Nathan Nguyen Professor Mary Composition I 14 September 2012 In the article “The Case Against Grades,” Alfie Kohn argues that grades make students afraid of explore new things; tests and quizzes are not the ways to measure knowledge .“Assessment-based grading” creates an allusion on how well are students doing in a numerical way. The effects of grading can come in numerous ways. Kohn indicates three crucial conclusions of grading: decrease in self-motivation, diminish in taking scholarly risk and “reduce in quality of students’ thinking”. Don’t on the students, they’re only listening to the message; they’re rational. For many years, adults have send them the message success is more important than learning.
“For Once, Blame The Student” The article “For once, blame the student” by Patrick Welsh expresses the idea that American students are falling behind academically not because of the common excuses themselves. I agree with the article and have seen through first-hand experience as a student that a large portion of American students have lost the internal motivation and determination needed to succeed academically, i.e. my 7th period. In “For once, blame the student” Welsh talks about the way students who have emigrated to the United States often do better in school than the middle and upper class American students. Welsh says the reasoning behind the emigrated student’s success is the self determination and motivation to do well in school, as well as hard work exerted by the students.
When I first learned how to read in English, it was a pain in the butt. My first language is Spanish so it was very difficult to start all over again with a new language. When I first got to this country I had to adapt pretty quickly to keep with my new classmates. I had no problems in any subject but English. Kids would make fun of me but I never gave up because in a situation like that, that’s the worst thing you could do because if you don’t keep trying you will never learn, everyone learns from their mistakes.
This article is based upon different type of fallacies Beres uses to tell his audience that the Common Application process is a waste of many, and doesn’t give the students what they deserve. He uses Appeal to Ignorance when he talks about how those who have a high SAT score and “mommy and daddy credit card isn’t maxed out”. So what if their parents are working hard for this kids? Appeal to Popular Opinion by saying “kids are taking spots at universities that they may, in fact, have little to no interest in.” How can afford to go to a university that will cost at least 30K to graduate just because they don’t like it? He mentions that’s X amount of Y students got accepted into a particular college, but doesn’t talk about how many percentage of Y actually meet the requirements of their “dream”
As time goes on, Rodriguez realizes that he must know English to “fit in” with the society. He becomes frustrated that his parents do not know English, so they cannot help him in school. Eventually, Rodriguez pretty much forgets Spanish and has some difficulty conversing with his family, however he is still able to communicate with them. 7. As previously stated, narrative and first-hand accounts of situations allow us to further understand Rodriguez, which helps amplify the magnitude of his
Morton East is a failing school, even though it’s been standing close to the time when the cubs won their last world series in 1908, you’d think for a building with many years under its belt it might be the high school out there. Wrong, Morton east doesn’t get any better than what it is today. It’s not a very good school to enroll a child in but what choice do you have? Morton East lacks good educators who love their job instead of teachers who wait for their tenure to kick in. The problem is not money at East it’s just the way we spent it.
The teachers blamed the students but they were trapped in the same strict structures of the compulsory school program as the students. He then suggests that maybe that there is not a "problem" with the schools. That they were right when they designed the school to do just what they are doing. Designed not to teach us but to keep us from ever really “growing up.” With that thought the author asks, "Do we need school?" Gatto gives us examples of well-known people who have accomplished great things in their lifetime and were not educated through the school system.
My feelings for not speaking Spanish are that we speak more English because we are in America and that is the language spoken primarily. They have taken Spanish class and did ok but don’t use it much. My parents and I talk in Spanglish on a daily bases, especially if we don’t want to let my boys here what we are talking about. I don’t feel like not teaching them was a bad thing. I also feel like I don’t like it when I am approached by other ethnicities and spoken Spanish to.
In the article, “Why Johnny Can't Fail”, Jerry Jesness admits he has played a part in the “floating standard”, but he does not agree with it. The floating standard lets students proceed to the next grade level even if they are not fully prepared. Jesness claims the floating standard is easier to give into rather than to set high standards that some students may not meet because having it in place not only keeps students happy, but also keeps the parents content. When Jesness first began teaching he failed students, but learned that giving students the grades they deserved was not the norm. He soon “fell into line” after the principal of the school called a meeting with him and the parents of the students he was failing.
At the high school that I attended while I was living in the United States of America, students only had to take two years of a foreign language. Two years is not a lot, most people cannot become exceptionally close to fluent in a language over just two years. What I noticed throughout high school was that students would rather not learn the language and just decided to suffer through the class and receive a low grade at the end. When I moved to America in eleventh grade, I was fluent in two languages and I also knew quite a bit of Spanish. If students would start to learn a foreign language in elementary school they will be so little that they will not realize that they actually have to do work, and it is also easier for children at a low age to learn to speak different languages.