A) conversation about the education in the usa

- Мистер Митчелл, какая система образования в вашей стране?

- You see, the US has no national education system. Instead, each state is responsible for organizing and regulating its own system of education. There are common elements in the separate state systems, however.

- И какие же это общие черты?

- Well, formal education is divided into the following stages: elementary, secondary, and higher education. School attendance is compulsory in every state.

- Есть ли частные школы в США?

- The state provides schooling at all stages of education, but parents can send their children to private schools.

- Мистер Митчелл, у вас есть дети? Какую школу они посещают?

- Oh, Alex. I have a daughter, a nice girl, Chelsea by name. She attends a private school.

- Мистер Митчелл, а какая разница между"high schools" и "higher schools"?

- A great one. High schools, junior and senior, provide secondary education. Most of them offer both general and vocational courses of study. And higher schools provide higher learning...

- Мистер Митчелл, извините, что перебиваю вас. А в каких образовательных заведениях можно получить высшее образование?

- Places of higher learning include community and junior colleges, technical institutes, universities, and separate professional schools.

- Спасибо огромное. Очень хочется побывать у вас в стране.

- You are welcome.

- Госпожа Джоунз, по Вашему мнению в чем суть правильного образования?

- Because there is a limited number of hours in the day, a good school must determine which subjects are essential to the training of a child’s mind, and must ruthlessly expel everything else from the curriculum. In my view, the subjects necessary to a proper education are history, literature, science, math, languages and arts.

- В общем-то, понятно, что все эти предметы имеют свою ценность. Но из всех предметов вы выделяете именно эти. Что же делает их столь необходимыми? Как, например, незнание истории может отразиться на карьере взрослого человека?

- History shows students on a grand scale the consequences of men’s ideas and actions. There is no better way for a student to learn how best to live his life, to learn right and wrong, than to study what men have done historically and what the results have been. When they learn about the Founding Fathers’ establishment of a free country and the resulting progress and prosperity, when they contrast this with the mysticism and tyranny of the Dark Ages – they learn principles that will guide their own decisions and shape the course of their lives.

- А как насчет литературы? Многим молодым людям сегодня не достает того, что вы бы назвали хорошими знаниями по литературе. В чем ценность литературы?

- The great works of literature take grand themes about the nature of man and the universe and present them in the form of a story. As such, they offer students abstract ideas in a powerful, concretized form. Students have the opportunity to see the virtue of independence embodied in Dr. Stockmann of Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People.

They witness the essence of evil in the character of Iago, from Shakespeare’s Othello. They learn what it means for a man to be passionately devoted to his values when they read the novels of Victor Hugo. The characters and events of these stories become a lens through which students view their own experiences.

And reading novels and plays has another value independent of this strictly educational one. Literature provides children and adults alike with spiritual fuel: the heroes, adventure, and drama of great stories give them a glimpse of the best life has to offer. Exposure to great art shows them the intense and profound values that can be had from life.