Book Review : Joe Stark

In this essay, I read a story called “Tiffany Stephenson-- An Apology” by Bjorn Skogquist. The story talks about Bjorn Skogquist experience in school. When he was in fourth grade, he moved schools. Started off at a small Lutheran school of 100 compared to a larger public elementary school, Lincoln Elementary. This was his first year at a new school and he was the new kid.

The meaning of the word education is defined as an enlightening experience in which one receives or gives some form of systematic instruction. This definition is further facilitated through John Taylor Gatto’s utilization of the literary techniques pathos and logos within his own article Against School. While this specific work strives to describe what an ideal education would include, it also presents a more encapsulated view of how flawed some contemporary schools have become to this very day: using fifth column determination and other techniques to suppress student creative ability and efface motivation within students.

Students will become what their teachers believe they can become. If a teacher believes a student lacks motivation and is in the lower level class, such as the vocational track instead of the college track, often times the students won’t care or put in effort to succeed. The expectations or absence of them, damages the future of these students and their yearning for greatness. Mike Rose recounts his years in vocational school in the short story, “I Just Wanna Be Average” as he struggles with physical abuse from his teachers that utilized their power to control the ill-mannered youths, coupled with his lack of desire to learn, only to discover how one educator could transform his view on education.

Students were given the basic necessities in the intercity schools and the environment in the classes were in horrible conditions for students to be able to pay attention in a classroom. In the podcast “The Problem We All Live with” a reporter named Elisa Crouch followed a Normandy High School honor student and as she went into his AP English class she noticed the horrible environment where the class was being taught, Crouch informs “We went into AP English, and it’s held in a science lab. The classroom across the hall, where it should be held, smells like mildew and the ventilation system doesn’t work” (Podcast 2). The school facility in the Normandy School district was not in good conditions for students to be able to concentrate and learn while being in school. This harms the students because they aren’t given a healthy school facility where they spend most of their day. Marginalized students’ education is harmed in several communities and is not given the opportunity to have a well environment like the students in a rich community have. The intercity students were harmed by the way the school did not provide a well-being environment for them to be able to study and

School, everyone summons different thoughts and connotations whenever they hear that word. Although people range in their opinions of school, many can agree that schools all have the same goal: to educate their students. This is proving to be false; John Taylor Gatto provides evidence of this in his essay, “Against School.” Within this text he explains how schools are not educating students to be the best they can be, instead teachers are teaching them to become role players in today’s society and to be desensitized from their natural creativity. Gatto, a three time New York Teacher of the Year, has had his fair share of teaching. Gatto provides evidence to the audience that they have been wrong all along about the way a school functions. His ideals prove that the schooling systems in today’s society are not what they seem; schools are thought to develop and help a student unlock their full potential but through the evidence that Gatto provides us he shows that the education system does anything but that. He shows us this by appealing to the audience’s logos and pathos or their logical and emotional natures.

As future alumni, of Emmerich Manual High School, going on the fourth year here, I have an abundance, and variety of memories. Undoubtedly, the incomparable memory I have, was the day I realized I had found the diamond in the rocks. In the course of my sophomore year, one of my teachers motivated me by saying; “You’re selling yourself short, and turning in hogwash to get by.” The following day these words were regurgitated over and over in my head. While enduring this repetitive selection of words, I registered everyone I was surrounded by were also being navigated by almost the same words. Subsequently we all joined in on a healthy academic competition. We hustled each other, and continue to do so; my friends became my ‘saving grace’ this day. Regardless of this experience, Manual was not always a great place to go to school. Essentially Manual could have been considered a zoo by anyone who read, Matthew Tully’s 2012 book, Searching for Hope. Tully’s book details a school that contained students with academic apathy, violent action, and crippling attendance. These students demolished many opportunities that Manual yearned to present to the students. While Manual today resembles Tully’s Manual in the way some students maintain the prior students’ characteristics,

He is a consultant for many Jewish private schools. He is an advocate for hands on education, as well as a proponent of a smaller class to teacher ratio. An alarming number of students in many schools are struggling. Rather than labeling student Friedman recommends giving individual attention to evaluate what is holding back the student. In many cases he finds that the student feels the class is moving too fast or the student is missing some of the tools to follow at the speed some of the other students can keep up with. He trains specialty teacher to help with these specific tasks. The majority of the students that have followed the programs he helps create have been able to follow fully at an above average level in just months of help. The biggest thing holding many more schools from joining is the cost of additional

Many are quick to disregard education’s role outside of the classroom. According to Mike Rose, “a good education helps us make sense of the world and find our way in it” (Rose 33). Rose emphasizes the value in the experience of education beyond the value of education for the purpose of custom or intelligence; he explores the purpose of going to school in terms of how he defines himself and his personal growth in the stages of his academic career. By reflecting on his personal experiences and how those gave him the tools applicable to his daily life, he emphasizes why education should never be overlooked. Rose’s use of referencing relatable experiences in a logical manner makes his argument persuasive to the readers and he succeeds in making the readers reconsider why education matters to them. Mike Rose’s Why School?: Reclaiming Education for All of Us effectively persuades his audience of the importance of education beyond the classroom, which proves true in our everyday lives because the essential aspect of education is what we do with it and how it helps develop one’s personal growth.

At first, Eubank did not believe her son when he complained about his mean teacher. The staff at the school suggested at her son should take medication because he was not concentrating on class. She took him to get an evaluation at Baylor University, but he was fine. After visiting the school, her eyes were opened by a student who was classmates with her son. Jessica Kelmon, an author for greatschools.org, writes that “the teacher would regularly humiliate him in front of the other students, yelling at him and slamming her hand on his desk (Kelmon).” This fourth-grade teacher is an example as to how much a teacher’s attitude toward the students affects their excitement to learn. When a student is being treated poorly by a teacher, an interesting subject can be ruined for that student.

In the article titled “Memories from the Other: Lessons in Connecting with Students” the author Thomas Knestrict affords an autobiographical lens into the benefit of positive connections, as well the consequences when absent. Knestrict’s backstory is one in which he illustrates an educational system that creates the ‘other’ and works to marginalize ‘at risk’ students due to learning differences (Knestrict, 2006). As a result of these learning differences, he was placed on a slower academic track, which he suggests resulted in feelings of marginalization early in life. Educators would ultimately reinforce these feeling with such words as your lazy, your not a capable student, your learning disabled, and you 're not college material. The author states, “The overwhelming message I received every day was that I was different, not as good, and defective” (Knestrict, 2006, p. 3). The internalization of the negative messages hindered Knestrict’s construction of self because he held these messages to be true; thus, his self-image would ultimately reflect such belief.

When children dread going to school, do you ever question why the child has already lost their eagerness for learning? In Chicago, Illinois, and numerous other places in the US, you can come across kids walking with their heads down and hands behind their backs in a single file line as if they are inmates. You’ll also discover that the cafeteria is dead silent to avoid the “overwhelming noise” of children enjoying their food and friends. With all of this being said, these schools sound more like boot camps than a place of learning. In the article, “Why some schools feel like prisons?” the writer, Samina Hadi-Tabassum, begins with a brilliant introduction, provides outstanding personal stories, and detailed examples to support their claim. The

Mike Rose’s friends bring bad attitudes toward education and how learning new things does not seem to fit in their priorities. If Mike Rose’s placement test had not been mixed up, he wouldn’t have been put in this vocational school and would not realize how other teens make education so undesirable. Instead they are spending too much time on video games, partying, or getting into fights. Mike Rose’s classmate Ken Harvey stuck out to him the most

A fifth grader may come in at a “second-grade level” and graduate at a “fourth-grade level,” which is a tremendous achievement on the part of the educators; however, because standardized testing fails to account for such circumstances, the entire year would be seen as a failure from the perspective of the state (Berger). To put it crudely, “poor schools can’t win at standardized testing” because students in areas of poverty start school academically behind and are unable to catch up as there is the lack of resources and funding (Broussard). On the other extreme, gifted students are also hurt by attempts to standardize education, for instance, with the No Child Left Behind Act, an act that many say has “failed our adolescents” (Steinberg). Teachers say that the legislation has resulted in a “race to the middle” that means “talented students have their potential squandered” as schools “[don’t] foster growth” (Weller). In effect, standardization attempts to remove individuality from learning and ignores that students have different capacities for learning, that some students may need more help while others need to be challenged above their grade level - instead it averages it all out to a “standard” that harms both

At my prestigious private school, for the three years of my attendance I heard students complain of how much they disliked it, including myself. It wasn’t that we didn’t appreciate the amazing education we were receiving. For private school kids, we were actually pretty good about recognizing how lucky we were. No, instead of hating school for the homework or difficult classes, we each complained about our peers and their exclusivity, the malicious gossip, or how we wished that everyone could forget their notions of who we were and let us break the mold we unconsciously formed for ourselves in middle school. In such a small school, the self-conscious, immature version of yourself from childhood followed you around long after you even vaguely resembled it. People still felt the sting of the sarcasm I had used to defend myself years before. Though I had long since become a kind, sincere person, I was remembered for the instances when I had been the

Attending school facilitates a process of maturing because students brings life experiences that have exposed them to multiple perspectives and ideas that differ from the values, traditions or beliefs of others. At times these diverse beliefs and outlooks may cause conflicts among classmates, co-workers, bosses, and perhaps school administrators. Our upbringing also affects the way we deal with the challenges of working and interacting with others on a daily basis not just in school, but also in other settings. My particular individual situation involved unique circumstances and resulted in outcomes that included confusion, contradiction, and frustration. I have worked with students and instructors at school for much of my life and in a