I Learned That I Was Smarter Than You Know By Roy T. Bwain

FYSL Essay One: It takes more than Hard Work and Smarts to make it in College

Chapter 1: In the first chapter Robbins introduces the students she followed along with the overachiever culture that has rearranged high schools only purpose into getting students into the most prestigious Colleges and Universities rather than the school that would be the best fit for each student.

He shows his courage, brains, and emotions in different ways throughout the entire book. He shows his courage when he beats Rowdy in basketball, his brains when he stood up to his teacher and corrected him, and his emotions when mourning for himself, his tribe, and everyone they had lost. Even though Junior may not seem like the best role model, nevertheless, we can all learn something from him, and about how, even though he had a hard life, he is still fighting, and isn’t giving

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 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.

The second obstacle that Junior overcame was poverty. Being an Indian and living on the reservation he grew up with little to no money, and any money they did have his dad drank away. One common thing that Junior heard when he asked his dad for a ride to school in Reardan was, “’Don’t have enough gas,’ (Alexie70).” Junior never let the fact that his parents didn’t have any money stop him from going to school. He would either walk or hitchhike his way there even if he would be late. Junior was very determined to get to school to create that future he was dreaming of. He didn’t want the kids at Reardan to think of him as any different as they were. One way he did this was by pretending he had money, “My parents gave me just enough money so that I could pretend to have more money than I did, (Alexie119).” He knew he was poor, but he didn’t want his friends to know he was too. Junior wanted to be like everyone else and just fit in. He didn’t want the kids to think just because he was poor he couldn’t hang out with them. Eventually his friends discover that he has little money. They didn’t even think about not hanging out with him. They actually offer to help him and give him rides. If anything the fact that they knew more about him made him more popular with them. Junior would walk to school when there was no gas, he would hang out and go places with friends even when they knew he was poor. When Junior lets loose, he becomes a better person an overcomes his poverty with

“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.

In the Absolutely True Diary Junior expresses great growth in his view of himself and who he is, because he sees that he is not just someone who belongs to one group, but someone of many groups. This is conveyed, because Junior states, "I that, sure, I was a Spokane Indian. I belonged to that tribe. But I also belonged to the tribe of American immigrants. And to the tribe of basketball players. And to the tribe of bookworms. And the tribe of cartoonists. And the tribe of chronic masturbators. And the tribe of teenage boys.

In the article “Watching TV Makes You Smarter," Steven Johnson argues why and how television can make you smarter. In another article, “Thinking Outside the Idiot Box," Dana Stevens contradicts everything Steven Johnson said in his article about television making people more intelligent.

“College for the Masses” by David Leonhardt is a great article that displays the many benefits among lower-income students attending a four year college. “Why Poor Students Struggle” by Vicki Madden displays many examples from hers and her colleagues experiences while providing statistics of the lower-income joining a four year college. The two articles both display the benefits of attending a four year college and that the education pays off. David’s article talked about the different education levels based on their test score before attending the university and the amount of income, while Vicki’s focused more on the income and the effects on grades of students while attending the college on low income. David also goes more in detail about the disadvantages of community college than Vicki’s description of community college. “College for the Masses”, in my opinion, had more intensive descriptions and examples on the benefits of starting in a four year university, rather than community college.

Acknowledged in both novels, Junior and Jin’s spontaneous actions leave them both friendless and bruised. In Junior’s case, this meant ditching the reservation’s schooling system and finding one that surpasses the education he was taught. In the spur of the moment, Junior decides to do just that and attend an all-white school in the neighboring town. Getting the courage to tell his best friend, Junior braces himself for Rowdy’s reaction. Denial embedded his friend’s senses; remoteness then trickled its way through his head

After reading “Driving While Stupid,” by Dave Barry, he tells us about some of his experience with seeing bad drivers. Barry uses many old experiences while being in Miami, China, Boston, and Argentina. I agree with this statement because in almost every city I been in the driving was terrible. Everyone, in some way or another, has witnessed people drive very stupid and reckless. Barry indicated that some drivers use insane driving techniques. These include driving very fast, failure of the utilization of headlights at night, and having distractions for the view of the drivers. He says that the drivers do not have a sequence for navigation since some are involved in phone calls, eating, reading, changing CDs, crowd surface makeup, etc. This is a common thing for teens and even adults to be distracted behind the wheel. He drove through various cities where the traffic laws are constantly being violated. For example, has only one traffic law, which is “No driver may ever be behind any other driver.” In his opinion, Miami drivers are the worst drivers that he has ever witness because of the guy who was driving on 1-95. He was watching videos on his phone and was clearly not paying attention to the road or any other drivers. This does not only affect him but also the other people around him. He was not be cautious of the road and putting his and others lives in danger.

The upshot of all this is that, Junior’s decision about leaving the Rez and moving to Reardan for a better education was tough. He faced lot of problems; he felt lonely because of losing his best friend, and afraid of death of his tribe and family. Although he suffered from the entire bad things that happened to him, it was the best decision that he had made for his life. “I realized that I might be a lonely Indian boy, but I

A new level of expectations and accomplishments came about Junior when he moved to Reardan. He finally had somewhere to have a fresh start where people didn’t know what he was capable of, nor did anyone have a presumption set for Junior. With this new chapter in his life and new beginnings Junior had become someone he never had a chance to be at the Reservation. Junior was smart, intellectual, confident, observant and had a completely different mentality. Thanks to some very important people at Reardan like Gordy and Junior’s basketball coach, they were able to mentor and drive Junior to be the person he was ultimately trying to become. Gordy was an intelligent young man in Junior 's life who was able to connect books to some life morals. Because of Gordy, Junior finally made his own realization that “if every moment of a book should be taken seriously, then every moment of life should be taken seriously as well” (95). At this moment in the book, Junior started to realize there was meaning to his life; why not enjoy it doing the things you love and are passionate about. One passion in

In her comic What I Learned, Chast illustrates some of her experiences from kindergarten to twelfth grade. Chast’s main critique of the educational system is that it appeared pointless to her as a teen. She says that for a good portion of her lower school, she “was learning about being good.” Chast illustrates boards full of ways to be good, some of which include: do what teacher says, listen to teacher, do not annoy teacher, pay attention to teacher, be good, do homework, be neat, be organized, be quiet, pay attention, be good. Most of these rules were in place to aid the teacher rather than teach students what it meant to be good, which itself is very subjective.