Word Study

1. Match the two columns.

1) negotiate	a) to desire earnestly
2) exceed	b) to prevent somebody from doing something to bring to nothing
3) aspire	c) to take notice of, watch closely
4) ambition	d) to put or lay (duty, obligation)
	to force to do something by using unfair methods
5) frustrate	e) to utter a deep sound expressive of grief or pain
6) observe	f) to discuss matters in order to come to an agreement
7) impose	g) to do, perform; to give in trust, hand over
8) grown	h) to go beyond what is allowed or necessary
9) commit	i) provided, furnished with some quality
10) endowed	j) strange
11) odd	k) a strong desire for distinction (fame, honour)

2. Fill in the blanks with words or their derivatives from exercise 1

1. Bob hoped to become a dramatic critic. Earnst knew something of this … , but not all of it, for Bob could be secretive when he chose.

2. A high-ranking official has arrived in the capital to … the ambassador’s release.

3. Their anger and … are likely to stiffen their resistance.

4. He … a grave error and he was conscious of it.

5. Nature has … him with great ability.

6. Finch, scarcely noticed by the family once their rejoicing over his return had subsided, was only an … of this drama.

7. After several planes had been hi-jacked, the airlines … tight security measures.

8. The wounded man … when they lifted him.

9. He ascribed his poor condition to the heat that certainly … anything he had ever experienced.

10. It was an … choice and it surprised everybody.

11 His … were conventional enough, but they differed from the ... of the majority of young men.

3. Give the English for:

договаривающиеся стороны; превысить скорость; амбициозные планы; стремление к свободе; неудавшаяся попытка; наблюдательный пункт; наложить штраф; связать себя (обязательствами, словом); стол ломился от еды; одаренный музыкант; бороться с обстоятельствами.

4 Point out different meanings of the words odd and odds in the following.

a) odd: an ~ number; an ~ glove; ~ volumes; the ~ money; ~ job; how ~!; an ~ hour.

b) odds: to make ~ even; the ~ are ten to one; the ~ are against us; to be at ~; ~ and ends.

Writing

1. Compress the information and write a précis of the text.

2. Expand on the following and say whether you agree or disagree with the ideas expressed below:

a) “Hitch your wagon to a star.” (R.W. Emerson).

b) “A man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?” (R. Browning).

c) “Those who can, do, those who can’t, teach” (G.B. Shaw).

Text 13

Feminism and the School Teacher

A. Coffey, S. Delamont

1. The theory

The history of feminist movement shows that education was of interest to early “first wave” feminists in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Their concern became the widening of academic secondary education, higher education and professional training to include girls and women. The second wave of feminism is commonly dated from the 1960s and had three major strands: a liberal feminist strand concerned mainly with equal opportunities; a radical feminist strand concerned with separatism as a strategy for equality; and a socialist feminist strand concerned with a Marxist agenda. Until the second wave of feminism there were few queries about the status of the male knowledge base in education.

Since the 1980s, feminism, like other major theories, has responded to the emergence of postmodernism. Coffey and Delamont comment: “At its simplest, postmodernism is a challenge to the consensus held among the educated classes in the Western capitalist nations since…the end of the eighteenth century that universal, objective, scientific truths can be researched by scientific methods.“ Some feminists have argued, therefore, that postmodernism is entirely compatible with feminism, which also challenges the mainstream (malestream) authority of (mostly dead) white males. A postmodern approach enables a valid critique of the supposed “scientific” theories about gender of Freud, Bowlby and Parsons. Coffey and Delamont argue that new multiple feminism offer “new ways of seeing and knowing.”

2. The way it was

Before 1918 most middle-class and upper-class parents wanted to educate their daughters for marriage, not economic independence, and they did not want to invest much money in their education. The salaries of teachers were low and, obviously, women teachers earned less than men. These women teachers did, however, have to safeguard their young ladies. Medical opinion and religious orthodoxy thought ‘educated’ girls meant health problems and the possible forfeit of marriage prospects. Men would not want a wife who knew too much algebra.

3. Women teachers were subject to a double conformity. They did all the academic work of men and adhered strictly to the conservative rules of ladylike behaviour. The early pioneers of women’s education, such as the legendary Miss Buss and Miss Beale of Cheltenham Ladies’ College, who helped to found secondary education for girls, used this conformity in order to gain their real objectives of offering education to young ladies. Women teachers often lived heterosexually celibate lives (no sex) either as spinsters or widows. Married women were really found in teaching in the nineteenth century. The spinster female teacher gained sexual freedom only by denying her sexuality.

4. Working-class children were more likely to be educated by women drawn from upper working-class and lower middle-class homes. From 1918 to 1948 there was a climate of public hostility towards women teachers, since they were seen as having taken men’s jobs. The marriage bar operated during this time, which meant that women had to give up their jobs when they got married. Equal pay was a long way off. The unions to which male teachers belonged were in the main against equal pay for women. It was not until 1961 that female and male teachers had equal pay, and, even then, the National Association of School Masters (NAS) proposed a new dependency allowance be paid to male teachers with families. Some teachers unions opposed equal pay for women teachers right up to the 1975 Sex Discrimination Act.

5. After the 1944 Butler Act, many secondary schools were initially single sex. The next two decades saw the introduction of co-education, alongside the introduction of comprehensive schools. Women teachers feared for their promotion prospects with the introduction of co-education. Evidence suggests that whatever they gained from equal pay they lost with the coming of co-education. In fact, the position of men and women in the teaching profession today mirrors the international labour market position of men and women. According to the Department for Education and Employment (DfEE), in 1998 women made up over 65% of teachers but only 45% of head teachers.

6. The way it is now

Today women remain, on the whole, in the lower teaching ranks and in particular subject areas in secondary schools in Britain. It is the same in other, similar, Western countries. Many of the senior positions women attain are also gendered. Men, for example, tend to be head of faculty (academic) whilst women end up as head of year (pastoral – dealing with student problems). Women who are promoted to senior posts are often responsible for pastoral care. Mercer (1997) argues that this confirms the notion that women tend to be found in posts combining teaching with caring roles.

7. The teaching profession and teacher education have been the subject of recent attacks from the New Right. Teachers, it is argued, should be concerned with teaching attributes and skills rather than theory. New models of teacher training replicate a workplace training model with the emphasis on training on the job and studying in school. Teaching has become a job requiring common sense, practical experience and training, rather than a graduate-style higher education. The Teacher Training Agency (TTA) only specifically acknowledges gender in relation to recruitment. The “problem” for the TTA today is its inability to attract men into the teaching profession.

8. Coffey and Delamont argue that the feminization of teaching is seen as problematic and is not unrelated to the moral panic over the teaching and education of poorly performing boys. Teaching has become increasingly feminised in terms of numbers of female teachers, but is not becoming distinctly feminist in terms of carrier trajectories, discourse and ethos. So, whilst women are increasingly likely to apply for teaching jobs, this does not mean they are in the majority of teachers holding permanent posts.

E x e r c i s e s