Like Rose I was also placed into classes that didn 't help me out in any other way. Classes like ELL (English language learning) and some require course like art, and some repeat classes from middle school like us history. I like history, but I don 't like classes that teaches the same subject over again. I don 't dislike ELL, but feel like it limited student ability to be creative. Having to be taught boring diction and punctuation over and over again from one ELL class to another. The classes I was put in didn 't engaged me. up till high school where I could partially take any class I want, but still was forced into an art class for two school years. I decide to write about Mike Rose piece because I had similar experience in my education. …show more content…
He did very well in a placement test called the Stanford-Binet, but the school confused his test score with one of another kid with the last named Rose. For two year he was placed into vocational track class that taught him nothing in terms of education, but in term of experience he learned about the kids that were being neglected of their potential. In a parts of his essay we talks about those kids potentials and their fine qualities. One day in religion class one of his classmate Ken Harvey said "I just want to be average" that got the author puzzled throughout his high school experience "who want to be average", he said to himself. His junior years his biology teacher found that about the mistake the school made and had him placed into college prep class throughout his senior year. At the same year he lost his father, but at the right moment English teacher took the role as father figure and engaged Rose in his English class and also help him get into the university he graduated …show more content…
no excitement. regardless of what the teacher says, this is not a new challenge"(158). Rose shows how he felt abut his early high school as his teacher were supposed to be teaching exciting subject, but ruin subject by just reading out from the book. making it harder for any to really pay attention in class. " No wonder how so many student finally attribute their difficulties to something inborn, organic: That part of my brain just doesn 't work"(158). Rose state that student 's in the vocational education program having already lost interest in classes they try so hard to contemplate with, instead they decide to move on and blame their inability to learn for the reason they can 't understand what the teacher is teaching them. "They open their textbook and see once again the familiar and impenetrable formulas and diagrams and terms that have stumped them for years"(157). From the beginning of their high year the student in the vocational educational program were set to fail. The school treated them as experiment by placing them into class room with inexperience teacher or not caring teacher. where they have to either decided to go with what the school says or try as best they can to well in the
“Why did Rose leave UCLA?” The reason Rose left UCLA was similar to the reason he left Loyola, he felt that he wasn’t moving on with his career. He stated on page 82-83 “I was coming to realize over the last few months that I had been skirting around a harsh truth: Though my introduction to social science was not without its moments, graduate work in academic psychology wouldn’t satisfy whatever
In Mike Roses’ “I Just Wanna Be Average” he writes about his long and winding road of education. Starting with the long and winding bus ride he had to take, along with the loads of other kids making their way to school. The beginning of this school year is different for him though, because his placement test scores got confused with another kids who the last name Rose. Landing him in what he refers to as the “bottom level,” also known as the vocational track. Down with the dastardly devils belonging to the vocational track, Rose came in contact with some not to wonderful educators. Vocational classes were made for students to get more attention for their teachers. But as Rose explains, most of the teachers he came in contact with were anything
In the article “I Just Wanna Be Average” Mike Rose teaches us we go through various obstacles in life. OFten we need someone who sees our potential in order to succed as the person we’ve always wanted to become. For example, Rose’s Sophmore Biology teacher noticed his good grades on tests and decided to look into it. There he realized Rose was in the wrong program the whole time. “He checked the school records and discovered the error. He reccommened that I beigin Junior year in the college prep program.” (Rose 4) Another example would be during Senior year when Rose’s English teacher Mr. MacFarland worked hard at this job as it showed in the way he taught students inspiring them with intellegence. “He analyzed poems with us… making a potentially difficult book accessible with his own explinations.” (Rose 5)
In the autobiography Lives on the Boundary, Mike Rose tells his story, in his perspective, on what he has gone through with education. During his grade school years, Rose began to grow an interest in particular subjects such as chemistry and English. Around his high school years, he found interest only in his class in English with his professor, Mr. MacFarland. Soon enough, Rose begins to grow an interest in English when he began attending Loyola University; however, he did not breeze through his rigorous courses in college. He has seen people emotionally break down and struggle immensely to get by along his way of becoming a professor at UCLA. Ultimately, however, with all of these things Rose sees throughout his life, he has had many self-actualizations
Author, Mike Rose, speaks of his early life growing up in a rough area of Los Angeles in “ I just wanna be average”. Rose didn’t enjoy school from almost the beginning and soon found ways to scrap by in class from day to day. This lead to less than stellar grades in most of his classes and him being put into the vocational program during high school. During this time, he began to accept being average which as he referred to as shutting down and pretending to not care even if it meant being unhappy. Soon after this he met a teacher that would provide him with passion to learn again. In contrast, my own childhood and education differed from roses in many ways.
In John Gatto’s essay “Against Schools” he states from experience as a school teacher that are current educational system is at fault (148). He claims that classrooms are often filled with boredom manufactured by repetitive class work and unenthusiastic teachings. Students are not actively engaged and challenged by their work and more often than not they have either already covered the concepts taught in class or they just do not understand what is being taught to them. The children contained in classrooms have come to believe that their teachers are not all that knowledgeable about the subjects that they are teaching and this advances their apathy towards education. The teachers also feel disadvantaged while fulfilling their roles as teachers because the students often bring rude and careless attitudes to class. Teachers often wish to change the curriculums that are set for students in order to create a more effective lesson plan, but they are restricted by strict regulations and consequences that bind them to their compulsory teachings (148-149). An active illustration of John Gatto’s perspective on our educational system can be found in Mike Rose’s essay “I Just Wanna Be Average” (157). Throughout this piece of literature the author Mike Rose describes the kind of education he received while undergoing teachings in the vocational track. During Mike’s vocational experiences he was taught by teachers that were inexperienced and poorly trained in the subjects they taught. As a result, their lesson plan and the assignments they prepared for class were not designed to proficiently teach students anything practical. For example, the curriculum of Mike Rose’s English class for the entire semester consisted of the repeated reading of ...
Starting from the very moment we are brought into this world, we begin to shape ourselves into the people we will one day become. The people that surround us; family, friends, peers, teachers, authority figures, and others, influence our thoughts, actions, and motivations. The people we become, physically, and the person we let others see or not see, is all dependent on who significantly influenced our lives.
Additionally, in his article Rose talks about his own experiences and uses them as examples for others. It’s one thing to hear somebody say that you can still be successful if your young road was a little rocky, but when you hear it from a forty-year college professor it brings lots of credibility to the situation. With regard to pathos Rose may be viewed as a trustworthy person because he is very intelligent and has been down one of those paths himself. He also talks about some of the other options to take. He took the community college route to start, but he thoroughly explained some of the other options as well. He is not one sided when it comes to this topic, which is helpful if you’re reading these articles to try to make a decision. Also, pathos comes in play because Rose went to a small community college and then continued his education and went on to be a professor at a university. This demonstrates to young students that if you value the opportunities you are given, you may accomplish big
As described by Rose, in his vocational track, students were constantly yelled at, for example the P.E teacher, in some cases it relates to the lesson that the syst...
In modern times, it comes as no surprise that there are a plethora of issues and negative occurrences throughout the traditional educational system. Schooling is not a choice, but a mandatory duty that each and every child must fulfill almost daily. Depending on grade level and work load, the average student spends nearly 8 hours per day either learning in school or completing assignments from that day (U.S. Bureau). This indicates that a majority of a secondary education student’s time is consumed by school and school related work. Because this is an obligatory role, it is imperative that these students are not being forced to do such work, but instead are interested and engaged so that they may enjoy this work. Although there is a multitude of reasons that a student may do poorly in school, a substantial cause is the flaws with the grade level system that most schools implicate. The elimination of grade level systems is not entirely unheard of or practiced, but it has not been extricated enough to show the advantages of alternative schooling systems.
Students with less knowledge are given less opportunity. Placement tests and evaluations prove it, and more advanced students are given greater amounts of support and encouragement. These students are usually the ones who are told they can do anything they set their minds to, rather than “maybe that isn’t the best choice for you”. Students who are led to believe they are not as good as their more intelligent peers tend to fall into a rut. The learning path they are sent down is less challenging and less rewarding. Rose describes this path by saying, “… You’re defined by your school as ‘slow’; you’re placed in a curriculum that isn’t designed to liberate you but to occupy you, or, if you’re lucky, train you, though your training is for work the society does not esteem,” (Rose 350). The future of these students is affected by the way they perform early on, and many do not try to do better because they do not think they can. All many of them want to do is pass the tests and be on their way, never even considering college as an option for the future. To Rose, “The reality of higher education wasn’t in my scheme of things,” (356), and for many students in public education, the same goes for
Murray, Charles. “What’s wrong with Vocational School?” Practical Argument. Ed. Lauren G. Kirszner and Stephen R. Mandell. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2011. Pg. 632. Print.
Like climbing a mountain, the desire for advancement through education requires vigorous, determined, and disciplined students. Students that can overcome mixed feelings of guilt, anxiety, and desire that can cripple the students’ success in college. Students must propel themselves higher up the mountain from a position that is lower in elevation than their more entitled counterparts. A substantial amount of determination and climbing ultimately leads to either success or defeat in the world of education. Students must challenge their own identities and relieve themselves of their past to succeed. The pertinacious character of working-class students provides a desire to escape to a place of acceptance and understanding. Through education students are challenged to discover themselves and what they are truly capable of, or fall off the mountain
...uate to get by. The way sociological and psychological aspects of student motivation relates to the overall topic of student motivation lies in the fact that the root of the problem resides in the minds of students and teachers, rather than in the outward manifestation of low grades, test scores, etc. In other words, even if a teacher makes it possible for students to raise their grade from an "F" to an "A", it does not necessarily mean that students learned anything at all. It is possible that the teacher made special provisions for a certain student to get through the class easier, such as offering extra credit. Only by tapping their minds for the want to learn will students actually thirst for knowledge, putting our educational standards on par with Japan and other world powers that pride themselves on preparing their kids for entrance into the real world.
Imagine sitting in a class, completely bored out of your mind. This is not difficult considering everyone has taken a class like this somewhere along the road of their education. Not every class can be exciting and we should know that. Now imagine every class is of this level, with no “break”, or elective, classes incorporated into your day. Although this may not apply to all private schools, there are many that focus on specific topics. So even though the...