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Daniel Funk

Critical Thinking and Writing I

Professor Tarnoff

November 28, 2019

Synthesis Essay

Growing up I have always been told by family and teachers that I can do whatever I want

to do with my life and that school is the best way for me to get the life I want. Education has

been presented to me as an institution that will help me learn the tools I need to succeed in life.

However as I learned more of the basics that I needed in life in writing, math, and the sciences;

the teaching format changed from learning skills for more critical thinking to learning skills for

test taking and being able to get good scores on tests.

This change reflects a major trend that has been taking place in education where students

are no longer being prepared to think for themselves and solve problems, but instead be as

efficient as they can in taking tests so that they can eventually get into good colleges. This

change however, may have a negative affect on students, especially those from underrepresented

communities as they go into high school and other higher level learning and possibly get left

behind their peers who have already gone to good schools that provide them with excellent

education and who can afford tutoring to do well on college entrance exams. To combat this

inequality and make sure everybody gets the skills they need to live successful lives, teachers

will need to be given the ability to decide for themselves how students should be taught so that

they can both pass tests and learn critical thinking skills. It is also important that schools,

especially higher division schools, are able to provide for students who come from
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underrepresented communities and have had different levels of access to education so that they

can build upon the skills that their wealthier peers have had longer to develop and provide more

opportunities for students to prove their place in school beyond test scores.

The first issue that will need to be addressed is with the schools and the learning goals

that they put onto students. Many students come into high school and spend their first year

learning the basics for writing and math. But once they start their second year, a lot of the focus

has changed to getting ready for the SAT and ACT so that they can get good scores. This was my

own experience as a lot of the work in my english classes changed to doing a lot of multiple

choice questions and reading passages so that we could get used to testing and not stress.

However as a result of all this test prep, I did not really learn the more in depth points of writing

with proper grammar and sentence structures since they were not emphasized as much nor was I

tested on them a lot. This kind of teaching is similar to what Paulo Freire was arguing against in

his idea of the “Banking” Concept of Education. Freire described the education system in place

today as a place where teachers were to “fill” students with information. He specifically

described this process as a place where, “The student records, memorizes, and repeats these

phrases without perceiving what four times four really means, or realizing the true significance

of “capital” in the affirmation “the capital of Pará is Belém” (Freire 216). This type of method of

just giving students information to memorize to answer test questions later does not help the

student use this information for the future as they are not taught why the information is relevant

to them and they end up forgetting some of the curriculum once the tests have passed because

that information has served its purpose with the test. This may set the students behind in their

study skills as well as their critical thinking as the work they do to learn the material is not done
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in the sense of memorizing things to apply later, but instead to just remember again during the

test as if their brain was nothing more than just a data center to retrieve information from to

answer specific questions later.

To begin to fix this problem with the learning curriculums, schools need to change their

focus from preparing students to pass tests, but to actual comprehension of topics. While schools

will not be able to change the SAT/ACT, they can change how they teach students to prepare for

the tests to become better at retaining information and building ideas. One method that can be

done is to include more work in summarizing readings. Currently a lot of writing is focused on

analysis and argument, however the student never builds a full summary of what they are reading

and instead only go off of select passages to explain what they are reading and argue for a point.

If the student is able to better summarize what they are reading then they will be more effective

writers. As Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein point out in their book “They Say/ I Say” ​The

Moves that Matter in Academic Writing​, “... to argue persuasively you need to be in dialogue

with others, then summarizing others’ arguments is central to your arsenal of basic moves.

Because writers who make strong claims need to map their claims relative to those of other

people, it is important to know how to summarize effectively” (Grafff, Birkenstein 30). In other

words, if students are able to better summarize passages they will be better able to analyze texts

from other points of view and then they would be able to better establish their argument while

also accounting for more points of view. Being able to successfully summarize writings also

helps students beyond writing essays in that students would be better able to understand more

complex reports that they may receive at work. I personally found this skill very helpful for me

because I learned a lot in school about being able to get all the main ideas and develop the larger
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argument around readings which allowed me to gain quicker and better understandings of things

I was reading and I was better able to remember things as well.

The next major issue that needs to be addressed is to ensure that everybody is given the

ability to succeed in higher education regardless of where they come from. This issue covers two

main parts of the college process where students need more support: admittance and ten during

during the first year. The reason that the standards for admittance needs to be adjusted is because

there is too heavy of an emphasis on students scores on the SAT and/or ACT. This puts a lot of

students at a disadvantage due to the test prep industry that has been built around preparing

students for these tests. However, more often than not, these services can only be used by

students from well off families who can afford the cost for private tutoring as well as all the

materials needed to get ready. This leaves many students who do not come from families with

that kind of disposable income left behind to find their own ways to prepare. In addition, many

schools are also devoting more and more of the curriculum to prepare students to take these tests.

While this in school help assists students to get higher scores, it comes at the cost of taking time

away from teaching more things that the student may use in college. I myself experienced this in

high school. During my junior year I took an SAT prep exam through my school to see how I

would score on the test and my score was lower than I had hoped. However, my school had made

a deal with a tutoring service for some students to take prep classes and a second exam to see

how we improved. After about 10 weeks in the program I retook the exam and my score had

increased by almost 100 points as a result of taking the prep class. Without this opportunity my

score would never have been as good as it was and I wouldn’t have learned a lot of test taking

skills to be as efficient as possible with my time. But, as I mentioned earlier, I only got this
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opportunity because of a deal my school made with the services. This was a unique opportunity

that many students in my own position don’t get the opportunity to get.

With the entire support system that has been created around test prep for the SAT/ACT,

it is clear to see the major advantage that wealthier students have over their peers who come

from lower income areas. In addition, with many schools across the country being underfunded

many students are put in a disadvantageous position which makes it difficult for them to get into

colleges. One way to support students more is to create an admissions process that does not focus

so heavily on test scores. While scores may be good indicators for where the student is at, given

the previously mentioned industry that has been built to support wealthier students, it is not fair

to assume that these scores are actual indicators of a students potential. A possible solution to

this problem is shown in ​El Plan de Santa Barbara,​ which states that, “Culturally relevant tests

and indicators must be used in identifying the college potential of Chicano students. Also useful

in evaluating applicants are recommendations (but not necessarily from traditional sources such

as high school teachers and counselors) and personal interviews. Most importantly, institutions

of higher learning must recognize that the assessment of a Chicano’s college potential depends,

in the subjective interpretation of his motivation, ability, ground” (LA CAUSA PUBLCATlONS

26). While this point may have been made to explicitly assist Chicanos in higher education, the

techniques apply to any disenfranchised group which is trying to get more representation within

higher education. While this will help students get accepted into colleges and be given a chance

to succeed, to truly succeed, the schools will need to provide support to students to learn skills

they may have missed out on before to adjust to the new workload in college and keep up with

their peers. These support groups would also need to be managed by those who come from
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similar backgrounds because if people from different backgrounds are chosen to make

determining positions, they will not understand the position many students are in and in the end

these support programs will not be able to effectively help all students. In addition, these support

programs should help teach students to manage life in college and learn what other support they

have as well as learning skills to become more independent and reach their full potential.

Overall institutions in higher education and secondary education need to place less

emphasis on preparing students for testing all the time and instead teach them skills that they

may take with them beyond tests. In addition the admittance process needs to be more open to

students beyond those with high test scores and take into account the many disadvantages that

many students are in because of their communities and socioeconomic backgrounds. While

schools may not be able to change the SAT/ACT, they are able to examine students that come to

them seeking opportunities and look beyond their test scores and see if their character will fit in

with the school. If these changes do not begin to take place, the current cycles of poverty and

poor communities will continue and change will not happen if the institutions students rely on to

prepare them, don’t give them the opportunities to do so.

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Works Cited

“The “Banking” Concept of Education.” ​Paulo Freire.​

file:///C:/Users/User/Downloads/BankingConceptFreire.pdf

“The Art of Summarizing.” ​Gerald Graff, Cathy Birkenstein.​

file:///C:/Users/User/Downloads/Art%20of%20Summary.pdf

“El Plan de Santa Barbara.” ​Chicano Coordinating Council on Higher Education.​

http://mechadeucdavis.weebly.com/uploads/9/7/0/4/9704129/el_plan_de_santa_barbara.pdf