What is education? According to Merriam Webster Dictionary, education is “the knowledge, skill, and understanding that you get from attending a school, college, or university”. Oxford Dictionary defines education as being, “The process of receiving or giving systematic instruction, especially at a school or university”. Dictionary.com also defines the word as “the act or process of imparting or acquiring general knowledge, developing the powers of reasoning and judgment, and generally of preparing oneself or others intellectually for mature life”. These are just a few of the many different definitions there are for education. The word itself is up for one’s own interpretation, but one thing is for sure. Education is a very complex subject with …show more content…
The students have a first hand account of the issues that occur in schools because they experience it daily. One of these issues is played out in “Eleven” by Sandra Cisneros. “Eleven” is a story about an 11 year old girl named Rachel. Rachel was accused of the ownership of a raggedy old red sweater by her teacher. Rachel tried to explain to the teacher that the sweater was not hers, but she would not listen. The teacher only insisted that the sweater was Rachel’s. She even forced Rachel to put the nasty sweater on in front of the entire class. This emotionally scarred the girl. Wouldn’t Rachel remember if she owned the sweater? Even after another in the student claimed the sweater, the teacher never apologized to Rachel for the embarrassment. If the teacher would have just listened to Rachel, then her educational experience would not be so negative and tarnished. “Fremont High School” by Jonathan Kozol also shows an issue with student’s voice in school. “Fremont High School” is a story which uncovers the injustices occurring in urban public schools. Through this excerpt, Kozol spoke to teachers, administrators, students, and used statistics to convey what the Fremont school system is like. One part that stood out the most in this excerpt is how neglectful the school is to their students. These students are forced to handle overstuffed classrooms, …show more content…
In my job experience, the answer to this would be yes and no. Teachers can do what they believe to be the best option, but there is no true way to know what is best for students. It no one’s fault, it is just a very complex thing to do. I say this because at my work, when customers give us feedback with their surveys, they usually point out things that I do not notice because I have worked there for so long. I get used to the issues of the workplace. So, when a customer with fresh eyes points out an issue, I realize the problem and do my best to fix it. If it were not for the customers and their feedback, there would be many issues that go unfixed at my workplace, and that would be a big issue. In addition, it would be totally negligent for me to say that I can not do my job unless a customer tells me what to do. That is not the case. It is very rare that a customer comes up to me with a problem about the store, but it does happen. Usually the problems are easy fixes like cleaning the tables or refilling the soda syrup. These problems are easy to miss by employees since they do not sit in the lobby or drink the soda. One case where it seems as though educators do not know what’s best for their students is in Jonathan Kozol’s excerpt “Fremont High School”. Kozol says, “Mireya later spoke insightfully of academic embarrassments she and her schoolmates had to undergo cuts to the heart
Pashtana said she would rather die than not go to school and acted on her words. Her education is limited and she doesn’t have all the recourses to make school easier, yet she still loves and wants all the knowledge she can get. While I sit in my three story private school, a clean uniform free of holes or loose seams, my macbook air in my lap, the smell of cookies rising up from the cafeteria, wishing to be anywhere else but there. No one has beat me because I want to go to school, no one has forced me into a marriage, I’ve never put my life in jeopardy for the sake of education. Pashtana’s life and choices made me take a moment to stop and reflect on my own life and how fortunate I am to have what I have. We dread the thought of school because to us it is a chore, it’s a hassle, it’s something that messes with our sleep schedule, it is something that gets in the way of lounging around and binge watching Netflix. Pashtana doesn’t take her school and education for granted because she does not have the same liberties we do. While we enjoy driving into the city and shopping over the weekend, Pashtana unwillingly makes wedding arrangements with her cousin. While we complain about our mom nagging us to clean our room, Pashtana is getting beaten by her father because she wants to learn more about the world. While we have stocked fridges and pantries and
In the short story "Eleven" by Sandra Cisneros, a young girl named Rachel is characterized. Through a specific incident, Cisneros shows how Rachel does not act as old as eleven ideally should. Through repetition and metaphor, Cisneros alludes to Rachel?s personality and childish views.
Sandra Cisneros writes a memoir through the eyes of an eleven year old. Turning eleven happens to be a tragic day for the main character, Rachel. Through various literary techniques such as hyperbole, simile, and syntax, Rachel is characterized. Rachel is a fresh turning eleven year old who finds herself in an awful situation on her birthday. Forced to wear a raggedy old sweater that doesn’t belong to her, she makes it defiantly clear her feelings towards the clothing item, and we see this through use of hyperboles. Rachel describes the sweater as ugly and too “stretched out like you could use it for a jump rope.” This extreme exaggeration demonstrates the fire within Rachel. She is a defiant and pouty little girl who out of stubbornness has to defy the sweater in her mind. “It’s maybe a thousand years old”, she says to herself in act to degrade the filthy red sweater even more. The sweater to Rachel has become an eternal battle of ages. She is torn on whether or not to stand up and act bigger th...
To begin, Mary Sherry discusses the corrupt school system that lingers. In her article, we obtain insight on how schools
The short story Eleven by Sandra Cisneros, focuses around the main character Rachel as an insecure developing girl who lacks the experience to handle everyday encounters. Rachel, an eleven year old girl truly encapsulates the thoughts that are present within an adolescent. The lack of confidence in herself, excessive fear of being judged, and ideas of growing up are ideals that are relevant within each and every one of us. The reader is able to relate to Rachel because her feelings and experiences that are described by the author are similar to what most people have been through and are currently experiencing. The characterization of Rachel is expressed through the author’s usage of point of view, imagery, and repetition.
...eral topic of school. The sister strives to graduate and go to school even though she is poor while her brother blames the school for him dropping out and not graduating. “I got out my social studies. Hot legs has this idea of a test every Wednesday” (118). This demonstrates that she is driven to study for class and get good grades while her brother tries to convince her that school is worth nothing and that there is no point in attending. “‘Why don’t you get out before they chuck you out. That’s all crap,’ he said, knocking the books across the floor. ‘You’ll only fail your exam and they don’t want failures, spoils their bloody numbers. They’ll ask you to leave, see if they don’t’” (118). The brother tries to convince his sister that school is not a necessity and that living the way he does, being a drop out living in a poverty stricken family is the best thing.
“The sanctuary of school” by Lynda Barry Lynda Barry demonstrates her childhood experiences on the essay, “the sanctuary of school”, specifying how crucial schools are for children: especially neglected children like herself. Once, she walked alone to her school in a dark morning due to overwhelmed of parents’ financial issue conflicts. As she walked to the school, she gradually realized that the school was her home in which people were happy, felt nurture, and safe rather than her actual home, where Barry felt dejected. Furthermore, the author stated that school budgets cut is an issue for future children and students because the art, music, or before or after school activities program would be the first cut from the schools. These issues
Additionally, Sandra Cineros expresses Rachel not only as the main character of the story, but also the narrator. From one perspective, we know we can label her as a reliable narrator since what she says we can believe is true because she believes it herself. However, though she might not intent on deceiving us, readers might consider her unreliable because of her age and how she might over or under express her experience. Moreover, she has a limited range to what she can relate her feelings too which communicates her narrow point of view. “…like my wooden dolls that fit one inside the other, each year inside the next one. That’s how being eleven years old is” (36). Rachel compares her age to her wooden dolls which illustrates her eleven year old mindset; therefore, she attains a limited and unreliable point of view. Overall, Rachel’s reliability and unreliability as a narrator shapes the story as a whole because readers now understand her emotional delicacy brought upon by her age which changes how readers perceive her thoughts and feelings. In the end, as first person persistently appears throughout the story “Eleven,” readers acquire a more profound and insightful understanding of Rachel’s emotions and thoughts and the powerful effect those feelings convey on the
In modern society, the rules for school are simple and straightforward. To do well in school means to do well later in all aspects of life and guaranteed success will come. Sadly however, this is not the case for Ken Harvey or Mike Rose. Author Mike Rose goes to Our Lady of Mercy, a small school located deep in Southern Los Angeles where he meets other troubled students. Being accidentally placed in the vocational track for the school, Rose scuttles the deep pond with other troubled youths. Dealt with incompetent, lazy and often uninvolved teachers, the mix of different students ‘s attention and imagination run wild. Rose then describes his classmates, most of them trying to gasp for air in the dead school environment. On a normal day in religion
Toni Cade Bambara’s THE LESSON and David Adams Richards’s DANE stories each describe the lack of quality education and social inequality. Both these collections of stories focus on children, and readers are able to see the effect of social and economic disadvantage on children and its long term effects. The author uses the paperweight to symbolize the importance of education in the story THE LESSON, the price of their future is going to be something that they will have to strive for and look at their past current dwellings. Each of the two stories details the life and times of a group of kids from the point of view of the main characters. Bambara’s narrator is portrayed as a strong minded individual at the end of the story while Richards’s narrator, on the other hand, deteriorates his life and displays vulnerability.
Education is in itself a concept, which has changed over the millennia, can mean different things and has had differing purposes according to time and culture. Education may take place anywhere, is not constrained by bricks and mortar, delivery mechanisms or legislative requirements. Carr (2003. p19) even states, “education does not necessarily involve teaching”. Education, by one definition, is the act or process of imparting or acquiring general knowledge, developing the powers of reasoning and judgment, and generally of preparing oneself or others intellectually for mature life (education, n.d.).
The Girl with the Brown Crayon tells a simple, yet deeply connected personal story of a teacher and a student, as well as other students that embrace themes of race, identity, gender, and the essential human needs to create, and to belong. It is about maintaining order, though a sense of self, one’s own knowledge, capabilities, exposing the strengths and weaknesses while forming one’s own identity in school for the teacher and the students. Becoming a part of something greater than self, but not losing oneself, and how educational interaction can take place between teachers and students, all in an effort to fit in, belong, yet keeping one’s own identity through the growth of change and acceptance
The recollection of childhood memories can offer insight on events that helped mold the mind of adults and Lynda Barry’s “The Sanctuary of School” is an excellent example of that. Barry’s short story emphasizes the importance of school for young children by describing her own personal experience at the age of seven and how it impacted her life. Seven-year-old Lynda Barry begins her story by recounting the day she realized what school meant to her. She was one of two children in a fragile family environment were money was scarce and the constant pressure of external forces took their toll on the parents. Barry’s surroundings were home to multiple disputes thus uncertainty which created a sense of fear within the then young child.
Lastly, as a student myself most of Ellen Glanz’s points in “What’s Wrong with Schools?” are accurate. Classroom teaching methods need to be changed. Students shouldn 't be "doing as little as necessary to pass tests, using tricks to avoid assignments or manipulating teachers to do the work for them." Although teachers should demand more of their students it is essential for both the educator and his/her students to be on the same page. Through Ellen Glanz 's experience, she was able to point out the flaws in classroom settings and become a better teacher than she was before as
There is no one single definition for what education really is. Experts and scholars from the beginning have viewed and commented about education in different ways. The definition mostly agreed upon was that education is an acquisition or passing of skills, behavior or knowledge from an institution to another. This institution can either be a person, a school, a family or even the society. If we go in the ancient meaning and the ideology of education, it means to lead out of ignorance. In other words, education or knowledge in this sense was light and education brought the person out of the dark. The purpose and ideology of education is therefore to bring out the potential of a person and pass on knowledge