Topic 15. Children and school

Task 39. Read the text and answer the questions after it.

The Dark Side of School

It is often said that school is for students. However, a recent survey reveals that many students dislike or even hate school. What are the reasons for this aversion? Are students just lazy, undisciplined or unfair? The answer to this question seems to be more complicated.

Students usually identify school with teachers. Many of them complain that teachers are unjust, strict, subjective, intolerant, hypocritical or malicious. They often ridicule students or denigrate them. They are also accused of exerting a strong mental pressure on students and suppressing their individuality. A student should only listen, take notes and learn. Many young people feel that they should not be treated as addle-heads but as equals who have a right to hold and express their own opinions.

However, not only teachers are to blame. Most students claim that school is no longer a safe and nice place and

they are all agree that violence is probably the greatest problem school has to cope with these days. Some young people think that the only way to improve their status at school is through aggression. They believe that violence encourages others to respect them as a force to be reckoned with. Therefore many schools, especially the technical ones, are under the control of gangs which intimidate and terrorize the powerless students. The victims of aggression are often the younger or weaker students on whom the older “fellows” often wreak their rage. The ways of harassing the victims range from threatening behaviour to inflicting actual body harm on them. The cases of beating up, thrashing with a hose or belt, or even beguiling the intimidated students out of their money are not uncommon.

Apart from violence, another problem which troubles many schools is drugs. Drug use has considerably increased among young people within the last few years. Although it seems incredible, a big proportion of teenagers enter into the first contact with drugs at school. Peer pressure or simply curiosity often leads them to catching a habit and, in the process of time, to drug addiction. For drug dealers, school is an ideal place for drug traffic. They treat it as a ready market where they can easily distribute the white poison. A shocking fact is that they are especially active in primary schools! Often the person who supplies drugs is also a student.

Having looked at some dark sides of school: the poor relationships between teachers and students, school terrorism and drug problem, it seems no longer surprising that so many young people treat it as a necessary evil.

1) Why don’t some pupils want to go to school?

2) What problems are described in the text?

3) Have you ever faced the problems described in the text?

4) What can be done to solve these problems?

Task 40. Find in the text, translate into English and learn by heart the following words and word combinations.

1) невероятный, 2) неминуемое зло, 3) плохие отношения, 4) распространять наркотики, 5) принимать наркотики, 6) ровесники, 7) привыкнуть, 8) наркотическая зависимость, 9) белый яд, 10) выманивать, 11) угрожающее поведение, 12) бить резиновым шлангом или ремнем, 13) жертва, 14) поощрять, 15) жестокость, 16) строгий, 17) справляться с чем-либо, 18) равный, 19) угнетать индивидуальность, 20) высмеивать, 21) злой, 22) несправедливый, 23) иметь и высказывать мнение, 24) беспокоить, 25) покалечить / обидеть, 26) запугивать, 27) сила, которую необходимо принимать во внимание, 28) утверждать, 29) обвинять, 30) оказывать сильное психологическое давление, 31) жаловаться, 32) побить, 33) антипатия, 34) исследования, проведенные недавно, показали, 35) темные стороны, 36) недисциплинированный, 37) глупый, 38) рынок сбыта, 39) любопытство, 40) относиться к чему-либо, 41) спустя некоторое время, 42) вымещать свой гнев на ком-либо, 43) значительно возрасти, 44) находиться под контролем, 45) улучшать, 46) сложный, 47) безопасный, 48) идентифицировать, 49) продавец наркотиков, 50) торговля наркотиками.

Task 41. Complete the text with the suitable words: get, counselor, talk, bully, smart, worry.