英语读书笔记电子版.docVIP

Contents Contents 1 Unit 1 Education 3 1.1 Reading Focus 3 1.1.1 New Words 5 1.1.2Phrases 6 1.2 Reading Focus 7 1.2.1 New Words 9 1.2.2Phrases 11 Unit 2 12 2.1 Reading Focus 12 Unit 1 Education 1.1 Reading Focus We Should Cherish Our Childrens Freedom to Think --Kie Ho Americans who remember the good old days are not alone in complaining about the educational system in this country. Immigrants, too, complain, and with more up-to-date comparisons. Lately I have heard a Polish immigrant express dismay that his daughters high school has not taught her the difference between Belgrade and Prague. A German friend was furious when he learned that the mathematics test given to his son on his first day as a freshman included multiplication and division. A Lebanese boasts that the average high-school graduate in his homeland can speak fluently in Arabic, French and English. Japanese businessmen in Los Angeles send their children to private schools staffed by teachers imported from Japan to learn mathematics at Japanese levels, generally considered at least a year more advanced than the level here. But I wonder: If American education is so tragically inferior, why is it that this is still the country of innovation? I think I found the answer on my short trip to the Laguna Beach Museum of Art, where the work of schoolchildren was on exhibit. Equipped only with colorful yarns, foil paper, felt pens and crayons, they had transformed simple paper lunch bags into, among other things, a waterfall with flying fish, Broom Hilda the witch and a house with a woman in a bikini hiding behind a swinging door. Their public school had provided these children with opportunities and direction to fulfill their creativity, something that people in this country tend to take for granted. When I was 12 in Indonesia, where education followed the Dutch system, I had to memorize the names of all the worlds major cities, from Kabul to Karachi. At the same age, my son, who was brought up a Cali