"...The end of education"
The Achievement of Desire
Richard Rodriguez
The "end" of education is a very hard thing to grasp but if I had to try to explain it I would say that it is to create well-rounded individuals inside and outside the classroom. We go to school and it creates a work-ethic that should follow us throughout our life. School is like a test for the real world, and if you do well in school it means you are more likely to be successful. The change that comes with education is meant to be positive, but in more well off house-holds as opposed to poorer house-holds it doesn't create a gap between lives. Where as in a lower-class family the divide is much more noticeable, and by becoming educated you have to give up on being lower-class. You have to give that part of you up, at least while being educated. Most often lower-class can't give this up, they can't switch back and forth effective enough. Imagine trying to run 100 yards in the time I run 40, I'd bet you couldn't but there will always be people that are able to beat me such as the worlds fastest man Usain Bolt. The poor that become rich are the exceptions (just as the people who can run that distance faster than me) and when I think about it there is not really a way that we can change that distance.
I chose this quote because of its difficulty to describe, and the diverse number of way to describe it. Also it gets me to think about the fact that the "end" of education is the same for everyone, but in the ways it manifests itself it is never the same for everyone. You are striving to be successful, but the way that you have to move to get to where you are going is different for everyone. The fact that it is a shorter path for some and longer for others is very intriguing to me. Though I tried to define the "end" of education I think that it can't be described except on an individual basis, and the best way to realize this "end" is to look in the mirror ask yourself because I really do not have the material answer YOU need.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Monday, September 27, 2010
blog 2 on bartholomae
"The university, however, is the place where"common" wisdom is only of negative value; it is something to work against." pg. 521 "Inventing the University" David Bartholomae
This quote is a very bold statement and I'd say that it is wrong in some ways and right in others. I believe that if you use only the "common" wisdom in your writing, then it will be of negative value. Although in my opinion the best papers can blend these "common" wisdoms along with the the more complex ideas. I think that this actually defines the topic twofold and can reach a much larger audience. It is kind of like drawing a picture and explaining through words at the same time. The people who learn visually as well as the people who learn through directions then are incorporated into the audience. The fact that when your are writing academic discourse you have to speak in their specific code makes it very difficult. You have to talk as "one of them" when your clearly not in most cases. It's like being in the minor leages trying to become a big leager one day, you have to work really hard to understand the topic through research and experience. You could be surpassed by others because they are more talented or knew more, but eventually your around the game long enough that you know how to play on that level and you move up. Not everybody will be great because if everybody was great then no one would be great. You have to pick up on how academic discourse is written so you can impersonate their language so you can talk to them. Such as a peasant could talk fluently to another peasant and a king would have trouble talking to a peasant and vice-versa. You can't talk to a spanish speaker in english and have said person understand you.
I also don't agree with Bartholomae's understanding of audience in a school setting. We can say our audience is not the teacher and actually the peers but why shouldn't i write to the teacher as my audience? What do i have to gain by writing to the person siting next to me in class? So we have to write to an invisible audience when the teacher is there and is the only one that really matters in the audience. The teacher is the only one we can see.
In a school setting i am not going to be intrested in topics normally because they are mandatory. I'm writing this blog and saying to myself "lets just get this over" instead of who is my audience. Now if i was writing for a newspaper article on something i love just because i love to do it, then i believe that creativity is shown. You have to have a want or desire to acheive something for creativity to be shown in my opinion.
This quote is a very bold statement and I'd say that it is wrong in some ways and right in others. I believe that if you use only the "common" wisdom in your writing, then it will be of negative value. Although in my opinion the best papers can blend these "common" wisdoms along with the the more complex ideas. I think that this actually defines the topic twofold and can reach a much larger audience. It is kind of like drawing a picture and explaining through words at the same time. The people who learn visually as well as the people who learn through directions then are incorporated into the audience. The fact that when your are writing academic discourse you have to speak in their specific code makes it very difficult. You have to talk as "one of them" when your clearly not in most cases. It's like being in the minor leages trying to become a big leager one day, you have to work really hard to understand the topic through research and experience. You could be surpassed by others because they are more talented or knew more, but eventually your around the game long enough that you know how to play on that level and you move up. Not everybody will be great because if everybody was great then no one would be great. You have to pick up on how academic discourse is written so you can impersonate their language so you can talk to them. Such as a peasant could talk fluently to another peasant and a king would have trouble talking to a peasant and vice-versa. You can't talk to a spanish speaker in english and have said person understand you.
I also don't agree with Bartholomae's understanding of audience in a school setting. We can say our audience is not the teacher and actually the peers but why shouldn't i write to the teacher as my audience? What do i have to gain by writing to the person siting next to me in class? So we have to write to an invisible audience when the teacher is there and is the only one that really matters in the audience. The teacher is the only one we can see.
In a school setting i am not going to be intrested in topics normally because they are mandatory. I'm writing this blog and saying to myself "lets just get this over" instead of who is my audience. Now if i was writing for a newspaper article on something i love just because i love to do it, then i believe that creativity is shown. You have to have a want or desire to acheive something for creativity to be shown in my opinion.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
blog on a kind word for bullshit
"Like game, bullshit groups togther acts that can be quite varied." pg. 376 Eubanks and Schaeffer
This really helped explain bullshit to me in terms i could understand. It shows that bulshit is not really just something that can be defined specifically, but is a base for a larger interpretation. Just as baseball and Monopoly are both games, they are both inheritably different. It could also be compared to animals like kingdom, genotype, family, and finally leading into species. It has many different subgroups that make it very hard to define specifically because we don't have a specific system to name or define it. I thought this was very deep, but i also realized that it made defining bullshit way more difficult.
This really helped explain bullshit to me in terms i could understand. It shows that bulshit is not really just something that can be defined specifically, but is a base for a larger interpretation. Just as baseball and Monopoly are both games, they are both inheritably different. It could also be compared to animals like kingdom, genotype, family, and finally leading into species. It has many different subgroups that make it very hard to define specifically because we don't have a specific system to name or define it. I thought this was very deep, but i also realized that it made defining bullshit way more difficult.
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