The Meaning Of A School By Mara Casey Tieken

“There’s a distinction between an education and school. Education is what Native people have been doing for their children since the beginning of time. School has been what has been imposed on people from outside” (Garland). This thought from Garland’s article “In remote Alaskan villages, teachers struggle to make school meaningful,” eloquently lays out how many Alaska natives regard the operation of collecting knowledge. Remarkably, Garland’s notion also offers great insight as to why the U.S. education system seems to fail Alaska natives altogether. It is this “distinction” (Garland), between education and school that seems to actively disconnect the ancestral cultural values of Alaska natives from the mainstream education system in this country. An impression of this broken connection appears in Kleinfeld’s The Teacher who Came to Rivertown. Here, Bob Perthall and his family move to Rivertown, Alaska, a remote village of 75 people. Accepting the position of teacher/principal, Perthall’s good intentions collide with subsistence, alcoholism, hardship, long-held customs and personal crisis. At schools end, the people of Rivertown finds no surprise in Perthall’s ending defeat. However, what really concerns us about the “teaching case,” is Perthall’s lack of preparedness for the students and culture of Rivertown, ultimately continuing the cycle of an ineffective school.

Carl Kaestle’s Pillars of the Republic focuses on the history of schooling. Kaestle writes about the common school movement in England, the Midwest, the South, and the American Northwest. Kaestle argues that common school systems, the tuition-based elementary school that served all children in the area, were continued and accepted due to the Americans’ commitment to the republican government, the assertiveness of native Protestant culture, and through the development of capitalism (1983, p. X).

Urban schools are interpreted as the low income institutions with horribly irresponsible students. Bulman explains that Hollywood does not give these schools any justice by labeling them as the as the middle’s worse nightmare (43). Even though Bulman believes that real American urban schools are taking a turn for the worst, Hollywood adds benefiting factors to increase the chances for these students to

In Lynda Barry's essay “The Sanctuary of School” the author addresses the ongoing issue of funding for public schools in America. She is trying to persuade her American audience, such as the school board, and parents, that we need to keep the public schools. Barry is the perfect person to argue the importance of public schools and art and the children who attend them because she was one of those children. She is now a famous cartoonist and author, and she thanks her public school experience for her success. Her essay was intended for the people who believe they aren't important, people who work for school boards, maybe some parents, and the United States Department of Education. In “The Sanctuary of School,” Lynda Barry uses a sense of

Let’s do away with the school system. In “Against school, John Taylor Gatto says, “They said the work was stupid, that it made no sense, that they already knew it. They said that they wanted to be doing something real, not just sitting around” (Gatto 608). Gatto uses his article “Against School” to talk about how the school system is not necessary. He uses certain rhetorical strategies and personal experiences to do so. In “Against School”, John Taylor Gatto uses his personal experience in his thirty years of working in the school system and some rhetorical strategies to convince people who have children in the public-school system that kids do not need to be put in the system to have an education.

Schools frequently cite a variety of social problems like poverty, broken homes, and bad parenting as excuses for their own poor performance (Greene, 289). In the article of The Myth of Helplessness it touches on a few reasons why it is believed that some schools have great reviews and others don’t. Greene talks about what others believe helps the school systems and what is believed that causes students to fail in school. I agree with author Jay P. Greene that, yes poverty, broken homes and other social problems pose a significant challenge but the evidence simply does not leave room for the conclusion that these challenges are insurmountable (290).

Savage Inequalities by Jonathan Kozol explains the inequalities of school systems in different poor neighborhoods. Kozol was originally a teacher in a public school in Boston. This school didn’t have very many resources and was unable to keep teachers for very long. After pursuing other interests, Kozol took the time from 1988-1990 to meet with children and teachers in several different neighborhoods to better understand issues relating to the inequality and segregation in the school systems. Kozol writes from his own perspective as he visits six different cities and the poorest schools in those cities. These cities consist of East St. Louis in Illinois, the South Side of Chicago in Illinois, New York City, Camden in New Jersey, Washington

“We believe, that is, you and I, that education is not an expense. We believe it is an investment.” Lyndon B. Johnson was referring to education in The United States when he said these words, but they can also refer to the education of a small town. In fact, Hermiston voters will have the chance to decide whether the city should invest in a $104 million school bond that will allow the Hermiston School District to build new schools as well as make improvements to the others that are already standing. It is vital that Hermiston pass the bond because issues that community members have pointed out like overcrowding and student safety will only get worse without it.

To Get A Better School System by Gene B. Preuss explores the journey of educational reform of Texas through one hundred years of inequality, threats, and disagreements. However, the Supreme Court decision regarding Morath vs. Texas Taxpayers has highlighted that even in 2016, additional reforms are needed. Funding for public education is not a new issue and has been a pressing matter since the creation of the Texas educational system. Throughout the process of educational reform, Texans have mainly fought over public education funding in regards to bridging the gap between the portion of funding spent on urban areas and the portion spent on rural areas as well as the small earnings that teachers make. Yet, another area of concern, as pointed out in the article “Texas Supreme Court Upholds School Funding System”, is the Texas Legislature which severely limits the number of available avenues that the state can take when addressing the issue of funding. Together, the past issues of how to fund education and the inequalities that arose in spending, combined with the current issue

Narrative data were collected from former students who attended school in the districts under study: Black Belt region of Alabama—Wilcox County, AL; Mississippi Delta—Quitman County, MS; and lake communities in Georgia – Greene County, GA. Quantitative data provide descriptive statistics of the district’s demographic base whereas qualitative data provide narratives from participants who grew up and attended school in the district. Demographic data were collected from the US Census Bureau and the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) was used for student achievement data.

The fifteen years that I worked at a Tech School gave me a perspective that was, in most ways, diametrically opposed to that of a Parochial School. The obvious differences included classroom curriculum, budget issues or lack thereof and an obvious and noticeable level of questionable language usage in the hallway. Yet, while the educational philosophy in one place was for obvious reasons more morally and religiously based, each school had the potential to produce graduates that could and would become hard-working and successful people in society.

Alaska is different. When compared to the contiguous United States of America the differences are pronounced and occur in almost all aspects of life. The differences even extend to the original inhabitants, to the way they survived, treaties with the United States government, current way of life, and education. An overview of the historical approach to education as well as the current changes will hopefully provide insight into what works and what does not work in educational settings in rural Alaska.

Christ Silberman, who wrote “What’s really happening in Parker classroom?” visited Douglas Country School District and worked there for a few years to do her research. She had helped review grant applications for a local arts funder

Amy Dill, the Houston elementary school principal, and Dana Hohlt, the supervising first grade teacher, were both helpful with providing information about teaching in a rural school. They provided insight into what it was like to work with students who are not able to have their needs met outside of school. They shared what programs the school had to help these children, and what a future educator needs to know in order to be prepared for teaching in a rural school.

After a year in eighth grade at the junior high school in Bangor, I missed the intimacy of the small private classrooms when I was in Florida. So, the following year, in the summer of 1962, my parents enrolled me at Oak Grove School for Girls in Vassalboro, Maine, one of the oldest, most elite private finishing schools for girls in the world. The school was run by a board of Quaker trustees and an elderly and very strict Victorian headmistress, Mistress Owen, whose demeanor well suited the school with its towering brick buildings that dated back to the 1880s. It looked like a grand castle of brick and ivy on a hill with towers that reached into the sky. It was surrounded by over one hundred acres of emerald grass, slopes for skiing, its