The Importance Of Education In Mike Rose's Why School

In Chapter 5 Mike Rose starts working with the Urban Teacher Corps in East Los Angeles. Of all the chapters I read from this book, I found chapter 5 as one of my favorites. Rose provides us with a look into the academic and personal lives of his students. He integrates pictures and music with his teaching methodology to get his kids to think creatively. And of course, it helps him to understand their lives and complications better. I really enjoyed reading about his idea of taking photos of the kids and let them write about what they see in those photos. Their answers show how they see life. I think Rose tries to show us that education is more complicated than just teaching the syllabus. He seems to be more enduring with his student’s like

Mr. Rose presents many descriptive vignettes of teaching professionals in his life who have influenced him both positively and negatively and whom he has retained for emulation or distinction. These characters in his life include teachers from grammar school throughout his college experience. All have in one way or another left a considerable imprint on his recollection of school and learning.

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.

The essay ‘Against the school’ by John Taylor Gatto draws our attention on to all the cons of attending twelve years of high-school. Gatto has experience in teaching profession for twenty-six years in schools of Manhattan, he shares from his experience that he majored in boredom and could see that everywhere around him. He also points out the initial reason why schools came into existence and what the purpose it fulfils now. He also educates us on the fact that all the great discoverers never attended school and were self-educated.The main idea Gatto addresses in his article are that public schooling is doing the youth an injustice.He implies that the purpose of schooling, now is to turn children into good employes and someone who follows orders.

Time and time again I've found myself declaring education as the central pillar of my growth and development, that of which has been consistent throughout my life and educational career. From the age of 8 I've attributed school and learning as a way to escape the outside world, both willingly, and as an involuntary coping mechanism; school was a refuge, a safe place where I could build healthy relationships and escape my worries. I felt valued by my teachers, and I was given opportunities to contribute to a community, and for the first time felt autonomous- and that I could control my future.

The foundation of my philosophy begins with defining schooling and education. Schooling is the basis of acquired knowledge and skills that shapes one’s mind. Schooling has the focus of content and is essentially used to get you where you need to be. Moreover, education is a life-long process of applying knowledge to the real world. It is the process of learning and improving yourself. Figuratively, schooling is

In “The Shock of Education: How College Corrupts” Alfred Lubrano uses his personal experience with college education and his parents to come up with the statement: “Every bit of learning takes you further from your parents". In his writing, he goes over how his eyes were first opened to the idea that school could bring you further from your parents, when he read a book titled “Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez”, where the writer was quoted as saying: “Home life is in the now, school life exists on an altogether different lane, with an eye towards the future”. Alfred’s belief throughout his article is that school brings you to a reality that separates and distances you from your parents and home-life.

Education has always been an important part of our sustainable society in which everyone plays a role. The purpose of the education system is to provide a way for students to learn and gain knowledge. The current education system focuses more on evaluations rather than teaching, which creates a stressful and unpleasant high school experience. Alfie Kohn’s essay, How Not to Get into College: The Preoccupation with Preparation describes the difficulties and purposeless school practices students face when preparing themselves for life beyond high school.

In “The Shock of Education: How College Corrupts” Alfred Lubrano uses his personal experience with college education and his parents to come up with the statement that “Every bit of learning takes you further from your parents". In his writing, he goes over how his eyes were first opened to the idea that school could bring you further from your parents, when he read a book titled “Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez”, where the writer was quoted as saying “Home life is in the now, school life exists on an altogether different lane, with an eye towards the future.” Alfred’s belief throughout his article is that school brings you to a reality that separates and distances you from your parents and home-life.

Class after class, day after day, I often sense a massive amount of repetition with school. Each lesson feels more like a chore than an actual learning experience. That’s the way school has always been though, like a job. It is hard to note that there is any sort of progress being made in terms of the everyday learning experience. In his essay, Against School, educator John Taylor Gatto claims that the everyday boredom of school is truly meant to demoralize and dumb down students, destroying individuality and the ability to create independent and critical thinkers. Gatto explains how children are not really growing up, they are only getting older, indicating that public schools exist only to “cripple our kids.” By using his experience in the classroom, Gatto creates an element of pathos and develops a structure which almost fools readers into inferencing what his opinion truly is. Gatto ultimately, through these rhetorical devices, wants to ignite thoughts about what the true purpose of school is, displaying the modern day public school education as a factory to create a mindless population of students.

Richard Rodriguez?s essay, Hunger of Memory, narrates the course of his educational career. Rodriguez tells of the unenthusiastic and disheartening factors that he had to endure along with his education such as isolation and lack of innovation. It becomes apparent that Rodriguez believes that only a select few go through the awful experiences that he underwent. But actually the contrary is true. The majority of students do go through the ?long, unglamorous, and demeaning process? of education, but for different reasons (Rodriguez, 68). Instead of pursuing education for the sake of learning, they pursue education for the sake of job placement.

While reading Too Cool for School by Ellis Cose I have became aware of various aspects of my ‘schooling’ experience. I realized that I may not have had the best schooling experience, but I never pushed up against the system to get any better. Throughout my life I have attended over 10 schools some very high end others bottom of the barrel. Like Cose, I always knew my intellectual abilities, but I was always so dissatisfied with my situation I didn't make the best of it. Instead of soaking up as much knowledge as possible and making a lesson out of my situation I became complacent. I started to slack off and allow myself to become stagnant to what I knew my abilities were. I allowed myself to be a product of my environment when I should I have

Some may say education is education no matter where you get it from, what you go to school for, or how long you go to school for. But Thompson believes that, the concerns of the citizens are mainly “focused on the effectiveness of educational practices and the quality of student learning” (Thompson 1). Which some of the citizens are because they take pride in accomplishment and to say that they achieved college or university with the knowledge to go off into the field of work, and to gain

My educational path has been filled with up and downs, it seems like it’s been a long journey with no end in sight. Like most people, I have been in school the average twelve years and have taken the further step in attending college. It is no surprise that I have had the typical school experience. However, there are always parts of someone’s life that aren’t just black and white. The unique obstacles that I have endured make me who I am today. A large portion of life experience can be credited to all my years in school. From the start of elementary to my days today here at VCU.

The education we receive today holds the power to shape the individuals we will be in the future. Not only does our education aid our choices throughout school, but also the choices we make in our personal lives like where we choose to work and how we portray ourselves to society. Personally, I have enjoyed my educational experience. I have enjoyed learning new concepts and interacting with new people. Of course, there are obstacles along the way. However, these obstacles have given me the opportunity to realize my strengths and weaknesses and learn to improve in both areas. As a student, I hold onto my perseverance, seek guidance from influential figures in my life, and embrace my challenges to which all contribute to my hope to become the finest version of myself.