Zehara Eckert

8/29/11

Why School?

As a result of my reading Why School? by Mike Rose, numerous points stood out to me. To begin with, his introduction was very interesting. He talked about Anthony, a man in his thirties with brain damage as a result of a childhood injury. Anthony was enrolled in a basic skills program not only because he hoped to get a better job than his current custodial job but, most importantly, because he believed his education would better prepare him to prepare his daughter. Having the skills of reading and writing could help him to read about events and to better understand his surroundings as well as his daughter. These skills could create a new life for his daughter and for himself because they could have a common ground of knowledge and a sense of who they could become together. I found this story very touching because you don’t often see this kind of aspiration and motivation for education nowadays. The meaning of education has changed; nowadays many people are not attending school because of ambition or dreams. Many youth go to school because for one, they are told by the law to stay in high school until they are 16; many more are in school because their parents make them. Those that are motivated to continue on to college sometimes only do it in order to gain the knowledge for a good paying career. Anthony’s story contrasts with these reasons. His motivation was so much more than a personal career path because he related it to his surroundings. His motivation for a better education was so that he can better contribute to the collective responsibility of the community to care for and support his daughter.

We view education as a way to advance ourselves because our society taught us that from a young age. For example, my parents had good educations and as a result they have really good careers and although I am pursuing my own career I’ve followed in their footsteps and now I am attending a university. We are also taught that education is a way to overcome social class inequalities. “But education alone is not enough to trump some social barriers like racist hiring practices or inequality in pay based on gender” (Rose, 13). In life I’ve learned that going to school is not a guarantee of success but it puts you at a greater advantage. For example, I have friends that have graduated from college–some from prestigious colleges–and what are they doing with their lives now? They are working in retail stores and security jobs, the same jobs they’ve had since high school. Is their education guaranteeing them success at this point? Not really, but I believe they look at their world differently than if they hadn’t pursued higher education. I believe their education will put them at a greater advantage when jobs become available and if they pursue something better, not only because of skills and knowledge but because of their worldview.

Rose makes the point that the most important evidence of learning in our current educational system is a score on a standardized test. His point made me question – although not for the first time–why educators think that a standardized test is a way to measure someone’s knowledge. I think that this concept hinders our definition of education. We should be educated not to pass standardized tests but most importantly to have the thirst for knowledge, to be part of and to pass on a tradition of striving to be better than the generation before us, and to be able to contribute to the greater and collective community in which we live. Just like Rose demonstrated with Stephanie Terry’s classroom example about the hermit crabs, education should be about interaction with people in the classroom, being and creating an experience of learning through observation, thinking out loud and publicly reporting our findings and creating the sense that we’ve gained knowledge. It shouldn’t be about drilling your students to spit back what they’ve been taught or to pass these standardized tests. Passing those tests does not mean you will be successful and able to function in the real world. Frankly, the real world in no way resembles a standardized test. The real world is made up of experiences, mistakes and lessons.

With the question “Why School?” Mike Rose highlighted the many assumptions a young person might have as they pursue higher education. This question made me think about the reasons why I and my family and my community are supporting this idea of my college education. As a result he triggered thoughts about the long-term purpose of my own college education, how it relates to my place in this collective community and the role I might play in it in the future. He left me lingering on the question, what is the future of an educational system that considers a score on a standardized test as an accurate indicator of achievement?