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Education Issues: Student’s Book (2013) Unit 1: Education for Life

TASK 1. Answer the questions below.

1. What comes to mind when you hear the word ‘education’?

2. What is a good education, in your opinion?

3. How important do you think education is?

4. Do you think the quality of education in the world in general and in your country in particular is slipping down or going up?

5. In which country do you think you can receive the best education?

TASK 2. Read though the quotations below and tell the class how far you agree with them.

1. It is possible to store the mind with a million facts and still be entirely uneducated. (Alec Bourne, 1886 – 1974, a British writer

2. Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten. (B. F. Skinner, 1904 - 1990, an American psychologist, behaviorist, author, inventor, and social philosopher)

3. Only the educated are free. (Epictetus, 55 AD - 135 AD, a Greek and  Stoic  philosopher)

4. You educate a man; you educate a man. You educate a woman; you educate a generation. (Brigham Young, an American religious, state and educational leader)

5. Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world. (Nelson Mandela, a South African anti-apartheid activist, revolutionary and politician)

6. Education: the path from cocky ignorance to miserable uncertainty. (Mark Twain, 1835–1910, an American author and humorist)

7. The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.” (Plutarch, a Greek  historian and philosopher)

8. Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself. (John Dewey, an American philosopher, psychologist and educational reformer)

9. The only person who is educated is the one who has learned how to learn and change. (Carl Rogers , an influential American psychologist and one of the founders of the humanistic approach to psychology)

10. You can teach a student a lesson for a day; but if you can teach him to learn by creating curiosity, he will continue the learning process as long as he lives. (Clay P. Bedford)

11. Education makes a people easy to lead but difficult to drive: easy to govern, but impossible to enslave. (Peter Brougham, a British politician)

TASK 3. You are going to read an encyclopedia entry about education.

Step 1. Match the education vocabulary below with their definitions.

Part 1

1	(the) humanities	a	the information, skills, and understanding that you have gained through learning or experience
2	a curriculum (pl. curricula)	b	an ability to do something well, especially because you have learned and practised it
3	applied sciences	c	something that you do regularly or usually, often without thinking about it because you have done it so many times before
4	a skill	d	the subjects that are taught by a school, college etc, or the things that are studied in a particular subject
5	tertiary education	e	a plan that states exactly what students at a school or college should learn in a particular subject
6	adolescence	f	an area of knowledge or teaching, such as history, chemistry, mathematics etc that is studied at a university
7	knowledge	g	subjects of study such as literature, history, or art, rather than science or mathematics
8	a habit	h	the exact science of using knowledge from one or more natural scientific fields to practical problems
9	a syllabus	j	education at a college, university etc
10	an academic discipline	k	the time, usually between the ages of 12 and 18, when a young person is developing into an adult

Part 2

11	a public school	l	something that must be done because it is the law or because someone in authority orders you to do it
12	a grammar school	m	a system of education in Britain in which children of different abilities go to the same school and are taught together
13	an autodidact	n	a school, especially one on a secondary level, that offers instruction and practical introductory experience in skilled trades such as mechanics, carpentry, plumbing, construction etc
14	undergraduate education	o	something widely or generally known
15	comprehensive education	p	a school in Britain for children over the age of 11 who have to pass a special examination to go there
16	blue collar work	q	in Britain, a private school for children aged between 13 and 18, whose parents pay for their education.
17	postgraduate education	r	work done by someone who works in an office
18	compulsory	s	jobs performed in work clothes which often involve manual labor.
19	common knowledge	t	an education level taken in order to gain one's first tertiary degree
20	white collar work	u	an education level which involves studying for master’s or doctorates’ degrees
21	a vocational school	v	a person who has taught himself/herself; a self-teacher

Step 2. Read the encyclopedia entry about education and decide if the statements after it are true or false.