Mark Edmundson’s essay “Pay Attention!” is an academic journal which focuses on what attention is and how people are affected by it. Edmundson contrasts attention with absorption instead of distraction. Also, he mentions how our culture lacks ways for people to become absorbed. People nowadays see attention as something is needs to be “paid” and try to rebel against it. The author wants to change that mindset to “becoming absorbed” in something.
For that reason, Graff anticipates his readers and responds accordingly with strong evidence. Furthermore, Graff expects his audience to approve of his values and support his evidence by including an outside reference: “A rhetoric scholar, Gregory Colomb, has studied the disorientation experienced by a bright high school graduate who, after doing well in a humanities course, as a freshman at the University of Chicago, tries to apply her mastery to a social science course, only to come up with a grade of C” (Graff 342). In essence, both Graff and Colomb agree that students are smart, but there is too much of a disjunction between classes that causes students to underperform, therefore, smart students may fail due to the differences in our
“For a long time, I tried to figure out how I was going to get started as a writer. I knew that a writer was what I wanted to be—though it wasn’t clear exactly why.” (Page 25) This quote is said by Mark Edmundson, who is a well known writer and author who published “Why Write.” I picked Mark Edmundson's chapter "
In this essay, the author recognizes the formal curriculum is no longer the center of the undergraduate experience due to the highest impact of learning being what is formally known as co-curricular or extracurricular. He suggests implementing those practices into the formal course. But still, he questions everyone in higher education: “Can we continue to operate on the assumption that the formal curriculum is the center of the undergraduate experience?” (Pg.24)
Gerald Graff’s argument on how educational systems are missing a great opportunity to tap into “street smarts” and focus them into a path of academic work is indeed convincing (Graff, 198). After all, anyone who’s been through the American educational system knows odds are often stacked against the “street smarts.” This is especially true in english classes, where one is often required to read boring and somewhat heartless books like, 1984, Beowulf, and the majority of Shakespeare’s classics. This is not to say these books are bad or shouldn’t be read during one’s schooling years, instead, the problem is one of apathy. For instance, in my high school years I never even remotely liked to read books Othello, but I loved to read magazines and
What this essay is saying about students and education is there is no student who doesn’t want to learn or what’s to get an education. Everybody is capable of learning, but the problem is sometimes the education are given by people who don’t care if you are learning or not. In this essay, we learned that the author was put in classes where the teachers didn’t care too much about their students and because of this he become a mediocre student. Not because he didn’t like school or he was lazy, but because there was no inspiration in learning. Luckily, Mike Rose the author of I Just Wanna Be Average found someone that wants him to start learning someone that make him change his mind.
Throughout the essay, Charles Murray stresses the idea that college is the wonderland of finding oneself and to find the career that one would want to follow for the rest of their lives. “College is seen as the open sesame to a good job and a desirable way for adolescents to transition to adulthood. Neither reason is as persuasive as it first appears.” Murray, C (2008) Practically spoken, this is not normally the case. College is a fair amount of work, much more work than one would normally acquire through any course of a high school or secondary school setting.
Mark Edmundson’s article at first glance the reader may believe that it’s directed towards a younger audience, since he first mentions the “fragmented mind of the younger” (Edmundson 1), but as the article progresses it shows how it’s actually directed toward adults. Moreover, Edmundson’s articles are published in The Hedgehog Review which mostly appeals to scholars. The author wants to appeal a group of readers in the same academic environment as himself. Subsequently, Edmundson’s main purpose is to illustrate how our culture is filled with absorption not distraction.
Schwartz uses the modern university for his example, he likens it to an intellectual shopping mall: “Individual customers are free to ‘purchase’ whatever bundles of knowledge they want”. Some universities let incoming freshmen sit in on classes briefly to test them out, the way one would try on clothes at a store. On the surface this seems amazing, how could anyone not be happy
Galen Strawson argues in his work, The Impossibility of Moral Responsibility, the theory that true moral responsibility is impossible. This theory is accurate whether determinism is true or false. Strawson describes this argument as the Basic Argument. He claims "nothing can be causa sui- nothing can be the cause of itself" (212).
And in between, students are driven to take low paying and high paying jobs against their own consent, their interests are altered, personal decisions must be taken according to financial situations, and people dare to reject education (Choi, 32). Student loan debt weighs on billions of shoulders in the world and it is nearly impossible to be oblivious to all the harm that it has done and all the factors it takes part in affecting that it shouldn’t. If awareness could be raised and colleges would only consider to at least reduce tuition rather than eliminate it, that would still help do the nation well and commence improvement. An education must serve to inspire imagination and to motivate creativity in as many fields as possible. A society that is excellent is a society that presents opportunities for each and every member.
I had made something of value” (Rose, 1989, p. 9). He had met his teacher’s expectation and that made him feel accomplished. On the other hand, if a teacher expects very little from their students, the students will slack on their assignments and tests and become lazy, knowing they will not be
Erikson: Case Study 6 (pages 21-23) 1. Would Erikson’s theory suggest that Betty’s behavior is internally or externally motivated? What motivates it? Which system of personality is most involved in personality, according to the theory? a) Erikson’s theory suggests that Betty’s behaviors are externally motivated, that is to say what drives her comes from the outside and beyond her control.
During my first few weeks and especially with the upperclassmen at the school, I heard repeatedly how a small handful of shop instructors would tell their students that they “didn’t need academics because you’re all going to be working in a trade someday.” They were so unwavering about their anti-academic beliefs in the school that the administration had to intervene and help
Under the Principle of Interaction, factors that affect student experience include those that are internal to the student, and those that are “objective” parts of the environment. The students’ perceptions of, and reactions to, the objective factors are influenced by their attitudes,
