Intro:
School as an institution that offers education to kids, always seems to be the top priorities for parents to consider for their kids. Ever since their kids are around four or five, they start to decide what school their kids should go to in order to have a “good future”. As time goes on, school has transform into a great institution that ease the parents’ trouble and they don’t even have to over thought about this decision anymore. All they do is simply sending their kids to school to be educated or shaped by other adults that seems to be more suitable for their kids to grow up as a better person in the society. Yet, they never put too much thought into what school is really doing to their kids other than having lessons in certain subjects. While school as an institution that portrays the image of salvation for the youth to be a successful person that is suitable for the society, students are slowly being dehumanized that they are no longer a fully human.
Argument 1
Teachers as one of the most important “depositor” at school that deposits information to the depositories, students slowly train to become containers that stores what they learn at the mechanical institution instead of being an active learner that learns how to think to approach reality in the world. In most of the classes, teachers as the educators are suppose to give tasks to students and teach them something new every day within the time limit. Students are train to adapt to these environments that they are only there to perform for only certain amount of time. Once time is up, they pack up and leave to begin their next task. In this short period of time, students suppose to take notes and receive what they have learned in class into memories. In order to do well and get a good grade, all they have to do is to remember what they have learn and be able to show their teacher that they do understand the material being teach in class. However, this whole process of learning is just “filling containers” as what Freire claimed. This means the students never process thinking at all, but being exposed to a fragment of what reality really is.
In forming these type of compulsory education at school, not only students become passive and adapt to the world as what they have learned, they never encounter their own consciousness of realizing what reality really is in the world that they are living. Although students are doing well at adapting and fitting the world, these forms of learning are lessening the students’ creativity and critical thinking skills. “Translated into practice, this concept is well suited to the purposes of the oppressors, whose tranquility rests on how well people fit the world the oppressors have created, and how little they question it.” Refer to this whole idea demonstrated by Freire, not only students are not questioning about the world more other than being a strong fit for their “oppressors’ world”, they are no longer fully human because of the detachment that they have with the world that they live in.
School as an institution that offers education to kids, always seems to be the top priorities for parents to consider for their kids. Ever since their kids are around four or five, they start to decide what school their kids should go to in order to have a “good future”. As time goes on, school has transform into a great institution that ease the parents’ trouble and they don’t even have to over thought about this decision anymore. All they do is simply sending their kids to school to be educated or shaped by other adults that seems to be more suitable for their kids to grow up as a better person in the society. Yet, they never put too much thought into what school is really doing to their kids other than having lessons in certain subjects. While school as an institution that portrays the image of salvation for the youth to be a successful person that is suitable for the society, students are slowly being dehumanized that they are no longer a fully human.
Argument 1
Teachers as one of the most important “depositor” at school that deposits information to the depositories, students slowly train to become containers that stores what they learn at the mechanical institution instead of being an active learner that learns how to think to approach reality in the world. In most of the classes, teachers as the educators are suppose to give tasks to students and teach them something new every day within the time limit. Students are train to adapt to these environments that they are only there to perform for only certain amount of time. Once time is up, they pack up and leave to begin their next task. In this short period of time, students suppose to take notes and receive what they have learned in class into memories. In order to do well and get a good grade, all they have to do is to remember what they have learn and be able to show their teacher that they do understand the material being teach in class. However, this whole process of learning is just “filling containers” as what Freire claimed. This means the students never process thinking at all, but being exposed to a fragment of what reality really is.
In forming these type of compulsory education at school, not only students become passive and adapt to the world as what they have learned, they never encounter their own consciousness of realizing what reality really is in the world that they are living. Although students are doing well at adapting and fitting the world, these forms of learning are lessening the students’ creativity and critical thinking skills. “Translated into practice, this concept is well suited to the purposes of the oppressors, whose tranquility rests on how well people fit the world the oppressors have created, and how little they question it.” Refer to this whole idea demonstrated by Freire, not only students are not questioning about the world more other than being a strong fit for their “oppressors’ world”, they are no longer fully human because of the detachment that they have with the world that they live in.
Argument 2
Teachers other than being great depositors, they are also view as the saviors at salvational institutions. Yet, school as an institution is never a community, but a network that sorts people mechanically into numbers that they have to stay at where they are at other than being a fully human that interacts with other people. As what John Taylor Gatto claimed, “Our school crisis is a reflection of this greater social crisis. We seem to have lost our identity. Children and old people are penned up and locked away from the business of the world to a degree without precedent - nobody talks to them anymore and without children and old people mixing in daily life a community has no future and no past, only a continuous present. In fact, the name "community" hardly applies to the way we interact with each other.” Not only what he claimed is true that school is a reflection of social crisis, a place that sorts people like numbers. Just as different roles belong to different place, people no longer interact with each other.
Looking at the society as a whole, the community is unhealthy because of putting people aside and disconnecting relationships. Nevertheless, sorting is necessary but is not balanced. This means, school has dominate too much time from students that they are only interacting with peers that’s around their age that they have less chance to interact with their family or people that’s not their age. In addition to that, school is only offering lessons by teachers which have limited the opportunities of what students can learn. Other than doing arithmetic, reading, and writing, students should be exposed to more life lessons through community service, or other forms of learning other than taking lessons at school portraying teacher as the only major saviors towards the youth. Based on Aristotle’s claimed that only a person who is functioning in a real community through interaction with all people is fully human, students who attend to school is not fully human because of the lack of connection with the others.
Teachers other than being great depositors, they are also view as the saviors at salvational institutions. Yet, school as an institution is never a community, but a network that sorts people mechanically into numbers that they have to stay at where they are at other than being a fully human that interacts with other people. As what John Taylor Gatto claimed, “Our school crisis is a reflection of this greater social crisis. We seem to have lost our identity. Children and old people are penned up and locked away from the business of the world to a degree without precedent - nobody talks to them anymore and without children and old people mixing in daily life a community has no future and no past, only a continuous present. In fact, the name "community" hardly applies to the way we interact with each other.” Not only what he claimed is true that school is a reflection of social crisis, a place that sorts people like numbers. Just as different roles belong to different place, people no longer interact with each other.
Looking at the society as a whole, the community is unhealthy because of putting people aside and disconnecting relationships. Nevertheless, sorting is necessary but is not balanced. This means, school has dominate too much time from students that they are only interacting with peers that’s around their age that they have less chance to interact with their family or people that’s not their age. In addition to that, school is only offering lessons by teachers which have limited the opportunities of what students can learn. Other than doing arithmetic, reading, and writing, students should be exposed to more life lessons through community service, or other forms of learning other than taking lessons at school portraying teacher as the only major saviors towards the youth. Based on Aristotle’s claimed that only a person who is functioning in a real community through interaction with all people is fully human, students who attend to school is not fully human because of the lack of connection with the others.
Argument 3
Schools being set up as a mechanical institution that sorts people, the teachers as saviors/depositors have too many authorities over the students that lower their self-esteem that they can hardly be fully human. In most schools, students are responsible to do work and get a grade based on how well they meet the standards created by their teachers. Teachers are the ones who ultimately decide the students’ future depending on where they go next. However, every student learns differently. Regardless of the education given at school are immanent or transcendent, both Hirsh and Sizer’s beliefs seem to agree on students with different backgrounds have different knowledge on materials, and whether they should learn basics to form commonalities or should learn how to have critical thinking to value learning is another question. As this is also true to Lisa Delpit that different cultures affects the way that culture learns in the perspective of the culture that has the most power. All in all, through all these beliefs do concern on the problem that student performs differently as a whole. Thus, it requires all different forms of teaching or learning environments for kids. If this stays true, either grades or other judgments in terms of the child’s intelligence are therefore impossible to sort based on one curriculum.
As most parents rely on the number or letter grade to view their child’s intelligence, not only the child learn that only other’s opinions on themselves are the ultimate truth and the one and only that should matter, any judgments on the child under one curriculum is dehumanizing the students’ ability and intelligence. Not only these grades do not mean anything as a whole for students, they are “evaluation of certified officials” that determines the students future that caused them to have control over their own life other than conforms and meet the “oppressor’s” standards. Within the inability to control your own destiny other than conform reflects that students cannot be fully human due to the imbalanced of power between teachers and students.
Schools being set up as a mechanical institution that sorts people, the teachers as saviors/depositors have too many authorities over the students that lower their self-esteem that they can hardly be fully human. In most schools, students are responsible to do work and get a grade based on how well they meet the standards created by their teachers. Teachers are the ones who ultimately decide the students’ future depending on where they go next. However, every student learns differently. Regardless of the education given at school are immanent or transcendent, both Hirsh and Sizer’s beliefs seem to agree on students with different backgrounds have different knowledge on materials, and whether they should learn basics to form commonalities or should learn how to have critical thinking to value learning is another question. As this is also true to Lisa Delpit that different cultures affects the way that culture learns in the perspective of the culture that has the most power. All in all, through all these beliefs do concern on the problem that student performs differently as a whole. Thus, it requires all different forms of teaching or learning environments for kids. If this stays true, either grades or other judgments in terms of the child’s intelligence are therefore impossible to sort based on one curriculum.
As most parents rely on the number or letter grade to view their child’s intelligence, not only the child learn that only other’s opinions on themselves are the ultimate truth and the one and only that should matter, any judgments on the child under one curriculum is dehumanizing the students’ ability and intelligence. Not only these grades do not mean anything as a whole for students, they are “evaluation of certified officials” that determines the students future that caused them to have control over their own life other than conforms and meet the “oppressor’s” standards. Within the inability to control your own destiny other than conform reflects that students cannot be fully human due to the imbalanced of power between teachers and students.
Alternatives
In order to make students to be fully human at school, I agree with Freire that there should be more communication between students and teachers. “Yet, only through communication can human life hold meaning. The teacher cannot think for her students, nor can she impose her thought on them. Authentic thinking, thinking that is concerned about reality, does not take place in ivory tower isolation, but only in communication. If it is true that thought has meaning only when generated by action upon the world, the subordination of students to teachers becomes impossible.” I do agree with him that through more communication other than having the teacher putting information into the students’ brain will help the students more. In addition to that, this creates interaction between the two to make students be able to be fully human. Not only Freire’s suggestion is helpful, this will also lowers the teacher’s authorities over students to make it balanced. I believe the ultimate goal at school is simply to learn, and through learning, authorities are very unnecessary in my opinion. Not only has it distracted students’ to learn, it often evokes the “bad students” to challenge the teacher whereas people can just create a peaceful place to learn among each other through communication.
Another way to help students to be more human is to break through the tradition of teacher as a savior to help students to learn, but also provide more chance for students to have a view of the society. Other than learning arithmetic, writing, and reading, students should be able to do internships, community service, or all other forms of learning that can create more interactions between people as a whole in a community other than just among teachers and students. In order to make this happen, I think we should have less school, not more. I believe in Gatto’s theory that students can learn faster when they are in the mode of learning, and we wasted too many time at school forming unnecessary tasks such as teacher chasing after students’ to pay attention in class or students wasn’t even in the mode to learn but being force to be present at school. All these times could have been open to students to interact with more people such as their families, the old and the young.
In order to make students to be fully human at school, I agree with Freire that there should be more communication between students and teachers. “Yet, only through communication can human life hold meaning. The teacher cannot think for her students, nor can she impose her thought on them. Authentic thinking, thinking that is concerned about reality, does not take place in ivory tower isolation, but only in communication. If it is true that thought has meaning only when generated by action upon the world, the subordination of students to teachers becomes impossible.” I do agree with him that through more communication other than having the teacher putting information into the students’ brain will help the students more. In addition to that, this creates interaction between the two to make students be able to be fully human. Not only Freire’s suggestion is helpful, this will also lowers the teacher’s authorities over students to make it balanced. I believe the ultimate goal at school is simply to learn, and through learning, authorities are very unnecessary in my opinion. Not only has it distracted students’ to learn, it often evokes the “bad students” to challenge the teacher whereas people can just create a peaceful place to learn among each other through communication.
Another way to help students to be more human is to break through the tradition of teacher as a savior to help students to learn, but also provide more chance for students to have a view of the society. Other than learning arithmetic, writing, and reading, students should be able to do internships, community service, or all other forms of learning that can create more interactions between people as a whole in a community other than just among teachers and students. In order to make this happen, I think we should have less school, not more. I believe in Gatto’s theory that students can learn faster when they are in the mode of learning, and we wasted too many time at school forming unnecessary tasks such as teacher chasing after students’ to pay attention in class or students wasn’t even in the mode to learn but being force to be present at school. All these times could have been open to students to interact with more people such as their families, the old and the young.
Connection
As a student, I hate school. Not only I felt I spend too much time on it that I could have done something else, I think the way school is being set up limited what a student can possibly do . Every day, I can see myself just going through motion, and being force to go to school having the notion of “I have to go to school”. I believe I do well at school under my teachers and school’s standards, and I fit well to that world that they have created. But looking at my life spending most of my time at school, I felt the sense of inhuman in myself. I enjoy learning, and I believe I am curious. However, the school curriculum has shaped me into a student who hates school. If I have the ability to make my own choice since a kid, I would not choose to go to school, but still learn as much as I can. School has too many unnecessary rules that have nothing to do with learning or helping the students to do better but to shape them into zombies to conform. Not that I am agree with Gatto’s six lessons, I believe school does dehumanize students as a whole.
I believe there are values in learning, and I am glad that there are institutions that try to help people to be more educated. However, there are too many unnecessary things that are within these institutions that drives students crazy. It creates pressure and meaninglessness life for students most of the times other than learning. Students always felt pressure because of grades, or afraid that they did something that is against the school policy that will keep them in trouble. Or students have to act in certain way at school whereas the whole point to go to school is to learn and connect this knowledge to our own lives to find the meaning of living. School did not only fail to teach students to motivate themselves to go to school, they taught students to feel the sense of hatred and pressure towards school that students always look forward to weekends and vacations.
As a student, I hate school. Not only I felt I spend too much time on it that I could have done something else, I think the way school is being set up limited what a student can possibly do . Every day, I can see myself just going through motion, and being force to go to school having the notion of “I have to go to school”. I believe I do well at school under my teachers and school’s standards, and I fit well to that world that they have created. But looking at my life spending most of my time at school, I felt the sense of inhuman in myself. I enjoy learning, and I believe I am curious. However, the school curriculum has shaped me into a student who hates school. If I have the ability to make my own choice since a kid, I would not choose to go to school, but still learn as much as I can. School has too many unnecessary rules that have nothing to do with learning or helping the students to do better but to shape them into zombies to conform. Not that I am agree with Gatto’s six lessons, I believe school does dehumanize students as a whole.
I believe there are values in learning, and I am glad that there are institutions that try to help people to be more educated. However, there are too many unnecessary things that are within these institutions that drives students crazy. It creates pressure and meaninglessness life for students most of the times other than learning. Students always felt pressure because of grades, or afraid that they did something that is against the school policy that will keep them in trouble. Or students have to act in certain way at school whereas the whole point to go to school is to learn and connect this knowledge to our own lives to find the meaning of living. School did not only fail to teach students to motivate themselves to go to school, they taught students to feel the sense of hatred and pressure towards school that students always look forward to weekends and vacations.
Significance
I know is it complicated to change the systems of school in a short amount of time, but at the very least I think parents and students should be aware of what is happening at school. I believe a lot of parents do not really put too many thoughts into what schools are doing to their kids, and they are just following the mainstream of sending their kids to school. As for students, I believe lot of us do not notice what schools are doing to us also. What most of us do is complain, but never try to make a difference at these institutions that we are attending for twelve years. I think students should understand the situation that they are in more, and try to make a change other than just complain and leave it to shape them in to robots or numbers. Students should not just let school to shape them to live a twelve year meaningless life but to put more thoughts into this to really try to make a change with action. I believe school can be a better place for students to learn, but students are being a little bit passive and just let things happen to them. I think students do have the responsibility to make choices for themselves; especially it is an institution that is supposed to be beneficial to us.
Conclusion
School in general, it always seems as a necessary and there should not be much question or thought into it. It is “good” for us as students, and it definitely portrays the image of salvation in the society that it is beneficial to the youth. Although this is true, there are lots of issues and contradiction in these institutions that has never been resolve. Not only the way school is being set up, just as what John Gatto said, is schooling students instead of educating us, I think school is dehumanizing us as a whole. Due to the detachments of the reality in the world and lack of interaction with people in a real community with an imbalanced of power between students and teachers, it reveals that school is definitely more complicated then what we think it is. The teachers wants to share their wisdom to shape students’ identities while students are building their own identities which often seem to against what the teacher wants to do as their job All in all, different roles wants different things at the same place, and no goal is being reach and the problem has not yet being resolved. Who is responsible for this and is it even a major problem that prevents students to learn in a healthy environment? Before answering these questions, I think students should recognize their situation and starts to realize that school has prevent them from being a fully human. Without being able to live fully with meaning, nothing seems to matter and indifference goes on.
No comments:
Post a Comment