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Idealism, Pragmatism And Realism
Idealism vs realism philosophy in education
Idealism, Pragmatism And Realism
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Having expectations for others is a normal thing, however, when these expectations reach an unrealistic level, it becomes harmful to the person on the receiving end. In the story "I Just Wanna be Average," unrealistic high or low level of expectations are shown to have negative effects on students. These expectations when low can drive the students to have low self-esteem and suck away their motivation to succeed. If anything the students acts out on how they're expected to. When they are bullied on how stupid they are, these students start behaving that way because that’s the only thing they’re told that they’re good for. This is shown on page 318 when Rose says "you'll have to shut down...and have to cultivate stupidity." It’s the same result when these expectations are set high, they harm the students because sometimes high expectations causes a lot of stress as they can be hard to reach. These students end up wanting to be like "the average student" or "the …show more content…
When expectations are unrealistically low or high, they hurt the person on the receiving end by making them feel like a failure and making them stressed. When these expectations are low, they can be detrimental to a person's self-esteem and learning outcome. This is exactly what happens in " I just wanna be Average." Healthy expectations are met when the teachers are understanding and help the students, as Jack MacFarland did in the story. On the other hand, unrealistic high or low expectations keep students from reaching their true potential and stress them out. It makes them want to be "the average student" (pg 318) when these expectations are set high, and makes them unwilling to learn, and "cultivate stupidity" (pg 318) when they’re set low. Overall, expectations should be healthy, they should be within reach and match the potential of the person on the receiving
I had read an essay called, “I Just Wanna Be Average” by Mike Rose. The essay was about Rose revisiting his high school experience. He explains his adventure through school reflecting on his education, learning environment, & behaviors of students/teachers. Also he talks about the motivation or lack thereof in him and his fellow peers reflecting on them just wanting to be average.
Expectations are define as personal belief that something will happen. It’s similar to judgment or assumption people made to a certain person or group of people. It may not be true and it could be different from what is expected. People can also change how they live their lives based on their own expectations just like how the Greasers and the Socs had different expectations. These two groups have contrast expectations that caused bad actions to come up or lead them to benefits for their own group. Expectations may force people into something they are not, even if it is to become a hero or the opposite.
In the novel, The Other Side of the Bridge by Mary Lawson, the author capitalizes upon society’s expectation of a character to emphasize the struggle to achieving his goals. Ian, one of the central characters in the plot line, is heavily impacted by these expectations, which hold a substantial influence upon his decision’s regarding his future. To teenagers an expectation: a strong belief that something will happen or be the case in the future, is nothing but a restriction upon them. Ian believes he is contained within these expectations; to the point where he does not wish to follow this given path. In a time of adolescence, teenagers are compelled by the strong desire to denounce that which is expected of them; Ian is no exception to this. Societies expectations create a negative influence upon Ian’s struggles to achieve his goals. These effects are due to the following expectations: to leave Struan for a superior education, to obtain the opportunity to become successful; to strive for a medical career, since he excels at the trade already; and to settle into a happy relationship, to raise a family.
The children see failure as not being as smart as everyone tells them they are or simply stating the wrong answer to a question the teacher asks (Lahey). From creating this fear of failing comes the hatred of learning. Kids are beginning to learn that “mistakes are something to avoid” and as a result you have students who “are afraid to take risks, to be creative, [and] to be wrong” because they associate being wrong as being a failure (Tugend). Kids understand that mistakes will happen, and from these mistakes you should learn, but are being taught to try to avoid mistakes because it is too big of a risk for their grades and also other students and parent’s views of them. For example, in high-school students have the choice to take general, honors, or advanced placement classes. In the past, more and more students would take the advanced placement classes, which were a lot harder than honors and general and could possibly make lower grades than they would make in the other classes, but would be constantly challenged and learning more than they would in the honors and general classes. In today’s society, more students are being encouraged by their parents and peers to settle for the honors and even general classes, so they can guarantee acceptable grades and not have to try too hard to make those grades. Even though the students in the advanced placement classes may not be viewed as smart
...ild, when he would hide and daydream, up until his first years of college, when he would avoid areas that were difficult, the author recognized that there was important link between challenging the student on a meaningful level and the degree to which the student eventually produced. “I felt stupid telling them I was… well – stupid.” (Rose 43) Here, Rose shows an example of how poor preparation and low standards in the classroom can make a student feel inadequate. Indeed, one can see how many things seemingly unrelated do affect a student’s ability to learn.
In “I Just Wanna Be Average”, Mike Rose recounts his experiences in vocational program in high school, which known as bottom level. When he was a freshman, he accidently was placed in these classes but he decided to stay. Rose goes into details describing some of his teachers and classmates. Certain teachers he introduced were not enthusiastic about their jobs and they don’t believe their students can make good achievements, and sometime they even treat students violently, which also lead some students of the vocational program to slack off and not care about studying. Rose also focused on some of his classmates, who were seen as troublemakers. He found out that they actually were not always like fighting, being lazy and loafing, and they had some special skills showed their true personalities. There was one boy that very stuck out to Rose was Ken Harvey, who was asked by teacher to give an opinion of working hard to make achievements, stated that “ I just wanna be average” (Rose 335). I was pretty impressive about this quote because that I think being average might like some of students calm down and feel not so stressful to survive in educational system. Later in Rose’s life, he eventually moved out of vocational program and back to typical school system. At this time, his father passed away, which is not so relevant with the main plot. Later, Mr. MacFarland came into Rose’s life as his English teacher in senior year. Rose looked up Mr. MacFarland deeply because he sincerely cared of his students, told the importance of working hard to them and even encourage Rose to pursue further education in college. I can tell that Mr. MacFarland left positive impacts on Rose’s whole life, and helped him found his real potential.
The “push to be perfect” (Thomas) is at an all-time high. Pressure for perfection from peers, parents, teachers and coaches is so unreasonably high that many students don’t think that they will ever be able to achieve it. A student feels that it is impossible to get good grades, be athletic, in multiple organizations, and most of all appear to be happy. Students have turned to cheating, drug/ alcohol abuse, and even suicide to try and cope. They are competing with friends for top spots, and believe that if they don’t beat them, they are a failure. Not only other students, but parents play a big roll, too. Their own parents and the parents of their peers will compare kids. New Trier High School’s Jim Conroy said that the biggest problem about pressure comes from the parents who compare (Robbins). With all...
There was always going to be pressure on me in one form or another, whether it be from my Mom, a teacher, or even my friends. But, I learned that letting these expectations compromise who I was; letting them get in my way by making me doubt myself, was never good. And I’m not writing this to say expectations are a bad thing. Expectations from others or myself are healthy, they provide us standards to hold ourselves to and present us with attainable goals. However, letting these expectations define you in moments in which you have to step to the plate and “swing” in life is never a good thing.
Most students go through high school trying to just get to graduation day. They just want to pass all their classes, nothing higher. Only a small percentage of students in high school actually have the determination to excel and be above average on their own. Most people need someone to inspire them to excel. The essay "Tracking" by Mike Rose discusses how he needed someone to point out to him that he shouldn't be in Vocational classes. He put into a whole new different situation, and the classes could actually be a challenge for him. Being a mediocre student are apart of most students lives because they don't push themselves to be better.
Does that mean that we always need to lower our expectations? No, but we do need to make sure they are based in reality. Doing this will
When people have expectations for us we usually become a lot harder on ourselves and bring ourselves down for not succeeding at what others think we should succeed at. It brings us down a lot emotionally and mentally, even though we really shouldn't care this much. But the sad truth is that we value others opinions of us more than what we think of ourselves. In the quote Feynman says that we don't really have to live up to all these expectations that people, and
Article one gives the student’s point of view on how living up to high expectations can cause a great deal of stress. However, the second article explains the point of view from a parent, providing statistics on a parent’s level of expectation. The two sources are different because they provide information on both kinds of expectation; self-expectation and family expectation. They are common because the two article explain the affect that expectations can have on the student, both good and bad. They both supply information about the benefits of living up to a high expectation and also cons of living up to
Are the new standards and expectations the world has for teenagers really creating monsters? The amount of stress that is put on students these days between trying to balance school, homework, extra curricular activities, social lives, sleep and a healthy lifestyle is being considered as a health epidemic (Palmer, 2005). Students are obsessing over getting the grades that are expected of them to please those that push them, and in return, lose sleep and give up other aspects of their lives that are important to them such as time with friends and family as well as activities that they enjoy. The stress that they endure from the pressures of parents, teachers, colleges, and peers have many physical as well as mental effects on every student, some more harmful than others. The extreme pressure on students to get perfect grades so that they will be accepted into a college has diminished the concept of actually learning and has left the art of “finagling the system” in order to succeed in its place (Palmer, 2005). There are many ways that should be implemented in order to reduce the stress on students so that they can thrive because, withoutthem, the school systems will only be creating generations of stressed out, materialistic, and miseducated students (Palmer, 2005).
Becoming a good student for most is not an easy task. One may be asking if there is a definite way to distinguish a good student and the answer is it 's merely impossible to say a student is considered “good” based on only one factor. Many people define good students as kids who have the best grade in the class. Since most of the time this is true, grades can only be looked at as a single way of how we define the term “good”. We must remember that even poor students can earn high grades occasionally, thus proving why grades are not the best indicator of a student’s quality. The “good student” label will most likely lay on the discipline that their parents laid down for them in school as a child. A good student can balance a positive attitude
There are many things that can help to get good grades in college possible, doing them is the challenging part. In order to be successful in life, college students should get the best grades by staying organized, taking good notes, and maintain an effective study habit.