Mike Rose I Just Wanna Be Average Summary

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Mike Rose shares his personal story to the public in “I just wanna be average”, as he reveals the many flaws within the educational system of a high school in an economically depressed neighborhood in Los Angeles. Rose, starting his first day of high school, was placed by an administrative error in the vocational track, due to the results of another student with his same last name. This mistake or error went unnoticed over the first year of his school. His classes were all dead end. The author encountered many terrible teachers in charge of this remedial track; most of these educators were paranoid, abusive, racist, and unprepared. Classes did not provide a suitable learning environment for him and his classmate, who needed …show more content…

“ When his class drifted away from him, which was often, his voice would rise in paranoid accusations, and occasionally he would lose control and shake or smack us” (Rose, 346). Students like these should get full attention, care and love from the teachers in the vocational program or at least more attention than average students do. Teachers could impact a significant change in a student’s life. “If kids come to us from strong, healthy functioning families, it makes our job easier. If they do not come to us from strong, healthy, functioning families, it makes our job more important”(Colorose). Teachers should be influential to their students and be like their role model. Having a good mentor, or dedicated teacher changes one’s outlook on education and success in class. “Students will float to the mark you set” (Rose, 347). This quote means the higher the water level; the higher the boat will be or in other words, how the teachers bring them up that is the water level of the students are at. Same thing with the teachers in the vocational program, the teachers bully, abuses and do not teach the students properly, so the boats will sink lower and lower. The teachers in the vocational program should bring the students up and make them a better student and hopefully can escape the vocational program and join other students in high school or

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