Text B

   In 1967, The Observer, one of Britain's leading Sunday newspapers papers , organized a competition for secondary school-children ; they had to write about "The School that I'd Like". This meant , of course , that they also had to say what was wrong with the schools they had.

David , 15
But what is the main purpose of schools to educate young people so that when they go out into thewvorld they will be prepared for ~t? But are they? We learn our Mathematics, English, Physics, etc. , but what do you learn about sex, marriage and things like this? These are just as important but we don't learn very much about them.

Carol , 17
Give us more variety! Give us the chance to visit factories more frequently , to talk with miners , dustmen , doctors , lawyers , jail-birds and drug addicts, too. Give us the chance to visit remand mand homes and prisons. We want to know more about life and less about books.

Robin, 16
What a bore school is nowadays, the same as it has been for hunireds of years. What we get is the same old thing: teacher, outdated
textbooks , and a class fed up to the teeth with the teacher and the school. What we need is one great change in the educational system of the country. Children do not want to be taught at, but want to find things for themselves. If a child is interested in the way a rabbit's heart works, let him go and find out, by cutting one up.

Irena , 15
Homework should not be given. Many of us would rather spend another hour at school than two hours at home doing an hour's homework, where we are constantly being distracted by television
and such things.

Sidney, 15
The first step must surely be to raise teachers'salaries by at least fifty per cent so as to attract first-class people to the profession. And the only means of doing this is by offering salaries equal to their responsibility in shaping the hopes of tomorrow and competitive with those offered by industry.

Christopher, 16
The discipline and life of the school would be based on freedom for the pupil. So freedom and a minimum of control would be important and the pupils, male and female, would be treated as adults and allowed to see if they can live together in a community like intelligent people. Given this responsibility and freedom, the pupils obviously would not always be well-behaved and sensible, but they would, I believe, grow up to be mature and intelligent adults who are socially and in all other ways, useful to the community.

Margaret , 14
. . . all this (i. e. freedom in schools) suggests that the school would always be chaotic, which would give all the. pupils an insihgt into what life, after school, is like: chaos.

                                Additional Information

    I am beginning ro feel the pressure of work. None of the courses are as simple as they appear to be. There are a lot of reference books to consult and you can consider yourself lucky if you manage to get half of them from the Iibrary. Most copies seem to be permanently lent out. The reading rooms are always crowded and you have to get there early in order to find a place.

    The biggest headache is our dormitory. Though there are desks for us to work at, nobody ever works there. For one thing, the room is so crowded that there is little elbow room, and it is so dark that we need the electric light even in day time. The worst is the human element - there are always those who don't want to work and won't let others work either. They either chat, sing, play the guitar or listen to tapes. How I miss my little cubicle of a room at home!

    Perhaps it's only a reaction against my early excitement, but anyway I am often overcome by low spirits. Sometimes I even think I am wasting my time here and wish I had not come here at all. But of course I know they are only passing moods caused by my disillusionment. I find some of the teachers just hopeless and totally irresponsible. All they are interested in is to earn some extra money by moonlighting. In one way. they are to be sympathized with because they do need the extra money what .with their low salaries and the rising prices. But surely they shouldn't let us suffer as a result.

    My biggest disappointment is in my fellow students. Of course I am ceferring only to some, and perhaps they are only a minority. They are a far cry from my old image of college students. They dress and behave no better than the hooligans we often see in the streets. I really don't know how they managed to get into the university, for they don't seem to be interested in their studies at all.

 All they care for is to have a good time , as though to enter university is an end in itself. They hold dances every Saturday evening or play cards in the dormitories deep into the night , drinking and smoking heavily. What's more they always jump the queue in the dining halls and quarrel with anyone who tries to stop them. Once they even came to blows. What a disgrace!

    But despite all this, college life is opening up for me a new vista that brings as much excitement as enlightenment. Here we can talk about anything under the sun. I had always thought myself well-read and my classmates at school had looked up to me for my wide "general knowledge". But now I've come to realize how ignorant I really am. 

Just from casual conversaation and informal discussions , I've learnt more about the wvorld and society in the past two months than what I learned from all the fo.rmal classes at school. Also I found many extra-curricula lectures by guest speakers most stimulating. One in particular inspired me very much, a lecture on symphonic music by a young conductor from the Central Conservatory. Before, music used to be merely a collection of beautiful sounds to me. But now I am constantly discovering new and hidden meaning behind all these sounds.
    One thing I am sure; college life is and will be a most colourful and fruitful period in my whole life.