My future profession (biologist)

Choosing a career is probably one of the most important decisionsyou will ever make. And it is not easy to choose the right one of the hundreds of jobs. I didn’t make a blind choice. I came to this decision little by little.

Now I’m a first-year student of the Faculty of Natural Sciences at Mogilev State University. My speciality is Biology (Geography, Chemistry). I study by correspondence. In the near future I’ll graduate from the University and become a teacher of Biology (Geography, Chemistry).

I am proud of my future profession. I decided to choose this profession because Biology and Chemistry were my favourite subjects at school. Biology studies the life of various kinds of living organisms which exist on our planet: bacteria, fungi, plants, animals. One of the important aspects of Biology is the study of human biology. Biology studies different functions of organisms such as their habitat, structure, reproduction. I am going to become a teacher of Biology because I love children and want to work with them. I will teach my pupils to love nature and to preserve its riches.

The profession of a teacher has always been one of the most honourable and of great responsibility. A good teacher should have true interest in children and love for them. He must be also a well-educated man. He must be a strict but just and hard-working person. A teacher is a person who is teaching as well as learning himself all his life.

Teaching is always difficult because it is an art and no art is easy. But I am not afraid of all these difficulties. I want to become a good teacher.

Exercise 3. Translate from Russian into English:

решение, моя будущая профессия, живой организм, существовать, место обитания, строение, размножение, любить природу.

Exercise 4. Answer the questions:

1. Is there a great variety of jobs in our country? What jobs do you know?

2. Is it easy to choose a profession?

3. What faculty do you study at?

4. What profession will you get after graduating from the University?

5.Why did you choose this Faculty?

6. Who helped you to make your choice?

7. What will you teach your pupils?

8. What features of character should a good teacher have?

9. How can you explain the phrase “a teacher is a person who is teaching as well as learning himself all his life”?

10.Will you describe an ideal teacher?

11. Do you think that teachig is easy?

THE PURPOSE OF SCHOOL

If you ask yourself why children go to school, you’ll probably say that they go to learn their own language and other languages, arithmetic, geography, geometry, history, science and all other subjects. That is quite true: but why do they learn these things? And are these things all that they learn at school? We send our children to school to prepare them for the time when they will be big and will have to work for themselves. They learn their own language so that they will be able to tellothers clearly what they want and what they know, and understand what others tell them. They learn foreign language in order to be able to benefit from what people in other countries have written and said and in order to make people from other countries understand what they themselves mean. They learn arithmetic in order to be able to measure and count things in their daily life, geography in order to know something about the world around them, and history to know something about human beings they meet every day. Nearly everything they study at school has some practical use in their daily life, but is that the only reason why they go to school?

No. There is more in education than just learning facts. We go to school above all to learn how to learn, so that, when we leave school, we can continue to learn. A man who really knows how to learn will always be successful, because whenever he has to do something new which he had never had to do before, he will rapidly teach himself how to do it in the best way. The uneducated person, on the other hand, is either unable to do something new, or does it badly. The purpose of school, therefore, is not just to teach languages, arithmetic, geography etc, but to teach pupils the way to learn.

Exercise 1. Study the following word-combinations:

the purpose of school – цель школьного образования

some practical use – какие-либо практические применения

human beings – люди

science and other subjects – естественные науки и другие предметы

a foreign language – иностранный язык

the only reason – единственная причина

in the best way – наилучшим образом

Exercise 2. Answer the questions:

1. What is the subject-matter of the text?

2. What subjects do children learn at school?

3. What do they learn arithmetic/geography/history for?

4. Is learning facts the only purpose of education?

5. What is the purpose of school in your opinion?

THE VALUE OF EDUCATION

Education is not an end, but a means to an end. In other words, we don’t educate children only for the purpose of educating them; our purpose is to fit them for life. As soon as we realize this fact, we will understand that it is very important to choose a system of education which will really prepare children for life.

It is not enough just to choose the first system of education one finds; or to continue with one’s old system of education without examining it to see whether it is in fact suitable or not.

In many modern countries it has for some time been fashionable to think that, by free education for all – whether rich or poor, clever or stupid – one can solve all the problems of society and build a perfect nation. But we can already see that free education for all is not enough; we find in such countries a far larger number of people with university degrees than there are jobs for them. Because of their degrees, they refuse to do what they think “low” work; and, in fact, work with the hands is thought to be dirty and shameful in such countries. But we have only to think a moment to understand that the work of a completely uneducated farmer is far more important than that of a professor: we can leave without education, but we die if we have no food. If no one cleaned our streets and took the rubbish away from our houses, we should get terrible diseases in our towns. In countries where there are no servants because everyone is ashamed to do such work, the professors have to waste much of their time doing housework.

In fact, when we say that all of us must be educated to fit us for life, it means that we must be educated in such a way that, firstly, each of us can do whatever job is suited to his brain and ability, and, secondly, that we can realize that all jobs are necessary to society, and that it is very bad to be ashamed of one’s work, or to scorn someone else’s. Only such type of education can be called valuable to society.

Exercise 1. Study the following word-combinations:

ends and means – цели и средства

to fit for life – приспосабливать к жизни

for some time – в течение некоторого времени

free education – бесплатное образование

a university degree – университетский диплом

to be suited to one’s abilities – соответствовать способностям

Exercise 2. Answer the questions:

1. What is the purpose of education according to the text (in your opinion)?

2. Why is it necessary to examine any system of education before choosing it?

3. Can “free education for all” solve all the problems of society?

4. What sort of education can be called valuable to society?