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.