a pupil may be detained after school (he is always given 24 hours warning) or his parents may be asked to visit the school to discuss matters with one of the senior staff.
Homework. The College arranges homework appropriate to the pupils’ abilities and provides for all pupils in each subject. The teachers hope that parents will combine positively with staff to encourage their children to fulfill all the tasks. Each child has a homework diary and a homework time-table; parents are asked to monitor all homework, check the diary and sign it weekly.
Special educational needs. We keep a list of pupils with learning or other problems, monitor them constantly and review their needs once a term. We aim to support them in class rather than withdraw them.
Money and valuables. Children should not bring expensive or easily damaged things to school. There are no proper facilities for their storage and the school is not responsible for them.
HEINRICH PESTALOZZI
(1746-1827)
Learn the following words and expressions:
to be born – родиться
to bring up – воспитывать
upbringing – воспитание
to consider – считать, полагать
household – домашнее хозяйство
a range – диапазон
education – образование, воспитание
to educate – давать образование, воспитание
true – истинный, правдивый
force – сила
to force – заставить, вынудить
to abandon – оставить, бросить
because of – из-за, благодаря
on behalf of – от имени, по поручению
to conduct – вести, руководить
to influence – влиять
to lay emphasis – выделить, подчеркнуть
a tutor – учитель, занимающийся индивидуально
to establish – основать, учредить, создать
to set up – учредить
a production unit – производственная единица
a failure – провал, неудача
a novel – роман
to express – выражать
to observe – наблюдать
observation – наблюдение
instead of – вместо
an orphan – сирота
activity – деятельность
to explore – исследовать
to develop – развивать
to implement – претворять в жизнь
a way – путь, дорога, способ
research – исследование
briefly – кратко, зд. непродолжительное время
to be in charge of – быть в ответе за
to appoint – назначать
tract – трактат
instruction – обучение
self-activity – самостоятельная деятельность
ready-made – готовый
to arrive at answer – приходить к ответу
own – собственный
power – способность, сила
to judge – судить
to reason – рассуждать
to cultivate – развивать
to encourage – поощрять, одобрять
aim – цель
to oppose – выступать против
a memory – память
memorization – запоминание, заучивание
strict – строгий
to replace – заменять
to abolish – отменять, уничтожать
flogging – физическое наказание, порка
to stress – подчеркивать, ставить ударение
to implant – насаждать
to facilitate – облегчать
a facilitator – человек, создающий благоприятные условия
to respect – уважать
to believe – верить, полагать
to consist of – состоять из
broad – широкий
a founder – основатель
a kindergarten – детский сад
a movement – движение
a follower – последователь
thus – следовательно
Practise the pronunciation of the following words:
brought up ['brL t'Ap], career [kə'riə], influence ['influəns], establishment [is'tæbliSmənt],emphasis ['emfəsis], tutor ['tju:tə], significant [sig'nifikənt], orphan ['Lfən], finance [fai'næns], failure ['feiljə], theory ['Tiəri], observation ["Obzə'veiSn], epistolary [i'pistələri], psychological ["saikə'lOGikəl], spontaneity ["spOntə'nJiti], encourage [in'kAriG], discipline ['disiplin], individuality ["indi"vidju'æliti], facilitator [fæ'siliteitə], although ['LlDou], unified ['jHnifaid], Pestalozzi ["pestə'lOtsi], Zurich ['zjuərik], Jean Jacques Rousseau ['GJn'Gækwəs'rHsou], Leonard ['lenəd], Gertrude ['gWtrHd], Stanz [stRnts], Burgdorf ['bWgdLf], Yverdon ['aivədən ], Friedrich Froebel [frJdrik'frWbəl].
Read and understand the text “Heinrich Pestalozzi”
Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi was born in Zurich and brought up by his mother as his father died when the boy was only five. He was educated at the University of Zurich. He was forced to abandon his career because of his political activity on behalf of a reformist Swiss political organisation.
At his farm near Zurich he conducted a school for poor children. He was influenced by the works of the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. While Rousseau laid emphasis on the tutor, Pestalozzi made a significant contribution to the establishment of the school as a central educational force. He set up an industrial school for 20 orphans where work and learning were to be combined. The school was to be a production unit so that children could finance their own learning, but the result was a financial failure.
He wrote a didactic novel “Leonard and Gertrude” (1801), expressing his theories on social reform through education. Learning by Pestalozzi was based on immediate observation. Instead of dealing with words children should learn through activity. Pestalozzi explored how Rousseau’s ideas might be developed and implemented and put his theory into practice. He set out concrete ways forward, based on research.
In 1798 Pestalozzi was briefly in charge of a school for orphans in Stanz, later he was appointed head of a Teacher Training College at Burgdorf and later he set up the Institute in Yverdon. It was at that period when he published his book “How Gertrude Teaches Her Children” (1809) which was an epistolary educational tract. He wanted to establish a psychological method of instruction. He placed a special emphasis on spontaneity and self-activity. Children should not be given ready-made answers but should arrive at answers themselves. To do this their self-activity should be cultivated and encouraged. The aim is to educate the whole child; intellectual education is only a part of a wider plan. He opposed the system of memorization learning and strict discipline. It was replaced with a system based on love and understanding of the child’s world. He abolished flogging.
He stressed the individuality of the child and the necessity for teachers to be taught how to develop abilities of a child rather than to implant knowledge. The teacher should be a loving facilitator of knowledge. Although he respected the individuality of the teacher, Pestalozzi felt that there must exist a unified science of education that could be learned and practised. He believed that teacher training should consist of a broad liberal education followed by a period of research and professional training.
Pestalozzi had and has a lot of supporters and followers. One of them was a German educator Friedrich Froebel, the founder of the kindergarten movement, who taught at Yverdon from 1806 to 1810 and was greatly influenced by Pestalozzi’s method. Other Pestalozzi’s followers developed various sayings characterising his method as “from the known to the unknown, from the simple to the complex, from the concrete to the abstract.”
Thus, we may conclude that his theory laid the foundation for modern elementary education and teacher training.
Answer the questions:
1. Where did Pestalozzi study?
2. Why was he forced to abandon his career?
3. Whose ideas was Pestalozzi influenced by?
4. What did he establish as a central educational force?
5. What was an industrial school to be?
6. Where did Pestalozzi express his theories?
7. What novels did he write?
8. What was learning based on?
9. How should children learn?
10. What ways did Pestalozzi set out?
11. Which educational establishments did he conduct his research in?
12. What method of instruction did Pestalozzi want to establish?
13. What powers of children should be cultivated to help them to arrive at answers?
14. What system did he oppose?
15. What principles should a system of education be based on?
16. What should teacher training consist of?
17. What were the principles characterising Pestalozzi’s method?
18. What is Pestalozzi’s contribution to the theory of education?
Read the text about Friedrich Froebel
Friedrich Froebel (1782-1852) was the founder of the kindergarten, or the children garden. He was largely self-educated, but studied for a few years at different European universities. From 1806 to 1810 he worked and studied with famous Swiss educational reformer Pestalozzi at Yverdon, Switzerland. He accepted certain aspects of Pestalozzi’s method. He wanted to improve the educational methods of teaching. He wanted the teacher to become an active instructor.
In 1837 Froebel founded the kindergarten in the city of Blankenburg. Its curriculum cultivated child’s self-development, self-activity, and socialisation. It stressed the social and emotional growth of a child. The kindergarten had prepared environment. The kindergarten teacher was to be a moral and cultural model. He provided educational materials (e.g. geometrical shapes) for young children to encourage education through play. Children learned songs, stories, and games. They were introduced to the customs, heroes, and ideas of the cultural heritage. He spent the rest of his life organising kindergartens.
Froebel influenced modern technique in pre-school education.
TERM 3
THE FACULTY OF PRIMARY SCHOOLING
THE FACULTY OF PRE-SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGY AND PEDAGOGICS
Higher Education
The American ideal of mass education for all is matched by an awareness that America also needs highly trained specialists. In higher education, therefore, and especially at the graduate schools (those following the first four years of college), the U.S. has an extremely competitive and highly selective system. This advanced university system has become widely imitated internationally, and it is also the one most sought after by foreign students. Of the 438,000 foreign students enrolled in institutions of higher education in the United States in the 1992/93 academic year, 44 percent were enrolled in graduate programs.
While the American education system might put off selecting students until much later than do other systems, it does nonetheless select. And it becomes increasingly selective the higher the level. Moreover, because each university generally sets its own admission standards, the best universities are also the most difficult to get into.
Some universities are very selective even at the undergraduate or beginning levels. In 1991, for example, some 13,500 individuals sought admission to Stanford University, a private university south of San Francisco. Because these individuals must pay a fee to even apply for admission, these were "serious" applications. Of that number, only 2,700 (20 percent) were admitted for the first year of study. It is interesting to note that the great majority of those who were accepted had attended public - not private -schools. Many state-supported universities also have fairly rigid admission requirements. The University of California at Berkeley, for example, admitted only 40 percent of all qualified applicants in 1991. For Harvard, the figure is 17.2 percent (1991). Admission to law or medical schools and other graduate programs has always been highly selective. It is true, as often stated, that children who wish someday to go to one of the better universities start working for this goal in elementary school.