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How education determines identity essay
Factors that influence the development of identity
Factors that influence the development of identity
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In her essay, “Keeping Close to Home; Class and Education,” Bell hooks establishes purpose through the use of a clear thesis. She communicates this purpose through her occasion for writing with well prepared, and well-presented information.
Bell hooks’ fundamental purpose of this essay is to convince students from poor and working-class upbringings that success can be achieved while, simultaneously, embracing their roots. She suggested that when some people move on with life by means of attending college, it influences the way individuals think to hide or change the values they were raised with. She argues that people should never forget where they come from. “It is important to stand firm in the conviction that nothing can truly separate
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us from our pasts when we nurture and cherish that connection.” (hooks 424). Hooks makes it clear that she was not going to follow that route. Leaving her family despite their worries and disagreement. She explains that even though she has worried and had doubts herself she was nott going to let that deteriorate her from her opportunity of going to Stanford. Hooks' background, which molded her values and beliefs, separated her from her fellow classmates.
Having to prevail despite her own difficulty maintaining her connections with both her family and community, in the face of class boundaries, serves as a key factor in her inspirational quality. Success will not only present itself to those who compromise themselves in the face of the dominant pressures of academia; a form of oppression not uncommon to intellectuals. Her background did not limit her success, it enhanced it. Growing up in a poor African American community, hooks already believed that she had a disadvantage of even getting in let alone succeeding at Stanford. Always being put down by family or even the community members for trying to come off as something she was not. Being an outsider was nothing new to hooks. Having been an outsider in her own community made it that much easier for hooks. Hooks aims her values and beliefs towards the lower working class people because that is all she know She argues that a university should help students maintain the connection with their values, so that people of different communities will feel …show more content…
equal. Hooks shows her knowledge of her values and beliefs by relating her experience at Stanford where she came across many privileged whites students who had values that did not meet those of her own. Hooks explains that many of the white students appeared to have a lack of respect for their parents. Which was very new to her hook's parents always taught her to show them respect. Hooks even says in her essay, "I was profoundly shocked and disturbed when peers would talk about their parents without respect, or would even say that they hated their parents" (Hooks page 419). Everyone tended to look down on the working class that she was a part of the most. Hooks says, "I talked to no one about the sources of my shame, how it hurt me to witness the contempt shown the brown-skinned, Filipina maids who cleaned our rooms" (hooks 419). Hooks, of course, had a feeling of emotional pain due to the fact that her own father was a janitor. This particular aspect of her life was one of the reasons why it was so hard for her to conform to the way the other students of the university looked at the working class. Since Stanford accepted her into their school, hooks felt as though she needed to be something she needed to act privileged like the others to even fit in, but when she refused, the university and its students considered her rebellious. This label clearly being unnecessary, and somewhat melodramatic under the circumstances, likely offended hooks. Hooks challenges the notion that assimilation is necessary in order to succeed.
She effectively conveyed this idea by incorporating her personal experience, leaving home to attend Stanford University where the class difference was a prevalent entity. Her parents were uncertain about her attending the university. They were not excited about the fact that she got accepted, they worried about her being so far away from home. A nice, close, unanimously African American college was much more suitable for her in their eyes. “To them, any college would do. I would graduate, become a school teacher, make a decent living and a good marriage. And even though they reluctantly and skeptically supported my educational endeavors, they also subjected them to constant harsh and bitter critique.” (hooks 418) Hooks was afraid to express her shame, she didn’t share the same values as her peers, and she constantly felt distant from the other students. “...I did not share the sensibility and values of my peers. That was important—class was not just about money; it was about values which showed and determined behavior. While I often needed more money, I never needed a new set of beliefs and values.” (hooks 419) After having a conversation with her white middle-class California roommate and reading a book by Carol Stack’s anthropological study, she achieved her occasion for writing. Hooks explained to her roommate the way she was brought up and what was considered “healthy and normal” for
her. Hooks clearly addresses her thesis, purpose, and occasion for writing “Keeping Close to Home; Class and Education.” She proves that all working class and poor people should embrace the success and opportunities of those who choose to be educated. As well as proving the point that the educated working class and poor people must embrace, and set examples of their own family’s values, according to bell hooks, the American educational system forces students to hide, change, or mask the values that they bring with them to school. “If the terms of success as defined by the standards of ruling groups within white-supremacist, capitalist patriarchy are the only standards that exist then assimilation is indeed necessary. But they are not.” (hooks 425). Education should bring an individual closer to their homes and communities, not separate them
bell hooks reveals that she can only characterize the world as a place where you either have money to spend or you don’t (433). In college, she recollects how her professors and peers reinforced through countless
As Pollock states, “Equity efforts treat all young people as equally and infinitely valuable” (202). This book has made me realize that first and foremost: We must get to know each of our students on a personal level. Every student has been shaped by their own personal life experiences. We must take this into consideration for all situations. In life, I have learned that there is a reason why people act the way that they do. When people seem to have a “chip on their shoulder”, they have usually faced many hardships in life. “The goal of all such questions is deeper learning about real, respected lives: to encourage educators to learn more about (and build on) young people’s experiences in various communities, to consider their own such experiences, to avoid any premature assumptions about a young person’s “cultural practices,” and to consider their own reactions to young people as extremely consequential.” (3995) was also another excerpt from the book that was extremely powerful for me. Everyone wants to be heard and understood. I feel that I owe it to each of my students to know their stories and help them navigate through the hard times. On the other hand, even though a student seems like he/she has it all together, I shouldn’t just assume that they do. I must be sure that these students are receiving the attention and tools needed to succeed,
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
In the essay “Achievement of Desire”, author Richard Rodriguez, describes the story of our common experience such as growing up, leaving home, receiving an education, and joining the world. As a child, Rodriguez lived the life of an average teenager raised in the stereotypical student coming from a working class family. With the exception, Rodriguez was always top of his class, and he always spent time reading books or studying rather than spending time with his family or friends. This approach makes Rodriguez stand out as an exceptional student, but with time he becomes an outsider at home and in school. Rodriguez describes himself as a “scholarship boy” meaning that because of the scholarships and grants that he was receiving to attend school; there was much more of an expectation for him to acquire the best grades and the highest scores. Rodriguez suggests that the common college student struggles the way he did because when a student begins college, they forget “the life [they] enjoyed
In conclusion, in Conley’s memoir he focuses on his experience of switching schools, while in the third grade, from a predominantly African American and Latino school to a predominantly caucasian elementary school. His memoir focuses on the differences in his experiences at each school and how race and class further separated the similarities between his two schools. Conley focuses equally on race and class and how they both influenced and shaped his life, but class was the primary influence on Conley’s
The novel “Women Without class” by Julie Bettie, is a society in which the cultural you come from and the identity that was chosen for you defines who you are. How does cultural and identity illustrate who we are or will become? Julie Bettie demonstrates how class is based on color, ethnicity, gender and sexuality. The author describes this by researching her work on high school girls at a Central Valley high school. In Bettie’s novel she reveals different cliques that are associated within the group which are Las Chicas, Skaters, Hicks, Preps, and lastly Cholas and Cholos. The author also explains how race and ethnicity correspondence on how academically well these students do. I will be arguing how Julie Bettie connects her theories of inequality and culture capital to Pierre Bourdieu, Kimberle Crenshaw, Karl Marx and Engels but also how her research explains inequality among students based on cultural capital and identity.
It should not be a surprise that many people believe that a college degree is a necessity in today’s world. We are taught to believe this at a young age. The average citizen will not question this statement due to how competitive the job market has become, yet does graduating college guarantee more success down the road? Peter Brooks is a scholar at Princeton University and publisher of an essay that questions the value of college. He obviously agrees that college can help securing a job for the future, but questions the humanities about the education. He uses other published works, the pursuit of freedom, and draws on universal arguments that pull in the reader to assume the rest of his essay has valid reasons.
The right and privilege to higher education in today’s society teeters like the scales of justice. In reading Andrew Delbanco’s, “College: What It Was, Is, and Should Be, it is apparent that Delbanco believes that the main role of college is to accommodate that needs of all students in providing opportunities to discover individual passions and dreams while furthering and enhancing the economic strength of the nation. Additionally, Delbanco also views college as more than just a time to prepare for a job in the future but a way in which students and young adults can prepare for their future lives so they are meaningful and purposeful. Even more important is the role that college will play in helping and guiding students to learn how to accept alternate point of views and the importance that differing views play in a democratic society. With that said, the issue is not the importance that higher education plays in society, but exactly who should pay the costly price tag of higher education is a raging debate in all social classes, cultures, socioeconomic groups and races.
To the modern white women who grew up in comfort and did not have to work until she graduated from high school, the life of Anne Moody reads as shocking, and almost too bad to be true. Indeed, white women of the modern age have grown accustomed to a certain standard of living that lies lightyears away from the experience of growing up black in the rural south. Anne Moody mystifies the reader in her gripping and beautifully written memoir, Coming of Age in Mississippi, while paralleling her own life to the evolution of the Civil Rights movement. This is done throughout major turning points in the author’s life, and a detailed explanation of what had to be endured in the name of equality.
The same consistent, expressive voice introduces Ms. Angelou's effective strategy of comparison and contrast. By comparing what the black schools don't have, such as 'lawn, nor hedges, nor tennis courts, nor climbing ivy,' reveals not only a clear illustration of what luxuries the white schools in the forties had but also how unjust the system was. The adults at the graduation focus on the differences that were previously left unspoken. The black principal's voice fades as he describes "the friendship of kindly people to those less fortunate then themselves" and the white commencement speaker implies that" the white kids would have a chance to become Galileo's.... and our boys would try to be Jesse Owenes..." The author's emotions vary from the first proclamation that "I was the person of the moment" to the agonizing thoughts that it "was awful to be a Negro and have no control over my life" to the moment of epiphany: "we are on top again."
In recent years, many have debated whether or not a college education is a necessary requirement to succeed in the field of a persons’ choice and become an outstanding person in society. On one hand, some say college is very important because one must contribute to society. The essay Three Reasons College Still Matters by Andrew Delbanco shows three main reasons that students should receive their bachelor’s degree. On the other hand, many question the point of wasting millions of dollars on four years or maybe more to fight for highly competitive jobs that one might not get. Louis Menand wrote an article based on education titled Re-Imagining Liberal Education. This article challenges the main thought many americans have after receiving a secondary education. Louis Menand better illustrates the reasons why a student should rethink receiving a post secondary education better than Andrew Delbanco’s three reasons to continue a person’s education.
Success. Society tends to correlate “success” with the obtainment of a higher education. But what leads to a higher education? What many are reluctant to admit is that the American dream has fallen. Class division has become nearly impossible to repair. From educations such as Stanford, Harvard, and UCLA to vocational, adult programs, and community, pertaining to one education solely relies on one’s social class. Social class surreptitiously defines your “success”, the hidden curriculum of what your socioeconomic education teaches you to stay with in that social class.
Unlike hooks and Frankenberg who give detailed views on the idea of whiteness that consistently criticize it as a way of thinking that influences our lives, instead McIntosh gives the readers a perspective of whiteness from a privileged white woman. McIntosh 's admittance and understanding to her class and racial advantage allows her to be able to view the problems surrounding whiteness and by doing so, allows her to make the changes needed to make a difference. Even with the different class viewpoint, McIntosh acknowledges the idea that "whites are taught to think their lives as morally neutral, normative, and average.." (McIntosh 98) and that this way of thinking creates a situation where whites view non white individuals to be abnormal and under average. This prescribed way of thinking produces the idea that if a white individual volunteers or works to help others, this helpfulness is a way of assisting non-whites to be more like whites. This form of education that the people, who have access to education, receive can then be understood as being obviously problematic. The perspective of class is an important viewpoint from McIntosh because as a privileged white woman, she is provided with more access to education and varying resources than many people. Again, the subject of education is brought forward. This access to the different educational institutions that she has had and her acknowledgement to her uneducated ideas on race show how the educational system had failed her. "As a white feminist, I knew that I had not previously known I was 'being racist ' and that I had never set out to 'be racist '" ( Frankenberg 3). Although Frankenberg had begun with the goal of working for the rights of feminism, her lack of knowledge on race, hindered her from understanding more aspects of
In our current society, it is acceptable to talk about race or gender. However, when it comes to the subject of class, people tend to tense, and are uncertain as to where they stand. At one time in history money afforded prestige and power, however now, money is a large part of our society and tends to rule many peoples lives. In the book Where We Stand: Class Matters, by bell hooks, she describes a life growing up in a family who had nothing, to now becoming one of America’s most admired writers. She wrote this book because she wanted to write about her journey from a working class world to class-consciousness, and how we are challenged everyday with the widening gap between the rich and the poor. In her book, hook’s describes a life dominated by the haunting issues of money, race, and class.
Meanwhile, as the pressure of schools losing their students due to dropout, it is important that the inner city students have the support they need in school or at home, because many years of oppression have kept African-Americans from having the will to do better. Now young African-Americans have that same oppressed feeling in the schools that they are attending. When the students give up it seems as though everyone around them wants to give up. In fact, “In many parts of the country, the problems present withi...