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Analysis Of I Just Wanna Be Average
Melinda Gates once said, "kids are falling through the cracks and nobody notices it. That to me is
what's wrong with the school system." The American school system claims to want every child to
thrive, but teachers give up on students they feel are not worthy of their time. In "I Just Wanna
Be Average" by Mike Rose, Rose discusses how his school placed him on a certain path that
eliminated his motivation and love for learning. The labels that brand every student make or break
their educational careers. Mike Rose's "I Just Wanna Be Average" depresses me as an alumna of a
public school system. Having seen friends and classmates caught by the current of my school's
expectations, I know that students are put on tracks as soon as they step...show more content...
By the time September rolled around students have forgotten what classes they registered for. My
school liked to move past things as quickly as possible. To elaborate, each student would receive a
book with every class the high school had to offer, regardless of grade and prerequisites. Then,
each student had to return a specific form with all the classes they would take within a week of
attaining the book of courses. Knowing which class to take and how it would affect your next
four years was a shared mystery to all the incoming freshman. While a flowchart detailing how the
mathematics classes lead into each other was provided, all other classes looked as if they would
never relate to one another. What the school failed to express to us is that once a student is put
into a class, there is no switching out or dropping the class if the class proves too challenging or
too easy, the class you take the following year has already been determined, and that if you want to
try something new, you had better take the prerequisite early. As Rose wrote, "school can be a
tremendously disorienting place" (127), and the absence of communication between students and the
rest of the school verifies this disorientation. The illusion that students have a choice in how their
education grows is perpetuated by a system that thinks it knows best. Not enough has changed over
the past 50 years when Rose attended high school. Yes, teachers can no longer berate troublemakers
with
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Analysis Of I Just Wanna Be Average

  • 1. Analysis Of I Just Wanna Be Average Melinda Gates once said, "kids are falling through the cracks and nobody notices it. That to me is what's wrong with the school system." The American school system claims to want every child to thrive, but teachers give up on students they feel are not worthy of their time. In "I Just Wanna Be Average" by Mike Rose, Rose discusses how his school placed him on a certain path that eliminated his motivation and love for learning. The labels that brand every student make or break their educational careers. Mike Rose's "I Just Wanna Be Average" depresses me as an alumna of a public school system. Having seen friends and classmates caught by the current of my school's expectations, I know that students are put on tracks as soon as they step...show more content... By the time September rolled around students have forgotten what classes they registered for. My school liked to move past things as quickly as possible. To elaborate, each student would receive a book with every class the high school had to offer, regardless of grade and prerequisites. Then, each student had to return a specific form with all the classes they would take within a week of attaining the book of courses. Knowing which class to take and how it would affect your next four years was a shared mystery to all the incoming freshman. While a flowchart detailing how the mathematics classes lead into each other was provided, all other classes looked as if they would never relate to one another. What the school failed to express to us is that once a student is put into a class, there is no switching out or dropping the class if the class proves too challenging or too easy, the class you take the following year has already been determined, and that if you want to try something new, you had better take the prerequisite early. As Rose wrote, "school can be a tremendously disorienting place" (127), and the absence of communication between students and the rest of the school verifies this disorientation. The illusion that students have a choice in how their education grows is perpetuated by a system that thinks it knows best. Not enough has changed over the past 50 years when Rose attended high school. Yes, teachers can no longer berate troublemakers with Get more content on HelpWriting.net