Thursday, December 10, 2015

Me Talk Pretty One Day

In class today, we read and discussed the story Me Talk Pretty One Day. The author decided to enter college once again and was taking a class abroad in France. He was then stuck with a teacher who totally destroyed their hopes and dreams at becoming fluent in French. She was sassy and snarky and an all around awful person towards her students. Even though they could not tell what she was saying precisely, the tone in her voice and her body language clearly conveyed that they were being insulted and had no clue how bad the insults actually were.

Instead of discouraging the author and his fellow classmates, this led them all to two emotions: desparation and fear. By constantly harrassing them and blatantly harrassing them, the teacher united the students in the desparation to understand what was going wrong. Desparation is funny that way. When students are faced with a teacher that does not teach/does not treat them with respect, they seem to unite and work together to prove that teacher wrong. Fear also plays a role into this. The students soon began to stop speaking, for fear of being ridiculed for being incorrect. Now, no one wants to be wrong, especially in front of a teacher they loathe. It would only make sense that this would become a source of passion and determination to prove that teacher wrong.

I have had many awful teachers and adults in my life that have been awful. They fail to teach and expect us to teach ourselves, they are rude and passive aggressive, they lower their standards for us, the list could go on. I have always seen this as a challenge to prove those teachers wrong. The same goes for my fellow classmates. Our desparation to succeed and fear of  being wrong breaks down the barriers of competition and helps us work together towards the common goal of passing the class. While it is an unconventional and even frowned upon practice, causing fear and desparation can actually work with the right students.

Wednesday, December 9, 2015

High School Society

The school system is unbelievably flawed, to be frank. In Leon Botstien's Let Teenagers Try Adulthood, Botstein also argues that the school system is flawed and the system should be completely changed in order to work in the modern world. The author believes that school is nothing but a sheltered world with its social hierarchies dominated by beefy football players. Botstein then goes on to illustrate his perfect school system, where children would attend elementary school, skip middle school, and graduate high school at 16.

Now, if I could have skipped middle school and that awkward mess altogether, I totally would have. Do I think that this kind of system could improve our current school dilemma? Not really. One line in this piece that really irked me was this: "Young people shoudl graduate at 16 rather than 18. They could then enter the real world, the world of work or national service, in which they would take a place of responsibility alongside other adults in mixed company". I was not aware that I was not a part of the real world. I do understand where this author is coming from. The school systems now shelter a lot of teenagers from what is considered "the real world". I have not been taught how to do a check book. I cannot do my own laundry. I have not been taught the basic necessities that I need to be considered an "adult figure". But that does not mean that I have not been struggling with the stress that comes with school, nor have I been without responsibility. Children have been forced to mature faster, that much is true. But it does not mean that we are not a part of the conversation when it comes to "the real world" because we live it every day.

As for this new schooling system, it has its perks and flaws. I think that being able to work within a field of one's interest with professionals in that field can be very beneficial. I also think that students could handle a shorter school curriculum. I do not agree with building new institutes for every single major. Soon we would be overrun with unnecessary institutions and it would become messy and disorganized. I also think that forcing children to decide what they want to do for the rest of their lives at such a young age is a cruel and unusual punishment placed upon every new generation. It is hard enough deciding what to do when one is 18; bumping that tremendous decision down to 16 year olds is just cruel. Many students go into college without a clue of what they want to do for the rest of their lives and some regret their decision right after graduating. We need to stop rushing our children to make life long decisions when they have barely expreienced life.