Essay #3 Final Draft

            The condition of the education system is one of the biggest issues facing our society today. Almost anyone, from teachers, to students, to parents, will agree that there is something not right about the way our public school systems are educating students. In the words of American comedian, author and social critic Lewis Black, “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that our school systems are broken—which is good, because none of us are!” Where once upon the time American students dominated the charts as some of the best educated, most inventive and successful in the world, we’ve slipped lower and lower. But what is the issue at the core of this, and what can we do to remedy it? It seems that many voices of renowned authors, teachers and critical thinkers are all saying the same thing; what we really need in schools is curriculum that focuses on teaching student how to think critically and analytically. Students need to be taught how to think, not what to think.

            Our current school system teaches with a simplistic method of rote memorization and dutiful regurgitation, or the “Banking Concept of Education,” as described by Paulo Freire, a Brazilian educator, in his book Pedagogy of the Oppressed.  The banking concept reduces students into mere containers and teachers into narrators. As Freire says, “…in the last analysis [of the banking concept], its men themselves who are filed away through lack of creativity, transformation and knowledge.” 
            The banking concept creates malleable, gullible individuals, as further highlighted by H. L. Mencken, author of American Mercury, who claimed, “The aim [of public school]... is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality.”
            Being taught to simply accept and memorize “knowledge” in place of true understanding shapes a vulnerable individual. In a society that bombards every individual constantly with advertisement, entices with ‘free’ credit cards and pushes with visions of what life could—or should—be, if only you had this or that, vulnerability is dangerous. Vulnerability like that creates a nation with approximately 80% of its adult population in debt (americandebtadvisor.com).  If students were educated in a way that encouraged them to think critically, would they be less susceptible to societal attempts to mold them to this or that end? Freire asserts that the rejection of the banking method is the action of a true liberation. As he states, “In this process [the rejection of the banking-concept], arguments based on ‘authority’ are no longer valid; in order to function, authority must be on the side of freedom, not against it.”
            In short, to the critical-thinking individual, authority that seeks to bind is invalid. The critical thinker can examine assertions of what must or should be done (buy this, you need that, you can’t live with out this) and see it for what it is: an groundless assertion by an invalid authority. Can you imagine the next generation of educated American youth, and imagine them as critical thinkers? Can you imagine an entire generation impervious to the pull and push of the media-driven, advertisement-swamped world?
            Some may resist the idea of a new curriculum with a new idea at its heart, protesting perhaps first and foremost, the expense. Our government is in debt and our school systems are floundering under lacking funding, so obviously expense is a present worry. But if the banking concept creates a vulnerable populous inclined towards malleability and consequentially, debt, continuing the current method of teaching in the name of saving money simply facilitates the continuation of this (debt-filled) condition. Divergently, a critical-thinking generation would certainly be less inclined to bury themselves in debt in the pursuit of what society tells them they need. Such a generation would be a generation truly free, and truly strong, a generation that could lead American to a new beginning and a new freedom. For example, freedom from crushing and building debt, freedom from apathetic pursuits and freedom from a malleable populace. But such a generation can never exist without an education that nurtures the critical thinker. Which is why our country needs to create thought-centric curriculums and implement them as soon as possible.

            Critical thinking can help facilitate an empowered individual, but it can also help nourish a creative individual. The world today is a fast-paced, competitive environment, and the overall health and success of a country and its citizens is determined by how well they can play the world game. Can they put out the best products? The newest ones? Can they innovate and reinvent, and can they do it better then that one over there? When the education system is examined, it doesn’t seem to be creating individuals ready to excel creatively in this kind of a world. In the words of former educator John Gatto, who has over thirty years of education experience, “…our schools - with their long-term, cell-block-style, forced confinement of both students and teachers – [are] virtual factories of childishness.” Childishness does not seem like a trait that would help any individual excel in innovation and competition. Not, that is, the caliber of childishness that Gatto refers to—as in, petty and immature. Feminist author and social activist Gloria Jean Watkins—better known under her penname, bell hooks—also discusses public schooling in a less-then favorable light, observing that “Most children are taught early on that thinking is dangerous.”

Some may beg false at this juncture, pointing out that America is the leader in innovation and invention. We are, after all, the birthplace of success monsters like Apple and Boeing. Unfortunately, America is not “the” leader in innovation and invention. We’re straggling in 4^th place, as indicated by the 2013 GII (Global Innovation Index). Perhaps more significantly to note, the minds behind Apple and Boeing are not what would be categorized as products of the American public school system.  Bill Gates attended a prestigious and exclusive preparatory school and dropped out of college before graduating. Steve Jobs may have attended public schooling, but was evidently frustrated by it and only attended six months of higher learning. Thus, the shining stars of American success and innovation are not, in fact, products of the school system. Rather, as educators like John Gatto and bell hooks apparently believe our school system encourages immaturity and promotes a fear of thought, Bill Gates and Steve Job were successful despite the public school system, not because of it. This being said, can critical thinking promote creativity and encourage innovation? Absolutely. Authors Sylvan Barnet and Hugo Bedau emphasize that, “Critical thinking requires us to use our imagination, seeing things from perspective other than our own…”
The Webster Dictionary definition of innovate is to make changes by introducing something new. Correspondingly, the dictionary definition of Imagination is the faculty or action of forming new ideas, or images or concepts of external objects not present to the senses. Thus, one cannot exist without the other: one cannot innovate, or introduce something new, without the ability to imagine, or create, something new. Critical thinking is the facilitator and nursemaid to imaginative thinking, imaginative thinking is the mother of new ideas and subsequently, innovation. Innovation is the medium through which individuals of this modern world find success. So if America, as a country, wants to create a bright, successful future not only for itself but also for the children of this generation and those children’s children, it must cultivate those capable of critical thinking. Only then can a future of continued innovation and success be kept in grasp.

            Freire asserts that the escape from the oppression-ready populace created by the banking concept of education is “Consciousness as con-sciousness” or, to paraphrase, the ability to question perceived knowledge and critique what we are taught. As he says, education “consists in acts of cognition, not transferal of information.” That, then, is the proposed change at hand: education that facilitates students who think, not education that bombards the students with fact and asks them—no, orders them—not to think. Authors like bell hooks, social critics like Lewis Black, philosophers like Freire and educators like John Gatto are the ones raising their voices in request for this change and the implementation of critical pedagogy.  Those who have lived through the system and found it lacking are those who look towards a better future for coming generation. So as a country, we have a choice: to rise beyond the oppressive methods of our past and carve out a brighter future full of innovation, creativity, financial and personal freedom, or to continue down the worn, beaten path we currently traverse and eventually look back when its far too late on America the Once Great.

Works Cited:

Gatto, John. "Against School." Harper's Magazine Sept. 2003: Web.

Black, Lewis "Back in Black." John Stuart Daily Show. Politicsisstupid.com. Comedy Central. Television. Web.

Freire, Paulo, "The Banking Concept of Education," Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 1968: Print. 1-3. Excerpt.

hooks, bell. “Critical Thinking” Teaching Critical Thinking: Practical Wisdom, Sept, 2007: Print. 8-11. Excerpt.

Barnet, Sylvan and Bedau, Hugo, “Critical Thinking” Teaching Critical Thinking: Practical Wisdom, quote, From Critical Thinking to Argument

“Question: How Many Americans Are In Debt?" What Percentage Of Americans Are In Debt? Web. 04 Dec. 2013.

Manes, Stephen, Gates: How Microsoft's Mogul Reinvented an Industry and Made Himself The Richest Man in America.1994: Print. Web 04 Dec. 2013.

"Steve Jobs Biography." Bio.com. A&E Networks Television, May 2012. Web. 04 Dec. 2013.

Johnson Cornell University, Insead, Wipo, “Global Innovation Index Ratings” Global Innovation Index 2013: Local Dynamics of Innovation. "EIU.com." EIU.com. Web. 04 Dec. 2013.

Rough draft, Paper #3

            The condition of the education system is one of the biggest issues facing our society today. Almost anyone, from teachers, to students to parents will agree that there is something not right about the way our public school systems are educating students. In the words of American comedian, author and social critic Lewis Black, “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that our school systems are broken—which is good, because none of us are!” Where once upon the time American students dominated the charts as some of the best educated, most innovative and successful in the world, we’ve slipped lower and lower. But what is the issue at the core of this, and what can we do to remedy it? It seems that many voices of renowned authors, teachers and critical thinkers are all saying the same think. What we really need in schools is curriculum that focuses on teaching student how to think critically and analytically. Students need to be taught how to think, not what to think.

            Our current school system teaches with a simplistic method of rote memorization and dutiful regurgitation, or the “Banking Concept of Education”, as described by Paulo Freire, a Brazilian educator, in his book Pedagogy of the Oppressed.  The banking concept reduces students into mere containers and teachers into narrators. As Freire says, “…in the last analysis [of the banking concept], its men themselves who are filed away through lack of creativity, transformation and knowledge.” 
            The banking concept creates malleable, gullible individuals, as further highlighted by H. L. Mencken, author of American Mercury,

 Who claimed “The aim [of public school].. . is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality.”
            Being taught to simply accept and memorize ‘knowledge’ in place of true understanding shapes a vulnerable individual. In a society that bombards every individual constantly with advertisement, entices with ‘free’ credit cards and pushes with visions of what life could—or should—be, if only you had this or that, vulnerability is dangerous. Vulnerability like that creates a nation with approximately 80% of its adult population in debt (americandebtadvisor.com).  If students were educated in a way that encouraged them to think critically, would they be less susceptible to societal attempts to mold them to this or that end? Freire asserts that the rejection of the banking method is the action of a true liberation. As he states, “In this process [the rejection of the banking-concept], arguments based on ‘authority’ are no longer valid; in order to function, authority must be on the side of freedom, not against it.”
            In short, to the critical-thinking individual, authority that seeks to bind is invalid. The critical thinker can examine assertions of what must or should be done (buy this, you need that, you can’t live with out this) and see it for what it is: an groundless assertion by an invalid authority. Can you imagine the next generation of educated American youth, and imagine them as critical thinkers? Can you imagine an entire generation impervious to the pull and push of the media-driven, advertisement-swamped world?
            Some may resist the idea of a new curriculum with a new idea at its heart, protesting perhaps first and foremost, the expense. Our government is in debt and our school systems are floundering under lacking funding, so obviously expense is a present worry. But if the banking concept creates a vulnerable populous inclined towards malleability and consequentially, debt, continuing the current method of teaching in the name of saving money simply facilitates the continuation of this (debt-filled) condition. Divergently, a critical-thinking generation would certainly be less inclined to bury themselves in debt in the pursuit of what society tells them they need. Such a generation would be a generation truly free, and truly strong, a generation that could lead American to a new beginning and a new freedom. For example, freedom from crushing and building debt, freedom from apathetic pursuits and freedom from a malleable populace. But such a generation can never exist without an education that nurtures the critical thinker. Which is why our country needs to create thought-centric curriculums and implement them as soon as possible.

            Critical thinking can help facilitate an empowered individual, but it can also help nourish a creative individual. The world today is a fast-paced, competitive environment, and the overall health and success of a country and its citizens is determined by how well they can play the world game. Can they put out the best products? The newest ones? Can they innovate and reinvent, and can they do it better then that one over there? When the education system is examined, it doesn’t seem to be creating individuals ready to excel creatively in this kind of a world. In the words of former educator John Gatto, who has over thirty years of education experience “…our schools - with their long-term, cell-block-style, forced confinement of both students and teachers – [are] virtual factories of childishness.” Childishness does not seem like a trait that would help any individual excel in innovation and competition. Not, that is, the caliber of childishness that Gatto refers to—as in, petty and immature. Feminist author and social activist Gloria Jean Watkins—better known under her penname, bell hooks—also discusses public schooling in a less-then favorable light, observing that “Most children are taught early on that thinking is dangerous.”

Some may beg false at this juncture, pointing out that America is the leader in innovation and invention. We are, after all, the birthplace of success monsters like Apple and Boeing. Unfortunately, America is not ‘the’ leader in innovation and invention. We’re straggling in 4^th place, as indicated by the 2013 GII (Global Innovation Index). Perhaps more significantly to note, the minds behind Apple and Boeing are not what would be categorized as products of the American public school system.  Bill Gates attended a prestigious and exclusive preparatory school and dropped out of college before graduating. Steve Jobs may have attended public schooling, but was evidently frustrated by it and only attended six months of higher learning. Thus, the shining stars of American success and innovation are not, in fact, products of the school system. Rather, as educators like John Gatto and bell hooks apparently believe our school system encourages immaturity and promotes a fear of thought, Bill Gates and Steve Job were successful despite the public school system. This being said, can critical thinking promote creativity and encourage innovation? Absolutely. Authors Sylvan Barnet and Hugo Bedau emphasize that, “Critical thinking requires us to use our imagination, seeing things from perspective other than our own…”
The Webster Dictionary definition of innovate is to make changes by introducing something new. Correspondingly, the dictionary definition of Imagination is the faculty or action of forming new ideas, or images or concepts of external objects not present to the senses. Thus, one cannot exist without the other: one cannot innovate, or introduce something new, without the ability to imagine, or create, something new. Critical thinking is the facilitator and nursemaid to imaginative thinking, imaginative thinking is the mother of new ideas and subsequently, innovation. Innovation is the medium through which individuals of this modern world find success. So if America, as a country, wants to create a bright, successful future not only for itself but also for the children of this generation and those children’s children, it must cultivate those capable of critical thinking. Only then can a future of continued innovation and success be kept in grasp.

            Freire asserts that the escape from the oppression-ready populace created by the banking concept of education is “Consciousness as con-sciousness” or, to paraphrase, the ability to question perceived knowledge and critique what we are taught. As he says, education “consists in acts of cognition, not transferal of information.” That, then, is the proposed change at hand: education that facilitates students who think, not education that bombards the students with fact and asks them—no, orders them—not to think. Authors like bell hooks, social critics like Lewis Black, philosophers like Freire and educators like John Gatto are the ones raising their voices in request for this change and the implementation of critical pedagogy.  Those who have lived through the system and found it lacking are those who look towards a better future for coming generation. So as a country, we have a choice: to rise beyond the oppressive methods of our past and carve out a brighter future full of innovation, creativity, financial and personal freedom, or to continue down the worn, beaten path we currently traverse and eventually look back when its far too late on America the Once Great.

Which authors agree with my Change?

Many of the authors we read about discussed the need for critical pedology. Freire, for example asserts that to escape the banking method we must become “Consciousness as con-sciousness” or, to paraphrase, the ability to question perceived knowledge and critique what we are taught. As he says, education “consists in acts of cognition, not transferal of information.”
bell hooks also discusses the importance of teaching students to think critically, saying "Children are organically predisposed to be critical thinkers," and discussing what the school systems do a bout this predisposition, saying “Children's passion for thinking often ends when they encounter a world that seeks to educate them for conformity and obedience only. Most children are taught early on that thinking is dangerous.”

John Gatto also talks of the importance of critical thinking when outlining how to dodge the traps of the public school system in his essay “Against School,” saying “School trains children to obey reflexively; teach your own to think critically and independently,”
It seems to me that all across the board the authors we’ve read are saying the same thing; schools teach conformity, information absorption and obedience. We need critical thinkers!

Drafting Countinued

Many of the authors we read about discussed the need for critical pedology. Freire, for example asserts that to escape the banking method we must become “Consciousness as con-sciousness” or, to paraphrase, the ability to question perceived knowledge and critique what we are taught. As he says, education “consists in acts of cognition, not transferal of information.”
bell hooks also discusses the importance of teaching students to think critically, saying "Children are organically predisposed to be critical thinkers," and discussing what the school systems do a bout this predisposition, saying “Children's passion for thinking often ends when they encounter a world that seeks to educate them for conformity and obedience only. Most children are taught early on that thinking is dangerous.”

John Gatto also talks of the importance of critical thinking when outlining how to dodge the traps of the public school system in his essay “Against School,” saying “School trains children to obey reflexively; teach your own to think critically and independently,”
It seems to me that all across the board the authors we’ve read are saying the same thing; schools teach conformity, information absorption and obedience. We need critical thinkers!

Argument Workshop: Essay

What: I believe that the main change needed in the school system is curriculum that demands and teaches critical and analytical thought.
Who: My audience would be anybody involved in education--the people affected by it and those with the powers to change the system
What: These individuals should be interested in it because for educators, it involves what they will be teaching and what their students will be taught, for parents because it involves their children and for administrators because it affects future generations and current processes.

Gains:

• More world ready children with complex thinking abilities
• Employees who can think on their own and function independently
• Indviduals more ready for creative exploits
•  Students with  power and confidence in their own mind and thoughts
• Students who are not pliable and susceptible to foreign influence

Losses:

• Implementing new curriclim will be expensive and diffucult
• Teachers will need to adjust to a new mode of teaching

Answers:

• Expense and difficulty will be paid off when a more successful future generation will be created. In the end, we are currently spending large amounts of money on a system that is obviously not working, so simply redirecting the money towards
• Many of the complaints about the school system come from current or retired teachers themselves. If the change works, teachers will likely have no qualms about the shift
• 
  

Argument Workshop

Topic: Chickens  Audience: Coyotes

What: Increase appriciation for chickens as a diatery staple.
Who:  Coyotes
Why: Chickens are an unappreciated asset to the everyday coyote's diet and should be more actively eaten

Reasons to agree:

• Chickens are high in protein 
• Chickens are bad at running away
• Chickens provide Coyotes with the ability to fly for short distances

Reasons to disagree:

• Chickens are usually protected by farmers
• Chickens are rude and generally hurt feelings while being eaten
• Flying abilities gained by eating chickens are not always controlable

Answers to objections:

• Farmers have to sleep and they can always buy new chickens
• Eat the head first, and chickens will no longer be rude
• Control is minute. Chickens make you fly

Support:

• Among seven other common local birds, chickens by far provide the most protein. In fact, 70% of all chickens are nothing but pure, unadulterated protein. The rest are slightly adulterated protein, but protein nonetheless.
• Chickens have very small legs, and due to extensive genetic alterations, are generally severely overweight. Thus, they are an easy catch!
• The ability to fly comes in handy at almost any time. Many chicken eating coyotes avoid farmers altogether simply by flying away. And a good 90% of all sentient matter asserts that flying is awesome.

Favorite Change

My favorite proposed change was definitely the character building proposed by Large. He discussed the inability of today’s students to fail and improve because of their fear of failing and that really connected with me. I feel like I see examples of what he was discussing often in my experiences in school.  Students today are bored all the time and apathetic towards their schooling, but at the same time they all deal with enormous amounts of pressure and  don’t handle it well when they fail. I’ve seen many students who give up completely when faced with just a little taste of failure. if they don't do well the first few times, quitting Obviously this kind of attitude will not carry anyone far in life. Just imagining how different the average American would be if they were taught that failure is okay is inspiring. If we were no longer so afraid of being ridiculed, laughed out or disappointing, maybe we would take the next leap, the next step and do great things once more. Maybe we would once again be able to sit at the top of the board when contending with the world.At the very least, we would certainly be creating healthier, happier, more adjusted individuals.

Quotes for Essay

"Children are organically predisposed to be critical thinkers," "Children's passion for thinking often ends when they encounter a world that seeks to educate them for conformity and obedience only. Most children are taught early on that thinking is dangerous." bell hooks,
"Boredom was everywhere in my world, and if you asked the kids, as I often did, why they felt so bored, they always gave the same answers: They said the work was stupid, that it made no sense, that they already knew it." "I had more than enough reason to think of our schools - with their long-term, cell-block-style, forced confinement of both students and teachers - as virtual factories of childishness," "[What] our schools really are: laboratories of experimentation on young minds, drill centers for the habits and attitudes that corporate society demands" John Gatto
"It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that our school systems are broken," Lewis Black john gatto,
""Worse yet, it turns them [students] into "containers," into "recepticles" to be "filled" by the teacher," 

Citation and Qutoation Practice

• In the essay "Against School," John Gatto, a former teacher, discusses the flaws and conditions of school, saying "I had more than enough reason to think of our schools...as virtual factories of childishness."
• Satirically highlighting flaws in the school system on comedy central, Black opens with "It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that our schools are broken--which is good, because none of us are!"   

Work Cited

• Gatto, John. "Against School." Harper's Magazine Sept. 2003: Web. <http://www.wesjones.com/gatto1.htm#source>.
• Black, Lewis "Back in Black." John Stuart Daily Show. Comedy Central. Television. Web. <http://politicsisstupid.com/>
• bell, hooks "
• Freire, Paulo, "The Banking Concept of Education," Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 1968: Print. Excerpt.

• John Gatto was an American school teacher with nearly thirty years of experience in the classroom and the author of multiple essays concerning the conditions of our schools, including "Against School" and a number of books, including "Dumbing us Down", published in 1991 and the more recent "Underground History of American Education," published in 2003. He discusses the school environment saying "I taught for thirty years in some of the worst schools in Manhattan, and in some of the best, and during that time I became an expert in boredom." Further discussing the school environment, bell hooks, best known as a feminist author comments that, "Most children are taught early on that thinking is dangerous."
•  Paulo  Freire, Ph.D was a Brazilian educator and philosopher and an advocate of critical pedagogy. He is also the author of "Education for Critical Consciousness," "Pedology of Freedom," and a number of other education-centric books. In his book "Pedology of the Oppressed," published in 1968, Feire discusses the banking method saying "Worse yet, it turns them [students] in "containers," into "receptacles" to be "filled" by the teacher." John Gatto discusses a similar condition in his observation of the school system in "Against School," Saying  "our schools...are laboratories of experimentation on young minds, drill centers for the habits and attitudes that corporate society demands."

Work Cited

• Gatto, John. "Against School." Harper's Magazine Sept. 2003: Web. <http://www.wesjones.com/gatto1.htm#source>.
• Black, Lewis "Back in Black." John Stuart Daily Show. Comedy Central. Television. Web. <http://politicsisstupid.com/>
• bell, hooks "
• Freire, Paulo, "The Banking Concept of Education," Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 1968: Print. Excerpt.

 

Ranking

1. Large--Character
2. Gilyard--Art and Curiosity
3. Hooks--engaging study and teacher connection
4. Boyce--Emotional nurturing
5. Aronson-- involvement with school management

Large, Boyce, Gilyard & hooks

      hooks      hooks asserts that teachers need to learn to asses the emotional awarness and intellegence of a class room. She reasons that this is important because:

• teachers need to be able to determine what the students need to know
• interacting with students beyond the surface builds positive energy

           hooks also talks about the importance of teachers encouraging the inner voice of all student. She belives this is important because:

•  it engages the hearts and minds of students
• creates a space where everyone can speak
• creates an environment where all voices can be shared
  
  lastly, hooks highlights the overall value of engaged pedagogy, saying that it:
  
• empathizes mutal paticipation
• forges meaningful working relationships in the classroom
• establishes integrity in the teacher
• encourages students to work with integrity 
  
  Gilyard
  Gilyard discusses the importance of the arts within schools, saying that they are:
  
• vital to the process of shaping the critical and productive citizens we need
• for the common good
• a linkage between potential and achivment
• expands perspective
  
  Aronson
  Aronson says that teachers must become engaged and active in politics in order to
• ensure the best for the students
• get educated, experienced voices out into the school board environment
• protect students from bureaucracy and misinformed information
• help students excel
  
  LargeSchools need to nurture character and 'grit' because
• it helps students to suceed
• helps them handle stress
• promotes optimism, self-control, curiosity and soical-intellegence
• gives the example of the two extremes--too many rules and stress at KIPP and too little motivation and challenge at Riverdale

Small Group: Chalk vs. Authors

Small group blog post: choose one scene from chalk and use it to show one of the concerns that each of the writers (Freire, Gatto, Rose, and Black) have about education.


Freire talks about how our education system uses teachers just as a machine to relay information to students who temporarily memorize it for a test. In Chalk, there's a scene where Mr. Lowrey is having all of his students simply repeating what he says; no thinking, no learning, just memorization.


Black talks a lot about unqualified people working at and teaching at schools. Mr. Lowrey is a perfect example of this, as he is completely new to teaching, and he's teaching History as a former Engineer. He goes to the Library and looks to check out a book about simply controlling his class, because he's completely new to teaching and doesn't know how to maintain control in his classroom.


Gatto talks about how students are isolated and separated by titles and how teachers treat them, saying "Schools are meant to tag the unfit - with poor grades, remedial placement, and other punishments - clearly enough that their peers will accept them as inferior and effectively bar them from the reproductive sweepstakes." The student in Chalk who is kicked out of class by Mr. Lowrey is an example of this idea; he is kicked out of class not just because of his cell phone, but because there's a "mutual disrespect" between them. Mr. Lowrey labels him both as a distraction and as disrespectful.


Rose says that one of the main goal in reforming out education should be "To have more young people get an engaging and challenging education." In Chalk, Mr. Stroope talks to some of his students after class, and tells them to stop using such big words and stop being smarter at history than him during class. To these kids, their education is not at all engaging or challenging

Black vs. Rose

To be honest, I found these two very difficult to compare, because Black seemed to give less concrete examples of error or solution. Black seemed more interested in outlining comic and satirical examples of the stupid ways people seek to 'cure' education, as evidenced by his statement that "I went to school in an empty carton of Paul Mauls," while Rose outlined concrete examples of what he considered could be actual solutions, for example highlighting a real problem by saying " Just when you think the lesson is learned – that the failure of last year’s miracle cure is acknowledged and lamented – our attention is absorbed by a new quick fix."
Both Rose and Black seem to be of the opinion that our educational system is broken. As Black says eloquently, "You don't have to be a rocket scientist to understand our schools are broken--which is good, because none of us are," and Rose affirms that the reason for his resolutions is due to the "troubling developments and bad, old habits of 2010," indicating he considers past years an example of bad schooling. Another similarity between the two is their general disdain for the ignorant behavior and meddling of the press, Rose asking to "have the media, middle-brow and high-brow, quit giving such a free pass to the claims and initiatives of the Department of Education and school reformers." and Black mocking NBC , saying "NBC: a week for education, 51 weeks for incarceration,"

What Is School For?

I think that that purpose of school should be, first and foremost, education. We need to know our history and learn how to affect out future. We need to be taught how to fit into todays society and be successful. But there are certainly other important aspects of it. For example school should be to help people explore their interests and discover where they want to go in the working world and what they want to pursue. It should also be about teaching students how to live in the modern world. Finances and economics are an extremely important aspect of  day-to-day life, and as is evidenced by the levels of debt and foreclosure in our country, the recent generations are not well educated on the subject. In the same vein, the real-life application of many of the subjects we learn about is not well explored. Much of student boredom in school can likely be attributed to the fact that well, the curriculum is boring but also to the fact that few students can discern any real reason for them to learn what they are taught. I would like to seem more of these aspects in school, as well as more exploration of individuality, creativity and independence.  

My School Expereince

In Gatto's "Against School," one of the main components he discusses is that of boredom. This is the aspect that I can most easily identify with. I'm one of those kids who genuinely loves to learn, so school should have been a fantastic experience for me. Unfortunately, for the most part, it hasn't been. Like most school students, I became well associated with boredom at a very young age. My biggest struggle was in my English classes. As a kind my parents read me the classics—instead of TV, we’d all gather around and listen to C.S. Lewis. Instead of video games, we’d do book trivia. Sound like a bore? Maybe, but we didn’t know anything else and we loved it. When I got older, I read on my own obsessively, all the time, everyday. I also wrote.  By the time I was in middle school, I was miles ahead of curriculum. English class soon became an intense staring match between me and the closest clock, accompanied by bored compositions of the finger-tapping variety. I knew the material. I could dance around the material. I wrote essays in minutes and tested at a college level all through sixth grade. But the thing I soon realized was there were no options for me—or very few. Attempting to get me in an advanced placement English class was a long, hoop-jumping ordeal for my parents and me. By seventh grade, I ended up in a group of overflow AP kids. The official AP class was full, so our regular English teacher would give our group a random ‘AP’ assignment and send us outside of the class to work on it in the hallway or the library. The only good thing about those assignment was since we were basically ignored, I could make up random stipulations to make it harder and more challenging me. All through high school the boredom persisted. Soon it bled over into my other classes. I wasn’t engaged, I was bored out of my mind, and eventually I had trouble figuring out why in the world I should even bother with any of the schoolwork. My grades started to slip because my boredom grew into apathy, as it is bound to do. The thing I learned from all this? Well, people always talk about ‘No Child Left Behind,’ and assert the importance of not letting any child fall behind in school. But the curriculum that has been created by that movement has created a new negative; I was in the upper percentile of grades, ability and intelligence, yet I was the one slipping though the cracks.

Chalk : Notes

• ·         50% of teachers quit within first 3 years of teaching
• ·         The students seem really bored, all of them seem amused by the little exercises the teachers make them do
• ·         Mr.. Lowrey seems very unsure, awkward and his students seem to know he doesn’t have a handle of what he is doing
• ·         Mrs. Reddal is AP, and her ‘best friend’ Ms. Web is relived about her new position
• ·         Mr. Shroope has to go over ‘goals’ from last year, no sarcasm, more cleanliness, earlier lesson plans
• ·         “Don’t be their friend,”
• ·         Mr. Shroope tries to show the students he ‘cares about them’
• ·         Mr. Lowrey has no control over his class
• ·         Mrs. Reddal  gets home from work late every night, after 10
• ·         Ms. Web talks to one of the teachers about ‘not honoring the system’
• ·         Mr. Lowery’s class plays with him and mocks him, asks if they ‘even need to learn this stuff’
• ·         Mr. Lowery gets books on classroom management
• ·         Ms. Web and Mrs. Reddal get in a fight because Mrs. Reddal is always busy and working
• ·         Mr. Shroope talks to students who are upstaging them
• ·         Mr. Lowery works to make his class more fun for students, integrating jokes and humor
• ·         Mr. Shroope talks to all of the teachers about ‘integrity’
• ·         Mr. Lowery mentions that teaching takes up so much of his time he can’t imagine having time for personal life
• ·         Mr. Lowery gets angry at a student and kicks him out of the classroom
• ·         Teachers get together and joke about the students
• ·         Mr. Shroope really wants to be teacher of the year
• ·         Mr. Lowery goes to the home of a student and his mom teaches him how to speak to students
• ·         Ms. Web and Mrs. Reddal ave difficulties with their friendship. Mrs. Reddal feels that her friends use her new position to manipulate outcomes
• ·         Mr. Shroope loses teacher of the year
• ·         Mrs. Reddal realizes that she wants to still be teaching
• ·         The teachers all compete in a slang spelling B—Mr. Lowery’s students coach him
• ·         Mr. Lowery wins the slang B
• ·         Mr. Lowery is unsure about whether he will return
• ·         The teachers reflect on their year and their interactions with others.
• ·         Overall, students often felt bored and confused as to why they were in the classes and learning the designated curriculum.
• ·         Teachers had difficulty with each other, and administration. Teachers didn’t always know how to correctly interact with the students. Some teachers, like Mr. Lowery, realized teaching wasn’t for them

John Gatto's 'Against School' -- Group 6, "Basic Functions"

In John Gatto's "Against School," he discusses the 'six basic functions' as outlined according to Inglis. 

1. The adjustive or adaptive function. Schools are to establish fixed habits of reaction to authority. This, of course, precludes critical judgment completely. It also pretty much destroys the idea that useful or interesting material should be taught, because you can't test for reflexive obedience until you know whether you can make kids learn, and do, foolish and boring things.
• An example of this kind of a function is in the way challenges, such as disagreeing with, speaking against or questioning a teacher is responded to with punishment. From the time you are in elementary you learn that such behaviors are 'rude' and 'disrespectful,' and are reprimanded for such actions. Questioning a teacher during class is a great way to earn yourself a lecture or detention
  

2.      The integrating function. This might well be called "the conformity function," because its intention is to make children as alike as possible. People who conform are predictable, and this is of great use to those who wish to harness and manipulate a large labor force.

o   All students in public schooling receive the same regiment of information—we learn the same things, from the same or similar teachers and are tested in the same way and graded on the same scale. This kind of inflexible environment can easily create students who know the same things, believe the same things and often think in the same way.

3.      The diagnostic and directive function. School is meant to determine each student's proper social role. This is done by logging evidence mathematically and anecdotally on cumulative records. As in "your permanent record." Yes, you do have one.

o   The way that students are tested and categorized, dividing students up based on performance, holding some back and promoting others based not necessarily by true ability but by the way they test and grade is a good example of the diagnostic function.

4.      The differentiating function. Once their social role has been "diagnosed," children are to be sorted by role and trained only so far as their destination in the social machine merits - and not one step further. So much for making kids their personal bes.

o   This is exemplified by formulaic school progression: requirements of a certain list of credits, with required core curriculum and limited electives controls learning and advancement

5.       The selective function. This refers not to human choice at all but to Darwin's theory of natural selection as applied to what he called "the favored races." In short, the idea is to help things along by consciously attempting to improve the breeding stock. Schools are meant to tag the unfit - with poor grades, remedial placement, and other punishments - clearly enough that their peers will accept them as inferior and effectively bar them from the reproductive sweepstakes. That's what all those little humiliations from first grade onward were intended to do: wash the dirt down the drain.

o   People don’t care so much about grades anymore but conformity or lack thereof can isolate and differentiate social standing of students effectively

6.      The propaedeutic function. The societal system implied by these rules will require an elite group of caretakers. To that end, a small fraction of the kids will quietly be taught how to manage this continuing project, how to watch over and control a population deliberately dumbed down and declawed in order that government might proceed unchallenged and corporations might never want for obedient labor.

•    Observe political attitude