I didn’t expect the article “I Just Wanna Be Average” to resonate with me so deeply. As I dove deeper into Roses’ narrative, I found the reflections of my own experiences of having to navigate the education system. Through a mix of observations and self anecdotes, Rose delves into the complications and complexities of American education, shedding light on the typically overlooked struggles of students that were/are required to partake in vocational tracks. Roses’ work resonates with personal experiences that I, myself, have lingering in the depths of my mind. It talks about facing struggles in school, feeling misunderstood, and being put into a place where you don’t feel fit. Reading about Rose's challenges as he grew up, really reminded me …show more content…
Rose's story made me think about times when I felt like I was just seen as "average" and not given the chance to shine, especially in my performing arts high school when I had performances and didn’t get the part I was hoping for, even though I felt that I was a great fit for it. His words helped me see that I'm not alone in these feelings and that everyone has a voice and can/ should use it, especially when it comes to speaking up against unfairness. Roses’ societal significance, along with the personal resonance, leaves much to be discussed in my essay. "I Just Wanna Be Average" is more than just a story, there is an important message behind it on how the education system treats students unfairly. Rose talks about how some students get pushed into “vocational tracks” and don't get the same opportunities as others. Like Rose, I've faced moments of annoyance and frustration with schools and the school system. Him constantly being labeled as "average" and downgraded to a place that did not value his abilities and skills at all really resonated with me, as I remembered similar situations from my own …show more content…
Roses’ recollection of the influential Mr. MacFarland shows the power of passionate educators who refuse to accept indifference. I found myself reflecting and looking back on the teachers who have played a key role in shaping my academic journey, having my own personal opinion on the power of education that goes beyond societal barriers. From an objective standpoint, "I Just Wanna Be Average" does very well at addressing important social issues in a way that's easy to understand. Rose shares his personal stories and things he’s been through with bigger issues about education and society. His writing style is appealing and draws readers in, making them feel connected to his experiences. Rose talks about problems in the education system, like how some students are overlooked or placed in places that limit their full potential. By sharing his story, he touches on these issues and encourages readers to think critically about them. The way he tells his stories helps us see how some students get treated unfairly in school, and by talking about these problems, he gets us thinking about how we can make things
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.
In order to understand Mike Rose, and his book Lives on the Boundary, you must first understand where Mike is coming from and examine his past. Mike was born to a first generation immigrant family, originally from Italy. He spent his early childhood in the mid-west and then in his latter childhood, parents not knowing any better, in East Los Angeles. Mike’s father suffered from arteriosclerosis. Neither Mike’s mother nor his father had completed high school and no one in his family had ever attended college. This is the setting, background, and characters of Mike’s tale of “struggles and achievements of America’s educationally underprepared” . Through this book Mike constantly is emphasizing three main themes. First, the importance of an educational mentor; later in this treatise we will examine several of Mike’s mentors. Second, social injustices in the American education system; specifically the lack of funding and bureaucracy’s affect on the public educational system. Third and lastly, specific teaching methods that Mike has used to reach out to kids on the boundary.
McCullough, intertwines logos and pathos to emphasize the importance of doing things for self–enrichment, instead of the established ideal of competition. These students are not the first ones, last ones, or only ones to graduate high school in Massachusetts. He lists, “no fewer than 3.2 million seniors are graduating about now from more than 37,000 high schools. That’s 37,000 valedictorians, 37,000 class presidents...2,185,967 pairs of Uggs”. He drives
Raquel and Melanie are two poverty stricken students that attended University Height’s High School in the South Bronx, because their school was not federal funded, it lacked resources; so it does not come as a surprise, perspective students like Melanie and Raquel have more of a ...
“Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else.” This mantra from Margaret Mead is a somewhat humorous yet slightly satirical spin on how people tend to think of themselves as one-of-a-kind, irreplaceable human specimens. However, one English teacher from Wellesley High School takes this critique one step further with his polemic presentation at the school commencement. David McCullough, a Massachusetts English teacher, gave a seemingly somber sendoff to his graduates in 2012, with a speech that contained some unapologetically harsh sentiments. However, by looking past the outwardly dismal surface of the speech, the students can infer a more optimistic message. By incorporating devices of asyndeton, paradox, antimetabole, and anadiplosis, McCullough conveys to each student that even though none of them is unique, their commonality is not a fault they all have merit and should strive to view the world through a more selfless lens.
As American’s we place a high level of importance on attending school and receiving a certain level of education. Across the world, the recommendations for attending school vastly differ based on the culture of the society. In America, we require our children to attend school until they are almost of legal age, push high school graduates to attend college and we constantly emphasize structured learning. Many children in today’s world lack many skills that would allow them to “teach” themselves outside of school leading to an increased interest in televisions, computers, and phones. Technology has taken away society’s attention away from independent learning such as reading, writing, and outside experiences. John Taylor Gatto’s emotional voice in his writing “Against School” has allowed me reveal my psychological voice regarding the educational system.
worth all the hard work. In the essay, ‘’I Just Want to be Average’’ By Mike Rose, Rose
The average human would think that going to school and getting an education are the two key items needed to make it in life. Another common belief is, the higher someone goes with their education, the more successful they ought to be. Some may even question if school really makes anyone smarter or not. In order to analyze it, there needs to be recognition of ethos, which is the writer 's appeal to their own credibility, followed by pathos that appeals to the writer’s mind and emotions, and lastly, logos that is a writer’s appeal to logical reasoning. While using the three appeals, I will be analyzing “Against School” an essay written by John Taylor Gatto that gives a glimpse of what modern day schooling is like, and if it actually help kids
What is being average really though? There is no such thing as average when everyone is different in their own way, shape, or form. I believe the authors meaning of average in this story was that they wanted to be lost souls. Which means they have no motivation to make a difference or change in this world of ours. Rose stats that an impact a teacher and his/her strategies
Mike Rose does not describe himself as a nuisance, but as a student who was overlooked. This treatment was very a detriment to his education. “I would hide by slumping down in my seat and page through my reader, carried along by the flow of sentences in a story.” (Rose 19) He discusses the teachers’ inability to “engage the imaginations of us kids who were scuttling along at the bottom of the pond.” (Rose 26) This strategy combined poorly with the attitudes of other students who did not want to work hard, who just wanted to be average. (Rose 28) Mike Rose describes that mix of students and how it affected his own perception of education:
In an incredibly accurate and brutally honest point of view, James Baldwin asserts what he believes to be both purpose and problems of the academic system in, “A Talk to Teachers”. Baldwin begins his argument by boldly attributing the purpose of education to, “perpetuate the aims of society” (Baldwin 2). With this simple
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
Within the walls of our educational system lie many adverse problems. Is there a solution to such problems? If so, what is the solution? As we take a look at two different essays by two different authors’ John Gatto and Alfie Kohn, both highlight what’s wrong within our educational system in today’s society. As John Gatto explores the concept if schools are really as necessary as they’re made out to be; Alfie Kohn analyzes the non-importance of letter grades within our schools. Although both essays are fairly different, they still pose some similarities in relation to the educational system in today’s society.
We live in a society where we are surrounded by people telling us that school/education and being educated is the only way to succeed. However, the school system is not up to the standards we want it to uphold. There are three issues we discuss the most which are the government, the student, and the teacher. In John Taylor Gatto 's essay “Against School”, we see the inside perspective of the educational system from the view of a teacher. In “I Just Wanna Be Average”, an essay written by Mike Rose, we hear a student 's experience of being in a vocational class in the lower level class in the educational system when he was supposed to be in the higher class.
I was placed into a school up to my educational standard, surrounded by students who were not better or worse than me. Yet Gatto might disagree by referring to point four of Inglis break down of the “actual purpose” of the school system: “…children are to be sorted by role and trained only so far as their destination in the social machine merits—and not one step further. So much for making kids their personal best” (3). I need to disagree with the author’s view point on this statement because, it was the perfect environment for me to rebuild my confidents in my educational abilities. Furthermore, because of exceling in my classes, my teachers saw my capabilities and moved me up into higher level of education. If I wouldn’t have been placed in this educational environment, I’m pretty sure it would not have rekindled my desire to pursue onto a track into higher education, of being my personal best, and to allow myself to dream