The author opens the story with “Mandy stole my boyfriend, Tiny.” The first sentence already sets the story’s conflict and lets readers understand the plot right in the beginning. The story takes place on the streets of south Minneapolis and deals with the rough lives of Southeast Asian gangs in America. Focusing on the girls in those gangs, the author takes a step away from stereotypical male gang violence stories and places the audience in shoes of an Asian woman. Vang’s descriptive writing is depicted when the two black girls were mugged, “Nikki, my best friend, did a pretend karate kick she saw in a movie just to scare them as we approached cursing and threatening. She loved to perpetuate the myth that all Asians knew Kung Fu.
He then continues on to say that we shouldn’t blame the teachers or the students; in this case, we should blame ourselves. He says we are all to blame because the obligation to amuse and instruct ourselves is entirely our own choice and that if we are bored it is nobody’s fault but our own. Gatto is correct in his assertion that the current school system is harmful to students in that it robs them of the ability to be free thinkers. John Taylor Gatto learned as a child something really important in life that was taught by his grandfather. He expresses that “Of course, teachers are themselves products of the same twelve-year compulsory school programs that so thoroughly bore their students, and as school personnel they are trapped inside structures… The obligation to amuse and instruct myself was entirely my own, and people who didn't know that were childish people, to be avoided if possible.”(1) Gatto learned that being bored was an action that he was only responsible for.
This bought on Marketisation where schools try to attract other students by raising standards to show they are most successful. On the other hand, sociologists disagree as most educational reforms have not helped all students, only some or wasn’t very effective enough to help improve educational experiences. For example, the Foster Act wasn’t very helpful as the teaching was dire and students were less successful therefore resulted them in having weak qualifications and bad experiences. The Butler Act system with the 11+ exam was mostly based on middle class children therefore they had a better chance than working class. This was unequal as they had an advantage even though the test was the same.
Also, the endless hours on the field which drains even the best students’ mentally and physically. Petrie says that the collegiate system encourages athletes to settle for lower grades and incomplete programs. Petrie’s Famous quote of the paper is, “The system uses and then discards after the final buzzer.” Which means the college doesn’t care personally for the student and just wants the athletic program to thrive.
Critique of “Will Your Jobs Be Exported” by Alan S. Blinder Starting in elementary school teacher’s begin to prepare you for standardize testing. You learn all this material, and test on it, learn the material… and the cycle continues. Kids who cannot test well drop out or fail and are looked down on by society , kids who succeed pass and continue on and are praised, the question is does that particular style of learning come in handy when all the American people jobs are being exported. According to an article in The Atlantic news paper “53% of recent college graduates are jobless or unemployed” so in the end are we not all equal? When all the jobs of the future go to personal service jobs, will American children only know how to test or fail or to invest all their time into schooling for professions that will not pay?
The documentary makes the success of the school seem like it changed overnight and that it was an unrealistic superhuman effort. It does a poor job of explaining how exactly it happened. The principal talks about how getting better teachers helped make the school better, but a question in my mind when watching was ‘how did they just go get these better teachers?’ The documentary fails to state whether or not the school was given extra
He takes a moment to explain that the girl looking at him represents him as a boy. He was a boy who entered school barely able to speak a lick of English and came out a scholar far beyond what many aspire to be. Although he became very literate and educated, he was never the quintessential intelligent genius. He mentions that his high quality grammar school, help from his nuns to be successful, and encouragement from his parents did not account for his school success. He was a “scholarship boy,” a boy who never thought he was adequate, always anxious to learn, but highly uncreative.
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. Even though Jesness presented very good reasons as to why they were failing, it did not matter. After being let go from his teaching job he realized there was no way around the floating standard, so he began to dumb down the curriculum and in return this put all of the students at the same level even if some could excel if they were pushed harder. Jesness brings into view the idea of a fixed standard, and asserts that state testing such as the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills does not grant students the ability to learn as much as they could. Jesness goes on to say that if students were to take Advanced Placement tests then this “would free teachers from the pressure to adjust the content of their courses and would assure students and their parents that the standard for each course is fixed, not floating”.
I love to a wear uniform at school. I remember as a kid wearing a uniform to go to school was a dream for all kids on my age. I support the fact that private schools require their students to wear uniform , and I believe that all public schools should also have their own uniform. The importance of uniform at school, the economic benefif, and the impact on education are some of the reasons I encourage the public to wear them. First of all, wearing a uniform is an easy, comfortable and respectable way of dressing for students.
Mark Edmundson’s “on the uses of a liberal education” displays how corrupt the current education system is. He raises problems of consumerism in colleges and also indicates that college’s students lack intellectual curiosity. The multiple choices student have today in college have made the college a facile learning environment, resulting in complacent students. He ridicules the fact that students can withdraw from classes with a one month left in semester. In the beginning of the text, Edmundson depicts a classroom he particularly doesn’t enjoy on evaluation day.