1.8. Определение Интернета

A. Read the article and answer the questions.

1. Why is it impossible to control the Internet?

2. Why is it necessary to limit the content of the Internet?

3. Why is it useless to stand for freedom of speech or for the regulation of the Internet?

4. Do you think there should be some restrictions on the Internet? If so, how should it be put into practice?

В последнее время со стороны законодателей возникают инициативы написать для Интернета законодательство. Складывается впечатление, что законодатели и защитники демократии не совсем осознали, что такое Интернет. Самое важное, что необходимо понять: Интернета как такового, как некоей субстанции – не существует. Интернет – это виртуальная сеть. Виртуальная в том смысле, что не имеет физического воплощения. Поэтому когда пытаются принять некий закон об Интернете, желая ограничить его, – возникает сюрреалистическая картина. Ведь Интернет не имеет физического воплощения, а закон, соответственно, адресата. Здесь не обойтись без определения понятия «виртуальный». Виртуальным называют объект, который полностью выполняет свои функции, но не имеет физического воплощения. Функциональность виртуального объекта достигается с помощью объектов другой природы. Ведь за понятием «Интернет» скрываются и телефонная сеть, и сеть мобильной связи, и люди, создающие контент. То есть функциональность Интернета достигается с помощью множества разных сетей, имеющих разных владельцев, находящихся в разных странах и т.д.

Значит, можно говорить не о регулировании Интернета вообще, а о каких-то конкретных взаимоотношениях с людьми, его использующими. Можно, например, поговорить с конкретным сервис-провайдером о том, как он ведет свои отношения с клиентом.

Когда мы говорим, что ограничиваем доступ к Интернету с данной территории, мы забываем, что есть аппараты спутниковой связи. Они могут висеть над какой угодно страной, и контролировать их сигнал невозможно.

Но ведь законы стремятся ограничить не Интернет как таковой, а контент. Интернет как новая коммуникационная среда открывает массу возможностей для незаконных деяний, и проблема именно в этом. Если говорят, что контент должен быть ограничен, то в качестве объекта закона рассматривают всех пользователей на планете, потому что все участвующие в информационном обмене создают контент. Надо понимать, что по большей части эти люди находятся не в России. Когда подобный закон пытается провести муниципальный орган, это выглядит несколько странно.

Интернету что-то запрещать без толку, потому что это среда. Какая здесь есть угроза? Только одна: пустая растрата средств. На борьбу с виртуальными мирами может уйти много времени и средств.

Немного пугает позиция акул пера, которые в нападениях на Интернет видят угрозу свободе слова. Когда эти люди вступают в борьбу, они тоже не понимают, что такое Интернет. Одни борются за регулирование, другие отстаивают свободу слова. И то и другое не имеет отношения к Интернету. Битву за свободу слова на интернет-поле мы все равно проиграли в силу отсутствия поля. Абстрактные битвы – абстрактные победы.

Мы не можем рассматривать Интернет как обычное СМИ. Это не СМИ, это коммуникационная среда. В СМИ есть конкретные редакции, конкретные источники информации, авторы материалов. Любое СМИ – это брэнд. Но нельзя узнать информацию из Интернета вообще, так же как и из телефона вообще. Всегда есть кто-то, кто сообщает те или иные сведения.

Среди населения есть устойчивое представление, что Сеть надо регулировать, потому что здесь происходит много плохого, грязного. Есть такой тип людей, которые боятся всего нового и чувствуют себя спокойно, если ничего не меняется. Интернет разрушает стереотипы, и поэтому некоторые думают, что Интернет – это плохо.

Важна ценность информационных услуг. Они должны правильно соответствовать запросам и быть своевременными. Но информация вообще ценности не имеет. Не надо думать, что информация – это хорошо и что чем больше информации, тем лучше. Тогда получается, что очень много информации – это очень хорошо. И если немножко уменьшить количество – становится хуже. Конечно же, это не так.

Независимая газета. 2008

B. Summarize the article in English.

UNIT 2. BETTER DEAD THAN COED?

2.1. Single-Sex Education

A. Skim through the article to give the main idea.

In the past five years, there has been an extraordinary surge of interest in single-sex public education. The regulations which were published on October 25, 2006, which facilitate single-sex education in American public schools, have significantly stoked this interest. Unfortunately, this exuberance has led some school districts to plunge into experimentation with this format without a thorough grounding in the complexities of gender differences in how girls and boys learn.

Advocates of single-sex education do NOT believe that "all girls learn one way and all boys learn another way." On the contrary, we cherish and celebrate the diversity among girls and among boys. We understand that some boys would rather read a book than play football. We understand that some girls would rather play football rather than play with Barbies. Educators who understand these differences can inspire every child to learn to the best of her or his ability. Conversely, educators and parents are recognizing that all too often, coeducational settings actually reinforce gender stereotypes via the process that researchers call "gender intensification." Boys at coed schools will tell you "poetry is for girls." Girls at coed schools will tell you that computer science is for boys.

The good news is that the gender-separate format can boost grades and test scores for BOTH girls and boys. However, that improvement doesn't happen automatically. Just putting girls in one room and boys in another is no guarantee of success. As with anything else in education, adequate preparation in proven, evidence-based strategies is the key.

We now have good evidence that single-sex classrooms CAN break down gender stereotypes, particularly when teachers have appropriate professional development. Girls in single-sex educational settings are more likely to take classes in math, science, and information technology. Boys in single-gender classrooms - led by teachers with training in how to lead such classrooms - are much more likely to pursue interests in art, music, drama, and foreign languages. Both girls and boys have more freedom to explore their own interests and abilities than in the coed classroom.

It's not sufficient just to put girls in one classroom and boys in another. In order to improve academic performance and broaden educational horizons, one will need to understand the subtleties of gender differences in learning.

There are some basic, but often misunderstood, facts about girls and boys:

• The brains of girls and boys develop along different trajectories. Some differences are genetically programmed and are present at birth; other differences are manifested later in childhood.

• Girls and boys learn in subtly different ways, in part because of those differences in the developmental trajectory of the brain.

This does NOT imply that "all girls learn one way and all boys learn another way" - that's not a true statement, and nobody associated with The National Association for Single-Sex Public Education (NASSPE) believes it! We celebrate and cherish the variations AMONG girls and AMONG boys. Precisely because girls are so diverse and boys are so diverse, single-sex schools offer unique educational opportunities for girls, and for boys.

www.singlexchools.org/home.php

B. Read the article again to answer the following questions.

1. Why do coeducational settings only reinforce gender stereotypes?

2. What does single-sex education encourage? What does it result in?

3. What are the basic gender differences in learning?

4. Does it imply that all girls learn one way and all boys learn another way?

5. Does the opinion of the representatives of the NASSPE seem convincing to you? Why?

C. Sum up the article using the underlined expressions.

2.2. My Daughter Would Have Been Better off at a School with Some Boys

A. Read the article and match the first sentences with the paragraphs. In these sentences find words and expressions that give clues to how paragraphs are linked together.

1. And yet, at the end of all that, I wasn't convinced I had done the right thing.

2. Instead she looked outside the school for stimulus, making a lot of new friends, neglecting her studies and having a good time.

3. The same generalisations don't apply to girls.

4. The findings we report on today – boys in single-sex schools finish up as emotional cripples, unable to handle relationships with women in later life – add to the growing weight of evidence against single-sex schooling.

5. Why, then, did I decide to send my daughter to another single-sex school?

6. As someone who was educated in a single-sex boarding school I believe my schooling might have been improved if I had spent it in the company of boys as well as girls.

1. We have known for a while that boys do better academically when educated with girls, presumably as girls have a calming influence. Now comes the killer fact – that co-ed schooling enables them to lead happier lives and to stay married to the same woman (assuming that makes for happiness).

2. According to the most recent research, girls are better off, or certainly just as well off, in single-sex schools away from boisterous boys – and that is true for their intellectual as well as their emotional lives. But can that really be the case?

3. It would certainly have provided some welcome distraction in lessons. Instead of reading Georgette Heyer all the way through Latin and maths, I could have been making eyes at a real-life hero a few yards away and even had some improving discussions with him about my algebra prep. As it was, I didn't really get to know a youth who wasn't in a book until I arrived at university at the tender age of 17-and-a-half.

4. Part of the answer lies in the chaos of London's education system. I wanted a school that was academically sound, that would get her a clutch of respectable GCSEs and A-levels, and a place at a good university. The school I chose for her was small, probably too small, with a brown uniform that she despised. But, in other ways, it was just the ticket. She studied Latin in a much more intelligent way than I did – and seemed to like it. She was actually good at maths, continuing it into the sixth form and achieving a coveted AS-level for it, and she managed to get an A-level in that daunting subject, chemistry.

5. Up to the age of 16, everything worked fine. Independent day schools in London are GCSE factories, and she achieved a glittering array without seeming to lift a finger. But when it came to A-levels, I could see her heart wasn't in any of it. The teachers may have been well-qualified but she wasn't inspired by them. I couldn't help feeling she would have been better off, certainly at sixth-form, at a school with some boys – and a few more male teachers – to bring a bit of spice and interest to her life.

6. I was left feeling that her single-sex institution was worthy and diligent but ultimately dull. We would all have been better off if she had moved at 16 to be educated with the opposite sex. She would have found it more challenging in all sorts of ways – and we might have saved a bob or two along the way.

Lucy Hodges

The Independent Education Supplement. 2009

B. Explain the underlined phrases.

C. Sum up the article, say whether you agree with the author and prove your point.

2.3. Why Single-Sex Schools Are Bad for Your Health (If You Are a Boy)

A. Read the article and put down the results of the research in the following chart.

Boys	Girls
Single-sex schools Mixed schools	Single-sex schools Mixed schools

Boys taught in male-only schools face divorce and depression by their early 40s, research reveals.

Research by London’s Institute of Education appears to support claims by education psychologists that boys’ school pupils are less able to relate to the opposite sex than those from mixed schools.

You might have thought that boys brought up in a single-sex environment would find relationships with girls difficult to handle.

Now research proves it. It shows that boys taught in single-sex schools are more likely to be divorced or separated from their partner than those who attended a mixed school by their early 40s.

However, those who stayed together were just as likely to be happy in their relationship as men educated in mixed schools – when asked to rate the quality of their marriage on a scale of one to seven.

The research covered 17,000 adults who had been taught in a range of institutions from private boarding schools to state comprehensives. The majority had been brought up in day schools.

Mary Bousted, general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, said: “All the research shows single-sex schools are good for girls but bad for boys – both in terms of academic performance and 30ocialization.

“Girls seem to learn what the nature of the beast is if they have been to single sex schools whereas boys taught on their own seem to find girls more puzzling.”

Dr Bousted added: “Boys learn better when they are with girls and they actually learn to get on better.”

The research also reveals that men taught in boys’ schools are more likely to suffer from “a sense of malaise” or depression by their early 40s – possibly as a result of relationship breakdown.

Men were also more likely to have spoken of a “dislike” for their school days if taught in a male-dominated environment.

However, there was no difference in the likelihood of marital breakdown between girls brought up in single-sex schools and those taught in a mixed-sex environment.

The research also shows that boys from single-sex schools were just as likely to take part in household chores – such as cooking the evening meal, laundry, cleaning and shopping.

The research failed to back up a claim made by advocates of mixed schooling that being taught co-educationally meant youngsters were less likely to opt for a homosexual or lesbian lifestyle. “Only 21 men and 22 women reported living with same-sex partners at age 42,” says the research.

“We are therefore unable to comment on whether co-education did provide the ‘clean, healthy, natural atmosphere’ so commended by its early advocates.”

Nearly half of those born in the 1958 week under study, who subsequently graduated from universities, had attended single-sex schools, the research also found.

However, this was more likely to have been as a result of the type of schools they attended – there are more single private schools and grammar schools than comprehensives. Pupils taught in single-sex schools are more likely to study for subjects traditionally thought of as the preserve of the opposite sex, though.

For instance, more girls choose to study maths and science in single-sex schools and more boys pick the arts and humanities than if they were taught in mixed classes.

“A central finding is that single-sex schooling moderates the effect of gender-stereotyping in terms of choice of field of study,” says the research.

“This runs counter to earlier assertions that co-education would widen subject choice.”

Richard Garner

www.independent.co.uk

B. Compare the results of the research for boys and girls and make your conclusions. What type of school would you prefer as a parent?

2.4. Single-Sex Education

A. Skim through the text to give the author’s criterion of choosing a certain type of school.

There’s lots of talk – once again – about the value of single-sex education. Do boys and girls benefit from being in classes with only other boys or girls? Some research indicates yes; some says no. This is typical of most education research. Reports clash with astonishing regularity and confusion. Many highly successful single-sex parochial and private schools think yes. On the other hand, many once single-sex schools – especially colleges – have gone coed. What’s the right answer?

For what it’s worth, here’s what I think. It’s up to us adults to recognize what’s best for our kids, knowing that what’s right for one child is not the same as for another. Any parent with more than one child knows that. For some students, single-sex classes make good sense. Many children do, indeed, succeed with more ease when they’re free of the distractions of the opposite sex. Other students, however, blossom when in the company of the opposite sex.

I say if it’s right for a child, if it’s what he or she needs, it’s good to have the single-sex option. The wider the range of school options, the better. It’s what we expect when we go shopping for clothes and cars; why would we want any less from our schools?

Beware of anyone who tells you that there’s one way to teach all students, one method, one curriculum, and one research study that proves it. Show that person the door.

If there’s anything we educators have learned in the past few years, it’s that all children are capable of learning, but they learn in different ways and at different rates. A superintendent friend says, “All kids can learn, but not in the same way and not on the same day.”

That’s why schools look so different today from when we adults went to school. That’s why teachers’ jobs are so much more difficult now, trying to reach every child, teaching in the way each child learns best. That’s why there are so many school options for families, single-sex schools being just one.

There are also home schools, magnet schools, and charter schools. Online schools, summer schools, and boarding schools. Schools-within-schools, international schools, and foreign-language schools.

And, oh yes, single-sex schools. The diversity is remarkable. The more we learn about the many ways children learn, the more we can expect different configurations of schools, classrooms, and learning environments. We should embrace these new configurations not run from them.

That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have high expectations from them. What should we expect from these schools, from the people who run them, and the students who go to them? We should expect that the adults who propose them have done their homework, know what kinds of learners will benefit from their schools, and can articulate what they hope to accomplish and how they hope to do so.

We should expect that teachers are chosen not because of seniority or some other artificial criterion but because of their talents, because they understand and approve of the philosophy of the school, because they’ve shown they can adjust their instruction and curriculum to fit the school’s mission, and because they can meet the needs of the students and families they serve.

We should expect students – and their families – to take seriously these new ways to learn. Parents should communicate regularly with teachers, know when assignments are due, when tests are given, and give their children the support they need every day. Students should learn quickly that the adults in their lives will be watching them, supporting them, rewarding them, and, when necessary, dishing out consequences.

Education and learning are too important and too diverse to fit into a one-size-fits-all box. How and what we taught in the past may have worked for our needs then, and may still work for many students today, but, for others, times and needs have changed. Single-sex schools (or even a single-sex class or two within an otherwise traditional school) may be the answer for some kids. So might some of those other options I mentioned. Just don’t expect one option to work for all learners.

I say let’s try as many as we can. What’s more important than our kids?

www.drrickblog.com

B. Answer the questions.

1. Is there any definite answer which type of school is better? Why?

2. What is the undoubtful thing all educators have learned in the past few years? Why does it make a teacher’s job more difficult?

3. What should we expect from any school and any teacher?

4. What should be expected from parents?

5. Do you agree with the author’s statement “The wider the range of school options, the better.” Why?

C. Sum up the article.