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1. Due to being confused with a person who did not score well on his high-school placement tests, the author, Mike Rose, was assigned to the Vocational Education program. Rose became acquainted with multiple students in the same program such as Dave Snyder, a sprinter and a halfback and Ken Harvey, the person whose words inspired the title. The teachers in Voc. Ed. were not capable of teaching well and did not believe in the abilities of their students. Rose’s homeroom teacher, Brother Dill, physically harmed his students by either shaking or smacking them to keep control in the classroom. Furthermore, the author soon deduced that the entire program was intended to be “a dumping ground for the disaffected” due to the lack of enthusiasm or
quality learning in the classroom. The author eventually developed into the type of person who detested learning. Although I sympathize with the author, I have not had an experience with teachers like these, since I was homeschooled all of my life. My mother taught me well from K to 12.
After describing his multi-talented and skilled uncle, Joe, Rose strives to provide generalised argumentation about how blue-collars apply knowledge, skills, and efficiency to their workspace. Mathematical and Verbal skills, Rose suggests, is applied regularly by blue-collars. In addition, Rose describes the academic education of his family over generations; remarking that only he finished high school and went to university. Later, he became a faculty member in a school of education after completing his graduate degree in education and cognitive psychology. Rose claims, “we also often ignore the experience of everyday work in administrative deliberations and policymaking”
...and walked home.” Collins contrasts the students’ misbehavior with the teacher’s ignorance, thus implying a relationship between the history teacher’s inability to teach his students and their ensuing misbehavior.
The overall essay conveys the theme of struggle. Mike Rose lived in Las Vegas his
In John Gatto’s essay “Against Schools” he states from experience as a school teacher that are current educational system is at fault (148). He claims that classrooms are often filled with boredom manufactured by repetitive class work and unenthusiastic teachings. Students are not actively engaged and challenged by their work and more often than not they have either already covered the concepts taught in class or they just do not understand what is being taught to them. The children contained in classrooms have come to believe that their teachers are not all that knowledgeable about the subjects that they are teaching and this advances their apathy towards education. The teachers also feel disadvantaged while fulfilling their roles as teachers because the students often bring rude and careless attitudes to class. Teachers often wish to change the curriculums that are set for students in order to create a more effective lesson plan, but they are restricted by strict regulations and consequences that bind them to their compulsory teachings (148-149). An active illustration of John Gatto’s perspective on our educational system can be found in Mike Rose’s essay “I Just Wanna Be Average” (157). Throughout this piece of literature the author Mike Rose describes the kind of education he received while undergoing teachings in the vocational track. During Mike’s vocational experiences he was taught by teachers that were inexperienced and poorly trained in the subjects they taught. As a result, their lesson plan and the assignments they prepared for class were not designed to proficiently teach students anything practical. For example, the curriculum of Mike Rose’s English class for the entire semester consisted of the repeated reading of ...
As described by Rose, in his vocational track, students were constantly yelled at, for example the P.E teacher, in some cases it relates to the lesson that the syst...
In determining why The Great Gatsby is so frequently assigned at various education levels, my thoughts reverted to our discussion on the Vendler text and the premise that teachers may be attempting to seduce their students into learning. In connection to this discussion, I reflected on my own classroom and what I hope to achieve with my students. I find the "seduction" of students to be an integral component in teaching students to appreciate the learning process. Not all learning is "fun," but I attempt to teach my students that it can at least be an interesting process.
“If you would just get up and teach them instead of handing them a packet. There’s kids in here that don’t learn like that. They need to learn face to face. I’m telling you what you need to do. You can’t expect a kid to change if all you do is just tell ‘em.” Texas student, Jeff Bliss, decided to take a stand against the lack of teaching going on in his class (Broderick).
A hard choice many people face in today’s society is whether to attend a university or to go to a trade school. With the economy America has right now it is clear that the best way to get an actual paying job is to go to a trade school and receive a certificate, rather than a college degree. It is proven that you can be just as successful in life with a job that requires technical skill over a college degree. Sadly, the culture we live in today brainwashes people into thinking technical degrees are undesirable and that a college degree is the best and only way to go. Often when students proceed on this course of life that society told them to take they may be stuck with large student loans to pay off without the promise of finishing their degree or getting a job.
In John Gatto’s essay “Against Schools” he states from experience as a school teacher that are current educational system is at fault (148). He claims that classrooms are often filled with boredom manufactured by repetitive class work and unenthusiastic teachings. Students are not actively engaged and challenged by their work and more often than not they have either already covered t...
Wattenberg’s common interest in deviant juveniles and group behavior, led to his work, Mental Hygiene in Teaching (1951), co-authored with Fritz Redl. Their research and knowledge allowed them to provide insights into psychological and social aspects that affect student behavior in the classroom. They became among the first to present teachers with specific disciplinary techniques, which could be used on a daily basis, intended to uphold ...
no excitement. regardless of what the teacher says, this is not a new challenge"(158). Rose shows how he felt abut his early high school as his teacher were supposed to be teaching exciting subject, but ruin subject by just reading out from the book. making it harder for any to really pay attention in class. " No wonder how so many student finally attribute their difficulties to something inborn, organic: That part of my brain just doesn 't work"(158). Rose state that student 's in the vocational education program having already lost interest in classes they try so hard to contemplate with, instead they decide to move on and blame their inability to learn for the reason they can 't understand what the teacher is teaching them. "They open their textbook and see once again the familiar and impenetrable formulas and diagrams and terms that have stumped them for years"(157). From the beginning of their high year the student in the vocational educational program were set to fail. The school treated them as experiment by placing them into class room with inexperience teacher or not caring teacher. where they have to either decided to go with what the school says or try as best they can to well in the
One of the areas most greatly affected by such controversy is that of education. For many decades teachers have been struggling to find the balance between cramming student’s heads with facts, and letting their creativity and freewill dominate the learning process. Thomas Gradgrind, the school’s headmaster, is one character who is unable to see the need for the balance. His entire educational system was based upon proven fact. Gradgrind goes as far as discouraging the imagination and wonder of the unknown in his students. For he believed that “You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them.” Yet what he failed to realize was the importance of how creativity and emotion affected not only personal growth, but also the society as a whole. Without such stimuli, the children can become a form of walking drone, spitting out facts without analyzing and questioning them.
Sadker, D.M., Sadker, M.P., and Zittleman, K.R.,(2008) Teachers, Students, and Society (8th ed.).New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
"Reasons vary as to why teachers are reluctant, but the book hits on several that I personally relate to."