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(单词翻译:双击或拖选)
One of the most important social developments that helped to make possible a shift in thinking about the role of public education was the effect of the baby boom of the 1950's and 1960's on the schools. In the 1920's, but especially in the Depression conditions of the 1930's, the United States experienced a declining birth rate --- every thousand women aged1 fifteen to forty-four gave birth to about 118 live children in 1920, 89.2 in 1930, 75.8 in 1936, and 80 in 1940. With the growing prosperity brought on by the Second World War and the economic boom that followed it young people married and established households earlier and began to raise larger families than had their predecessors2 during the Depression. Birth rates rose to 102 per thousand in 1946,106.2 in 1950, and 118 in 1955. Although economics was probably the most important determinant, it is not the only explanation for the baby boom. The increased value placed on the idea of the family also helps to explain this rise in birth rates. The baby boomers began streaming into the first grade by the mid3 1940's and became a flood by 1950. The public school system suddenly found itself overtaxed. While the number of schoolchildren rose because of wartime and postwar conditions, these same conditions made the schools even less prepared to cope with the food. The wartime economy meant that few new schools were built between 1940 and 1945. Moreover, during the war and in the boom times that followed, large numbers of teachers left their profession for better-paying jobs elsewhere in the economy.
Therefore in the 1950’s and 1960’s, the baby boom hit an antiquated4 and inadequate5 school system. Consequently, the “ custodial6 rhetoric7” of the 1930’s and early 1940’s no longer made sense that is, keeping youths aged sixteen and older out of the labor8 market by keeping them in school could no longer be a high priority for an institution unable to find space and staff to teach younger children aged five to sixteen. With the baby boom, the focus of educators and of laymen9 interested in education inevitably10 turned toward the lower grades and back to basic academic skills and discipline. The system no longer had much interest in offering nontraditional, new, and extra services to older youths.
1 aged | |
adj.年老的,陈年的 | |
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2 predecessors | |
n.前任( predecessor的名词复数 );前辈;(被取代的)原有事物;前身 | |
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3 mid | |
adj.中央的,中间的 | |
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4 antiquated | |
adj.陈旧的,过时的 | |
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5 inadequate | |
adj.(for,to)不充足的,不适当的 | |
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6 custodial | |
adj.监护的,照管的 | |
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7 rhetoric | |
n.修辞学,浮夸之言语 | |
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8 labor | |
n.劳动,努力,工作,劳工;分娩;vi.劳动,努力,苦干;vt.详细分析;麻烦 | |
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9 laymen | |
门外汉,外行人( layman的名词复数 ); 普通教徒(有别于神职人员) | |
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10 inevitably | |
adv.不可避免地;必然发生地 | |
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