Analysis Of What's Wrong With Schools

In “What’s Wrong with Schools,” Casey Banas uses the experiences of Ellen Glanz, a high school social studies teacher to express how different students and teachers feel about schooling. Ellen Glanz chooses to improve her teaching by pretending to be a student and sitting in on several classes and what she finds in the typical classroom includes students doing the bare minimum, disinterest, cheating, detachment, the list goes on and on. I agree with Ellen Glanz in that this separation between educators and students causes a great amount of passivity. Unfortunately, these types of circumstances in classroom settings are becoming more and more typical. First, it is important for both students and instructors to be aware of their proper roles

For example, grades allow students to see their academic standing and where they need to make improvements. But in some cases, where students did not put in an effort and still received a good grade, they aren’t as important. Ellen Glanz once wrote, “I sometimes estimated that half to two-thirds of a class cheated on a given test.” In other words, majority of students in the classroom cheated on tests that were given, and because of that may have received a high grade but in my opinion it doesn’t mean anything in that they copied someone else’s answers. There are also situations where students earn a low grade yet learned something valuable. The reason they got a low grade could vary, but the fact that the student became educated on the topic is what matters. Lastly, as a student myself most of Ellen Glanz’s points in “What’s Wrong with Schools?” are accurate. Classroom teaching methods need to be changed. Students shouldn 't be "doing as little as necessary to pass tests, using tricks to avoid assignments or manipulating teachers to do the work for them." Although teachers should demand more of their students it is essential for both the educator and his/her students to be on the same page. Through Ellen Glanz 's experience, she was able to point out the flaws in classroom settings and become a better teacher than she was before as