Broadly speaking, the two major functions in education are to transmit the culture, values and lessons of the past to the current generation; and to prepare our children for the world in which they will live.
Modern, high-speed computers and telecommunications have facilitated the rapid movement of financial resources goods and services and have created interdependence among the world's economies. To benefit from these markets, nations must be competitive, and to be competitive they must have a well-educated work force.
We are experiencing a scientific information explosion of unprecedented proportions. Today scientists and engineers use computers to access thousands of rapidly growing data bases that store numbers, words, maps, chemical and physical structures; and they search them millions of times a year. The base of scientific knowledge today is huge.
Rapid changes in many fields are making basic knowledge and skills obsolete. Knowledge is continually being modified and basic concepts and theories are being revised. New theories emerge as new discoveries offer new ways of looking at the data. Disciplines are merging and hyphenated sub-disciplines are being formed.
Herbert Simon, Nobel Laureate, observed that the developments in science and information processing technologies have changed the meaning of the verb "to know". It used to mean "having information stored in one's memory". It now means the process of having access to information and knowing how to use it.
Exercise 18. Learn the following words and word combinations:
transmit the culture
current generation
facilitate developments
create interdependence
benefit from
competitive
unprecedented
access/search data bases /
store information
obsolete knowledge/skills /
revise concepts
Exercise 19. Answer the following questions.
1. What are the two major functions in education? 2. What has the use of modern, high-speed computers and telecommunications resulted in? 3. Why must nations be competitive? 4. What is the purpose of using computers by scientists and engineers today? 5. What is happening to basic knowledge and skills at present? 6. How has the meaning of the verb "to know" changed according to Herbert Simon, Nobel Laureate?
Exercise 20. Read and translate text 3. Retell it in detail Use the words and phrases suggested in Ex. 18.
