Many topics concerning education and its institutions are discussed in Amanda Ripley’s book “The Smartest Kids in The World: and how they got that way,” however, one of the most interesting can be found in chapter five “An American in Utopia.” The introduction of Kim, an American exchange student studying at a high school in Pietarsarri, Finland opens the chapter. Using Kim’s experiences in the Finish school system, Ripley continues to make a comparison between the students' in Finland and the United States. This segment highlights Finish teachers and students viewing education as a legitimate pursuit, while the American students more often than now saw it as a forced activity.
In the book They say, I say, by Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein they teach students how to be a writer. It is important to let people know how you feel. If you don 't tell your mom the shoes you 're wearing are too tight, how can she help you? Now what if your mom thinks your shoes are not too tight and you want to tell your Dad?
What is school really trying to do with our lives? The article “Against School” by John Taylor Gatto is an article that talks about the problem of schools and how the goals are not what they say they are. First. the author talks about how the school system creates boredom and what could be done to fix it. He then talks about how school is not needed in its required class times, what the schools say the goals are for the students, and where our school system originated from.
Roughly “15% of life is spent at school” in the United States (“What percentage of”). Humans are in school during the early years of development, thus the education system impacts their thoughts, choices, and overall wellbeing. It promotes discovery, but still confides the students to certain rules. This concept is explored throughout many poems including “Pass/Fail,” “Trouble with Math in a One-Room Country School,” “Zimmer’s Head Thudding against the Blackboard,” “The School Room on the Second Floor of the Knitting Mill,” and “Fork.” An overall negative attitude emerges from the themes that discusses how education and schooling impact you, for better or for worse.
“We live in a world where we rarely speak out and when someone does, often nobody is there to listen,” is a quote by Jaycee Dugard in her memoir A Stolen Life. Authors must be able to appeal to their readers in order for the story to be heard. While writing, they consider using multiple different tones and stylistic choices to entice an audience. In A Stolen Life, Jaycee Dugard utilizes a concerned tone and matter-of-fact style in order to express her emotions, provide readers with ample knowledge of her situation, and reflect on her life experiences. Jaycee Dugard never expected her childhood to be taken away.
Mike Rose is an internationally recognized writer, educator and specialist in composition. In his essay, “What College can Mean to the Other America”, Rose starts off by dating back to nearly 50 years since Michael Harrington wrote “The Other America”, to put an emphasis on the similarities of the society 50 years ago, compared to present day. Rose writes an exceptionally moving essay about the rigid school system, and how it forsakes students who cannot afford tuition fees. He paints a very vivid picture of the students he encountered. Those who were not able to pay for their tuition, and how inauspicious it currently affects them.
The Game of School: Why We All Play It, How It Hurts Kids, and What It Will Take to Change It by Robert L. Fried is a great tool for identifying challenges in school systems and planning school reform. This book explains in great depth the problems faced by students and educators in schools today and ends with a call to action for solving these problems. Some major concepts that arise frequently throughout the book are time being wasted, students feeling powerless and the prioritization of test scores over authentic learning. Time is wasted by everyone in school and is wasted in various ways, for example students are given busy work and teachers rush through a curriculum while students learn nothing. Students, while they are the most important stakeholders, feel as though they have no control over their education.
In Alison Bechdel’s, Are You My Mother?, the reader is exposed to her internal struggles as she writes her mother’s memoir. The author uses both graphics and her dialogue to relate her story with her literary inspirations. The author uses many repeated images to display the relationship One image that stands out is that of Alison crying as the real image of who she is. This is a repeating image as she is trying to discover her true self.
In the “Against Schools” article, author John Gatto describes the modern day schooling system and its flaws. He uses several rhetorical strategies in trying to prove his point. He successfully uses all three types of rhetoric in writing this article, which includes ethos, pathos, and logos. He establishes these strategies very early, and often throughout the article. He believes one issues with today’s schooling system is boredom, and that there is a distinct difference between what it means to be educated and schooled.
What I would recommend to Mrs.Fulton to read is “This is Where it Ends” By Marieke Nijkamp. This book is told from different students within the school experiencing what is happening that day in their own eyes and how they felt. It gives you the perspective of what it's like to experience something that terrorizes the country and how this happens at a high school even, not just in the world itself. It'll make you look at situations differently and you can't judge a person by its cover, because you never know what lies beneath them. My commitment for Summer Reading is that I take the time to read a few pages everyday and read as much as I can, not just make excuses not to read.
In Carl Singleton’s article, “What Our Education System Needs is More F’s,” he argues that students aren’t receiving the failing grades they deserve. School systems are to blame for the lack of quality in America’s education. No other recommendation for improvement will succeed. The only way to fix the American education system is to fail more students. According to Singleton, the real root of the issue is with the parents.
A recent study released by Pearson that questioned over 400,000 students in grades 6-12 shows that only “48% of students think their teachers care about them…and only 45% of students think teachers care if they are absent from school” (Hare, 2015). This shocking statistic demonstrates what American students think about their teachers. Most students are under the impression that their teachers don’t care about them. When teachers don’t care about their students and allow them to fail, many students with unrealized potential give up on education. Mike Rose’s “I Just Wanna Be Average” describes his journey through high school on the vocational track after the results of his “tests got confused with those of another student named Rose” (Rose, 1989, p. 2).
The education system fails to prepare students for the real world because of the lack of real world skills being taught in the classroom, and the sense of pointlessness in the class. The lack of real world skills such as learning how to pay taxes, write resumes, and proper money management are the main reasons why people claim the education system is failing. A non-drastic approach to this situation would be the replacement of elective classes with classes teaching these desired skills. Real world skills are lacking in schools; which is why the student community is complaining about the lack of preparation. Graduates against the current education model argue that despite their good grades and behavior, they do not know how to perform important
Many people think that most American schools are satisfactory. That is far from what is actually happening. The harsh reality is that schools that are unsatisfactory do exist. In Jonathan Kozol’s “Fremont High School”, he points out the flaws of a high school located somewhere in Los Angeles. This helps shine light on differences in the quality of education in various areas of the country.
The diversity of student backgrounds, abilities and learning styles makes each person unique in the way he or she reacts to information. The intersection of diverse student backgrounds and active learning needs a comfortable, positive environment in which to take root. Dr. King continues by explaining, “Education which stops with efficiency may prove the greatest menace to society. The most dangerous criminal may be the man gifted with reason, but with no morals.” From back then to today’s society, kids are failing because they lack those morals that they need to succeed.
