Education Reform
Education reform means to make education better by removing faults and defects. True educators are always thinking of more effective ways to enhance and democratize the way children learn. With the continuous change of growing population, economics, culture, family, and global communication, there has to be continuous educational reforms to keep the society abreast with these changes. One of education’s early reformers is John Dewey. Dewey operated and experimental school where he wanted “to discover in administration, selection of subject matter, methods of learning teaching, and discipline, how a school could become a cooperative community while developing in individuals their own capacities and identifying their own needs.” (Dewey’s Laboratory School page XII) another education, Harold Howe II in his book “Thinking about Our Kids,” reiterates that families and communities are as important as schools in the education of our children. He also talks about the need for new approaches to financing schools, more attention to changing classroom routine in particular, and for better understanding of, and respect for the many races and cultures that make up our society. Regardless of the era in which education reform is thought of, the number one priority is the children.
Although Dewey’s’ experiment was done over a century ago, the lessons learned then can apply in today’s world. Children are the same, they go through the same stages of development and must learn how to solve some kind of problems if they are to live in the world of today. The country is bursting at its seams with the population growth. With the growth comes a very diverse group of people. People migrate with their culture. Language has become one of the many barriers in the prevention of literacy. When our mentors wrote or planned school reform, the rate of population growth was not as rapid it is now. Migrants then tried to learn the languages spoken in their new land. Today we have programs to foster children who do not have English as their first language, but are these programs successful? Many of the students are taught in their first language (usually Spanish) but then have to sit the standardized state examination in the English language. This situation could be termed as “unexpected difficulties an...
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...pport Act of 1988” but this too is plague by limited finding. If education reform is to be successful, these programs must be viable.
If is of paramount importance that education reform is need especially in this era. We are in a changing world and we must improve our educational standards to compete on the world market. The United States of America is a wealthy nation therefore it must spend more on educating its young. Politics and politician should be removed from planning and governing the education system. This should be in the hands of educators. It is unforgivable that our leaders has allowed United States of America to have one third of its population illiterate and spends less on education than other nations that are not as wealthy. Classroom teachers should be able to be more flexible in adjusting the standards to fulfill the needs of the students, instead of teaching (drilling) the children to past standardized examinations.
Bibliography
Howe Harold II 1993 Thinking About Ours Kids.
An Agenda for American Education.
Kozol Jonathan 1985 Illiterate America
Tanner Laurel N. 1997 Dewey’s Laboratory School Lessons for Today
As a young man, Jay Gatsby was poor with nothing but his love for Daisy. He had attempted to woe her, but a stronger attraction to money led her to marry another man. This did not stop Gatsby’s goal of winning this woman for himself though, and he decided to improve his life anyway he could until he could measure up to Daisy’s standards. He eventually gained connections in what would seem to be the wrong places, but these gave him the opportunity he needed to "get rich quick." Gatsby’s enormous desire for Daisy controlled his life to the point that he did not even question the immorality of the dealings that he involved himself in to acquire wealth. Eventually though, he was able to afford a "castle" in a location where he could pursue Daisy effectively. His life ambition had successfully moved him to the top of the "new money" class of society, but he lacked the education of how to promote his wealth properly. Despite the way that Gatsby flaunted his money, he did catch Daisy’s attention. A chaotic affair followed for a while until Daisy was overcome by pressures from Gatsby to leave her husband and by the realization that she belonged to "old money" and a more proper society.
In the text, The Death and Life of the Great American School System, author Diane Ravitch explores her ideological shift on school reform and the empirical evidence that caused this shift. Once a proponent and contributor of testing, accountability, choice, and market reforms, Ravitch’s support began to diminish as she realized that these current reforms were not viable options. She came to realize that the new school reforms focused entirely on structural and managerial adjustments and that no focus was given to actual learning.
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Birthmark”, was a dark romanticism full of drama and suspense. The short story’s twisted plot line and daring characters made for a great read. Hawthorne’s use of symbolism, foreshadowing, and third person omniscient tence to helped the readers deeper understand what his meaning behind the
In my view, system-wide, large-scale reform is needed to achieve the goal of "getting all young people as close as possible to their upper limits of learning potentialities" (Perrone, p. 15, 1991). This is crucial to ensure change because "trying to transform schools within the existing structure is a contradictory process" (Murphy, p. 38, 1991). The first step is to involve the traditionally voiceless at all decision-making levels to best determine what the needs of the least privileged are, if we are truly committed to providing opportunities that respond to children's needs. I specify, "opportunities" through funding based on my assumption and belief that money can improve education through attracting and keeping good teachers, reducing class sizes, establishing programs to respond to different needs, and maintaining healthy facilities and quality resources. Equitable funding, where all children have the chance to receive a high-quality education, is the first step towards education acting as the great equalizer in a country where oppression limits, dehumanizes, and disempowers in virtually every other life realm.
In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby was born into a life of poverty and as he grew up he became more aware of the possibility of a better life. He created fantasies that he was too good for his modest life and that his parents weren’t his own. When he met Daisy, a pretty upper class girl, his life revolved around her and he became obsessed with her carefree lifestyle. Gatsby’s desire to become good enough for Daisy and her parents is what motivates him to become a wealthy, immoral person who is perceived as being sophisticated.
Throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, the American educational system has undergone much transition in response to our changing society. Though there have been many problems raised throughout the years in regard to what our school systems should be teaching our children, there have also been many developments.
Jay Gatsby, as the protagonist of the novel, is one the few characters that is affiliated with the lower class. In Gatsby’s childhood, he suffers through poverty. Paradoxically, Gatsby is the most prestigious when compared to other characters, yet he was the only character to lack wealth in the past. With this, Fitzgerald proves that the current status of wealth justifies the current acceptance of a character. After attaining wealth, Gatsby remains distinguished from other wealthy characters due to the fact he once lived a life of destitution. Unlike Tom and Daisy, who live an empty life, Gatsby lives a life replete with motivation. Even though Gatsby was presented as one of the corrupted characters, he was considered prolific because he had a dream. This is achieved because Gatsby once experienced a low class life, unlike Tom and Daisy who grew up with prosperity.
Both Claudius and Hamlet are similar in many ways. They both have trouble taking action and are very indecisive. This can be seen when Claudius wants to pray and repent for his sins but has trouble praying because he does not want to give up everything that he has gained from that sin. He refuses to let everyone know that it was in fact him that killed the king and deal with the consequences that would follow, like him losing the power and respect he gained from being king. This indecisiveness can also be seen in Hamlet when he has trouble deciding whether to avenge his father’s death or if Claudius even killed his father. Even though the ghost of his father came to him and told Hamlet that Claudius poisoned him to take his position as king, Hamlet has trouble acting
Genuine people are few and far in between. Honesty is always hidden under the mystery of corruption. Wherever you go, people seem to put on mask and hide who they truly are become hidden from the outside world. Their motives are unknown but they have a deep, dark necessity to act and play a different role when they are in the presence of others. However, this doesn’t pertain to just people in the real world, it also occurs in the world of Shakespeare. The audience quickly finds that just like in their everyday life, fictional characters can also play a different role to achieve what they truly desire. Consequently, these characters develop a sense of dishonesty throughout the story and this dishonesty eventually leads to the destruction of their plans. Just like a weak foundation of a building, a weak personality will eventually crumple in ruin. In order to capture the recurring theme of dishonesty, William Shakespeare uses the death of King Hamlet to force a façade of security and responsibility on the major characters in his play, Hamlet.
Fifty years ago, the typical American family included a mother, father and their children. However today, “One in every four children in the United States are being raised by a single parent. Experts point to a variety of factors to explain the high US figure including a cultural shift toward greater acceptance of single parent rearing.”(Armario). As these numbers continue to rise due to modern day ideas and the increasing divorce rate, the children of single parents struggle. “Today 41% of all births were to unmarried women.”(Hymowitz). Single parent families have a detrimental effect on the psychological development of children because single parent families lack financial stability and quality parenting, in addition to lacking a stress free environment.
This book, Dare The School Build a New Social Order by George Counts, is an examination of teachers, the Progressive Education Movement, democracy and his idea on how to reform the American economy. The book is divided into 5 different sections. The first section is all about the Progressive Education Movement. Through this, George Counts points out many downsides and weaknesses of this ideal. He also talks about how he wants teachers to lead society instead of following it. In the second section, he examines 10 widespread fallacies. These fallacies were that man is born free, that children are born free, they live in a separate world of their own, education remains unchanged, education should have no bias, the object of education is to produce professors, school is an all-powerful educational agency, ignorance rather than knowledge is the way of wisdom, and education is made to prepare an individual for social change.
There are almost 13 million single parents today in the U.S. (Lauer, 2012). Each single-parent family is different and faces individual trials, including testing the limits of family and what it means to be related. No matter the causes of single parenthood—whether it be from a parent passing away, divorce, or someone simply choosing to have a child without being married—the conflicts plaguing these families are very similar. The statement “single parenting is the toughest job in the world” is a bold one that highlights the struggles of single parents everywhere, and it is one I happen to agree with.
...the pressure of keeping up with other students. Here, they can work at their own pace and figure out a solution that best works for them to understand or solve a problem. One last idea school reform should address in creating an equality of opportunity in public schools would be to set standards and spend more time in the classroom on these important tasks. These standards are put into place to help evaluate one’s progress. It’s important to have some standards in place, but they need to be feasible. To make such standards feasible, the teacher will be able to tailor it so that the standard can be met by the student. Spending a decent amount of time to get students to reach these standards is imperative. Without a sufficient amount of time, students may not be able to grasp and fully understand what is being taught to them resulting in standards not being met.
Social Development has not prepared individuals to be single parents. Single mothers and single fathers need to establish strong support networks, personal friendships, and positive parenting skills. They need to learn how to synchronize the demands of work, home-care, and supervision of children (Benson, 1993). They need to enforce limits, rules, and boundaries consistently, and to transmit responsibility and values, in order to raise responsible, self-controlled, and healthy children (Cloud, and Townsend, 1998). They need to find ways to improve and maintain their self-esteem. Many single parents learn to live on reduced incomes, find acceptable ways to deal with non-custodial parent, and redefine their relationships with their children. These are but a few of the challenges facing single parents (Benson, 1993).
In 2009, teachers of a New Jersey school banned foreign languages and stated, “any language other than English will not be tolerated" (Debaron 1). This situation was soon no longer allowed. While over ten percent of the total adolescent education systems contain emergent bilinguals, a whopping sixty percent of those students are educated in only English (Bale). Maria Estela Brisk, a Boston College Education professor, believes, “schools has wasted much energy in the search for a "perfect" model and the best way to learn English” when they could just focus on proving “quality education” to every student in the system (1). Teacher’s main priority should consist of effectively teaching their students to prepare them for the future, but currently there are a lack of certified bilingual education teachers. When students are taught more in different ways, they can educationally benefit their cognitive abilities, involving the brain with “mathematics, problem solving, logic and memory”, can be improved to create an overall better student. Even by learning another language at a earlier age can contribute to __________. Learning another language will be