Victoria Escalada
Ms. Julia van der Ryn
CLQ2142.1
30 August 2011
Although I have not read directly from Why School? by Mike Rose because I do not have the book yet, I decided to read summaries of his text online and his personal outline blog in which he exemplifies the purpose of why he decided to write Why School?. Although there are numerous valid points he states about education, one of the most intersting assertions and observations he declared that stood out to me was in the preface: "We live in an anxious age and seek our grounding, our assurances in ways that don't satisfy our longing...We've lost hope in the public sphere and grab at private solutions which undercut the sharing of obligation and risk and keep us scrambling for individual advantage" (ix-x). After reading summaries of the text online, I perceived that this assertion illuminates that the individual advantage all students strive to have unfortunately makes government believe the best way to distribute monetary funds to schools is by utilizing the test results which evaluate a student's knowledge of math, reading, writing and science--basic subjects in school. One test that exemplifies this is the STAR testing that California public high school freshmen, sophomore and junior students need to take.
There is a problem with this system, however. By being in a public school in the past, I have been able to witness this system in effect while seeing this system hurt less affluent public schools. Because the public school I attended was affluent and had students who performed well according to STAR tests, my public school was able to obtain many funds from the government that administration used to buy more updated materials and text books. Due to the lack of more up-to-date matierals for less affluent public schools, students who used more updated materials did better than students who did not; less affluent public school students did more poorly because of this which later affected the value of their homes in their area. How? The government funds public schools by evaluating students' results from the STAR tests. These results also determine how valuable the homes in the school district are--the lower the test scores, the smaller the value of the houses. Unfortunately, because the govenrment is not working changing this system, this vicious cycle of traditional education continues: richer schools are becoming richer and poorer schools are becoming poorer; students in richer schools are seen as smart and elite compared to students in poorer schools who are seen as unintelligent and even sometimes undeserving of an education. If schools taught differently other than the traditional way to teach in a classroom, maybe this vicious cycle could possibly end and students from both types of school--poor and rich--can have the same opportunity of learning. Maybe if teachers taught students through service learning instead of in traditional classrooms, the opportunity will be equal for all students, and higher education will make more students now wake up. Service learning, when promoted, encourages and endorses a different way of education, a different way of thinking, and a different type of knowledge--awareness of the world.
With awareness of the world, students will be able and are able to grasp onto social and citizenship problems that affect everyone daily. It is our duty as citizens to take the initiative to be aware of the world, but in order to do that, elite officials and the govenrment must take consideration to change the traditional way students are taught and to focus on teaching service learning outside and inside the classroom. We cannot lose hope in the "public sphere;" and hopefully, learning in the classroom goes beyond just learning about past history and traditional school subjects but ourselves. Like Mike Rose stated in his blog, "[hopefully] the reader...sit[s] close by as other human beings struggle with a problem, get the flash of insight, and push toward articulation, alone or with others...[Education] capture[s] the experience of discovery, of learning to do something you couldn't do before, and, for some, to begin to think of yourself in a new way."
Side Note: Mike Rose's personal blog website is http://mikerosebooks.blogspot.com/. His work and blogs are incredible.
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