Analysis Of I Just Wanna Be Average By Mike Rose

522 Words2 Pages

Because of my informal education background, I had never thought extensively about the issues surrounding institutional education. Reading all of the essays during the duration of this class has opened my eyes to what these issues actually are, and why I personally should care about them. Although they may not have affected me while I was growing up, they still affect and shape the world that I am living in.
In the essay “I Just Wanna Be Average” written by author Mike Rose, he puts forth many of his frustrations with the modern American school system. His personal experiences with public school were wholly miserable, and the situations he described shocked me. I would never have imagined school to be quite as awful as he described – but other readings and Ted Talks confirmed that the school system is just as broken, if not more so, than he states it is. In one situation, he describes actual physical abuse from a teacher, where the teacher would shake or smack the students. This concept of teachers that were anything but professional and courteous towards students is completely different than anything …show more content…

Although the focus is on education, it is very much an essay about civil rights as well. This essay as well was quite intriguing to me, and made me think about these issues with a better understanding of why they should matter to me. It’s especially depressing to read “Learning How to Read and Write”, and them move on to “I Just Wanna Be Average” – there was so much time in between the writing of both of these essays, and yet education is still so inaccessible to a vast number of children. Douglas’s childhood and his struggle to access an education while being enslaved is something we hope is no longer a problem in America, but yet children, such as Rose, are still being forced to scrounge for their own educations even within a formal education

Open Document