A Retrospective View of Our Schools
In Jane Tompkins, A Life in School: What the Teacher Learned, Jane uncovers flaws in the American education system and how poorly formal education prepares pupils for careers after schooling. She describes how her teachers at P.S. 98 used authority to form the person she is now, teaching at Duke. Her experience dabbling in alternative teaching methods established the path she took throughout her career. Although Tompkins experience is atypical of most students, I agree with her argument about how fear is a successful means of motivation for those that can succumb to it, but alternatives exist that have been demonstrated and are successful.
Tompkins describes how authority drove her to success throughout her grade school year’s using vivid imagery. Authority was used to as fear to scare her into success. Her view of her memories produced from fear is described as “negative” and “painful” (25). She reconciles her view of these negative memories by recognizing that she possibly tainted her memories with her own view. Here, Tompkins recognizes how monumental of an effective approach to authority had on her childhood and
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In a setting of higher learning, allowing the students to set their own assignments and goals can have an immensely positive impact on the development of pupils. Tompkins described her course, Reading for Yourself, as her most successful approach to teaching, in which she had minimal interaction with the learning process. She even asked at one point, “What would I do next? Not show up at all?” (128). Tompkins’ personal experience allowing the students to dictate their own educational pathway was groundbreaking and an enormous success. I find this academic success in my own work whenever I have the choice to decide the topic on something as simple as an essay, or even to create my own material in a
In Patricia Limerick’s article “Dancing with Professors”, she argues the problems that college students must face in the present regarding writing. Essays are daunting to most college students, and given the typical lengths of college papers, students are not motivated to write the assigned essays. One of the major arguments in Limerick’s article is how “It is, in truth, difficult to persuade students to write well when they find so few good examples in their assigned reading.” To college students, this argument is true with most of their ...
During my first few days of sophomore year at Stuyvesant High School, I saw how the ways of thinking were diverse in each of my classes. In my European Literature class, where, in our first reading assignment, we questioned the purpose of education itself. I always went with the flow in my learning, and never stopped to say to myself, “Why am I doing this to myself?”. However, once I read Live and Learn by Louis Menand, I started to think about Menand’s three theories of college and juxtapose each of them to my experience so far in high school. In the end, I concluded that many of my classes followed the main points of Theory 2, which was the theory that I mostly agreed with when I read the article for the first time.
Have you ever wondered if our education system has flaws? Well in the article “Against School” written by John Taylor Gatto, Gatto once a teacher explains how public education weakens the youth. He starts off the paper by saying how he taught for 30 years, went through a termination, and personally witnessed almost all of the schooling flaws. In Gatto’s article he lists very noticeable names, such as George W. Bush, George Washington, James Bryant Conant, and H.L Mencken to name a few. Having taught children for so long Gatto believes he has the expert rule in this subject. He proposes that to bring out the best qualities in a child you have to let them make decision and let them take their own risks. Gatto’s mission in this article is to make you consider, if school is actually important.
My life story began when I was born on June 18, 1990 in the United States. Lived in the U.S.A for about two years and my parents decided to go back to their county and continue living there due to their business. But after 10 years living in Egypt my parents again decided to come to the U.S. for a better future for my siblings and I. However I was blessed to be in a family of Christian. Throughout 10 years being in a Muslim country was something completely different than being in the United States. At the time neither me nor my parents were feeling weird about it because my parents brought me up in churches and placed us in Christian schools that were very stricked about our behaviors and living the Godly life. But in general just never had a problem living in Egypt, I loved everyone around me and didn’t have any problems at all being around different types of religions.
Have you ever been controlled by fear? This outlines that individuals would do whatever they can to stay out of fears way, it proves that they have no power whatsoever. Today I’ll be addressing this topic with reference to the set topic Hunger Games by Gary Ross and my chosen topic the cartoon ‘State School NO.1812’ by R. Cobb. These two different texts show two contrasting ideas of love and compassion over ruling fear and control; and the amount of power they have.
“I do really believe, it had been totally impossible to have made it to submit by violence and force.” If an instructor teaches education with vexation and pressure, the students will only learn to hate it, associating it with anguish, therefore, becoming sluggish and uncaring when in the study room. As seen in schools present and past, children rebel against even the slightest bit of work. The work the students are given is completed in drudgery. From experience, children enjoy the classes that have good and kind teachers. Even if the workload is high, they appreciate how the instructor teaches and want to make them proud putting their best effort into their
We live in a society where we are surrounded by people telling us that school/education and being educated is the only way to succeed. However, the school system is not up to the standards we want it to uphold. There are three issues we discuss the most which are the government, the student, and the teacher. In John Taylor Gatto 's essay “Against School”, we see the inside perspective of the educational system from the view of a teacher. In “I Just Wanna Be Average”, an essay written by Mike Rose, we hear a student 's experience of being in a vocational class in the lower level class in the educational system when he was supposed to be in the higher class.
The fostering of independent thought is sometimes forgone in today's educational system. At times, students are encouraged to just complete their assignment instead of thinking about what they are doing so that they may fully understand their...
Specifically, Cox argues that “ The many students who seriously doubted their ability to succeed, however, were anxiously waiting for their shortcomings to be exposed, at which point they would be stopped from pursuing their goals. Fragile and fearful, these students expressed their concern in several ways: in reference to college professors, particular courses or subject matter, and the entire notion of college itself-whether at the two- or the four- year level. At the core of different expressions of fear, however, were the same feelings of dread and the apprehension that success in college would prove to be an unrealizable dream.” ( 25-26). Although some believe that fear shouldn’t be an excuse to failure, whatever shape or form fear come in, the students who attend college should be grown enough to control it and not let
Wilbur shows a good effort made to protect a child from fears because the fears are irrational. On the contrary, Collins juxtaposes a history teacher’s efforts to protect his students from historical truths and their ensuing behavior to show that the time he spends misguiding his students could be better spent teaching children to mature. Wilbur and Collins both demonstrate approaches to calming children; however the approaches differ in terms of protecting the children verses outright lying to them. Theses passages attempt to answer the controversial question of whether it is better to shelter children or expose them to the harsh realities of the world.
The article “Students and Homework,” written by Josephine Campbell, describes a very important topic in education. Homework has always been an essential part of the American education system. Although not required in a vast amount of school districts, many educators recur to this resource for various purposes such as a remedial strategy or method of advancement. Throughout history, the concept has been taken from different approaches in regards of the time period and overall purpose of assigning. However, it was during the time period that involved the space race with the Soviets that homework was specifically encouraged to improve the United States’ educational system. As of today, homework is still revolutionizing the concept of education
In a society where kids must go to school up to the collegiate level, teaching is an impactful career choice. Teachers help contour the minds of future leaders of the world. Furthermore, teachers play a crucial role in guiding students to the knowledge, skills, and abilities they need to succeed in life, and teachers lead students to make informed decisions on any topic the meet in the future. As a teacher, a person must relinquish their knowledge onto students. Finally, they must prepare their students for all the obstacles they will face later in life.
Hase, S., & Kenyon, C. (2000, pg 2) suggests that we should now be looking at an educational approach where it is the learner himself who determines what and how learning should take place. This form of learning is called heutagogy. Heutagogical “the study of self-determined learning,” (pg 2) this “approach recognizes the need to be flexible in the learning where the teacher provides resources but the learner designs the actual course he or she might take by negotiating the learning,” stated by Hase, S., & Kenyon, C. (2000, pg 2, 6). With this form of learning adults are accountable for their own learning with a little bit of assistance from a facilitator or instructor. Adults can utilizes not only the aptitude to be self-directed but also their competence to incorporate their everyday experiences in to their
Sadker, D.M., Sadker, M.P., and Zittleman, K.R.,(2008) Teachers, Students, and Society (8th ed.).New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
The classroom should be a democratic environment where students choose what they want to learn. The teacher and stud...