四级英语Childhood

选词填空Childhood: Fathers Influence a Child’s Language

Development

In families with two working parents, fathers may have more impact on a child’s language development than mothers, a new study suggests.

Researchers recruited 92 families from 11 child care centers before their children were a year old, interviewing each to establish income, level of education and child care arrangements. Over all, it was a group of well-educated middle-class families, with married parents both living in the home.

When the children were 2, researchers videotaped them at home in free-play sessions with both parents, recording all of their speech. The study will appear in the November issue of The Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology.

The scientists measured the total number of utterances of the parents, the number of different words they used, the complexity of their sentences and other aspects of their speech. On average, fathers spoke less than mothers did, but they did not differ in the length of utterances or proportion of questions asked.

Finally, the researchers analyzed the children’s speech at age 3, using a standardized language test. The only predictors of high scores on the test were the mother’s level of education, the quality of child care and the number of different words the father used. The researchers are unsure why the father’s speech, and not the mother’s, had an effect. “It’s well established that the mother’s language does have an impact,” said Nadya Pancsofar, the lead author of the study and a graduate research assistant at the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute at the . It could be that the high-functioning mothers in the study had already had a strong influence on their children’s speech development, Ms. Pancsofar said, “or it may be that mothers are contributing in a way we didn’t measure in the study.” 阅读What Michelle Can Teach Us

Forget Claire Huxtable. She could be a real-life role model for black women.

Throughout this long, tense election, everyone has focused on the presidential candidates and how they'll change America. Rightly so. But selfishly, I'm more fascinated by Michelle

Obama and what she might be able to do, not just for this country, but for me as an African-American woman. As the potential First Lady, she would have the world's

attention. And that means that for the first time people will have a chance to get up close and personal with the type of African-American woman they so rarely see.

Usually, the lives of black women go largely unexamined. The prevailing theory seems to be that we're all hot-tempered single mothers who can't keep a man and, according to CNN's "Black in America," documentary, those of us who aren't street-walking crack addicts are on the verge of dying from AIDS. As writer Rebecca Walker put it on her Facebook page: "CNN should call me next time they really want to show diversity and meet real black women that nobody seems to talk about.''

Like Walker, I too know more than my share of black women who have little in common with the black female images I see in the media. My "sistafriends" are mostly college educated, in healthy, productive relationships and have a major aversion to sassy

one-liners. They are teachers, doctors and business owners. Of course, there are those of us who never get the chance to pull it together. And we accept and embrace them—but their stories can't and shouldn't be the only ones told.

Yet pop culture continues to hold a very unevolved view of African-American women. Take HBO's new vampire saga "True Blood." Even in the world of make-believe, black women still can't escape the stereotype of being neck-swirling, eye-rolling, oversexed females raised by our never-married, alcoholic mothers. Where is Claire Huxtable when you need her?

These images have helped define the way all black women are viewed, including Michelle Obama. Before she ever gets the chance to commit to a cause, charity or foundation as First Lady, her most urgent and perhaps most complicated duty may be simply to be herself.

It won't be easy. Since her emergence on the national scene, Obama has been deemed radical, divisive and the adjective that no modern-day black woman can live without: angry. Thankfully, so far, she's endured these demeaning accusations with a smile and

shrug —at least in public. But if she does end up in the White House, continuing to dial back her straightforward, vibrant personality isn't the answer. In the same way that

Eleanor Roosevelt, Jackie Kennedy and Hillary Clinton each redefined what it meant to be First Lady, Michelle will forge her own path. Not only will she draw the usual criticisms, but she'll be open to some new ones too. I eagerly await the public reaction if Sasha and Malia ever sport cornrows or afro puffs on the South Lawn. And if Michelle decides to champion a program that benefits black youth, will her critics slam her for being too parochial?

To be fair, Hillary Clinton's early involvement in her husband's administration (think health-care reform) brought a major backlash. But there's no real evidence of Michelle Obama's desire to be a huge presence in her husband's potential administration. Besides

helping military families, we don't even have many clues about what projects she might tackle.

Whatever she does, I hope she doesn't fall victim to critics with little point of reference. Take this month's issue of Town and Country magazine. An article—written by a white female reporter—offers advice to both potential First Ladies. The writer suggests Cindy McCain let her "personality and experience shine" and motivate others to give back. For Michelle, the writer suggests that she avoid "popping off when your guard is down" and to be careful "about how, when and if she injects her ethnicity … into her platform as First Lady."

The underlying message is that the last thing anyone needs to be reminded of is that

Michelle Obama is all black, unlike her husband, who is mixed—as the writer points out for seemingly no reason.

And that speaks to the larger issue that Michelle Obama could pose for the media. Because few mainstream publications have done in-depth features on regular African American women (and no, Halle Berry, Oprah and Beyoncé don't count), little is known about who we are, what we think and what we face on a regular basis. For better or worse, Michelle will become a stand-in for us all.

Just as she will have her critics, she will also have millions of adoring fans who usually have little interest in the First Lady. African-American blogs such as Sisterlicious, Black Girls Rock and That Black Girl Group have all written about what they'd like to see Michelle bring to the White House—mainly showing the world that a black woman can support her man and raise a strong black family. As contributor Felicia Jones wrote on one blog, "Michelle Obama will be the hero my little girls have been looking for. The hero doesn't have to shake her booty or point her finger to get noticed and respected. My little girls finally have a role model." Michelle will have to work to please everyone—an

impossible task. But for many African-American women like me, just a little of her poise, confidence and intellect will go a long way in changing an image that's been around for far too long.

阅读A Global Headhunt

Universities are starting to look beyond their borders when it comes time to hire a new boss.

When next year's crop of high-school graduates arrive at Oxford University in the fall of 2009, they'll be joined by a new face: Andrew Hamilton, the 55-year-old Yale provost who will become Oxford's vice chancellor—a

position equivalent to university president in the United States, with responsibility for the day-to-day running of the august institution.

Hamilton, a distinguished chemist who took on a senior administrative post at Yale in 2003, isn't the only educator crossing the pond. Others include Louise Richardson, who was executive dean of the Radcliffe

Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard before her appointment as principal of St. Andrews, Scotland's oldest university (and Prince William's alma mater). Schools in France, Egypt, Singapore and elsewhere have also recently made top-level hires from abroad.

As the trend suggests, higher education is big business these days, and like many businesses it's gone global. Until recently, few schools recruited across borders: "you really had to pick through the evidence to find examples," says Ken Kring, head of the education practice at Korn/Ferry International, the world's largest corporate recruiter. And the talent flow isn't quite universal. High-level personnel tend to head in one direction only: outward from the United States.

One reason is that American schools still tend not to look abroad. When the board of the University of Colorado searched for a new president to oversee its three campuses and 52,000 students, for example, it wanted a leader familiar with the state government, the source of a hefty chunk of the school's yearly budget. "We didn't do any sort of global consideration," says Patricia Hayes, the board's chair. They ultimately picked Bruce

Benson, a 69-year-old Colorado businessman and well-connected political activist who is likely to excel at the main task of modern university presidents: fund-raising.

It turns out that Yankees have a virtual lock on that skill set. When the University of Pennsylvania needed a new dean for its prestigious Wharton business school, it invited Korn/Ferry to include candidates from outside the United States, especially from Europe and East Asia. But "there were fewer [global options] than we would have liked," says Kring. The school ended up picking an American.

"Fund-raising is a distinctively American thing," says John Isaacson of Isaacson, Miller, an executive-search firm that works mostly with universities and nonprofits. This strength is largely a product of experience and necessity, since U.S. schools rely heavily on philanthropy. At Harvard last year, philanthropy made up 40 percent of the total budget. (About 33 percent of that came from endowment payouts.) At Cambridge the comparable figure was 10 percent, and at the University of Melbourne it was just 6 percent. Many European universities, meanwhile, are still almost wholly dependent on government funding.

But state support is falling rapidly in many countries. In Britain, for example, government contributions dropped from $14,000 per student in 1990 to $9,000 in 2006, according to Universities UK. This decline has made fund-raising an increasingly necessary ability among administrators, and has hiring committees clamoring for Americans (or at least professionals with experience in the United States).

In the past few years, prominent schools around the world have joined the trend. In 2003, when Cambridge University appointed Alison Richard, another former Yale provost, as its vice chancellor, the university publicly stressed the fact that in her previous job she'd overseen "a major strengthening of Yale's financial position." Her hiring was in fact part of a larger initiative—in 2005 Cambridge launched a 10-year, $2 billion development plan, and this year Oxford followed suit with a $2.5 billion campaign of its own (accompanying story). Both

schools have opened development offices in the United States, in order to tap wealthy alumni in a country already accustomed to giving.

Of course, fund-raising isn't the only skill outsiders offer. The globalization of education means that more and more "universities will be seeking heads with international experience of some kind or another" to bolster international programs and attract a global student body, says Prof. Rick Trainor, principal of King's College London and president of Universities UK. Foreigners can offer a fresh perspective on established practices. "It can be issues like why are all these people doing three-year degrees or why are the overseas fees all denominated in particular currencies," says Malcolm Gillies, the Australian vice chancellor of City University London. "You have to ask a lot of naive questions—just not too loudly." Loudly or not, such questions are more and more likely to come from Americans these days. In this area at least, U.S. exports still rule.

完型填空Older people's education

'neglected'

Vast majority of education budget spent on under 25s, despite growing elderly population, says new report

Older people must be given more chances to learn if they are to contribute to society rather than be a financial burden, according to a new study on population published today.

The current approach which concentrates on younger people and on skills for employment is inadequate to meet the challenges of demographic change, it says. Only 1% of the education budget is currently spent on the oldest third of the population.

The challenges include the fact that most people can expect to spend a third of their lives in retirement, that there are now more people over 59 than under 16 and that 11.3 million people are over state pension age. Life expectancy for a 65-year-old is now 85 for men and 88 for women. "Learning needs to continue throughout life. Our historic concentration of policy attention and resources on young people cannot meet the new needs," says the report's author, Professor Stephen McNair.

"The vast majority of our education budget is spent on people below the age of 25. When people are changing their jobs, homes, partners and lifestyles more often than ever, they need opportunities to learn at every age."

For example, some people are starting new careers in their 50s and later, says the report, which was commissioned by the Independent Inquiry into

the Future of Lifelong Learning (IfLL), sponsored by the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education.

People need opportunities to make a "midlife review" to adjust to the later stages of employed life, and to plan for the transition to retirement, which may now happen unpredictably at any point from 50 to over 90, says McNair, a member of the IfLL secretariat.

And there should be more money available to support people in establishing a sense of identity and finding constructive roles for the "third age", the 20 or more years they will spend in healthy retired life.

The same goes for the expanding "fourth age" when people need to maintain identity, health, social engagement and wellbeing during the final stages of life, says McNair.

He also believes that in an era of greater mobility there should be more help for people to establish themselves in new relationships and places. McNair warns that with the downturn in the economy affecting the value of all types of pensioners, people need to continue learning. Some need to maintain skills to earn and support dependents. Others can do voluntary work more effectively if they can retain and update their skills and knowledge.

"Although everyone's quality of life depends on the economic productivity of 'working age' adults, it does not follow that the maximum good of the population as a whole is served by focusing everything on paid employment and young people," says the report.

"Even if it is right for the bulk of public funding to be spent in this way, government needs to consider how the other kinds of learning need are to be met, and to ask whether 1% of the public education budget is a proper share to tackle the learning needs of a third of the population."

Colleges taking another look at

value of merit-based aid快速阅读

By Mary Beth Marklein, USA TODAY

Good grades and high test scores still matter — a lot — to many colleges as they award financial aid. But with low-income students projected to make up an ever-larger share of the college-bound population in coming years, some schools are re-examining whether that aid, typically known as merit aid, is the most effective use of precious institutional dollars.

George Washington University in Washington, D.C., for example, said last week that it would cut the value of its average merit scholarships by about one-third and pare the number of recipients, pouring the savings, about $2.5 million, into need-based aid. Allegheny College in Meadville, Pa., made a similar decision three years ago.

Now, Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y., says it will phase out merit scholarships altogether. No current merit-aid recipients will lose their scholarships, but need-based aid alone will be awarded beginning with students entering in fall 2008.

Not all colleges offer merit aid; generally, the more selective a school, the less likely it is to do so. Harvard and Princeton, for example, offer generous need-based packages, but plenty of families who don't meet need eligibility have been willing to pay whatever they must for a big-name school.

For small regional colleges that struggle just to fill seats, merit aid can be an important revenue-builder because many recipients still pay enough tuition dollars over and above the scholarship amount to keep the institution running.

But for rankings-conscious schools in between, merit aid has served primarily as a tool to recruit top

students and to improve their academic profiles. "They're trying to buy students," says Skidmore College economist Sandy Baum.

Re-evaluating aid

Studies show merit aid also tends to benefit disproportionately students who could afford to enroll without it. That's where demographics enter the picture.

"As we look to the future, we see a more pressing need to invest in need-based aid," says Monica Inzer, dean of admission and financial aid at Hamilton, which has offered merit scholarships for 10 years.

During that time, it rose in US News & World Report's ranking of the best liberal arts colleges, from 25 to 17.

Merit aid, which benefited about 75 students a year, or about 4% of its student body, at a cost of about $1 million a year, "served us well," Inzer says, but "to be discounting the price for families that don't need financial aid doesn't feel right anymore."

Need-based aid remains by far the largest share of all student aid, which includes state, federal and institutional grants. But merit aid, offered primarily by schools and states, is growing faster, both overall and at the institutional level.

Between 1995-96 and 2003-04, institutional merit aid alone increased 212%, compared with 47% for need-based grants, a study by Pennsylvania State University professor Donald Heller says. At least 15 states also offer merit aid, typically in a bid to enroll top students in the state's public institutions.

But in recent years, a growing chorus of critics has begun pressuring schools to drop the practice. Recent decisions by Hamilton and others may be "a sign that people are starting to realize that there's this

destructive competition going on," says Baum, co-author of a recent College Report that raises concerns about the role of institutional aid not based on need.

A fast 'merry-go-round'

David Laird, president of the 17-member Minnesota Private College Council, says many of his schools would like to reduce their merit aid but fear that in doing so, they would lose top students to their competitors.

"No one can take unilateral action," says Laird, who is exploring whether to seek an exemption from federal antitrust laws so member colleges can discuss how they could jointly reduce merit aid. "This is a merry-go-round that's going very fast, and none of the institutions believe they can sustain the risks of trying to break away by themselves."

A complicating factor, he and others note, is that merit aid has become so popular with middle-income families, who don't qualify for need-based aid, that many have come to depend on it. And, as tuitions continue to increase, the line between merit and need blurs.

That's one reason Allegheny College doesn't plan to drop merit aid entirely.

"We still believe in rewarding superior achievements and know that these top-notch students truly value the scholarship," says Scott Friedhoff, Allegheny's vice president for enrollment.

Emory University in Atlanta, which boasts a $4.7 billion endowment, meanwhile, is taking another tack. This year, it announced it would eliminate loans for needy students and cap them for middle-income families. At the same time, it said it would expand its 28-year-old merit program.

"Yeah, we're playing the merit game," acknowledges Tom Lancaster, senior associate dean for undergraduate education. But it has its strong points, too, he says.

"The fact of the matter is, it's not just about the lowest-income people. It is the average American middle-class family who is being priced out of the market."