Blog Post 10 - Darrick Smith

The whole idea of the class struggle being real is one that has plagued humanity all throughout history. During the height of the Roman Empire, the divide was between the patricians and the plebeians; during the Middle Ages, class struggles were between the feudal lords and the serfs; and during the French Revolution, class tensions between the nobility and peasants resulted in a violent and bloody conflict. Today, class conflict takes a different form – capitalism. Through the advent of modern globalization, we have developed the idea that the global economy is locked in a system that uses education as a barrier to achieve greater things. This is a system based on exploitation, as Darrick Smith remarks, “You have a system established on slaughter as a foundation of all wealth.” While I don’t believe capitalism is all bad – in fact, it’s been quite useful to industrialized development – I, like many other greater minds before me, can’t help but wonder what the world would be like if every person had an equal shot. For people to escape the system, as Darrick Smith points out, "their education has to more complex … and combine both the intellectual and emotional requirements of someone in that context.” This is the only way modern class divides can be done away with.  

Blog Post 9 - Why School? Chapters 1 & 2

If there is to be increased academic passion and educational success in the United States, there must be a radical transformation of our educational system; this is main idea of chapter one. In chapter 2, the focus is on the individual. For the aforementioned transformation to take place on an individual level, students must self-reflect on “the question ‘why go to school’” (Why School?, Chapter 2, pg. 31). They must find out what education means to them instead of pursuing school as a sweeping means to ensure financial security. Instead of this, we must have education become “as source of meaning” (Chapter 2, pg. 32). If we want education equality throughout the United States, then “we need public talk that links education to a more decent, thoughtful, open society” (Chapter 1, pg. 28-29).  

                The ideas behind the first two chapters of Why School? are easy to identify with; the wording is very straightforward and there is little to disagree with. So many college students these days are burned out, tired of learning and absorbing facts that are seemingly useless. When it comes to education, as author Mike Rose declares, “There’s not much public discussion of achievement that includes curiosity, reflectiveness, uncertainty or a willingness to take a chance, to blunder” (Chapter 1, pg. 27). I look at my friends at school and I see people who have too many obligations – family, jobs, health, etc. – coupled with no clear educational or employment goals. This is what makes the academics difficult for them.  For this to change, there needs to be a transformation in our educational system.

Blog Post 8 - Bill Gates Video

In today’s society, education is the way of the future. When examining countries like China and India, one thing is increasingly evident: the rising countries of the international community are ones that encourage and invest in education. The reason I chose this video was because I believe that it shows the urgency of education reform in the United States. Although the U.S. is investing an increasing amount of money in education, too many kids are dropping out of schools and failing miserably on the academic front. This means that something is terribly wrong. Success in school is a combination of effective teachers and motivated students. As Bill Gates said, “My success as an engineer is because I was good at math and I had good math teachers and, yes, I memorized the tables and learned how things worked. Gaining those facts helped me think about the patterns in those facts.” Only when there is a synthesis of good teachers and willing students will education reform be truly possible. Although America needs to be more competitive on the education front and, as Bill Gates remarked, “it’s not a bad thing that the rest of the world is improving their education systems. It’s not some zero sum game … It’s good that human potential globally is being tapped into.” 

Blog Post 7 - Jeff Duncan Andrade

Education in this country is in a critical state. Although we are spending a lot of money on education, it doesn’t seem to be enough; not all students are getting the level of education they need to be successful. Duncan Andrade’s philosophy seems to be that education should be more personalized and suited to individual communities. As he said, “The ways in which we approach schooling in this country with poor kids – particularly poor kids in urban environments would never be tolerated for middle class or wealthy children.” Duncan Andrade advocates changing this system. To this end, he asks, “What’s your curriculum for? What’s the purpose? Is the purpose to get kids to pass the test? Or is the purpose to give kids a set of skills that they can actually use in their lives?” The focus of education should be less about passing tests and more about developing life skills that can serve students in the future; instead of encouraging students to memorize a set of useless facts for a test – which will then be promptly forgotten the morning after – education should be transformative and less about students regurgitating information. As Duncan Andrade remarked, “Figure out what’s really important in your young peoples’ lives and start from there.” This is how education reform will happen.

                On a personal level, this philosophy hits home. Since I was homeschooled, I’d never had to deal with an educational system that seemed pitted against me. Growing up, my education was personalized specifically to suit my needs. If I had difficulties with algebra, my mom could spend hours going over specific problems with me. If I didn’t understand biology, I could take a class with other homeschooled kids. If I needed additional support with my essays, I could take classes at Chabot as a concurrent enrollment student. In short, my education illustrates Duncan Andrade’s idea of figuring out what “really important in your young people’s lives”. Because of this, I understand how vital it is to have active support from teachers. That being said, I understand how difficult it must be for teachers with 30+ kids in a classroom to help each child individually. Teaching my sister and me was a full time job for my mom – so I can’t imagine trying to give the same amount of attention to twenty eight more students. However, I don’t think that means that teachers shouldn’t try. I have had plenty of excellent teachers at Chabot, teachers who have to deal with many classes and hundreds of students. Ultimately, this philosophy hits home with me because it encourages an individualized educational system. 

Blog Post 6 - Remediation

Although the case is different for community colleges, most four year schools usually vet their applicants before accepting them. Because of this, I think that these schools should work with their admitted students regardless of their level and need of remediation. Essentially, because the remedial student was admitted, the school has an obligation to get the student to where he or she needs to be. With this in mind, I think each school should be allowed to make a decision on how to conduct their remediation programs. This is seen through the benefits of allowing schools to figure out what is best for their students, rejecting the idea that there is a formulized solution to every remediation problem, and adopting solutions that best suit the needs of the community.

                Although remediation can often seem tedious and unnecessary, remedial programs shouldn’t be cut from every school; schools should be allowed to improve their programs and remedial curriculum to fit the needs of the student. In Why School?, Mike Rose writes about a remedial student named Kevin for whom “the traditional remedial writing course” which “begins with simple writing assignments and includes a fair amount of workbook exercises” was entirely ineffective (Chapter 10, pg. 128). Instead, Kevin benefited from a program “that held a different set of assumptions” which had arisen out of “current research on language and cognition and from … experience in the classroom” (Chapter 10, pg. 128).If schools could only spare a little time for each student, they can tailor their programs to be wildly effective.

                Because each school is different, a uniform solution can’t be applied to every single American school. Colleges are unique and individual; they can have massive differences in their purposes. While some schools might need extensive remediation services, others might be able to cut down on some of their programs. For instance, I would not assume MIT has a remediation program that reteaches students basic math skills. As the costs of unnecessary remediation services can be quite high, students who are admitted to that particular college should know the very foundational ideas – if they don’t know the basics, something has gone wrong at the admissions level. At the same time, I would definitely expect a two-year community college, like Chabot College, to have many remediation programs.

                Finally, colleges should serve the needs of their community. Although this statement seems fairly obvious, it is one that often gets lost in the nitty-gritty side of school and local politics. In the Bay Area, there are many ESL students, many people who have graduated from academically ill-prepared high schools, and many people who simply need a refresher- remediation is for all these hard-working academic strugglers who just a push to help them succeed. America is a truly “a nation that prides itself as being a ‘second chance’ society” (Chapter 10, pg. 135); we have to invest in people to succeed as a larger collective. As Rose aptly notes, “… when done well, remediation becomes a key mechanism in a democratic model of human educational development” (Chapter 10, pg. 137).   

Although remediation programs have their own problems, they are a necessary part of the society we live in. Until the actual educational system in the United States is radically reformed, we can’t take away all remediation programs – because they are so crucial to the success rates of so many students. As each school is different, I believe that colleges and universities should be allowed to make individual decisions on how to conduct their remediation programs; they should not entirely be done away with. This post has supported that position by examining the benefit of allowing schools to figure out what is best for their students, rejecting the idea that there is a formulized solution to every remediation problem, and adopting solutions that best suit the needs of the community. 

Blog Post 5 - Lasers

As I have a pretty good idea of what I want to do with myself and how to get there, I consider myself to be a laser.  My plan is to transfer to Berkeley as a Rhetoric major, which only requires completion of the IGETC. If this doesn’t work out for whatever reason, I would like to transfer to either UC Davis or UCLA as a Political Science major. Although I’m not sure Rhetoric or Political Science are what I’m passionate about, it doesn’t matter so much because I know that I want to become a lawyer. Since my long term goal is to go to law school and work at the International Justice Mission – which is an organization that prosecutes human traffickers – my undergraduate degree is only a stop on the way. Overall, I feel pretty good about where I’m at and have no desire to change categories. I’ve had these plans for a long time and although I do sometimes worry that I might not be cut out to be a lawyer and to work such a gut-wrenching job, there is a lot of security and peace of mind in at least having a plan.

For students who aren’t sure about what they want to do in college – or life, in general – and don’t know how to get there, passion is everything. There are many reasons for academic failure; they stem from everything from job and family commitments to lack of passion or interest in subject matter and even all the way to lack of motivation. Although there are many external reasons for academic failure, students must have a sense of responsibility for their own lives rather than adopting the mindset that their success depends on other influences. Sure, they might encounter a few horrible teachers – but that isn’t an excuse not to work hard and do their very best. When students are at the point where they are feeling lost in the whole college process, it is always a good idea to return to the idea of passion. In high school, I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life – until I decided to try debate. Indeed, when students find their academic passions, they often find the motivation to completely apply themselves and no longer feel compelled to assign blame to external pressures. At this point, they find the motivation to succeed.