I Just Wanna Be Average By Michael Rose Summary

Many opponents believe that standardized testing helps educators determine what classes students should be placed in for school. Instead, academic placements should be based on the recommendations of the teachers because tests are often not a proper reflection of learning. Teachers have the opportunity to work with and get to know a student for at least a school year, so it makes sense that they would know best what a student is capable of and their abilities. How can schools base a placement off of a test when instead they can use the opinion of the teacher who has gotten to truly know their student’s potential? When asked if she thinks that a teacher’s opinion should be valued more than a standardized test, Mrs. Ann Wing, an 8th grade social

The main point of Mike Rose’s Essay “I Just Wanna Be Average” is that being average is not the only thing for you to do. Throughout the essay he talks about how he started at the lowest part of the class. Where all the kids who weren’t doing very well in school or kids who didn’t really care much about school. He went through some hard times during his life and he failed at many things in school and wasn’t getting the best grades. However, he showed compassions in Biology. He did very well and actually got put in college prep classes, where the smarter kids in his school were. Rose is trying to say that there is a lot more to education than what most kids want from it, which is just doing the minimum and getting C’s. When Rose was placed

As both the standards of school work and stress levels of student’s rise, the American school system remains unaltered, unchanged, and unaffected for over a hundred years. School is an institution that can serve as a massive gate in life granting you access to a job, stability, and a future or it can become a giant pillar in the way of everything you wish to achieve. While we recognize that a student’s own motivation, study habits, and will to learn, are cardinal in any schooling system, we must also understand the issues with an institution that is fundamentally unsound from the ground up. In today’s world, students are shoved with the hands of docility, and amenability as they render themselves in a system that has inadvertently failed them, by neglecting to celebrate their differences, and varying learning patterns. Conformity in the education system has shown to damage the personalization and

I walked into classes several times to witness teachers with their head in their hands, stressed from the previous class. They shake their heads when the next class begins, collecting themselves and doing their best to not let their frustrations show. Students don’t cooperate. They are unwilling to learn because they are aware that the teacher will pass them anyways. There is no real incentive for them to work hard for a high grade. The students know the teacher has to pass them or risk their job. This is an all too common scene in today’s public high schools. Unfortunately, the efforts of teachers are shoved aside and covered by pressures to churn out passing students and high test scores.

In his essay “I Just Wanna be Average,” Mike Rose approaches his argument based off of his own personal experience, revealing the unjust curricular and teaching styles in lower level education. Rose utilizes his credibility and relatability to the subject and the systemic organization of his essay to further his claim.

The essay of I Just Want To Be Average by Mike Rose is a story of Rose’s high school experience. When Rose was a freshman, he was placed in his school’s vocational program, a program meant for the “underachieving” students. This program was meant to teach these struggling students specific trades when they could not get by in the other academic classes. Rose goes on to explain the many personalities he met in the vocational program and how they impacted his life. Rose told about how he was very unmotivated and not interested in education his first few years of school simply for the fact that his peers and teachers were also unmotivated and not interested. It seemed to be that students in the vocational program were not deemed as important and just slipped through the cracks of their education.

In the essay “I Just Wanna Be Average” Mike Rose reveals how society often neglects and undervalues a student's true potential. Like Mike Rose, I believe that students will float to the mark that is set for them because no matter the pathway to hit the standard, eventually everyone gets there. Throughout the text, Mike Rose goes on to explain how teachers generally set a standard for students. Rose then makes a clear point by saying that students shouldn’t have to exceed what’s asked of them. Both Mike Rose and I agree with the fact that some students will dumb themselves down in order to fit in with others. I also found it very relatable how Rose mentioned that some teachers may expect a bit too much from their students.

In the excerpt “I Just Wanna Be Average” written by Mike Rose, Rose describes his life in vocational education, which are lower division classes for students. Rose was placed in vocational educational classes accidentally when they confused his placement test with someone else's. Moreover, his teachers, Mr.Montez, Mr. Mitropetros, were no help to in vocational education. The teachers had no interest in assisting with the students and utilized physical violence towards them. Rose’s fellow classmates were all different and unique in their own way, however, had on quality in common- that they had no motivation towards learning and receiving an education. One of his classmate named Ken Harvey stated: “I just wanna be average.”(Rose 127) At first

Have you ever been misplaced somewhere and should have been somewhere else? Well, Mike Rose in “I Just Wanna Be Average” understands what it feels like to be misplaced. It first all started after he took all his standardized tests to get into the school. Throughout that time period Mike Rose’s test and some other person with the last name Rose got their test scores mixed up. Furthermore, this was the start of how it affected Mike Rose’s academic career.

For years our nation has been trying to improve the school system and upgrade public schools in particular; we have hired more teachers, we have the best technology with SMART boards and computers, and we have started standardized testing. Nonetheless, this all seems to be in vain; according to statistics, America has some of the lowest standardized testing scores in the world for the past couple of years. In addition, over half of all third through eighth graders enrolled in American schools have not passed English or Mathematics. If we done so much to improve our school systems, why is there more drop outs than ever and kids continuing to fail tests or classes? It is because, as Lessing describes in her quotes, we are only being taught what the teachers and our modern culture believe to be important; we are being taught exactly what the teachers were being taught by their predecessors. Students are placed in a controlling system where everyone, as aforementioned before, is being “molded and patterned” to fit in with the demands of today’s society. Our new organized ideas, such as systemized testing, are drowning out any curiosity-driven, energetic, and “fun” learning. For those few that are more “robust and individual” and encouraged to leave the system, forced to educate themselves by their own judgments. Because of the new strict, framework of schooling and standardized testing, the whole year is filled up with knowing specific knowledge needed for those tests; there is no longer time for creativity or innovate ways to teach the students. As Albert says in his introduction to Gatto’s Dumbing us Down, we have been placed in A Combine, comparing it to a strict psychiatric ward from famous novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo Nest, where everyone is controlled and structured. We are taught in this way, so that we

I feel like being average is not important because everyone will live their lives according to how they feel comfortable. Judgment has always been in the air and it will never go away. Instead of students trying to be average, teachers need to step up to the plate and serve as a key point in student’s educations. Teachers need to do what they are hired to do and they need to stop half doing their jobs. If a parent is not supportive in a child’s education than I believe that the teacher should be the child’s number 1 supporter. Instead of looking at some children as “disaffected” teachers should look at them as unique. I say that because every child deserves the chance and opportunity to earn an education. With or without great intelligence every student should be valued and treated fair. Rose’s story is very effective as it is, his encounters in life is a lesson well learned for him to pass on to others.

Immediately, upon choosing to opt out of high school and attend college, the student is at a disadvantage. This results from the student lacking opinions formed only in the classroom. They have no favorite class, where the subject interests the student, there is a connection on a personal level between the student and teacher from alike interests, and the teacher motivates the student to lead a life surrounding the subject of the class. Additionally, they have no least favorite class, where the student’s inability to connect with the teacher resulted from disinterest in the subject, lack of motivation from the teacher, or conflicting views with the teacher. The absence of favorite and least favorite classes creates an

Our lives depend and revolve around the education we receive between the ages 5 and 18. Our system has set us up for failure from the earliest years. As stated in the earlier paragraph… it ranks our grades superior to what we have absorbed from the information we are given. Teachers will often administer busy work or grade for participation, though it may be beneficial to the students grade or easier for the teacher to grade... This method of teaching, too commonly practiced, sets the child up for failure when they go to take a final or standardized test and haven't truly learned the information. In Diane Ravitch’s piece, “On Her favorite Teacher,” she talks about how a teacher impacted her life with her teaching style, “Clearly she had multiple goals for her students, beyond teaching literature and grammar. She also was teaching about character and responsibility. These are not the sorts of things that appear on any standardized test.” These types of teachers that implement life lessons into educational ones and that put more emphasis on educating us than just simply letting students pass the class are teachers that lack in today's classroom.

In my eyes, students need professionalism, real life skills and an open mind in today’s society in order to be successful. Each individual requires something different in order to fully use their brain to their full capacity. Some students listen to music, use fidget spinners or pictures to enhance their learning abilities and everyone should have an opportunity to know what can help them excel. It’s hard to recognize what you’re truly passionate about because it takes awhile to figure out who you want to be as a person. Not all students will flourish because they don’t have the correct education or motivation to earn a career. It’s not guaranteed that you will get a job once you graduate anymore since, the academic criteria is getting higher. It’s important for a student to learn in order to get academically strong. Life is full of chaos and you will never know what can happen next so you need to be prepared to know how to live life no matter what happens.

Over course of their education, students quickly transition into the frame of mind that will allow them to find success through their educational career. Beginning very simply, assignments must be in on time. In addition, they must be perfect. Perfection leads to an ‘A,’ and an ‘A’ is equivalent to superiority. This is the only way to find success in a system that so encourages competition. With this, however, also comes severe pressure that weighs down on students like a few dozen anchors and keeps them from drifting one way or another. The options for the struggling student are rarely just to try harder. With the increasing disapproval, they are to give up because they are not going to amount to much more. Their grades pinpoint them as expendable beings, unintelligent, and all they do is impair the schooling system. Their childhood dream of being a teacher is eradicated by this simple progression of discouragement. Richard Rodriguez, in his essay entitled The Achievement of Desire, also acknowledges the factory he’s been run through, and the negative way that it has affected his development in life. He speaks of the detachment from his home life which he believes to have been the direct result of both education’s intensity and the desire to achieve. As it is, school will only allow us to thrive upon predetermined thoughts and ideas thus ensuring that we disregard the freedom to achieve a success more abstract than what can be captured on paper.