I Don't Want to Be Average

Mike Rose's article "I Just Want to be Average" was an unfortunate account of schools that use track systems. I feel that this system discourages students learning because in it there are no incentives to do better in school. Perhaps that is why his friend says that "[he] just wants to be average" (89). He feels this way because he knows the excelling will not put him any further in life in the vocational category that he has been placed under.

On the other hand, I admire Rose's drive to become something more. Although it took a strong teacher to come along and encourage an interest in learning in him, it was up to Rose to do the work and decide to not just be average. This ties in to concepts in Rodriguez's article "The Achievement of Desire." Rodriguez noted that many children, especially "working-class" children do not do well in school because they do not seek to further their education and they settle for mediocrity. However, I feel that for anyone, especially "working-class" children to be successful, they must seek knowledge in the way Rose did, even if there is not a driving force such as an inspirational teacher.

For myself especially, I find that I have to work hard everyday because I do not want to be average. Being in the condition that I am in now I could stop working right now, as many people would, but because I do not want to be like everyone else I put every effort into getting assignments done, meeting deadlines, and continuing to go to class!

Exercise of Power

To understand Bell Hooks article "Engaged Pedagogy", I first had to look up the word pedagogy because like several of the other words used in this class, I did not know what it meant going into the reading. Webster's dictionary defines the word so simply as "the art, science, or profession of teaching."

After understanding the meaning of the word, I found the article to be something that I could relate to. Hooks talks about the forceful style that many teachers use to teach and how she did not like this. She was looking more for a teacher who engaged the students in learning by using methods other than dictating. She says that she "...needed to know that professors did not have to be dictators in the classroom" (70). Alike to her experience I have had teachers who taught only to fulfull their duties as a teacher and to get through a lesson in a class period's time and furthermore failed to connect with their audience; the students. On the other hand I have also had many great teachers who put passion and feeling behind their words which made me feel blessed to have them. When given such teachers "I learned, along with other students. to consider myself fortunate if I found an interesting professor who talked in a compelling way. [Some] of my teachers were not the slightest bit interested in enlightenment. More than anything they seemed enthralled by the exercise of power and authority within their mini-kingdom, the classroom" (Hooks, 70). This to me could account for the worst classes ever; showing up and sitting through meaningless lectures.

Embarrassment at the Lack of Education

To begin with, "The Achievement of Desire" by Richard Rodriguez was a little bit hard for me to get into at first because I did not understand fully why the author made references to the "Scholarship Boy." However I did find some of the points that the speaker made to be interesting. First he talks about a what he finds to be the trend in many classrooms. He says "typically most working-clas children are barely changed by the classroom. The exception succeeds. The relative few become scholarship students" (433). I find his conclusion to be unfortunate although true. A lot of times "working-class" or poor children do not do so well in school and I am not sure why. I think some of it may be due to a lack of hope or encouragement as well as due to other reasons but whatever the reason makes for a sad outcome; many unsuccessful children who must work all of their life for very little as their parents also had to do.

The article also noted that some working-class children who do succeed in school may no longer want to relate to their parents and furthermore they may be ashamed of them. The speaker talks about how "the scholarship boy...permits himself embarrassment at their lack of education" (434). I find this to be sad because I would not want my children to be ashamed of me if I were uneducated or for any other reason. However I can see why this "scholarship boy" was ashamed, because although both of my parents are very educated I have other relatives who are not and even though I love them I find it embarrasing when they try to speak their minds on certan subject matter and it comes out as foolishness due to their lack of education. And what makes it worse is that some of them do not seek education, which I find to be the embarrassment in itself.

"Moderate" Writing

David Bartholomae's article "Inventing the University" noted an idea that I find interesting. He talks about how many teachers judge students' writing ability based on sentence structure and grammatical error and uses this to categorize them as a basic, moderate, or advanced writer. He says that "the problem with curricula...is that...the key distinguishing feature of a basic writer is the presence of sentence level error. (522) The problem with this system of judging pupils' writing is that the students with mistakes in their writing, no matter how good it may be otherwise, are critiqued as "basic" while writers with error free essays can get away with commonplace papers and still be classified as "moderate" or "advanced" no matter how basic and simple their composition turns out.