The problem in the school structure that Graff recognizes is lack of persuasion to get students to argue. This holds true in my personal experiences in academics. Despite the fact the educating administration is trying to avoid violent disputes because of arguments, they fail to see that properly structured arguments are the best way to avoid violence. Without the school system instilling the ideas and values of argument, students will lack an outlet for an argument consisting of words and are more likely to resort to violence for resolution. In a section of Gerald’s essay he advocates that educated conversation be shared with uneducated audiences as a basis for understanding any scholarly topic as well as a basis for a strong argument.
Erica Goldson Valedictorian Speech Response Erica Goldson brought up a very controversial and very interesting topic about our current education system in the US. She states that students are so focused at memorizing data and getting good grades, that they miss out on the whole idea of learning and being educated. I agree with her, students should be learning and absorbing the material, instead of memorizing for the next big test and just forgetting about it later on. Graduating seems like the top priority in students nowadays, and to me that is just upsetting. And the students who are very talented and are very motivated to learn and be driven in a non-academic subject seem to have a more negative image than the people who are driven by academics.
Gatto compares school to a factory or prison which, generally speaking, are not fun places to be. This style of diction, with Gatto consistently projecting new words of the same connotation suggests his point of view on rejection of this prison-like system. The author appeals to anyone who has or has not questioned the usefulness of education. He appeals to our common sense by asking a simple question: why do we need this? Almost every student has thought the same thing at some point, but lacks the confidence needed to express these feelings to the public.
She states multiple times that the children within the education system are being cheated every day because they are not being forced to read more difficult books. “Such benefits are denied to the young reader exposed only to books with banal, simple-minded moral equations as well as to the student encouraged to come up with reductive, wrong-headed readings of mulitlayered texts” (Prose 97). The reader can blatantly see that Prose thinks negatively of the high school curriculum that today's students face. It seems clear that Prose does not want to hide her personal view or feelings, so she starts her essay out in a way that we do not have to read between the lines to get a sense of how she feels about what she is writing. She uses more emotional language when she says, "The intense loyalty adults harbor for books first encountered in youth is one probable reason for the otherwise baffling longevity of vintage mediocre novels, books that teachers may themselves have read in adolescence"(Prose
There are many points made that can clearly push the overall answer one way, or another, its just about balancing out the positives and negatives. Cullington explains that texting can potentially hurt formal writing, but is proven to have no positive or negative affects in the long run. There are many concerns about text speak and formal writing. Cullington talks about how teachers see a decline in writing and are having problems in class because of text speak. “A Minnesota teacher of seventh and ninth grades says that she has to spend extra time in class editing papers and must 'explicitly' remind her students that is is not acceptable to use text slang and abbreviations in writing” (Cullington 89).
Many teachers do not like “catching plagiarists and bringing them to academic justice.” As she states, it is not hard to just cite the author that originally had the information you are using (Bojar). Plagiarism is becoming a big problem in the school system. Many students do not understand what needs to be cited and what does not. The school system should teach students the proper way to cite, and they should teach them that copy and pasting is not writing a paper. According Bojar to students at the community college have a hard time juggling classes along with his or her family and a job.
In the stratified society in which we live, they are absolutely correct. While having access to the politically mandated language form will not, by any means, guarantee economic success (witness the growing numbers of unemployed African Americans holding doctorates), not having access will almost certainly guarantee failure. So what must teachers do? Should they spend their time relentlessly "correcting" their Ebonics-speaking children's language so that it might conform to what we have learned to refer to as Standard English? Despite good intentions, constant correction seldom has the desired effect.
In addition to what Lang Wood believes, Stephens claims, students who are taking the test suffer from stress in result of worrying about passing it. Stephens points out “negative results more often than not yield low-self-esteem, higher incidents of seclusion and lower academic progress. Children who pass the test are just happy to be done with it and really do not gain sense of achievement” (par.4). It is clear that the pressure and anxiety
I found English grammar to be dull and baffling. I hated the assignments to turn out “compositions”, and went at them like heavy labor”. But remembers “On Becoming a Writer”, Baker stated “I told people I’d like to be a writer”. The most important point from this essay was his teacher, Mr. Fleagle who believed in him, and guided him to what he wanted to become, a writer. Russell Baker wants
Welsh’s article discusses the difference between American students and Asian students. The Asian students identified that their biggest factor behind academic success was “studying hard”. I believe that many American students have lost their internal drive and motivation to study hard, including myself, with technology now and it being so easy to cheat it becomes almost unnecessary. Insufficient teaching is not the major factor to blame nor is poor study skills or the lack of there of. I believe that the problem behind American students not studying is solely due to the lack of determination to study and excel in schoolwork.