Public Schools in America
To respond to the statement made by Kozol regarding the nature of public school in America, one must consider the question of what exactly education is for in this country; what is it's purpose. I believe that education is used to produce what Kozol refers to as "good citizens:" "defeated, unprovocative" people that will fill the necessary jobs, pay the necessary taxes, and perform all the other duties put forth by the government such as voting and jury duty. This is why the situation in America's public schools has not changed since the time Kozol wrote The Night Is Dark..., and why things will probably not change without a revolution within the public school system.
For my part, I do not think that schools are the places for children to learn morals and ethics. I believe that those are things someone must learn on their own. The method of authority, described by Charles Peirce in his writings, has no place in the formation of anyone's beliefs. Beliefs are totally subjective--that is, there are no "right," or "wrong" beliefs to hold. Therefore, why should the teaching of morals and ethics, which fall into the category of beliefs, be condoned.
According to Kozol, "the first act of an ethical child... might well be to start the demolition of a manifestly anti-ethical structure like a public school," and "no institution goes about the conscious task of subsidizing it's own demolition." If public schools are inherently unethical, why would we want them teaching America's children ethics? The answer, of course, is that we would not want them to. If, for arguments sake, the schools were ethical, then teaching ethics to children would not result in "it's own demolition," just a change in how it teaches. Obviously, though, to change the way the public schools teach, the people in power, who currently run the schools, must be removed. They are the ones who will not "subsidize" their own demolition. One of the problems with America's public school system, as well as democracy, is human nature. Once someone is in a position of power, they generally do not want to leave, even if their act of staying is detrimental to the organization they are involved in.
The problem of the "lack of morals and ethics" in this country is a large one, however, and is continually growing. It is understandable that some, or maybe a majority of the people, look at the state of the country, and think that reform of the public schools is the answer.
Lindbergh Does It! To Paris in 33 1/2 Hours; Flies 1,000 Miles Through Snow and Sleet; Cheering French Carry Him Off Field.'' (James, 1927, p.1). The newspaper boldly announced Charles Lindbergh's astonishing achievement throughout the country. Young man Charles Lindbergh from Detroit, Michigan made the first transatlantic, solo flight from New York to Paris of 3,600 miles in 33 and a half hours. Charles Lindbergh's extraordinary success catapulted the curiosity of millions of Americans in air travel. On the front page of The New York Times Edwin L. James also wrote: “harbor craft, factories, fire sirens, and radio carry messages of the flier's victory throughout the city-Theaters halt while audiences cheer.” All Americans were awakened with the victorious news and with what it would mean to the world. After this significant day in history, thanks to Charles Lindbergh, nothing would ever be the same in the world of aviation. This man, an “American Idol” forever changed the way people viewed flight, impacted companies, the country, and even the world as a whole with his talent, intelligence, and bravery. During the 1920s decade he became the hero of both America and Europe and greatly impressed, motivated, and awed thousands of inspired people.
In the text, The Death and Life of the Great American School System, author Diane Ravitch explores her ideological shift on school reform and the empirical evidence that caused this shift. Once a proponent and contributor of testing, accountability, choice, and market reforms, Ravitch’s support began to diminish as she realized that these current reforms were not viable options. She came to realize that the new school reforms focused entirely on structural and managerial adjustments and that no focus was given to actual learning.
Jonathon Kozol writes, "Public schools in the U.S. do not exist to educate an ethical human being…Schools do exist to educate defeated, unprovocative, well-balanced human beings…". This statement is certainly true, but should public schools be required to teach students ethics and morality? I would argue that an education devoid of ethics and morals is detrimental to our society. Scholar Joao Coutinho writes in the Harvard Educational Review, "Education is either for domestication or for freedom…There is no neutral education."
Julian Nava was one of the people who fought to end IQ testing. He believed that students that did not get high IQ scores still had the potential to be something greater than a factory worker.
Recent trends toward privatizing schools and relieving them of state requirements wrongly imply that schools should mirror the desires of parents and ignore the public's interest in having citizens educated for democracy.
Despite being the constant underdog and loser in major elections third parties make some significant contribution to the political spectrum in the United States. Third Party Agendas are taken serious by the Democratic and Republican Parties and specific pieces of the Third Party Agendas are sometimes adopted by the two major parties. Third parties give discontented voters other alternatives. The Republican and Democratic Parties have been known to operate in similar styles and third parties give the voter the opportunity to express their discontent. The third parties in the United States are policy advocates and often are more specific about were they stand ideologically. Often the Republican and Democratic Parties try and take a moderate approach to political issues, and third parties are more conservative or liberal when it comes to political issues. Also, third parties tend to do exactly the opposite when their agenda concerns social issues. Then there is the ?spoiler factor? a Third Party Candidate can collect enough votes to change the outcome of a Presidential Election.
Due to the fact that the two current parties already hold either a left-centrist or right-centrist political platform, a third party would need to adopt a moderate standing. A moderate third party would also be idyllic because since the 2008 presidential election, more voters are becoming independent rather than identifying as either Democrat or Republicans (Chart on A530). A third political party’s platform would have moderate views on “hot button” issues. Moreover, if a third party was another choice in a presidential race, moderate voters, who would feel unrepresented by the two opposing parties, would want to vote since the more relevant party would have a better chance of winning a presidential seat and represent m...
The American Education System has been a core component to the development of generations since it became a public system in the 1870s. Since then more rules, higher expectations for some, and even lower expectations for others have been added to the original structure. In recent years, many debates have surfaced over whether the American education system is failing. Too few they believe the American Education System is on the right track. Most researchers however have shown statistics that it is in fact slowly declining as new acts and regimens are added. It has been on a downward spiral for years and citizens have been watching it happen, the lack of government funding, acts like the No Child Left behind Act, focus in the wrong places, and the curriculum set up is acting as a deterrent for success.
When speaking of citizen journalism, Nah, Yamamoto, Chung and Zuercher (2015) define citizen journalists as individuals contributing information such as photos, corrections, opinions or blog posts to the professional journalists for editing, or to the
Citizen journalism, We media, Participatory media, or Citizen media, as it is also called, is the act of citizens playing an active role in the collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating of news and information. This is essentially the act of extending the "press" to what was traditionally called the audeience. Citizen journalism is one of key importance especially because it provides independent, wide-ranging, and to some extent relevant information which created a democratic environment as far as information goes.
It aims to represent the voices of ordinary people or people that may seem undervalued in the light of the mainstream media. These people are the citizens in whom the news is directed at but the stories that are made and shown may sometimes not resonate with them, instead it is just information that may have no direct effect on them. However, alternative journalism allows the citizen to take journalist practices into their own hands and have a voice and opinion. The access to social media and the internet has brought about a new wave of alternative journalists that have no professional qualifications but look at the world from a view that a majority of the world can understand. Atton mentions that citizens have a loyalty to other citizens (Atton, 2008) which is important to note because it is the biggest motivation for alternative journalism is not profit, but the drive to inform fellow man. People are going to trust news sources that are written by people who are like them or because they are eyewitness accounts or people that have placed themselves in situations that are dangerous, these types of news stories have a more humane
Mainstream media such as television, radio, newspapers were the primary source of reliable information before the epoch of the internet. However, the situation has changed. The evolution of modern technology in the world today has led to the continuous increase in the methods of practicing journalism. Social and technological advancements have not only improved the pace and content of this field’s practice, but has extended its genre to online or cybernetic journalism. (Project for Excellence in Journalism, 2007). News websites most of which are owned by major media companies and alternative websites with user generated content such as social networking sites and blogs are gaining grounds in the journalism field of practice. (Nel, n.d). One of the chief forces affecting the practice of journalism nowadays is online citizen journalists. Nel (n.d) defines citizen journalism as “individuals playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analysing and disseminating news and information”. He further adds that “citizen journalism is slowly being looked upon as a form of rightful democratic ways of giving hones news, articles, etc, directly by citizens of the world from anywhere.” One of the major researches conducted in the field of citizen journalism, describes the phenomenon as “individuals who intend to publish information online, meant to benefit a community”, and this information is expected to benefit the audience or the wider population in making decisions for the improvement of their community. (Carpenter, 2010.)
This paper seeks to explore the role that citizen journalism is playing in democratizing the mainstream media in Rwanda. As a country with deep-rooted culture of secrecy, Rwanda has been facing problems as regards access to information. Media practitioners would not reach out to a wide variety of contents and news. With the advent of citizen journalism, contents have increased and diversified, sometimes addressing subjects thus far considered as taboos (Nduhura, 2013).
Public journalism has changed much during its existence. Papers are striving to actively involve readers in the news development. It goes beyond telling the news to embrace a broader mission of improving the quality of public life. The American style of journalism is based on objectivity and separates us from the bias found in most European partisan papers. American journalism is becoming too vigilant in being objective that the dedication to investigating stories tends to be missing in the writing. Public journalism works to incorporate concepts from partisan and objective writing to increase the flow of information and improve the quality of public life.
To conclude, when public journalism is being practiced, a larger percentage of reports face an innumerable amount of issues that lie in their content, the journalists themselves, and their audience. What is being reported by professionals, traditional journalist, constitutes as “good journalism” because of their ability to maintain and provide accurate, unbiased reports, fulfill being a good neighbor and watchdog, while adjusting to our growing technological advancements with an newer and improved rapid reporting. Thus, traditional journalism holds the persisting dominance over their competitors, public journalism.