College readiness is a large issue of debate among the educational community. The teachers are blaming the students, the student are blaming the teachers, and with all the finger pointing going on nobody is willing to realize that it may be the fault of both parties.
Students are all willing to point the finger at teachers because “they didn't teach us the info we needed to know”. Teachers are willing to point the finger at students because “they didn't put in enough effort” or “we didn't have time with all the state set standards”. It is the fault of both. Teachers are teaching student to be parrots, to regurgitate information without understanding what it means and students don't take the initiative to learn on their own time. In the
…show more content…
They are normal people who have the guts and are willing to go teach the children of the world, putting up with their behavior for 7 hours a day, one-hundred and eighty days a year (In the U.S.), for 13 years of their lives. Students have to be willing to teach themselves also, putting in their own effort to succeed in life and not relying on the abilities of the people around them. Throughout their school career students have gained the ability to “switch languages”, depending what class they are taking. Each subject is its own discourse community, students being thrown in head first and has to “learn on the go”. In high school, the material you learn in same subject last year has nothing to do with the material in the class the next year. For example in history you take American history one year and then European history then next. The two subjects have nothing to do with each other. In college classes your professors expect you to be able to link ideas from different classes and subjects together. This is a problem- posing education, unlike the banking concept that is used in high school. Of these two methods, one is more productive in a real world setting. As stated by Freire “Students... are increasingly posed with problems relating to themselves in the world .... They will feel increasingly challenged and obligated to respond to that challenge” (247, Freire). With the methods used in the current learning system the skills needed to succeed in college are being lost. When the join college they are want to further their skills but don't have the abilities required, so they must “fake it till they make it” or fail to succeed and drop out. In the article “Agonism in the Academy: Surviving Higher Learning’s Argument Culture” by Deborah Tannen, the idea that “We assign scholarly work for them to read,
I chose to compare the essays of Paulo Freire and Richard Rodriguez. Paulo Freire’s essay “The Banking concept of Education” talks of how education is mostly one sided and oppressive. He sees this as something that is detrimental to society’s future as a whole, and in his essay describes in detail how the “banking” concept is faltered. However, in Rodriguez’s essay “The Achievement of Desire” he is the model student that thrives in the kind of system that Freire was describing in “The Banking concept of Education”. Richard Rodriguez describes in “The Achievement of Desire” how his educational experience is a point of separation from the rest of the people and relationships around him. Though, this makes Rodriguez more connected and dependent upon his teachers for support and approval than his parents or peers. Both men write essays on their views on the benefits of education, and on the disadvantages of the current educational systems. I will be discussing the different points that both authors address by comparing one essay at a time. I will also be using outside sources to further examine what both authors were saying in each of their essays.
Graff, G., Birkenstein, C., & Durst, R. K. (2009). The Growing College Gap. "They say/I say": the moves that matter in academic writing : with readings (p. 379). New York: W.W. Norton & Co.
Wilson, Robin. “A Lifetime of Student Debt? Not Likely.” They Say/I Say: The Moves That Matter In Academic Writing. Ed. Gerald Graff. 2nd ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2012. 256-273. Print.
Ungar, S. J. (2010). The new liberal arts. In G. Graff, C. Birkenstein, & R. Durst (Eds.). “They say, I say”: The moves that matter in academic writing with readings. (2nd ed.). (pp. 190-197). New York: W. W. Norton. This article looks to prove that liberal arts education is just as valuable as “career education” because contrary to general belief, career education doesn’t guarantee high-paying jobs after they graduate.
Gitlin, Todd. "The Liberal Arts in an Age of Info-Glut." The Language of Composition. By Scanlon, Lawrence, and Robin D. Aufses and Renee H. Shea. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2008. 155-57. Print.
One teacher may adopt the banking concept while the other may utilize the problem-posing concept. However, while problem-posing education generates creativity by giving students the ability to communicate, banking education does not. Freire asserts that in the “banking” concept of education, “the teacher chooses the program content, and the students (who were not consulted) adapt to it” (217). Freire indicates that students, who are victims of banking education, have no control over how an instructor chooses to teach. Therefore, creativity is destroyed by the fact that it was not even permitted in the first place. Students are not able to express their opinions or solve problems using their own methods because in order to pass the class, students not only need to adapt to the teaching style of their professors but think like them too. Freire’s quote relates to experiences I have had with “banking” teachers throughout my twelve years of formal education. Those teachers only taught using textbooks, therefore, they insisted that the textbook was always right. If I were to solve a math problem using a technique different from the book, then I would not get points for the problem even though my answer was right. And if I were to interpret an open-ended essay different from how my teacher would then my interpretations would be wrong. By doing this, my teachers destroyed my creativity. I was prohibited from my own thoughts and penalized if I expressed them. The only alternative for me was to become a “robot” that followed the orders of authorities, but being a “robot” was not something I was ashamed of. In fact, my role as a “robot” led me to better understand the “drama of Education” in which teachers attempt to “regulate the way the world ‘enters into’ the students”. I was able to figure out that my own teachers had tried to handle the way the world “entered into me” by
While Murray emphasizes the emancipating affect that a process-oriented curriculum has on students, Andrea Lunsford explains how the process approach to writing--adopted by and aligned with the field of Composition and Rhetoric--frees not only students, but teachers and scholars as well. Theories governing Composition and Rhetoric break down boundaries "between disciplines, between the genres of reading, writing and speaking, between the theory and practice, between research and teaching." Janice M. Lauer and Andrea Lunsford similarly point out the cross-disciplinary nature of Composition and Rhetoric and how this creates and directs scholarship in the field.
The banking concept is “ a gift bestowed by those who consider themselves knowledgeable upon those who they consider to know nothing'; (Freire 213). The goal of the ‘banking’ concept is to deposit as much information into the students as possible. This results in disconnected memorization without the real understanding and discouragement of creative thought.They cannot think for themselves. As Marx writes, just as there are two types of learning, ‘banking’ and problem-posing, he explains that society is this way also. There is the upper class and subordinate classes. They both struggle for economic and political power and the primary way the upper class keeps its power is through their beliefs and values. They are allowed to think. The subordinate classes believe they are subordinate due to the upper classes prestige and way of thinking. Like Freire’s ‘banking’ concept, education is the way to keep students down and this works because the students accept all knowledge from the teacher, just like the dominant class in Marx’s ideology, keeps the subordinate classes submissive.
“Are Too Many People Going to College?” by Charles Murray poses a question about the mass majority of students going to college. Murray states various reasons why some recent high school graduates will not succeed in college, if they attend at all. Some students are not deemed as “fit” for college or possess a trade they are superb at that can be continued in lieu of college. Charles Murray displays his reasoning’s in such a way that the reader may start to believe his viewpoint of college are correct while simultaneously questioning the approach he uses to present his opinions.
Co-author of “They Say/I Say” handbook, Gerald Graff, analyzes in his essay “Hidden Intellectualism” that “street smarts” can be used for more efficient learning and can be a valuable tool to train students to “get hooked on reading and writing” (Graff 204). Graff’s purpose is to portray to his audience that knowing more about cars, TV, fashion, and etc. than “academic work” is not the detriment to the learning process that colleges and schools can see it to be (198). This knowledge can be an important teaching assistant and can facilitate the grasping of new concepts and help to prepare students to expand their interests and write with better quality in the future. Graff clarifies his reasoning by indicating, “Give me the student anytime who writes a sharply argued, sociologically acute analysis of an issue in Source over the student who writes a life-less explication of Hamlet or Socrates’ Apology” (205). Graff adopts a jovial tone to lure in his readers and describe how this overlooked intelligence can spark a passion in students to become interested in formal and academic topics. He uses ethos, pathos, and logos to establish his credibility, appeal emotionally to his readers, and appeal to logic by makes claims, providing evidence, and backing his statements up with reasoning.
The Banking Concept of Education, revolves around the concept that education and the teacher, student dynamic is supposed to indoctrinate the teacher into believe they are only meant to teach, and that the student is only meant to learn. Friere describes the teacher as a depositor of knowledge into a receptacle, the student without really going into complex details in a way that’s detached from
to about 83 percent of high school graduates enroll in some form of postsecondary education, but only about 52 percent of students complete their degrees. Further, a very small proportion of students complete a degree in four years—“among students starting at ‘four-year’ institutions, only 34 percent finish a B.A. in four years, 64 percent within six years, and 69 percent within eight and a half years.” Colleges always want students to graduate and support their alma mater. However this begins with deciding what student are mentally readiness and determination for the task that lies ahead, college. In today’s society we struggle trying to find a proper definition for college readiness. This is the main reason statistics and graduation rates suffer in the way that they do. Just because a high school student reaches the age of 18, obtains a high school diploma, and has functional literacy, does that really make students college ready?
Bartholomae, David. “Inventing the University.” When a Writer Can’t Write: Research on Writer’s Block and other Writing Problems. New York: Guilford, 1986. Print.
According to Connors, a significant event at Harvard University in the late 1800s sparked the different literacy crises, earning titles such as “Illiteracy of American Boys” and “Johnny Can’t Write” (Connors 58). In the nineteenth century, more students began enrolling into college, and a delay in these students’ understandings of classical material quickly became obvious. As a result of the test scores, Harvard created an English entrance exam. In short, the students failed the test (Connors 48). Consequently, the institution established a freshman composition course as a temporary solution to fix what the Academia deemed a crisis (Connors 48).
Gitlin, Todd. "The Liberal Arts in an Age of Info-Glut." The Language of Composition. Boston; New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2008. 251-253. Web. 10 Dec. 2013.