- •Учебно-методическое пособие
- •Содержание
- •Предисловие
- •Unit 1 education
- •Private Schools Growing But Lack Recognition
- •Мамармен: начало начал
- •Reading
- •Adults go to school
- •Manager on a Picket Line
- •Teacher on the lip
- •Able to be got 3
- •Ломоносову не было бы стыдно
- •Higher Education in the usa
- •Misconceptions of Studying in the United States
- •1. America is full of crime and is a dangerous place
- •2. It is too expensive
- •3. You may not be accepted or well-received by the locals
- •4. The usa is not known for certain academic disciplines
- •5. Recent international developments have made the usa dangerous
- •Организация учебного процесса
- •Final Task
- •Unit 2 application for a job
- •Preparing For a Job: cVs
- •Your cv should include:
- •The Skills of Giving a Presentation The Art of Public Speaking
- •Can you tell me something about yourself?
- •What has made you want to leave your current position?
- •Where do you see yourself five years from now?
- •4. What’s your biggest weakness?
- •5. What is your greatest strength?
- •6. Do you usually prefer working with others or on your own?
- •7. Can you describe the qualities you think a good boss possesses?
- •8. What do you like to do in your spare time?
- •9. What attracts you to the company?
- •10. Why are you the right person for this job?
- •Interview killers:
- •Найти работу за две недели
- •Ten Attributes of a Good Employee
- •Национальные различия корпоративной культуры
- •Берем курс на запад
- •Послать всех на тренинг
- •Text 3 What Makes a Good Manager? Here are 10 Tips
- •Менеджер по персоналу
- •Unit 3 ecology World scientists’ warning to humanity
- •Worries About World’s Ecology
- •Warning
- •What we must do
- •Не утонем – так сгорим
- •Reading
- •Climate
- •Changing Climate
- •Impacts
- •Неспокойная Земля (Интервью с академиком ю. А. Израэлем)
- •Toxic wasteland
- •Граждане, станьте мешочниками!
- •Helpful vocabulary
- •Final task
- •Unit 4 the purpose of science
- •Nanotechnology: Shaping the World Atom by Atom
- •History
- •New materials, devices, technologies
- •Дамскую сумку оснастили подсветкой
- •40 Тысяч американских курьеров получат новые карманные компьютеры с радиосвязью
- •Unit 5 terrorism
- •What is Cyberterrorism?
- •Лондон детонирует
- •Terrorism and the Media
- •Ес обсуждает меры по борьбе с терроризмом
- •Helpful vocabulary
- •Narcoterrorism
- •Радиационный терроризм: между физикой и политикой
- •Final Task
- •Unit 6 globalization: the argument of our time
- •Defining Globalization
- •Генуя — очередное поле сражения антиглобалистов
- •Reading
- •Additional reading
- •Unit 1 education Text 1 a mickey –mouse generation
- •Text 2 not smart enough for a passing grade ? fake your way into a university
- •Text 3 An American View of Russian Education
- •Is a foreign professor in Russia restricted in what and how he teaches?
- •If you pay, pay for the quality
- •Unit 2 application for a job Text 1
- •26 Советов для успешного прохождения собеседования при устройстве на работу
- •2. Особенно четко формулируйте то, что вы знаете и чего хотите добиться
- •3. Убедитесь, что ваши возможности совпадают с вашими целями
- •4. Четко опишите свои сильные стороны
- •5. Подайте вашу слабость как сильную сторону
- •7. Если вы были уволены, скажите об этом прямо.
- •8. У вас должны быть ваши личные стандарты
- •9.Задавайте вопросы интервьюеру
- •10. Не позволяйте вопросу о зарплате изводить себя
- •Text 2 My goal
- •Text 3 How to Keep a Good Project on Track? Here Are 1o Tips
- •Text 4 Leadership is a question of style
- •Unit 3 ecology Text 1 Greenpeace movement
- •Text 2 Killing the Volga
- •Text 3 Shrinking Sea
- •Unit 4 the purpose of science Text 1 a Future with Nowhere to Hide?
- •Is Your Cell Really Safe?
- •Terrorism
- •Definitions of Terrorism
- •Text 2 Terrorism: An Introduction
- •I Was There...
- •Text 4 Notes from a Russian volunteer
- •Text 5 Who's To Blame?
- •Unit 6 globalization: the argument of our time Text 1
- •Communication activity unit 1 education
- •Opinions
- •Unit 3 ecology
- •Unit 4 the purpose of science
- •Terrorism
- •Unit 6 globalisation
- •Just for fun
If you pay, pay for the quality
The Soviet Union had many drawbacks as a system, but few will dispute the fact that the USSR was the most educated country in the world, and probably the system of education that we had was one of the most outstanding achievements of our country.
The new government, following the rules of a market economy, cut down sharply on financial support of education, terribly underpaying teachers. It is impossible to feed a family in Moscow for 9500 rubles and in the provinces for 3000 roubles. The severe conditions the teachers were put in made many of them leave schools for other areas of society; many of them had to look for some additional work, not related to their profession, just to be able to earn their living. However, a teacher who thinks of a lump of bread around the clock very quickly degrades as a professional.
At exactly the same time private schools began mushrooming. It seemed to be the right solution to the problem: as the government cannot pay proper salaries to teachers anymore, parents interested in a high level of education should. However, despite the improvement of the quality of teaching, quite the opposite happened.
A teacher in a private school, getting a higher salary than a teacher in a public one, is afraid of losing his/her place and often has to bear with any conditibns and humiliations. The teachers, understanding their dependence on parents' tuition fees, try to work around a fair evaluation of pupils' knowledge, overestimating it, not informing parents about failures, stressing only advances. All this drags the process of education into farce. Their primary task is to make the process of learning easy and interesting for children and to please their parents. The pupils come to school to have a good time, play games, and have nice talks with their classmates, and they do not realize that studying is hard, routine, day-to-day work.
What is even worse is that these pupils themselves understand their privilege, and use it with great pleasure. Children from rich families have always been studying at the school on Kutuzovskiy Prospect near Brezhnev's house. But in Soviet times it was considered to be bad form to boast of your wealth in public; now pupils brought to school in jeeps and escorted by guards show off, thinking they are very special and "super important". Often they behave disrespectfully, and lose the feeling of communication standards with teachers. The idea "If you are so clever, why are you so poor" leads to the breakdown of the seniority of a teacher.
Such school conditions, though seemingly favorable for children, do not serve them well. Overstated school marks damage the life of children. Firstly, children get accustomed to getting good results without putting any effort into it. Accordingly, they lose any motivation to study. Secondly, their self-appraisal flies up to the sky, and later on they behave absolutely inappropriately and get into serious trouble in their future life. Finally, such children face difficulties when preparing for entrance exams in high school which are the same for everyone, when they have to compensate in a one-two year period of time for a huge knowledge gap -the result of years spent in the "greenhouse conditions" of a private school. Some well-off people complain about the problem of good education for their kids. They cannot trust teachers and have to check their knowledge since, it turns out, that children are given good marks "because of respect to the fathers".
Over the past 15 years it has become possible, quite natural and widespread, to buy diplomas, pay to pass an exam, or a practice of veiled bribery in private schools - actually paying for good marks. But people forget that diplomas and excellent marks are nothing, just paper with symbols on them. A diploma of an English language course can be easily bought, but unfortunately this doesn't give you foreign language skills. It is a question of attitude. In Russia we frequently pay more attention to the wrapping paper, forgetting that the meaning is inside.
Private schools are wide-spread in Europe, they work effectively; and there is nothing wrong if parents pay huge amount of money for their child's education. It is an extremely sophisticated service and needs great investment. But we shouldn't forget that we go to school to get knowledge; and since we pay that money, we want real results, not insubstantial, meaningless grades, together with happy faces.
By Irina Pavlova,
University of Natalia Nesterova,
Liuba Gribanova,
Plekhanov Academy of Economics