Hw 44

I honestly don't think it's unreasonable to expect as much as we do from schools. From the age of five onward, children spend the majority of their lives in these institutions, being intentionally molded by society. Anything that can feasibly get into a child's head at that point, a school can put in there if it wants to. If we tell a school to make a child accepting of others, it can do so. If we tell a school to make a child recognize jews by their bone structure, it will. Children spend more time in school than with their parents, and it makes sense that they can inherit parental-style values from a school.

That being said, first let me respond to President Obama's speech:
I think that, more than school as a means for political change, his speech can be better summed up by his line "where you are right now doesn't have to determine where you'll end up." Honestly, a lot of the speech involved things that I have heard and already support, like 'don't be afraid to ask for help if you need it'. I think it's possible that the sheer abundance of such phrases may desensitize children to them, and make them loose some of their meaning. One less common thing that struck me, however, was that he said 'even when it feels like everyone has given up on you, don't ever give up on yourself.' I think that is a good sentiment to take away from the speech, as I feel like too often that is one of the problems that people have with school. Hearing it does sort of give one a feeling of responsibility for their own education, but unfortunately I'm not sure how long after the speech this feeling will last for most.

As for the USA Today's column, I agree and disagree. I think that in order to create more jobs there need to be more entrepreneurs, creating new companies and new positions. However, I strongly disagree that a military-style education is the way to achieve that. Military education may instill a sense of devotion to the mission, but this is a far cry from instilling the creativity and ingenuity needed to start a business like google. The article also emphasizes loyalty to the 'mission' of making money over the value of an employee, but then proclaims that businesses should try to value employees more, so it is unclear exactly what the author wants from their idea of the new school system. Not even mentioning the fact that the entrepreneur's school would be available only to a very small opportune group, and that the likelihood that bringing in successful businessmen will convince people that things need to be done differently is incredibly slim, the theories in this article definitely have some flaws.

The New York Times article, on the other hand, I largely agree with. The concept that a school should start with a passion for learning and build up around that is something I've thought for a long time, though obviously Ms. Kenny has discovered a better formula for it than I could ever come up with. I also especially agree that "teaching to the test" is something that should be avoided. I did particularly well on standardized tests in elementary school, when all we were told was that there would be a test and what it would consist of. Granted this is not the right approach for everyone, but I think in all cases it is much easier to learn something when the student and the teacher are excited about it (something that test prep is unlikely to achieve).

Overall I find 'school as a battleground for political change' an interesting topic, and I actually think that I would be more interested in focusing my attention on that this unit than my previous topic.