These past readings were by far some of the best. They dealt with the importance of the educational system and how that ties into the class system in the United States. An impressive article was the Anyon article in the fact about how be displayed a hierarchy in the school structure as well. Students from a working class background were taught working class things. "A working class job is characterized by work that is routine and mechanical and that is a small, fragmented process with which workers are not usually acquainted." With this being her description of working class jobs it paralleled her description of the working class school structure. Essentially, students were told how to do division, they were not taught. So, just like the worker in the assembly line who puts together a small certain piece of machinery, which is ultimately part of a bigger picture, the student whom is told how to divide is missing the bigger picture. The student doesn't know why dividing is important, what its used for, the different terms, basically, they just don't see the big picture. At such a young age, students should be lured into critical, analytical, and rhetorical thinking. They cannot just "listen" to the teacher, interpret it as truth and not go any further into the subject. Reading about how neglectful these teachers were when compared to the "Affluent" schools was simply sad. At such a young age children are already being molded into working class robots- due to not being introduced to individuality, freedom, critical, analytical, and rhetorical thinking, these students are already a step behind the middle class school and above students.
Teachers need to perform better. If students are being neglected and are being trained to operate within the social background that they are currently in, then there is no room for class mobility, which relays to the fact that the gap between rich and poor does not shrink. The lack of a strong education leads to a lack of social and cultural capital, and most likely a lack of economic capital. A way of fixing this is to start at the administration. To simply put it, there are many people whom are teaching that don't belong teaching at all. THis is by part the teachers fault, but mostly the person that hired them. The administration all the way up to the superintendent needs to do a better job constructing its school particular education system/guidelines, and needs to make sure teachers abide by those guidelines. Now, I am not saying all students need to have creative writing time- and freedom throughout the classroom, etc.-but students need to at least be taught how to think and ask questions, which they will soon realize is another way to learn.
On a more bigger level-than the immediate administration- I believe this countries education system is horrid. More money should be invested into the education system because by doing so, money is being invested into the future of America. People put a lot of time and effort and of course money, into raising and training a racing horse. The success of that horse on race day is a reflection of the amount of money that was spent on it throughout its years of training (along with other technicalities in the sport). More money should be invested into the school system/the students, so on "race day" we are successful. That race day being when statistics are drawn up, there is an increase of children graduating from inner city schools, due to the fact that more money was put into that school from the federal government. "Federal aid to elementary and secondary education was $41 billion in 2003, a paltry 2% of the entire federal budget (Engel)." More money needs to be spent on education. We see these statistics of other countries passing us on mathematics, sciences, and children graduating in general and we complain about them. Well, in order to stop the complaining this country needs to get a better grip on the education system.
School can be the difference between a working class student remaining working class for all his or her life or moving up a step in class-thus having more than what he or she was born into.
I agree that more money needs to be spent on education! But maybe Vermont had it right and it is not that more money needs to be spent but the current monies need to be allocated better!
ReplyDeleteI agree with you both. More money, absolutely, but also allocated differently. For instance, I think more teachers and more resource people to tell students. Not necessarily more fancy buildings or technology.
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