美国教育文学体育节日第五章精选.ppt

1. A Brief Introduction In America, education is carried out at various levels, which are mainly divided into elementary education, secondary education, and higher education.美国的正规教育是由初级、中级和高等教育组成。 2. Elementary and Secondary Education Elementary and secondary education covers 12 years from age 6 through 18. In elementary schools, courses for children include reading, arithmetic, and language arts such as creative writing, spelling, and handwriting, and there are also social courses (such as history, geography, and civics of government), science, art and music. Currently, there are nearly 58,000 public elementary schools and 21,000 public secondary schools in the U.S., with a student body of 40.3 million. Another 5.7 million attend private schools. Elementary and secondary education is free and compulsory. The total financial support for public schools is approximately 185 billion dollars a year. 3. Higher Education Higher education in the United States began with the founding of Harvard College in 1636. Introduction to Some Famous Universities ★ Harvard University Harvard College was established in 1636 and was named for its first benefactor, John Harvard of Charlestown. Harvard was a young minister who, on his death in 1638, left his library and half his estate to the newly established institution. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States. Eight presidents of the United States (John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Theodore and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Rutherford B Hayes, John F. Kennedy George W. Bush and Barack Obama)were graduates of Harvard. Its faculty has produced 40 Nobel laureates. The US News World Report ranks Harvard at No 1 in its rating for America’s best universities for the year 2005. ★Yale University Yale University comprises three major academic components: Yale College (the undergraduate program), the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and the professional schools. ★ Massachusetts Institute of Technology It’s probab