English 99: Literacy Among the Ruins

This article was really an attention getter. First of all this man proves that he basically has no heart. When the bored looking girls and the jocks are talking about their relationships and going out and partying he doesn’t even know what to write to correct their papers. “I would look at the word after I wrote it and cross it out because it seemed like a stupid thing to write” (219). But when the refugees wrote about theirs friends getting their hands blown off in the war or having to go into hiding because their families are being bombed on and all he can think about is how bad the sentence is. “Then I crossed out my corrected sentence. Sometimes after reading a few refugee papers I felt that instead of teaching English I was unlearning English” (219). “I remember circling the verb and writing, ‘agreement?” (219). He didn’t even seem concerned about what had happened to these people. Instead of writing verb agreement he should be writing the number for a councilor they should go to. After he was done teaching the class all he could think about was how thankful he was that he didn’t have to read these horrible sentences anymore instead how sorry he felt for these teenagers because of what they have been through. “But I went outside and walked home trying not to think in sentences” (220). It’s not really the refugees fault that they can’t speak English very well. That is why they are in the class so they can improve upon it. I thought that it was funny how he segregated the class into different groups. That ‘s something that I thought teachers tried to avoid and break up so then each group could share their thoughts with each other. He said the class was split up into the bored looking girls, the jocks and the refugees. He said that there was a “buffer zone” in-between each of the groups. I think he should have tried to mix up the class. He also said that each of the groups had their own topics that they wrote about. The girls and the jocks both talked about stupid stuff in life that didn’t even matter. Couldn’t he have pointed out that there was no depth to their writing? At least the refugees were talking about things that were a little more interesting. I thought it was interesting when he pointed out he was an imposter. “I was posing as a professor and English 99 was posing as a college course” (216). I have to give him credit for at least trying but he was so harsh on these kids that weren’t very literate. If I were in a class like that with a teacher that didn’t seem to care about the class then I wouldn’t want to try either. Of coarse they are going to feel stupid and not want to try.

Learning in the Key of Life

Spayde talks about education and how it is like power. “But the extra power that a grad school dropout who, let’s say, embraces voluntary simplicity and makes $14000 a year, has over a high school dropout single mom pulling $180000. That kind of power has everything to do with attitude and access: an attitude of empowerment, even entitlement, and access to tools, people, and ideas that make lining at any income level easier, and its crises easier to bear” (66). I agree with this because even if you don’t have a very good job if you are educated at least you can communicate with others. Hopefully you can carry on an intelligent conversation with others. This intelligence gives you power in the society and community to hopefully get a better job. Since you are educated you should be able to have the skills that allow you to get the job. Spayde says at “To fall short of your highest goals-mastering that imaginary ‘complete’ reading list, say- is ok as long as you stick to the struggle.” (69). I also agree with this because if you tries your hardest and gave education your best shot and still fell short then maybe it really wasn’t for you. But at least you know that you tried instead of regretting and asking yourself could I have becomes successful you tried and hopefully along the way you gained some good knowledge and some good experiences. I think that it is better to sick to something even if you don’t come out totally ahead because then at least you know that you aren’t a quitter and you try to expand your full potential. If you never would have tried then how would you even know what your full potential is? Spayde also points out that there are many different types of education and that there is probably a type for you, you just have to find out what that type is.

School

Mori starts out by saying in the first paragraph on page 254 that people compare college to the “real world” saying that we go here when we are not happy with our lives and want to change them. Then she goes on to say, “most Americans take college for granted because they are always there-almost any adult can get into some college at any age” (254). I disagree with the fact that Americans take college for granted because there are plenty of people that would love to go to college but can’t for whatever reason. She says that, “In the states, young people who don’t feel ready for college can work for a few years and then apply when they feel more motivated or mature” (254). Where is the motivation going to come from though? Adults that I have talked to say that after they were out of school that it were really hard to go back. This makes sense if you think about you get so used to not having to go to school most people aren’t going to have a huge motivation to go back. So I think that she is taking advantage the fact that have good work ethic instilled in them so they actually want to go to school because if they don’t then they miss out on their opportunity. She also goes onto describe the type of education that she got in Japan and how different it is from the American education. There were a lot of things I didn’t know that though that I could she why she thinks we take our education for granted. When she was saying on the bottom of page 256 that the teachers make the students feel ashamed when they do something wrong or not good enough. Their teaching method is also completely different then ours. Mori pointed out that we are pretty much taught to question authority, which I know is true from my own experiences. I remember junior year my history teacher told us to challenge what we are taught. In Japan it sounds like the students can’t even think about challenging the teachers because if they do they won’t succeed. The teachers there also don’t tell the students what they did wrong they have to figure out on their own. I think that we are lucky that our teachers for the most part actually try to help us when we did something wrong and some students might take this for granted. I agree with this because usually we just get frustrated but end up learning from what they told us we did wrong. We learn from people telling us we did wrong and they learn from observing what they did wrong. I think that this is a neat way of learning too because then you learn from trial and error so it may stick better in your brain when you actually get the concept but if someone is just telling you what you are doing wrong then this can be almost too easy sometimes and we don’t end up learning it. I think that this is more of the case of wanting what you can’t have.

Football Is a Suckers Game

“The current college sports landscape is meaner than ever, more overtly commercial, more winner-take-all. And just as in the rest of the economy the gap between rich and poor is widening” (125). He starts out by saying that football is pretty much taking over our colleges and is taking all of our colleges money with it. He points out that colleges spend so much money even if they aren’t number one. The lower division teams are losing money because they are spending so much just to stay in the game but since they aren’t on top they don’t get enough money back. But the teams that are on top show little to no pity for those who are on bottom and why would they? It’s not their problem they put more money into their own program so they could become better. “The B.C.S. consists of the major teams as determined by the marketplace. Any other system is socialism. And if we’re going to have socialism, then why don’t we share our endowments?” (126). He says that because of this want to be the best that the athletic departments overlook some of the bad stuff that goes on behind the scenes with athletes, coaches trainers etc. I agree with this because there are some athletes that get away with bad stuff because the athletic world needs them to help with their profit. Michael gives some examples about some of the bad stuff that athletes got excused form because they are athletes. “It is the desperation of cash, every bit as much as the pursuit of victory, that causes university athletic departments to overlook all kinds of rule-breaking until it splatters out into the open.” (127). He says that overlooking the rules that are broken by the athletes is now becoming normal in our college world. I agree with this also. It seems to me that more and more athletes are getting away with more and more things. Michael also points that each team wants to be the best but there are more winners in this game then there are losers. I think this is true too because there can only be one winner so all the other teams have to put more money in and try harder to be better then the best. He presents lots of examples showing how much time and money that people put into football without a second thought but why do we do this? I remember in high school football games were where everyone was on Friday nights. We get obsessed with winning and being the best. Whatever happened to playing for the love of the game and staying true to your team through the good sessions and the bad? I guess that we live for success.

The Roots of Debate in Education and the Hope Dialogue

Tannen pointed out the fact that women in schools don’t enter into debate as much as men do. I had never really thought about it before but it is true. I think it is something that we do almost unconsciously. Since males are viewed as the dominant sex I guess women find it harder to have their views and opinions stand up against them. In most cases this stands true but I think that women are getting better at speaking out. There of coarse are exceptions like in our English class there are only three or so boys so it is mainly girls in the discussion. I did notice that the boys in our class do tend to speak up and just those few speak up more then some of the girls and I wonder if it were the other way around (if there were mainly boys and only a few girls) would the few girls speak up? Tannen also pointed out that debate couldn’t survive unless the students are in an “adversarial” atmosphere. I agree with this because if the teachers were very strict, wanted things done a certain way and wouldn’t allow for free and open thought then students wouldn’t be able to talk and argue about both sides of things. This would make it impossible for students to debate and look at their own views, try to defend their own views, and also look at others views. He also points out that debate is a different approach to learning. We test our own views along with the views of others. Debates are a good way to up your opinions out there and form new opinions by hearing what others have to way. He does point out that there can be a problem with this because sometimes people try so hard to persuade people to see the way they see the way they forget to try to look at others opinions.

Polotics In The Schoolroom

I liked Cheney's view about what is happening to our public teaching system. He pointed out the fact that we are taught the more negative side of things instead of stressing the good points in our countries past. I think that is good to look at the bad things we have done in order to learn from our past mistakes. We can’t tell about just the good things and cover up the mistakes that we have made otherwise we would never learn from the bad and our children wouldn’t know the mistakes and battles our country has been faced with. I think it is also good to stress the good points of our country too though and what I got from the reading Cheney doesn’t think that this is happening enough anymore. When I was going through middle school I don’t remember talking about how bad Columbus was or talking about some of our founding fathers being in the KKK but I do remember things once I got into junior high. We learned about the atom bombs and all the devastation they caused and we had to read a book about different people that were affected by it. I also remember learning a lot about slavery and we had to watch the movie roots. So I think that some bad points do get picked out but they don’t want to totally cover up our past. I agree with the point Cheney made how the textbooks need to emphasize the role that women have had on our history. That was a good point he made because I think that sometimes women’s achievements are over looked. Then when we are over looked we are made inferior to men because their achievements have been highlighted in our textbooks.

What Is Liberal Education?

It seemed to me that Kegan really liked the well roundedness that liberal education gives to its students. He named the seven liberal arts, which were arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music, grammar, rhetoric, and logic. He talked about broadening the field of learning, which I agree with. I think that we all need some basic knowledge that we can relate back to. This is good for communicating with people that are studying a topic different from your own. If there wasn’t that basic foundation then how could we communicate with each other? “The greatest shortcoming, I believe of most attempts at liberal education today, with their individualized, scattered curricula, and ill-defined purpose, is their failure to enhance the students’ understanding of their status as free citizens of a free society and the responsibilities it entails” (Kegan 149). How I analyzed this was that he didn’t like how the educational system is set up and he doesn’t think that the educators have done a good job of getting the students to grasp the concept of a free society. He goes on to say that he thinks a liberal education is unimaginable without a free society. I think that this is untrue because there are so many students that they have to satisfy that they are doing the best they can to give everyone common knowledge through general education. I do agree with him however that we should all have a “universal knowledge”. I think that this is necessary for communication with others. I don’t agree with him about having a common program that all students have to take part in because if that person isn’t interested in part of the curriculum then they might find it a waste of their time and then not even want to go so then it would end up being a waste of the professors time and then end up being a waste of the universities money.

First Readings

The Idea of a University
I agreed with a lot of things in this article. It talked about how at college we don't only get an education but we gain skills and experiences that are the building blocks to the rest of our lives. Newman said that we learn to adjust and fit in with others, which seems true to me because most of us are thrown into this place called college where we are immediately given more responsibility, we have to learn to fend for ourselves, and we are put into a bigger fishpond if you will. Now we are faced with more diversity and we have to learn how to fit in and interact with all these new and different people. Newman also says that we learn about our own opinions and about the opinions of others. This is a good point because to be able to adapt to others we have to know about their opinions because this is all part of knowing about them so we can adapt to them.

The Case Against College
I think that this mom was a little harsh about the college thing. She seems too obtrusive into her son’s life. I get where she is coming from when her son was kind of wasting her money by not taking college seriously but couldn't she have said he could stay in college as long as he paid for it. Then he could have at least had the choice to stay in and work or take out a lone to pay for it himself. That could have taught him responsibility too. But she decided to make the choice for him.