I. Give the closest Ukrainian equivalents for these word combinations and sentences.

1. Up the Down Staircase. 2. The book was screened. 3. Hi, teach. 4. I'd like you to come to order. 5. ...while I take attendance from the Roll Book, 6. I was in Detention. 7. adequate seating space for all students under existing facilities. 8. Lecture me? Spank me? 9. Let it be a challenge. 10. ..on which I'd build an eloquent case for good diction... 11. to imbue the young with a love for their language and literature. 12. They went after me with their ammunition: whistling, shouting, drumming on desks. 13. problem-area schools for the lower socio-economic groups. 14. holding seminars on James Joyce

II. Study the text carefully and answer these questions.

1. What is the name of the book the passages are taken from?

2. Is the book popular?

3. Has the book been screened? What's the film called?

4. What kind of school does the author describe in the book?

5. How did the class receive the new teacher?

6. What kind of period was it?

7. What is done in the homeroom period?

8. What did Miss Barrett pass out?

9. What is a Roll Book?

10. What can you say about the facilities at Calvin Coolidge High School? Was Calvin Coolidge an ordinary school?

11. Was it easy for a teacher to manage a class in that school, or was it difficult?

12. What had Sylvia planned to do during her first period?

13. Did she manage to carry out her plan?

14. Why did Sylvia call her letter a far and desperate cry from Education 114 and Prof. Winters' lectures on "The Psychology of the Adolescent"?

15. Were Prof. Winters' lectures of great help to her?

16. What was her idea of teaching? Could she put it in practice?

17. How did the children behave during the homeroom period?

18. What did Sylvia learn?

19. Where do the great majority of children go for instruction?

20. Are there any other kinds of school in New York?

21. How are teachers paid?

22. How much is Sylvia's co-student who works for a cosmetics firm paid?

23. What does the phrase "Let it be a challenge" mean?

Part two

4. Those Who Can't

Dear Ellen,

Congratulations on the baby's new tooth. Soon there is bound to be another tooth and another, and before you know it, little Suzie will start going to school, and her troubles will just begin.

Though I hope that by the time she gets into the public high school system, things will be different. I'm told that since the recent strike threats, negotiations with the United Federation of Teachers, and greater public interest, we are enjoying "improved conditions". But in the two' weeks that I've been here, conditions seem greatly unimproved.

You ask me what I am teaching. Hard to say. The English Syllabus urges "individualisation and enrichment" which means giving indi­vidual attention to each student to bring out the best n him and enlarge his scope beyond the prescribed work. Better say to "motivate and distribute" books that is, to get students ready and eager to read. All this is easier said than done. In fact, all this is impossible. Many of our kids though physically mature can't read beyond 4th or 5th grade level. Their background consists of the simplest comics and thrillers. They've been exposed to some ten years of schooling, yet they don't know what a sentence is.

The books we are required to teach frequently have nothing to do anything except the fact that they have always been taught, or there is an oversupply of them.

So far, however, I've been unable to give out any books at the library.

I have let it be a challenge to me: I've been trying to teach without books.

There are a few good, hard-working, patient people like Bea, a childless widow, "Mutter Schlachter and her cherubs", as the kids say, who manage to teach against insuperable odds; a few brilliantly endowed teachers who unknown and unsung ‒ work their magic the classroom: a few who truly love young people. The rest, it seems to me, have either given up, or are taking it out on the kids.

"Those who can do; those who can't, teach". Like most sayings, this is only half true. Those who can, teach; those who can't ‒ the failures from other fields ‒ find in the school system an excuse or a refuge.

Love, Syl

P.S. Did you know that in New York City high school teachers devote approximately 100 hours a year to homeroom chores? This makes a total of over 500,000 hours that they spend on clerical work. That's official school time only; the number of extracurricular hours spent on lesson plans, records, marking papers, and so on is not estimated.

Did you know that according to the Board of Education's10 estimate it would cost the city $8 million to reduce the size of classes by a single child throughout the city?