What is Crippling Us?

      Between Gatto and Bradbury, they both tell that society is purely using school as a way to control people.  In Gatto's writing he cites other authors and draws a parallel to the Prussian system of education, "an education  system deliberately designed to produce mediocre intellects, to hamstring the inner life,to deny students appreciable leadership skills, and to ensure docile and incomplete citizens- all in order to render the populace 'manageable'".    This point is echoed in Fahrenheit 451.  On page 60, Montag's captain, Beatty, is explaining how they manage to keep people in line, keep them from thinking for themselves; " You can't rid yourselves of all the odd ducks in just a few years.  The home environment can undo a lot you try to do at school.  That's why we've lowered the kindergarten age year after year until now we're almost snatching them from the cradle".    
      
     Gatto provides examples from other writers and thinkers who also trace back our system of education to Prussia.  Gatto cites authors such as H.L. Mencken and James Bryant Conant.  One man in particular whom Gatto quotes is Alexander Inglis.  Gatto lists Inglis' six functions of our schooling system; the adjustive or adaptive function, the integrating function, the differentiating function, the selective function, and the   propaedeutic function.   One of the six functions that I found very interesting was the first function, adjusting or adaptive.  In the explanation of the function, Gatto writes, "Schools are to establish fixed habits of reaction to authority.  This, of course, precludes critical judgement completely.  It also pretty much destroys the idea that useful or interesting material should be taught, because you can't test for reflexive obedience until you know whether you can make kids learn, and do, foolish and boring things".   
      
     As for Bradbury, he uses the characters of Beatty and Clarisse to explain the society in which Montag is living.  Clarisse gives Montag her view of the schooling system telling him how the students do little learning and rarely ask questions.  Beatty allows for the reader for gain a better insight as to why and how this occurred.  After burning a woman along with her house, Beatty visits Montag and  describes the evolution of society which led to the state is in during the book.  This evolution  is caused mostly by the twentieth century, when everything becomes faster, including books, which were extremely shortened.  This led to a decline in schooling, " School is shortened, discipline relaxed, philosophies, histories, languages dropped, English and spelling gradually gradually neglected, finally almost completely ignored...Why learn anything save pressing buttons, pulling switches, fitting nuts and bolts?"  


     Both of these images of society appear to be real, at least to me.  I feel as though Inglis' six functions are an accurate depiction of the public schooling system, especially the adjusting or adaptive function because if you compare the topics that we learn in school to what we could be learning, it is confounding as to why we're stuck in a rut re-learning the same things year after year, which few people use in their lives after graduating anyway.  Just ask any high schooler if their parents can help them with their home work...most likely they can't, and thetas because the topics learned in school have little to no relevance in everyday life.  With Bradbury's argument, you can see the same decline in education now as Captain Beatty  explained to Montag.     Not that school has been shortened, but compared even thirty years ago when my parents went to school, discipline has been relaxed greatly in schools.  Also, the use and mechanics of English have been consistently neglected, especially in the lower levels of education, meaning children have little to no concept of how to correctly put a sentence together, and if they can, they have no idea why, or the parts of a sentence.  For spelling, a heavy reliance on technology such as spell check reduces the need to actually know how to spell words, since if you can sound to out, the computer will probably figure out what you're trying to say, and fix it.  This decline in education and the use of public education to control the masses is setting society up to become similar to that of Fahrenheit 451.

Tried and True

http://writingprompts.tumblr.com/post/17477297690/my-28-most-tried-and-true-writing-prompts

If I were forced to spend my life in a library, a museum, or a zoo, I would pick the library.  First of all, a library always has something to read, especially large libraries.  A zoo, while they're fun for a day or two, never really changes.  There are always the same gorillas and tigers and assorted birds and bears, but libraries are always changing as they receive new books, and while I'm a fast reader, I would probably never be able to read all of the books in a library if they were on an endless supply.  Also, libraries are generally quiet (which I like), but they also can host activities for the community.  Plus, while museums are fun and I love history, they don't update and change as quickly as libraries do, so like the zoo, they become boring once you've seen everything once or twice.  If I really had to choose to spend the rest of my life in one of these three places, I would choose the library in a heartbeat.

TU Tuesday- Commencement Speech

Information Texts:  Literary Non-fiction - Includes the subgenres of exposition, argument, and functional text in the form of personal essays, speeches, opinion pieces, essays about art or literature, biographies, memoirs, journalism, and historical, scientific, technical, or economic accounts (including digital sources) written for a broad audience 


http://speakingfrog.com/?p=516
http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_downloads/press/cost04/EducationPays2004.pdf


      In his commencement speech for Carnegie Mellon, Bill Cosby began by asking the graduates why the considered themselves nerds, "I don't know why you want to accept yourselves as being that, because you have continued on where non-nerds stopped." I think that education is an extremely important part of society today.  Not only because there is so much to learn, but because everyday jobs are increasing the qualifications necessary to work in that particular job. "And they quit.  All the non-nerds did that-- they said I'm tired, why do I have to know this?...I think that's very, very brave, considering how many friends you lost," said Cosby on the same subject.  As an American high schooler, I see a lot of my peers (especially in the few regents classes I take) that have the potential to be in advanced classes and perform better in general, but don't because they don't feel like it.   I also must agree that sometimes, the classes you take and how hard you work, or the effort you put in,  affects the friends you have.  I have lost, or become more distant with some people because we've gone on different paths educationally.  


     After talking about his first big show as a comedian, Cosby offered excellent advice to the graduates, "I don't care what you do, when you are good then you bring you out."  I think that this is important.  I tend to second guess my abilities a lot, and it is sometimes hard for me to show these.  I think that because I am a fairly shy and quiet person, particularly around people I am not comfortable with, it makes it even harder for me to show that I am good at something.  Cosby offered some more advice when he said, "But you can't be proud and you can't carry it out unless you are sure of yourself and prepared."  I think that getting an education is the best preparation you can receive in today's society.  Education sets you up to live a better life.  According to College Board's, Education Pays, in 2003 a study comparing average full-time year-round workers with a four year college degree and average full-time year-round workers with a high school diploma showed that those with a four year degree "...earned $49,900, 62 percent more than the $30,800 earned by the...worker with only a high school diploma."  And the numbers continue to increase with the more education you get.  An education can have a huge and lasting impact on your life.  

#34 What I Spend Money On

Being a teenager that doesn't have a job, I don't really have that much money.  However, when I do acquire money, I tend to spend it on the same things.  First, since I like most types of music and am constantly finding new songs and artists that I like, I tend to buy iTunes cards.  Sometimes, if I only have about twenty-five dollars, that is the only thing I buy.  When I have more money I like to shop for clothes.  I go to my favorite stores first, especially if I saw something in the catalog or online that I really liked, if I can't find anything there (which is EXTREMELY rare) I might actually put the money away in the bank.

Love to Know Slideshow

The Gift of Time

Many people often complain there isn't enough time in the day to get everything accomplished. If you were able to add an extra hour to the day, what would you do?

http://freelance-writing.lovetoknow.com/Slideshow:Daily_Writing_Prompts~6

If I were able to add an extra hour on to the day, I would spend more time doing things that I enjoy, without missing the much sleep.  I would definitely read more, especially during the school year, when I tend to have little time outside of school and homework.  Also, I would probably spend more time doing things that I need to, but tend to put off, like practicing my clarinet.  In addition I would sleep more on the weekends, since I would have the time to finish homework and projects.  However, even though sometimes an hour can seem like a long time, I feel like I would still want more time added on to the day to do everything that I wanted to do.  

Creative Contest III

Stress claims to bring better tomorrows.

Philosophy

Materialism: Materialism, or historical materialism,  is the idea that reality is only material and that, "There are no Gods or supernatural phenomenon. Ideas, dreams, etc. are all part of material reality".  This theory was introduced by Friedrich Engles, but Karl Marx joined in on the research portion.  Marx's theory stated that people must make anything they need, such as food, and reproduce themselves in ways that get them what they want. "For example, through practical everyday life wage- laborers reproduce themselves physically, i.e. work to earn money in order to buy food, shelter and clothing they need to survive".  I don't really agree with this theory, I think that there are definitely things that are beyond what you can physically see or feel, (or explain) and this theory doesn't explain those things.  I think that if everything is material and nothing is left to mystery, then what is the point of living, when, according to this theory, we are only here to work for what we can't live without and that's it.

http://www.marxmail.org/faq/historical_materialism.htm