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Biggest Flaw in Society Kayla Gerkin Educ 275 Final Exam

My first paper differs greatly from this paper. When I did my first draft, I had no idea how in depth the issue of education was. I knew that it was an extensive issue, but I had no idea just how extensive that was. All of the course readings helped me to understand this issue more. What I at first thought was simple and easy to fix, turned out not to be so simple. The problems we face in education are not new. However, no one knows how to fix them in a way that benefits every single person of every race and gender. I was not gone for any classes this semester and by being there every day, my knowledge of schooling programs across the United States increased. Each state runs their schools different and each school within a state is either set up for success or set up for failure.

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Education in the United States is suffering greatly due to the budget cuts that have been inflicted and the current budget cuts that are still in progress. However, budget cuts are not the only issues that make education suffer. The purpose of schooling in the United States in the past was to educate and civilize. Anyone that was not white was sent to boarding schools so that they could be changed into an American and become civilized. Education of the past claims to have a sole purpose to educate, however, they really wanted to get rid of anyone that they thought were filthy. Present day education serves to educate kids enough to get them through high school and to allow them to get a job no matter how menial. Most every job will require a high school diploma or GED in order to be considered. However, a college education is not required for everything. The college degree is needed for those jobs that will pay good money to have you as a part of their company. Despite that not everyone can get a good paying job, high schools are not preparing students for college. There are increasing dropout rates for college freshmen. High schools are doing everything they can just to get the students through school rather than to make sure they are actually able to succeed. However, schools should be pushing their students. They should not just care about the students when it will affect the amount of funding they receive due to test scores. Teachers need to take action and develop a personal relationship with their students and make the extra effort to be sure that their students will succeed. Every student has a chance to go to college and the only thing that should stop them is that they cant afford it rather then it bein g that they didnt score high enough on the ACT/SAT because they didnt receive a good high school

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education. Schools should be more concerned with academics than what they are. My high school spends more money on football and basketball then they did anything else. While its not a bad thing to provide sports with more funding, they need to give the same concern to academics. Fernandez-Balboa and Marshall discuss a concept known as dialogical pedagogy. The idea of dialogical pedagogy is to engage in teacher-student interaction and for the teacher to be on the same level as the student. Yes, the teacher is responsible for the students. However, that does not mean that they get to abuse their power and act as if the students know nothing and they know it all. As a teacher, I would be able to fulfill this purpose because I believe this is a proper way to learn. Students need to believe they are important and that their opinions do matter. Students also need to have equal opportunity. According to Huerta, equal opportunity is when all people have the chance to pursue any occupation or economic status they choose. Despite the idea of equal opportunity, not everyone has the option to choose what they want. One of the videos that we watched in class had people naming schools that were the worst in the city. Instead of doing things to help these schools become better for students, they just accept that they are dumps and move on to helping the schools that are already doing great. As a teacher, I would also recognize that every student learns differently. When it comes to boys and girls there is a huge difference. According to Kovalik, boys and girls learn differently. This is because their brains are wired differently. As a teacher, it is my job to recognize this and do everything in my power to accommodate the student. Another difference is between cultures and race. Allan Johnson provides us with a map. This map shows us all of our master statuses and ways we figure out who we are such as our background in work, education,

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income, parental status, religious beliefs, and then the simpler identities such as age, race, gender, ethnicity. Each of these identities affects how we are received by people and how we view the world. As a teacher, it is also my job to know where my students come from and how they identify themselves. It is plain to see that the teacher must take on a lot of the weight in helping their students succeed. I would fulfill the true purpose of education as a teacher in these ways. Schooling continues the existing order. Those schools that are not given enough money to provide students with current information because they cant afford new books, or put students lives in danger because there isnt enough security at the school to ensure a students safety. Each of these factors in to continue the existing order. A student cannot attend any school they want without having the proper finances for it. A student cannot attend any school he wants by not having a means of transportation other than the bus. These restrictions greatly affect the lives of students. These restrictions force student to have to attend those schools that dont provide a good education. They are forced to attend schools where the teachers slack off and let the students do what they want. In a sentence, these students are being set up for failure with no other option. We need to change this existing order. We can do this by providing more funding to the schools that need it and less funding to the schools that are doing great. By doing this, we will level the playing field for all schools as well as for students and teachers. We need to eliminate school governance. According to Huerta, this is when schools are managed at the federal, state, and local levels. However, why should schools be managed at the federal level when the

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government doesnt have any involvement in the schools except for providing funding? The government does not have any interaction with the students or teachers. The government does not know anyone in the school so why should they have the right to determine how much funding a school receives? Instead of having the government delegate how much funding goes to each school based on test scores, it needs to be done based on population. The management of schools should also not occur at a state level. Each state has too many schools to manage every single one of them. This is setting the schools that cant be managed, up for failure. States should also divide the money up that they receive to schools based on population. If a school does not have high enrollment but is doing poorly and needs the money, then it should be given to them. By making certain changes like I have mentioned so far, we can change the existing order and make schools better for everyone. Yes, there will be uprising parents and there will be those who think they know best. However we cant just sit here and watch money being wasted in other areas when it could be put to good use. Sometimes in order for everything to change, one must climb the mountain instead of go around it. Banks shows us different ways to help increase the content in education by taking the contribution approach. The best level is level four, which is the social action approach. In this approach, students make decisions on important social issues and take actions to help solve them (Banks). If this is done, then its allowing students to learn problem solving skills as well as partake in their education that they are receiving. Education and schools should be a place where students can discover who they are. According to Rachael Kessler, When soul enters the classroom, masks drop away. This allows students to be themselves and set goals for

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themselves without fearing what others think or being told that their dreams are not possible or realistic. Landsman and Lewis also show another way to help students succeed. The majority of failing schools have white teachers and diverse classrooms. By allowing teachers of all races to work at a school, this will help students feel more comfortable. It will give them a role model, someone to look up to so that they can believe anything is possible. We also need to do our best to eliminate social and cultural biases. These arouse from stereotypes. It is easy to assume that black people are lazy or that Hispanics will never succeed because everyone knows they work for cheap. However, these stereotypes are not true. Hispanics only work for cheap if it is necessary to have a job. Lantieri and Patti tell us that one of the most pressing problems in schools and among youth in general is cultural and racial bias. Each student was raised different and may have different customs. As a teacher, we have to find this out in order to provide the students with a proper and good education. Elliot Eisner said that the formation of standards and the measurement of performance were intended to tidy up a messy system and to make teachers and school administrators truly accountable(Eisner Ch 26). This means that no matter what changes the government made in the educational system, it came down on the teachers who suffered the consequences. To change the existing order, we must first change the control the government has on our educational system. The purpose of schooling in the United States in the past and present has not been what it shouldve. We went from forcing people to change their identities to only providing a good education to those who could afford it. The purpose of schooling should be to make each and every student succeed. As a future teacher I would fulfill this role by learning about each student on a personal level and do everything in my power to help them. It is our job as

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teachers to provide a road to success for these students. They depend on us. The existing order, however, is restricting any change in education from happening. The funding each school receives affects every aspect of the existing order. Poorer neighborhoods are more highly populated and also have the failing schools. This means that every person in these neighborhoods are socially, culturally, economically, politically, and environmentally isolated. They cannot escape their depression that they are in. We have to change the existing order and there is no better way to begin this than through changing our educational system and the way that each school receives funding. By doing this, we can provide everyone an equal chance at success.

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Works Cited Page Banks, J. (2001). Approaches to multicultural curriculum reform. In Banks, J. & Banks. C. (eds.), Multicultural education (pp 226-246). New York: Wiley. Eisner, Elliot W. "What Does It Mean to Say a School Is Doing Well?" The Curriculum Studies Reader. 5th ed. Vol. 82. 2001. 297-304. Print. Fernandez-Balboa, J. & Marshall, J. (1994). Dialogocal pedagogy in teacher education. Journal of Teacher Education, (45), 3, 172-182. Huerta, Grace. Educational Foundations: Diverse Histories, Diverse Perspectives. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 2008. Print. Johnson, A. (2001). Privilege, power, and difference. New York: McGraw Hill. Kessler, R (2000). The soul of education. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Kovalik, Susan J. (2008). Gender Differences and Student Engagement. The Center for Effective Learning, and Keynoter, International Center for Leadership in Education. Lantieri, L. & Patti, J. (1996). Waging peace in our schools. Boston: Beacon Press.