Education

How do you gauge success? By how you feel? How much you learn? Your grade? How well the people around you do? Everyone looks at success in a different way. 


In India and China they strive to do well. They put in a lot of time and effort into their schoolwork in hopes of getting into the university of their choice. Hours upon hours are spent in school and then out of school learning everything they can. The problem is everyone is doing this. Because everyone is putting is so much effort it raises the bar of expectation. This makes it so if you don't put in a ton of work into school, like everyone else, you will not seem as smart in comparison. This is why even the really smart people did not get into their first choice of college, since almost everyone is really smart. 


This can all be related back to "I Just Wanna Be Average". Mike Rose talks about needing to set higher expectations. When he was in the vocational track he had low expectations so he met them. But when he was in the normal program, with higher expectations, he had to work hard but he was able to succeed. The exceptions in America are lower than in that of other countries so american kids do less school work than the kids in foreign countries. American kids also have the expectations to do extracurricular activities and other things outside of school. Because kids are expected to have other commitments than school american's can't possibly be expected to but in as much time in school work as the kids from India or China. 


Mike Rose also touched on an other interesting point. The other day Mrs. Cardona posed an interesting question, is it the teachers responsibility to put in extra effort with kids who's passed teachers didn't prepare them for the current class? Now if a majority of the class does not know how to do something or know something that should have been taught previous then I do think it is the teachers responsibility to go over the topic and teach it to the students. But what if you have a situation like Rose's? Being in the vocational program he didn't learn everything he should have to have him be prepared when he entered the normal program again, is it the teachers responsibility to take out class time to work with that one student? As of now, my thought is no, the teacher does not have to take out class time to help the one student. However, the teacher MUST have opportunities outside of class, maybe before or after school, for the student to come in and get additional help. The student should be able to ask for help and try to understand everything and the teacher than in turn should help the student figure out a way for he/she to learn and do well in the class. It should be a team effort, where both sides are putting in a bit of extra effort, but they don't need to take class time. 


I think what we have been talking about has been extremely interesting and has brought up a lot of interesting questions.