Denying An Education By Adrienne Rich

In most affluent schools, parents have the expectation that their kids are being offered a full liberal arts curriculum that will allow them to further their creativity and curiosity. However, many schools have been only focusing on the subjects that are being tested on standardized tests set by the state, because they receive more school funding if they achieve higher test scores. In her article titled “The Essentials of a Good Education”, Diane Ravitch, utilizing direct examples of schools, and policies that limit student’s knowledge of the arts in order to have more time preparing for tests, points out that this shift in focus is causing students to suffer academically and is killing their curiosity and creativity.

S Subject: Guidance on educational development T Theme: Education, especially for women, is a valued aspect men desire women to not take part in. However, having the privilege of being more knowledgeable than others can led to segregating others, ultimately corrupting yourself.

“Essentials of a Good Education” is an article by Diane Ravitch regarding the No Child Left Behind legislation and its effect on public schools in America. According to her, since that legislation was put into place, schools have cut funding to subjects that don’t get tested. This has taken some of the most ambitious students in the schools in poorer communities and put them at the same level as the students that don’t care about school and don’t try. That keeps the ambitious and advanced students from reaching their full potential in school. Although Ravitch makes good points about her opinion, she doesn’t consider any opposing opinion and she cites little to no sources for her information.

Andrew Simmons published his article for The Atlantic, “The Danger of Telling Poor Kids that College is the Key to Social Mobility” on January 16, 2014, which raises his concerns that higher education is only being promoted as an opportunity to increase their economic status, when it should be an opportunity to experience an education (Simmons). Through the use of students such as Isabella, Simmons disagrees with the way students now look at higher education and blames the educators through the students’ lives for this view. Instead, Simmons views education as an intellectual opportunity rather than a way to elevate ones economic class which is all people see when they see “higher education.” He believes that education, ambition and work ethic is how you have a satisfying life, not with how much you make. He makes the point that when economics becomes the main goal of education it’s all children begin to think about and they might not pursue something that they are truly passionate about or what they want to learn about, which then does not create an intellectually awakening experience (Simmons).

The reading I chose to critically analyze was written by Diane Ravitch and is named, “Essentials of a Good Education.” In the article, education activist Diane Ravitch, expresses her opinion about how the public education and schools in the United States are failing society. She indicates that schools are wasting their money and time on preparing students to pass state test instead of teaching them valuable life skills needed to succeed. She provides interesting support for this argument and explains why schools need to stop teaching the importance of test scores and focus on a full liberal arts curriculum, where students have a better chance to obtain an education they can take into the real world. Ms. Ravitch’s argument that the

In Adrienne Rich's "Claiming an Education," she encourages women to "claim" their education, rather than "receive" it. She is referring to the fact that some women feel the need to be granted permission by others, rather than getting up and doing what is best for them. She also inspires the students to take personal responsibility and earn the education they are entitled to, rather than taking the easy route to obtain their degrees. In order to earn the education we deserve, we must become active participants in that education. Students must demand to be taken seriously, make our education a top priority, and take classes that challenge us as individuals.

American Woman Brenda R. Dople HIS 204: American History Since 1865 Timothy Smith October 7, 2012 As a woman myself, it is hard to imagine a time when I would not have been allowed to attend college, let alone be writing this paper. As children most of us heard stories from our grandparent’s about what life was like they were young. I can remember laughing at the thought of “walking up hill both ways” to get to school. With the liberties American Women have today, it is easy to take for granted everything the women before us fought so hard for. It is easy to forget the treatment they suffered in their struggle to bring us to today. In this paper we will examine the lives, struggles, and small victories of women that have led us to

As discussed in a recent essay by Saul Kaplan “The Plight of Young Males”, there is a serious academic gender achievement gap in the United States and as I will discuss, around the world. Young women are doing significantly better than young men, and the results are shocking. In the latest census, males make up 51 percent of the total U.S. population between the ages of 18-24. Yet only 40 percent of today’s college students are men. Since 1982, more American women than men have received bachelor’s degrees. In the last ten years, two million more women graduated from college than men. As Kaplan reveals, the average eleventh-grade boy writes at the level of the average eighth-grade girl. He also states that women dominate high school honor rolls and now make up more than 70 percent of class valedictorians. Kaplan says, “I am happy to see women succeeding. But can we really afford for our country’s young men to fall so far behind,” (733)?

In her speech Rich attempts to change the perspective students have of education. She desires for students to see they don’t receive an education but they have the right to claim it. Her message is simple, women have to take every opportunity in education as rightful owners because they have

Education is the foundation for most careers today. Without a proper education, it makes it very difficult to find a well-paying job. Women are treated differently than men in school; men are often condescending towards girls and expect less of them, which can result in girls having less opportunity. Teachers also treat the different sexes differently according to what is expected of them, for example “girls are praised for being

There is a double standard of academics that take place at St. Paul’s. While the school promotes the idea of economic success through personal achievements and merit for all their students, the girls at the institution work hard and tend to do better than the boys. This is done without ease. For example, Mary is a student who continually works hard to achieve academic success but does so in a frantic and uncomfortable manner. An essential part at the elite school is being able to exhibit a certain mark of belonging (Khan 115). Khan states, “Lots of students spend as much time as Mary working in the library and their rooms. This is particularly true of girls” (121). The elite institutions strive for equality between the genders, but tend to have stronger female candidates. The girls inevitably have to work harder than the boys in order to achieve higher grades and perform better in school. The girls at St. Paul’s must work harder than boys in order

Education has always occurred to me as a system of knowledge learning during which I master my language, form a logical mind, and gain insights about the world. I consider it as a necessity to personal success, since it has always been the case: throughout

Adrienne Rich states “That you cannot afford to think of being here to receive an education; you will do much better to think of yourselves as being here to claim one” (23). What is the difference between claim and receive? Rich writes “One of the dictionary definitions of the verb

Sexism in Schools When you send your children off in the morning to go to school, no matter what grade they are in whither it be elementary, junior high, or senior high, you expect that they will receive the best education that they can get. They should be asked challenging questions, encouraged and called upon to participate in class, they should also be given as much help as they need to secede by the teacher. However, this is most commonly not the case. Parents and the children themselves are unaware of what is going on because gender bias is not a noisy problem. Most people are unaware of the secret sexist lessons that occur every day in classrooms across the country. In this essay I will use two essay's from the reader:

When delving into the content of Rich’s essay, the author clearly indicates her focus on the gender imbalance in education and how that impacts the lives of women. Women’s education has been treated as an addition to the education of men, resulting in university and high school curriculum that does not “provide the kind of knowledge for women, the knowledge of Womankind, whose experience has been so profoundly different than Mankind” (Rich 389). This limited view has influenced the way in which education is taught in regards to gender, leaving women to know next to nothing about the history of their gender. Ignorance about their past leaves women with no knowledge about the gender they belong to and how they