Cartoon : A Class on College Tuition

Political cartoon by Chuck Asay of The Colorado Springs Gazette published on 06 November 2010.

In this conservative leaning political cartoon, the cartoonist is critical of the government taking control of the student loan business. It is full of good vocabulary.

You see a caricature of Obama leading a classroom discussing how to make college tuition more affordable. First, what is tuition? This is the money you pay to take a class at a college, university or private school.

The caricature of Obama states that it is skyrocketing and need to be made more affordable. This means that cost of going to school has increased very quickly and become very expensive and so something must be done to lower the price so more people can pay for it. Look at this example of the vocabulary in use: Currently the price of gold is skyrocketing and is become less affordable for those who want to buy gold.

In response to how to make tuition more affordable, one of the students suggests that colleges should compete for students in a free market. He believes there should be more competition. This means that a university should try to attract more students by offering better educational services at lower prices than another university.

Mr. Marx, an illusion of course to Karl Marx, has another idea. He believes that the government (he uses the common term the Feds to refer to people working for the US government) should take over the student loan business because a government is too big to fail (tell that to the Soviet Union!). A loan is the money you request to borrow from a bank for which you pay back over time at interest. If something fails, it is unsuccessful and doesn’t work.

At the end of the cartoon, we see the caricature of Obama asking the class who they think is going to flunk his class. In the case of this class, the first student is going to flunk and Mr. Marx is going to pass. If you flunk a class, you fail the class and do not get a good mark or grade. If you succeed and get the necessary grade or mark to move up to the next class or level, you pass it. Congratulations!

Culture Spot : School Days in America’s Past – Not Just the Little Red Schoolhouse

Throughout American history, school buildings came in a as wide a variety of styles as there were minds and materials to create them.

Short on resources but long on resourcefulness, parents in Scotts Bluff, Nebraska, constructed their first school from bales of straw. For two years in the late 1800’s, pupils recited lessons inside this grassy shelter while cattle on the outside nibbled it to oblivion. Temporary structures such as this were replaced or improved upon when the community prospered. The evolution of many a Kansas school was typical: they often began as simple dugouts, were replaced by sod shacks, and then by frame or stone structures.

Deciding where to build the school often sparked a lively debate. It needed to be within walking distance for most of the children, yet far enough from farms so that pranksters would not trample crops or harass animals. It should be built on land not suitable for cultivation and, if possible, be located near a road. Simple log or frame schools that lacked fixed foundations were sometimes set on skids and shifted about the countryside in response to changes in the population.

The schools were built from whatever materials were plentiful. Wood and stone were common in the East, sod was used on the prairies, and adobe in the Southwest. The prevalence of red brick schools in the Midwest has probably added to the myth of the “little red schoolhouse.” But, in fact, most schools were painted white. Octagonal schools – the brainchild of a phrenologist and amateur architect – were easy to heat and so were popular for a time in the Middle Atlantic states.

Traditionally, a one-room school was furnished with crude backless benches that were, over time, incised by idle whittlers with '”all sorts of images, some of which would make heathens blush.” There were no individual desks. Instead, a slanted shelf ran along three walls and served as a writing surface; a flat shelf below it held personal items. The windows were glazed with paper greased with lard for translucence and waterproofing. This fragile glazing was often broken, and in winter the openings were likely to be stuffed with hats to help keep out the cold.

Amenities were added as budgets permitted. Yards were fenced, more to keep wandering livestock out that to keep the children in. To ensure propriety, schools sometimes had separate entrances for boys and girls – an extravagant nicety in cases when the school itself was a single room. A more pressing matter was that of privies: some schools had none; others had only one. In the early 1990’s, school superintendents urged that there “be separate toilets for the sexes . . . far enough apart to avoid moral contagion.”

Standardization of buildings and facilities increased dramatically in the 20th century. Playgrounds were built and flagpoles sprang up. Additional rooms and second, or even third, stories were added. What one scholar observed about the one-room schoolhouse was no less true for theses later structures; from here a pupil’s world widened “outward from the common room . . . in an adventure of growing and learning.”

Taken from Reader’s Digest Discovering America’s Past – Customs, Legends, History & Lore of Our Great Nation.

Culture Spot : School Days In America’s Past - At the Dame School

From the earliest colonial days into the 19th century, any respectable woman who needed a bit of an income could earn it by opening a dame school. Essentially day-care centers located in a woman’s own home, dame schools could be found in most large towns.

Corralled into the dame’s kitchen or parlor, young children received the rudiments of education. Classes were apt to be haphazard and teachers stern disciplinarians. Unruly children were often punished by a rap on the head with a thimble. Kindlier dames might provide a pillow in a corner where hard-working toddlers could rest their weary heads. When children actually got out of the school depended solely on the teacher’s abilities, and some teachers had little more training than their wards.

However much she knew, the dame’s job was to teach children their ABCs. Those not lucky enough to have primers to work with might draw letters in sand or teach the alphabet directly from the Bible. Lucy Laron, who attended Aunt Hannah’s school in 1830, later wrote: “I learned my letters in a few days, standing at Aunt Hannah’s knee while she pointed them out . . . with a pin, skipping over the ‘a b abs’ into words of one or two syllables, thence taking a flying leap into the New Testament.”

Between reading and perhaps singing songs with the dames as she spun* flax or baked bread, many children also learned to sew by working samplers. It was a skill that girls would use for the rest of their lives.

Surrounded by a houseful of lively children, a dame did not earn much for her efforts. A typical salary, if paid by the parents, was a few cents a week per child. If paid by the towns, there might be an arrangement such as one 18th-century teacher had for “£12 and diet, with use of a horse to visit her friends twice a year.”

While some of her pupils would be lucky enough to go on to a private academy, most of them never received any further formal education once they left her kitchen. For pennies a day, the dame, for nearly two centuries, helped keep literacy alive.

*irregular past form of ‘spin’

Taken from Reader’s Digest Discovering America’s Past – Customs, Legends, History & Lore of Our Great Nation.

Culture Spot : SAT Reasoning Test (America’s equivalent of the Baccalaureate)

In this video, you’ll hear about America’s equivalent of the Baccalaureate exam. Like the Baccalaureate, the SAT exam is a requirement for entry to college or university, however it isn’t a requirement to successfully complete high school. You can obtain your high school diploma with taking the SAT. Even though on a national level all American universities and colleges require a SAT exam for entry into their institution, the test isn’t administered by either the federal or state governments.

The video studies how the latest SAT results seem to vary according to social status and race in the United States.

From September 2, 2009 - SAT results from the class of 2009 show several interesting changes in the U.S. educational landscape.

a gap	-	un écart
to narrow	-	réduire
insight	-	un aperçu
a press release	-	un communiqué de presse
to lag behind	-	être à la traîne
an achievement	-	une réussite
lower performing	-	moins performant, de faible perfomance
to point out	-	montrer, signaler
online tutoring	-	le tutorat virtuel
unfair	-	injuste
income	-	le revenu
score	-	une note, un résultat
to take something a step further	-	aller plus loin
likelihood	-	la probabilité, les chances
curriculum	-	le programme
pattern	-	un modèle
the playing field	-	le terrain de jeu (les circonstances)
an op-ed (abbreviation for opposite the editorial page)	-	une contribution, une tribune libre, une opinion
the (learning) curve	-	la courbe d’apprentissage
the issue	-	le problème, la question
a dropout	-	un lycéen qui abandonne ses études

The SAT Reasoning Test (formerly Scholastic Aptitude Test and Scholastic Assessment Test) is a standardized test for college admissions in the United States. The SAT is owned, published, and developed by the College Board, a non-profit organization in the United States, and was once developed, published, and scored by the Educational Testing Service (ETS). ETS now administers the exam. The College Board claims that the SAT can determine whether or not a person is ready for college. The current SAT Reasoning Test takes three hours and forty-five minutes and costs $45 ($71 International), excluding late fees. Since the SAT's introduction in 1901, its name and scoring has changed several times. In 2005, the test was renamed to the "SAT Reasoning Test" with possible scores from 600 to 2400 combining test results from three 800-point sections (math, critical reading, and writing), along with other subsections scored separately. (taken from Wikipedia)

Visit the College Board’s official webpage for the SATs : http://www.collegeboard.com/student/testing/sat/about/SATI.html

Could you pass the SAT, try out a daily question : http://apps.collegeboard.com/qotd/question.do

Learn more about the SAT at : http://www.howstuffworks.com/sat.htm

Vocabulary In the News : 8 September 2009 – New York Post & The Chronicle

NOTE! I apologize, link to images and PDFs became inactive over time.

If you’d like a more readable version of this front page(pdf format), go HERE! For the newspaper’s homepage go to : http://www.nypost.com/

- If you have a pullout in a newspaper or magazine, then this means that there is a thin book that you can keep after you have thrown the newspaper or magazine away. In this case, they have included a short 20-page booklet as a NFL 2009 guide.

-A bribe is the money or present that you give to someone to help you do something dishonest or illegal. The act itself is called bribery, which is considered a crime. In the article which you can read at the link below, several city inspectors with links to powerful crime families were taking bribes in order to overlook violations in city construction codes. These inspectors were lining their pockets when the mob bribed them.

- Other city building inspectors were involved in a drug scam. This is when you follow a dishonest plan or trickery in the hopes of making money. In this situation, some inspectors were using the constructions sites as places to deal in illegal drugs. The word is also a verb. For example, you have all gotten those spam emails from some poor widow of a dead African official who has inherited a lot of money and needs help getting it out of the country or some other sad story so she has contacted you to help her and in the process, you’ll earn some of that money! Well, whoever sent you that email with the phony story is trying to scam you out of your money. Some scammers are so good at scamming and appear legitimate that we would call them a scam artist.

- The sub headline states that there is a mob taint on the construction inspectors. In other words, the whole situation appears to have a connection to the mob; it has the appearance of corruption. It gives the idea that the situation smells or is possibly infected by the mob. The word also exists as a verb. In the United States during an important court case such as in the OJ Simpson trials, the jury was kept hidden and they were not allowed to watch television during the trial because no one wants outside influences to taint or corrupt the jury. We want them to make an honest decision based only on the facts in the case and not from what is being said on television by the media. Here’s another example of how we can use this verb. Imagine you are walking in the country enjoying the fresh air when all of sudden you pass by a farm and you smell the cows! You could say that the air is tainted by the smell of cow manure. In other words, it added a quality to the air that made it unpleasant!

To find out more, go to: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/regional/graft_shocker_3FyDTCePvamziXbKSCeOZL

If you’d like a more readable version of this front page(pdf format), go HERE! For the newspaper’s homepage go to : http://www.kcchronicle.com/

I’d like to take just one expression from the front page of the Geneva, Illinois newspaper The Chronicle, because it’s a good idiomatic expression.

- If you walk a fine line, this means that you have to be careful about what you say or do because you might offend, anger or annoy someone. You have to treat a situation with great delicacy. Alternatively, you can also say, to walk a thin line.

The headline on the front page is referring to a speech that President Obama made to school children yesterday afternoon. The President has been accused by conservatives of using his speech to spread propaganda in the classroom. To find out more, read the article by clicking on the link below.

http://www.kcchronicle.com/articles/2009/09/07/08112864/index.xml

Front pages taken from : http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/

To learn more about the above political controversy swirling around President Obama’s speech to schoolchildren, watch the following video from www.newsy.com.

To view the video at Newsy and to access the transcript, go to : http://www.newsy.com/videos/obama_in_the_schools

Culture Spot : School Days in America’s Past – Schooling, Southern Style

In 1752 planter Theophilos Field placed a notice in the Virginia Gazette, soliciting the services of a qualified tutor. His needs were simple: “Any single man, capable of teaching Greek, Latin, and Mathematicks* . . .”

Field’s was one of many similar advertisements that appeared in southern newspapers throughout the 18^th century, for the gentry considered ignorance a disgrace. An uneducated member of the family was scorned as “Scandalous, . . .and a shame to his relations.”

But if education was important, it was also a problem. There were some “old-field schools” – community schools built on worn-out land – but they were relatively rare, and difficult for most children to get to. Since plantations were vast, families were isolated, and the burden of schooling fell directly on the parents.

Those who could afford it sent their sons to England for a proper education. Others found tutors who would live on the plantation and teach all of the children. The assignment could be challenging. When Philip Fithian accepted a position at Nomini Hall, a 70,000-acre Virginia estate, in 1773, he had only eight pupils. The children, however, ranged in age from 7 to 18 or older, and in experience from those just learning their letters to some who could read Latin.

Fithian was a graduate of Princeton, but American tutors were the exception. More often they were Scots or Englishmen who came to this country as indentured servants, pledging four years of service in exchange for ocean passage and the chance for a new life. Whether or not they were actually trained as teachers, those who had at least a smattering of Latin, literature, and the “the Mathematicks” made use of those skills when they got here.

While many indentured servants were treated as social inferiors, some, like John Harrower, who arrived in Virginia in 1774, were welcomed as gentlemen and had their own school buildings to work in. Horrower’s was “a neate* little House 20 foot Long and 12 foot wide” that doubled as his home. “I sleep in it by myself,” he wrote his wife back in Scotland, and “have a verry* fine feather bed under me.”

Despite his indenture, Horrower, like many other tutors in the South, was allowed to accept children from neighboring plantations as pupils. It was his one means of earning a bit of extra money to send home and help hasten the day when he and his family would be reunited.

*archaic spelling

Taken from Reader’s Digest Discovering America’s Past – Customs, Legends, History and Lore of Our Great Nation

Culture Spot : School Days in America’s Past – Defeating “Ye Ould* Deluder Satan”

Public education was a new idea in the New World, and our Puritan forebears turned it to the good use of guarding souls as well as improving minds.

Members of the General Court of Massachusetts had two goals in mind when, in 1647, they passed a law that created the first publicly supported schools in America. Their dual aims were to foil the efforts of “ye ould* deluder Satan, to keepe* men from the knowledge of ye Scriptures,” and to ensure that “learning . . . not be buried in ye grave of our fathers.”

The law required every settlement of more than 50 families to appoint a teacher to provide instruction in the Puritan version of the three R’s: reading, writing, and religion. Towns with more than 100 families had to set up a “grammar schoole*,” where emphasis was put on the education of boys of “hopeful promise,” who studied Latin, Greek, and literature in preparation for college. Girls, on the other hand, were rarely allowed above the primary level for fear that they might lose their wits if exposed to too much reading and thinking.

If a town lacked a schoolhouse, classes could be held in the meetinghouse. Teachers were paid a meager stipend, supplied with produce, and if not resident of the town, were “boarded around” with townsfolk. Families were also expected to provide wood for the school’s stove – a task that was often neglected until a child came home and complained of shivering through the day in the wintriest corner of the drafty room.

The daily routine was tied to the sun’s cycle. During most of the year the day began at 7:00 A.M. and ended sometime between 5:00 and 9:00 P.M. with a two-hour break. In winter months the schedule ran from 8:00 A.M. to 4:00 P.M.

Primitive and simple though the system was, children who spent even two or three years in these schools did learn enough to become familiar with the laws of the land – and to keep the “ould* deluder” at bay.

*archaic spelling

Culture Spot 09: On this day...October 16

Today in 1758, the man whose name has become synonymous with the word 'dictionary' was born. Noah Webster, also known as the "Father of American Scholarship and Education," was born in Hartford, Connecticut. Noah Webster came of age during the American Revolution and took on several teaching positions to help pay for his law degree at Yale University. However, Mr. Webster never practiced law finding it not to his liking. Instead, he continued teaching.

He did not like the American elementary schools that existed at the time finding them overcrowded, lacking qualified teachers and ill-equipped with inadequate textbooks from England. As a son of the Revolution, Webster also believed in American cultural independence believing that America's children should learn from American textbooks reflecting the country's distinctive language style. He began writing a three-volume compendium, A Grammatical Institute of the English Language, which included a speller, a grammar and a reader. His goal was rescue the "native tongue" hijacked by the British aristocracy believing language should be governed by the common use of the people. His textbooks affectionately called the "Blue-Backed Speller" due to its blue cover was the standard textbook for American children for 100 years!

It is Noah Webster who is also responsible for the Americanization of the English language in part by making several spelling changes such as the -er in theater from the British theatre. He removed the second l in such words as traveller and the u in words such as colour and honour changing them to color and honor. However, not all his recommended changes in spelling were accepted. See Noah Webster's spelling reform.

In 1806 he printed A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language, the first American English dictionary. A year later he began work on his An American Dictionary of the English Language which would take him 27 years to finish. Mr. Webster hoped that through this dictionary he could standardize American speech since spelling, pronunciation and vocabulary varied from region to region. Finally in 1828 at the ripe age of seventy, he published the first edition of his dictionary.

Still today, the Merriam-Webster dictionary is the standard for Americans and holds an honored place in classrooms throughout the country. Noah Webster's name is even a synonym for dictionary. It is quite common to hear an American student ask, "Can I borrow your Webster's?"

Read more about Noah Webster at Wikipedia.

Merriam-Webster online

VOCABULARY

scholarship - érudition

to come of age - atteindre la majorité

to his liking - à son goût

overcrowded - surpeuplé, bondé

lacking - manquant

ill-equipped - mal équipé

a textbook - un manuel

ripe age - âge mûr, âge avancé