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.
Rose writes, “I cannot recall a young person who was crazy in love or lost in work
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19). During high school Rose never put in any effort that was above average and just did what was required by the vocational program. During the beginning of high school, I had almost no problems with my class work and was by definition an average student as I never really went above and beyond but I also didn’t cause trouble or fail completely. Things changed when my parents made me get a job to pay for gas my sophomore year, I got a job at BestBuy in the warehouse at the location 30 minutes from my house because I enjoyed technology and figured I could soon make my way from the warehouse. This job turned out to be a lot more time consuming than I had ever thought. I worked often and when I did I had long hours, I got home at 11 most nights and in bed around 12 which left almost no time for school work. Even when I had limited time for school work a fear of failure from years of being pushed to be the best and teachers making me feel stupid when I was incorrect led to me not doing my work and everyone wondering if I was going to pull it together and graduate. I wasn’t challenged in the same ways rose was as he had no interest while I on the other hand became overwhelmed with school and work and the fear of not being good enough and being wrong that prevented me from attempting to do better that still affects me in college to this …show more content…
30). When rose first met McFarland he felt that he could turn him around. I first felt this way about Darrel Garner, he was an officer in the air force and he couldn’t tell us what he did but you could tell he was in the air force as he started off with a long list of rules that I paid little attention too when I met him. Mr. Garner was a computer/ business teacher but he was also my seminar teacher which meant we would see each other at the end of the day almost every day until I graduated. When I started to fail it was his job to help me fix it and when I started to fail he didn’t just do what most teachers would do and make half an effort because was required but he made it almost a goal of his to have me graduate because he believed in me. Mr. Garner had come from a poor background with parents that did what they could to help him succeed and by all means he had which encouraged me to start changing my life for the better. But Mr. Garner wasn’t the only teacher that pushed me to do better. My junior year of high school I had a chemistry teacher that called me out on a mistake that I had no way of avoiding in front of the class to make me feel dumb, she also used me as an example on what not to do in other classes. From that day forward me and that teacher couldn’t get along, it was almost liked she wanted me to fail. That affected me heavily and contributed to my
Both essays draw from the influence of education into the societal path into American mainstream society. Each school system is influenced by thoughts of bettering youth, but in much opposite ends of the spectrum. The French commission stated that the youth of America were offered the same curriculum in the hopes to form a united, equal society. America, as seen by the French, was a land of golden opportunities available to every child regardless of social standing. It was the basis for our country to survive. It safeguarded our standing in the world. Mike Rose’s school offered quite the opposite. It was a haven for long standing views on school being selective as to whom actually deserved the educa...
Too often, students are taught that their lives are defined by who they are and what they do, not by circumstances. But circumstances can be very crucial to determining how a person’s life is shaped. It’s no secret that not all schools and neighborhoods are created equal. Some schools offer advanced classes, and college prep, and opportunities, while some schools don’t even have textbooks. Even within the circumstances, there are circumstances. The students in the latter school that lacks textbooks may have parents who go the extra mile to ensure that they have more opportunities, or could have parents who don’t have the resources to do that. Environment and circumstance can make a huge difference, and Wes Moore’s The Other Wes Moore is a fantastic
This plummet’s Rose even further into a slump and deters him from his goals and makes him lose ambition or what ambition he did have. The story takes a big turn for the better on 165, Rose meets the teacher that saves him and turns his live around Jack Macfarland. This teacher unlike any other teacher he has had in vocational education. Macfarland follows a different set of principles. The teacher likes to encouraging his student instead of disciplining them and always strives for them to be better. On page 167, Macfarland even helps Rose get into college. This brought Rose back from the dark side because the grades in the last three years of high school didn’t reflect well for him. Macfarland helped him anyways and saw the potential Rose had and what he could to and that reflects on what Rose is doing today. This emotional appeal is different in tone, but similar in style to the story
Illiteracy poses a threat to political, economical and social constructions that shapes the individual life. Jonathan Kozol laid out the idea that illiteracy is detrimental to human lifestyle. He supported that claim, saying, “Illiterates live an uninsured existence,” meaning that they cannot take care of themselves, as they are unable to make the right decisions. This disability burdens them because they can’t be independent but dependent on a friend, family, co-worker, or a stranger. Undeniably, in the “I Just Wanna Be Average” text, one sees Ken Harvey’s story of growing up, being labeled as “slow”, which he took for granted and believed it. As a result of that Ken didn’t want to become better, he just wanted to get by and be “average”. Which could be considered an example of not having his own identity as Ken assumed the one he was given, of being “Slow”. This, example confirms Jonathan Kozol’s views on illiterates in our society. Therefore, we see a point of commonality concerning our society and the school system that is meant to educate us and help us become better human beings but otherwise fails to, as it separates the somewhat educated from the ones that are considered beyond average. This similarity reveals the
Mike Rose argues that society very often neglects and does not see the full value and potential of students in his essay. "The error went undetected, and I remained on the vocational track for two years. What a place."(Rose) He mentioned that he was seated in vocational school and put him in the bottom level classes by accident, but he did not argue with that and keep stay
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.
Richard Rodriguez’s The Achievement of Desire puts a very unusual point of view on how to look at the education system and how it affects the everyday person. Rodriguez talks immensely about the term he uses called “The Scholarship Boy.” He claims that the scholarship boy is technically defined as a student who is extremely talented but is changed by the school environment. This means that they (the students) can be extremely cultured at home but as soon as they start learning about other cultures through the education process, they change remarkably. Doing this can cause a lot of things to go right or wrong in the ones culture back home. It can cause problems between the kids and parents, siblings and siblings or even the parents at each
In Rose 's essay he gives personal examples of his own life, in this case it’s his mother who works in a diner. “I couldn 't put into words when I was growing up, but what I
As American’s we place a high level of importance on attending school and receiving a certain level of education. Across the world, the recommendations for attending school vastly differ based on the culture of the society. In America, we require our children to attend school until they are almost of legal age, push high school graduates to attend college and we constantly emphasize structured learning. Many children in today’s world lack many skills that would allow them to “teach” themselves outside of school leading to an increased interest in televisions, computers, and phones. Technology has taken away society’s attention away from independent learning such as reading, writing, and outside experiences. John Taylor Gatto’s emotional voice in his writing “Against School” has allowed me reveal my psychological voice regarding the educational system.
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.
Literacy, or the capability to comprehend, translate, utilize, make, process, assess, and speak information connected with fluctuating settings and displayed in differing organizations, assumes an essential part in molding a young's persons trajectory in life. The ability to read speaks to a key factor of scholarly, social, and financial success (Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998). These abilities likewise speak to a fundamental segment to having a satisfying life and turning into an effective worker and overall person (Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1999). Interestingly, recent studies have demonstrated that low reading skills lead to critical hindrances in monetary and social achievement. As stated by the National Center for Education Statistics, adults with lower levels of reading skills and literacy have a lower average salary. Another study evaluated that 17 to 18 percent of adults with "below average" literacy aptitudes earned less than $300 a week, though just 3 to 6 percent of adults with "proficient" reading abilities earned less than $300 a week (Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998).
Rose Mary is a selfish woman and decides not to go to school some mornings because she does not feel up to it. Jeannette takes the initiative in making sure that her mother is prepared for school each morning because she knows how much her family needs money. Even though Rose Mary starts to go to school every day, she does not do her job properly and thus the family suffers financially again. When Maureen’s birthday approaches, Jeannette takes it upon herself to find a gift for her because she does not think their parents will be able to provide her with one. Jeannette says, “at times I felt like I was failing Maureen, like I wasn’t keeping my promise that I’d protect her - the promise I’d made to her when I held her on the way home from the hospital after she’d been born. I couldn’t get her what she needed most- hot
...erested in. Actually he is married, but this was a long time ago and so he don't care about it. But he is also an realist and he thinks about his actions. The marriage with Rose is not only a love-marriage, he realises that he has no job
My grades in elementary school were poor because I had trouble paying attention to things that were not challenging. I tried to play sick just about every day but my parent were not falling for it. My favorite classes were gym, music, and art. Competing in sports is where I spent most of my time. The words of my parents and teachers went in one ear and out the other. “School just wasn’t interesting to me”
Having explained the reason most children have become disheartened at the thought of school, I now turn my attention to the students who do realize school’s educational value. These are the students that will continue to prosper throughout their lives because they realize the extreme importance of education. There is a secret, yet not so secret, motivation behind their determination to exceed standards and expectations in school. The secret they withhold is their overwhelming desire to be successful in the future.