AP lang

What should I add to my essay?

Education

The conception of teaching every student similarly is inaccurate. Teaching is not the problem, but, how we teach. And how we go about innovating the school system. We have had the same school structure for years and failing students can prove that it is irrefutable that it doesn’t work for everyone. Many students become depressed and suffer from anxiety because of school. There is a problem when educators when make students feel like they are worthless by yelling or teasing students. Teachers should respect students and vice versa. Though we should promote well-rounded students, we should again question whether our methods are helping or hurting the ability for students to meet and apply information. To start, Francine Prose wrote “I Know Why the Caged Bird Cannot Read” to explain vulgarized literature. (Document A) She demonstrates how "middlebrow entertainments" contribute to the animosity teens portray towards reading. She calls out different books and authors they are obliged to read and describe why they are not good examples of literature. She talks about Maya Angelou’s “I know why the caged bird singes” saying, “One can see why this memoir might appeal to the lazy or uninspired teacher, who can conduct the class as if the students were a studio audience for Angelou’s guest appearance on Oprah”. They aren’t teaching the class, they are just talking about the topic and the curriculum they have to cover. It’s essentially as if there is no purpose to what they are teaching teens. They are restricted to take an interest in these topics. “An eighth-grader studying Elie Wiesel’s overwrought Night in a class taught by a passionate gay-rights advocate came home with the following notes: ‘Many Jews killed during the Holocaust, but many many homosexuals murdered by Nazis. Kids can’t even understand how to read these books and teachers are projecting their ideas onto them. They cannot learn how to think for themselves and learn from different points of view. “And so the roster of literary masterpieces we pass along to future generations will continue its downward shift, and those lightweight, mediocre high school favorites will continue to rise, unburdened by gravity, to the top of the list.” We aren’t learning about the literature we are just reading random books, they are based on insignificant topics. Students do not perceive how to ask thought-provoking questions. The government can use our “dumbing downdefinite” to their advantage. Books are being used for entertainment and not for gaining wisdom. Second, Leon Botstein in “Let Teenagers Try Adulthood” explains how teens are enforced to live by certain rules and segregated from other people. (Document D) “...a world defined by insiders and outsiders, in which the insiders hold sway because of superficial definitions of good looks and attractiveness, popularity, and sports prowess.” This game of popularity is making a negative impact on students and how they will there on out view the world. “By the time those who graduate from high school go on to college and realize what really is at stake in becoming an adult, too many opportunities have been lost and too much time has been wasted”. Once they start becoming adults and learning about adulthood, their age of learning and training and youth are gone. They are trying to figure out who they are and high school is contributing that ability. “They need to enter a world where they are not in a lunchroom with only their peers, estranged from other age groups and cut off from the game of life as it is really played”. They aren’t able to experience life, they are just thrown into it without any preparation. High School offers an unrealistic view of life and has separated them from interaction with adults and people who are different from them. Thirdly, David Barboza in “Shanghai Schools’ Approach Pushes Students to Top of Tests”, portrays how this top school is disciplined and constantly tests students on their intelligence.(Document E) “In an interview, Mr, Jiang said Chinese schools emphasized testing too much, and produced students who lacked curiosity and the ability to think critically or independently”. Kids don’t have a mind of their own they are trained almost like robots. Their worth is held in the form of a test and they are seen as a letter in the Alphabet. These kids could not explore education and question things around them. “The principal, Zhang Renli, created an experimental school that puts less emphasis on math and allows children more free time to play and experiment”. Kids should be able to have their free time and figure out who they are. “The nation’s education system is to test-oriented, schools here stifle creativity and parental pressures often deprive children of the joys of childhood, they say”. Their childhood is filled with tests instead of being filled with inventive creativity. Children are now frightened of being wrong, because of how the school system punished bad behavior. Because of this, they know how to be creative. Original creativity comes from making mistakes. It has become evident in our society that students don’t know how to learn and their teachers how to teach. Education has become a word to describe a well rounded individual and someone who has learned throughout this process. We need to think what being educated is truly about, how education impacts our daily lives, and what our society values. Many students do not know how to read thick literature. Teachers should be patient with kids instead of just trying to fit the curriculum into set days. The idea that every student in the classroom can be taught the same is immensely flawed.