What's the Purpose? (Final)

One of the issues I enjoyed discussing in the Honors forum class this semester was the question of whether school is preparing kids for the career world. Neil Postman addressed in his chapter on the “False god of Economic Utility.” Economic utility (g of EU) is the idea that if you go to school, you will guarantee yourself a good job. School is the training ground for your job. The belief is that the better jobs are only for those with a degree.

But I am not sure this is the case anymore. What is the likelihood now of someone getting a degree and using that degree in his or her job? Very low. For example, my dad has a degree in business and he is a freelance cartoonist. I suppose by working on his own he is using his degree. But his job does not require him to be a business major. My mom has a degree in Physical Education. She is a stay at home mom who taught us from kindergarten through high school. She may have been able to use some of what she learned in college for our P.E. time, but mostly we would play outside in our own little imaginary worlds. The point is that both my parents did not get a job that requires their degree. Their degree may benefit their lives a bit. But is that little bit worth four or five years of college and tuition fees? I don’t think so.

In our class project I learned a lot about the Nigerian school system. They seem to have figured out how to produce citizens that are trained in an expertise and actually get a job in that expertise. How do they do this? They start the process of determining a career at a young age. By the time Nigerian students reach our level of sophomore or junior year of high school, they have already narrowed down and thoroughly studied the career they want to pursue. The school system does not require them to experience every single subject you can imagine all throughout a student’s education. Instead they experience a variety of subjects in elementary school, and in junior high they can begin the narrowing process. In high school they further shape and focus on their career path. One main difference between the U.S. and Nigeria is Nigeria does not require students to take extra curricular activities. I think this helps the students narrow their topics. They seem to be focusing on what they can learn about their subject verses learning as much as you can about every subject.

Another group’s project was on the No Child Left Behind Act. Their presentation was very informative. It got me wondering about what our school systems focus has become. Are we training students to pass a national test? …a test that can only measure so much information. Or are we training students to become the best that can be? And what does that mean? I don’t think we can achieve this by shuffling kids through a system. They need personal attention, a passion for learning to make our world a better place, and the tools to help them live in this crazy world. So maybe it’s not about getting a good job after all. Maybe it is to find something that you love to do and could do for the rest of your life. I think that is why there are so many undecided students. They do not know what they are good at or what they want to do. We’ve been told that we can do anything we want to do if we just work hard enough to achieve it. When you can do anything, how do you choose? How do you decide you like something over something else? Do go with what your passion is or what will make the most money? It is so hard to decide.

Maybe we need to change our bent. Maybe we need to focus more on what a child can do and what they are good at. Encourage them to pursue what they like to do verse pretty much everything. Give them the tools they need to fine tune their skills. Help open doors of opportunity for them. Maybe we’ll have less frustrated students who don’t know what to do.

I was blessed with parents who wanted to educate me in the important areas, but also help me focus on my passions and talents. They really encouraged me on my education major choice. They helped me find opportunities to explore that field. Now that I want to become a teacher, I want to give students the knowledge they need to discover their own passions and talents like my parents did for me. I want to help them become the best they can be. With a little bit of hard work and encouragement, they might just get there.

Team Project

As a team, we formed our project around comparing the two school systems of Nigeria and United States. For the United States we used a general idea of the school systems since there are a variety of schools there. We mainly looked at the structure of the school, how it was formed, and what curriculum they chose.

For my part I was sort of put into the role of a secretary. By that I mean I was organizing the times to meet, making some decisions on material to use, checking over the PowerPoint. I also helped come up with the general outline of our project and took the notes while we were discussing the project. I also researched some of the information for the United States school systems.

I found the information on the Nigeria schools really fascinating. The way their school system is structured is so different from the United States. They focus more on the individual’s talent and passion rather than wanting to make well rounded students, which seems to be the goal for the United States. I also found it really interesting how the Nigerians value education. They won’t even get married until they finish their education. This makes me really ashamed for taking my education for granted. There are so many opportunities in America. In Nigeria there are a lot of people who want to succeed and get good jobs doing something they love, but there are so few opportunities. It is like the Americans have all the resources but not the drive. And the Nigerians have the drive but not the resources.

It makes for a good discussion to see which school system works. Should America start focusing its education on developing students who are well equipped in certain fields and have the passion to pursue those fields? Or should we continue to educate students on a variety of subjects that do not need to know for their career? Which one holds the most opportunities? It’s a tough thing to think about. In today’s society a person may have several jobs or career in their life time. Therefore it would make sense to give them a broad base of knowledge to be able to do multiple things. But does this make them unstable or unsure? Is this creating students that question purpose in life because they have not found something they excel at? I don’t know. I wonder if it would benefit society to have future workers that do multiple jobs verses people that can only do one type of job.

I think that becoming well rounded has the most benefits, but it also has some downfalls. Such as, a student may take education for granted. A student may not see the value in education when they experience every subject, since they are not honing in on certain skills. College should be the environment to define you skill and talent in certain fields. But it has become a place for you to try different areas of education. It is just a repercussion of high school. When students leave school, unlike students in Nigeria, most of them have no idea what they want to do. That is a downfall.

All in all, learning about Nigeria is what I found to be the most interesting. I had no idea how it worked or how complicated the system is. I think that they are forced by a society with limited opportunities to create their education system the way they do. They cannot produce well rounded citizens because they would not have all the skills necessary for a job. Their society needs workers that are good at what they do. They don’t need a lot of people who jump around from job to job because they want to try everything. Maybe the United States could use some of Nigeria’s stability.

The NEW Illiteracy

Christopher Lasch makes an interesting point about education in his essay "Schooling and the New Illiteracy." The point is that the education of school systems is declining. We have students who are failing the basic concepts of reading, writing, and arithmetic. "People increasingly find themselves unable to use language with ease and precision, to recall the basic facts of their country's history, to make logical deductions, to understand any but the most rudimentary written texts, or even to grasp their constitutional rights,"writes Lasch. Why is that? Why are some the most important and foundational subjects the weakest?

This is not a new problem our society has to deal. Through a series of changes and adjustments in our educating standards, our levels of intelligence have been diminishing. Through the rest of the essay he chronologically examines the process of development of the mass school system. It started out in America as way of preparing the students for challenges. The goal was to give students the power of being able to see if they are, in a sense, having the wool pulled over their eyes. This has changed drastically. Now there are students who are not prepared for the world. They don't even know who the first five Presidents were, which may not seem important, but it's such a simple fact that it makes you wonder what other important simple facts students don't know.

I think that facts are not bad, neither is extra curricular activities. Both are equally important, but neither superior to the other. There needs to be a balance. The schools should require, and they do, a core curriculum, and that's mostly facts. This is to provide students with necessary information to live with awareness of what's going on in the world that affects them. The extra curricular part is to balance the factual part. It's also an avenue to hone in on the type of study they want to do. This is important to have what the school wants, a well rounded citizen.

"The Joy of Living Dangerously"

Today we discussed Richard Dawkins essay entitled "The Joy of Living Dangerously." Our discussion centered mostly around the concept of teaching facts. Is this a good idea? Does teaching facts enable kids with a good education? What is the purpose of teaching facts? Should we only teach facts? These are just some of the questions raised and answered in the discussion.

Dawkins promotes looking at the question rather than the fact. To say to look at the questions means, why did something happen? Why does B follow A? Ask how the facts became facts. Discover the context of those facts and how they relate to other facts. You need a "binding thread" to hold them together, writes Dawkins.

But what is fact? Why do we need it? In class someone brought up that in schools they get in this mindset of you have to learn at the level and produce the work that you are supposed to be capable of. If you exceed this, you get punished. An example that was given was the format of writing essays, particularly the 5 paragraph essay. If a student we to broaden his horizons by including more paragraphs and bigger words with more elaborate sentences, he would get a bad grade just because he was not doing exactly what they wanted. There was this fact, this standard that had to be followed. So this is an example where it wasn't used well. But you need a balance, because you need facts. They are the foundation of learning. You cannot teach a child about imaginary numbers if they don't even know what a number is. You have to start somewhere.

Also, he mentions how Sanderson hated the lab doors being locked so students could not pursue their interests. But the doors had to be locked anyway. So the students in pursuit of getting in the lab learned all the could about locks so that they could sneak in the lab and work on their projects. The students were careful to put every they had used back where it was. I can relate to this when I would stay up late to read by the night light some book that interested me at the time. I think I became more interested in the book because I didn't have many opportunities to read verses as having all the time in the world. There's something exciting and adventurous sneaking around in order to learn. I think that if in the story the doors were unlocked all the time, that freedom could easily get abused because people would take for granted the special privileges. Somehow when something restricted and you have to go to extra measures to get it, you strive all the more for it. You know that it is worthwhile because it is locked up and restricted. Our rebellious nature isn't that bad I guess.

Against School

From Discussion Date: 11- 1-06

In John Gatto’s article “Against School” he slams the big school verses the little school. I really enjoyed this article, mainly because he talks about some things that my family was worried about, therefore choosing to homeschool me. Even though homeschooling is different than a little school, it still has similar characteristics.
I thought it was really interesting when he mentioned that, “what if there is no ‘problem’ with our schools? What if they are the way they are, so expensively flying in the face of common sense and long experience in how children learn things,l not because they are doing something wrong but because they are doing something right?” He goes on to question whether the schools purpose is to make sure kids never “grow up.” I think this is a very scary concept. Think about it. You have a big institute designed in educating the young, easily persuaded minds. They are clumped together by age group and are shuffled through the system. Gatto does point out that historically big schools were designed to manage the masses. At a time when our country was taking in people of different cultures and ethnic groups, people were worried of revolts and uprisings. This is Gatto’s claim.
The real controversy and discourse was held more around the subject of the benefits of a giant school verses a small school/homeschool. There are pros and cons to both, but for me, smaller makes more sense. That can mean either a small school or homschool.
Some of the cons to a big school is the fact that it would be easy to hide, to brood bitterness over rejection. I just wonder if the kids at Columbine were rejected, but because it was such a big school, nobody noticed until after the incident. What I mean by noticed, because people can be very oblivious to hurting people, is that the teachers didn’t pick up on the attitudes or the grades of the boys. When you have so many students to watch, who almost all have some emotional drama with them, it’s easy to miss the kid who needs attention the most.
Another con is that students in the big schools lose their individuality. If you aren’t the most outgoing, most athletic, smartest kid in school, the likelihood of you feeling worth something is very small. Plus in a large school you can easily feel like just a number.
i personally value the low ratio of teacher to student. The fact that the teachers know you by name and not just face, and also know you’re learning style and what you’re capable of. How are teachers able to do that in big schools??? Yeah, they have a lot of teachers, but each teacher teaches a lot of students. There’s just a lot of people!
Some of the cons with small schools, or for my sake, homeschooling, is the fact that they can be very seclusive and unsocial. Also the amenities are not always available. But the shelteredness is a minority. Homeschooling is growing rapidly. And there are so many small groups within the homeschooling community. My biggest problem in homeschooling was being too social because so many things were made available to me.
when I think about what we need to prepare our future generation for, being surrounded only by a ton of people your own age does not come to mind. We need to prepare them for more one on one interaction, the ability to communicate within relationships. We all know that in big groups people act very differently. There is no one on one communicating. I’m not saying that public speaking is bad, because that is very different that being involved in a big group. Because of the fact that you are stuck with same people throughout the schooling years in a small school, you learn to deal with relationship and communication problems with them. You can’t just move on to another social group like you could in a big school. You need to learn to face your problems. I think small schools can help teach that.

The Fallen Angel

Time to play catch up.... this is from 10 -11-06

In Neil Postman’s chapter on The Fallen Angel he talks about how one needs to fall, make mistakes, in order to learn and to learn from the mistakes. He also talks about how knowledge is limited and that it foolish to think that one can achieve ultimate knowledge. But that should not discourage anyone from striving for knowledge.
He also talks about his idea of switching it up for the teachers. He suggests that teachers not use textbooks, teach outside of their specialty, and that students should monitor the teachers for liberalism. His reasoning for this is that teaching can become and is mundane and boring. Sometimes teachers that teach subjects for long lose the passion they once had for that subject, no longer making it interesting to the students.
I think this is a strange concept. I can see where he is coming from. I understand the logic behind it. But in reality, this is probably going to go nowhere. I really like his suggestion of getting rid of text books. I just remember as a kid hating the text book reading part. A lot time there was so much useless information or it was written in a redundant manner. I think this would force the teachers to form their own curriculum that would not include just assign reading and giving out tests. I would think more discussion would come from this. That is where I got a lot of my learning, from having to communicate my thoughts and ideas, and also listening to others opinions.
I’m not exactly crazy about the idea of teachers teaching outside of their expertise. This could definitely cause some major problems, like mixed up information. I could see where Postman gets the idea because it would pretty cool if the teacher was learning right along side the student. But I think loses the concept of what teachers are for. I mean aren’t they there to educate others on something they know a lot about. Maybe I’m wrong, but I thought that was the meaning behind “teach.”

Spaceship Earth... Can It Be Achieved?

I must say that today's discussion took some turns for the.... Weirdness? I think that subject of Cultural Pluralism and the topic of Spaceship Earth hit some nerves. That or some people were arguing for the sake of arguing. Either way we had some interesting analogies and examples brought.

What I gathered from Neil Postman's chapter on Spaceship Earth was that we need to be culturally aware of how different parts of the world affect each other; it's all one big ecosystem. Most of the arguments tossed back and forth were whether this was a practical goal. Would it be possible to do when half of the "ship" are for it and the other half are against it? Does that not defeat the purpose? As some in the class stated, it's an all or nothing pursuit. I'm not so sure if this is the case.....

How do movements come about, since that is what the Spaceship Earth is all about: a movement? I think we forgot the principle of the ripple affect. A riot can occur if someone is loud enough and forceful enough to get others to believe him. All it takes is one person to say, this is what needs to be done, get some people to support them, and go from there. If one person talks to two people, who each talk to two more, who they in turn talk to two more people, you've affected at least 15 people! I don't think you need to start a major revolution with every single country for this to work. There are some famous people who did not get show their works until after their death. Bach, for example, was not appreciated during his time, but 100 years after he died people realized the talent.

I don't understand why it would it bad to teach kids early about respecting other cultures and coming to understand how we relate to, for example, China. You could show them their clothes, shoes, toys and show them the word China. Maybe they are not able to grasp the concept of space, for to them it's just a couple inches on the map for us. But in reality, I'm not sure I even can conceive space. I'm spoiled by instant technology. I don't think we should give up on teaching kids different truths on sharing and taking turns. If every kid does not want to learn or apply what he learned, should that be a reason for not teaching other kids? I heard the phrase, "Don't build them up for failure." Tell that one to Thomas Edison, Susan B. Anthony, or Moses from Exodus in the Bible. All of these people went against the flow, but did they give up? No. Why? Because they had hope. Why would it be bad to give hope to children? They are the future. They are the ones that are going to take care of us when we are old.

One of the reasons why they didn't give up was because of competition. Competition for survival. Competition to invent something no had before. I don't think it's practical for us to live in peace. We can strive for a utopian world, but chances of it ever occurring are slim. Take the Middle East, for example, there is so much strife there and conflict for them to ever appreciate the world around them. I think we need to have a balance. Strive for right, but understand the way will be tough. It's a jungle out there.

Eureka! I Found a New Species of Child!!

We live in a day and age where new and faster things are being invented everyday. Products are constantly being updated and upgraded. Now there are 101 ways to watch your favorite sport team or news channel. The education realm is also widely influenced by the advances of technology. Neil Postman brings some reality in on our virtual reality. Scientist say that the way of learning will be forever changed for the better by new and improved technologies. "If little Eva cannot sleep, she can learn algebra instead. At her home-learning station, she will tune in to a series of interesting problems that are presented in an interactive medium, much like video games," quotes Postman. He continues on by making fun of the idea that if a child can't sleep, she would much rather learn algebra. At first I was taken in by this argument. It does sound pretty ridiculous. But in today's discussion it dawned on me. Ding! What is fallible about this idea is not that the likelihood of a child in the middle of the night wanting an algebra lesson, it's the fact that it's true. But it's not true for those reasons. It's true because kids today are all about interactive media. Watching TV, playing video games, instant messaging, computer games, they are all very attractive to young minds. My sister would get in trouble for playing on the computer too long. But what games was she playing? Not the regular computer games, but the educational games. If a TV is on in a room, where are people's attention? It will be toward the TV. Our minds have been trained to intently focus on the technology. That argument that should be made is whether or not we want little Eva to be watching interactive Algebra videos at night. Has anyone heard of a warm glass of milk, some cookies, and a good book? Postman does come to this argument later on when he talks about how we need to teach our children not how to operate technology, but how technology is operating us.

So is technology a bad thing? No. Technology is very good, it makes things easier and faster. But we need a balance, especially in education. There needs to be a line where we are not consumed and completely dependent on technology. Technology is a tool, not the education itself. How do we learn? I always thought that we learned through our senses, the sense of touch, taste, sound, site, and smell. How do you smell and picture of a flower on a computer? How do you know what it feels like? Tastes like? Sounds like? Scientists would answer that they could have virtual reality flower. This makes me laugh because is it really reality? It's an altered reality, one where you can control what it looks like and what the components are that make it up. So in that sense, we are deceiving our kids in showing them a false reality. Why would it be so hard to go to a garden and pick a flower? It would certainly cost less. Heck.... it's FREE.

Necessity is the Mother of Invention.... Or is it?

Necessity is the mother of invention is a common phrase. I personally have heard all my life. But is that always the case? How do we find necessity? Do we invent things.... Just because? Neil Postman does not write directly toward this, but he does write about the god of consumership and the god of technology, which relate to these questions.

What is this god of consumership (g of C)? It is the idea that we, as someone in class defined it, make our identity with stuff. As Kalyn put it.... Whoever dies with the most toys wins. g of C creates a down cycle of buying more and more stuff because we claim that we "need" it.

But in our world today, this is true. We need more stuff. My dad has his own business and works from home. In order to keep up with the demand, he needs to increase the amount of equipment he has. Some of the jobs require more advanced technology. So in this sense, it really is a need.

How does this relate to kids? Day after day, they are bombarded with millions and millions of ads. Buy this, buy that... We are practically teaching our kids that they need more "stuff." School is just another avenue to buy more things for, like a new backpack, new outfits, new paper... Nothing lasts. In fact, that is the manufactures idea: make products that will suffice for the time being, but won't last, therefore giving the consumers a reason to buy more. Tricky huh? We have the technology to make light bulbs that don't burn out, jeans that last, nylons that don't run. But our culture is as such that we live by the fads. And the market companies milk that. People buy new "toys" just for the new features that they don't use. I have a cell phone. I know that there are features on there that I haven't explored on their yet simply because I haven't needed to. Or the case is that it has become a game: who can buy the most updated and cooler version of the toy first wins.

We need to teach our children to live the "simple life." That doesn't mean that they can't buy the new toys. But when that's all they live for, you've got a problem. When they miss out on life's little joys that are FREE, when they'd rather buy a new Super X 3000 toy and their old one is just as good, when they want to buy something just because it's new, folks, we better stop and check our values.