Embracing the past to see the future of American Education. .
Mike Rose's 'I Just Wanna Be Average' essay sheds light on troubled youth within the public school system. It makes you long for the days of American pride and service. Students placed in 'tracks' to utilize overcrowded and faulty test systems. Identity lost due to poor instruction and lack of motivation. The influx of shattered images brought forth by the 'Report of the French Commission on American Education, 1879' reminds us of a time long ago when education was for every child, not select few. Stoic instructors molding young minds in the quest to advance America as a whole. Civic pride and duty were influencing every aspect of American education.
Both essays draw from the influence of education into the societal path into American mainstream society. Each school system is influenced by thoughts of bettering youth, but in much opposite ends of the spectrum. The French commission stated that the youth of America were offered the same curriculum in the hopes to form a united, equal society. America, as seen by the French, was a land of golden opportunities available to every child regardless of social standing. It was the basis for our country to survive. It safeguarded our standing in the world. Mike Rose's school offered quite the opposite. It was a haven for long standing views on school being selective as to whom actually deserved the education. The only hope of the present school system is a few dedicated professionals. They could see the errors of the future and grasp to what made the system work in the past. Focusing on actual knowledge to better society at the basic level.
The present day of education still draws from the past in the aspect that a school is only as good as a system will allow. The emphasis is on education regardless of pre-set notions. Society today wants citizens to play an integral part of their children's education. Students today bring the hopes and failures of their family into the curriculum that is driven by teachers that are uninspired. This current thought allows the system to overlook the student who yearns to get out of the lower track and excel at the same equal pace as the higher student. The days of being created equal in the school system are long gone. The society that allows children to enter as equals often has them placed in a track before actual classroom time. The French commission saw American educators as the forefathers for society. It is a much different world. Mike Rose's essay points out specific flaws of uninterested instructors and flawed systems of placement. Thus creating boundaries the average student can never surpass.
Students today are far different than those of the ...