Josie Santoyo

Reflection 2

Imagination For Change

September 6, 2011

Why School?

After reading the second part of Why School?, by Mike Rose the issue of “hand work” vs “brain work”(76) really stood out to be. People believe that they are considered intelligent because they have gotten an education and a degree. Many people who have gotten a school education don’t always take the advantage of the knowledge they have. They sometimes end up working at a part time job such as a fast food restaurant. I know a guy who was really book smart but one day after he graduated from high school he gave up on studying and decided to work at a fast food restaurant. He continues to work there now and he says that he likes to be working rather than studying because that way he learns by doing not just by reading. We go to school in order to do get a job in the future. But in order to get a job we need to be experienced and know what to do. If we just learn from books and don’t actually learn from doing, than is not going to make us exports. For example, we can read directions in order to build something we can read and think we can actually assemble something. But we don’t actually know if we can build it if we don’t try and practice. I like the quote, “It took a guy with a college degree to screw this up, and a guy with a high school degree to fix it” (67). This just shows that not just because you have a degree mean you can always solve things and be considered intelligent. Every single person is intelligent in their own way, people just need to be able to practice and learn from the experience. People learn in different ways. Many people rather learn by watching someone do something rather than reading a book explaining how to do it. Some students are not always “book smart” and they have a harder time learning in class because it takes them a longer time to understand the book or material. But when it comes to practicing a technique in class such as building something or creating a art piece than they will have an easier time with the material because they have practice more.