Kevin Guerra
Professor Orozco
English 101
15 January 2023
Internalized Oppression within the Education System
Is it time for our K-12 compulsory schooling education system in America to get an overhaul? The sentiment that this system is long overdue for restructuring is felt across the board of educators, instructors, administration, and communities. The current system does not work for our students anymore. However, why would this system work for students anyway? The initial design for our school system held the goal of producing factory workers and nothing more. The school system was not designed to create critical-thinking intellectuals but submissive proletariats. The very system responsible for teaching millions of children across the
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The original functions are allowing for an unfit system to continuously oppress our students in academia. Award-winning educator, John Taylor Gatto identifies the original functions of the school system and how they have harmed student populations rather than aid them in his work “Against School.” For instance, Gatto reveals, “The adjustive or adaptive function. Schools are to establish fixed habits of reaction to authority. This, of course, precludes critical judgment completely. It also pretty much destroys the idea that useful or interesting material should be taught, because you can’t test for reflexive obedience until you know whether you can make kids learn, and do foolish and boring things.” The school system’s adjective or adaptive function is primarily a tool in which the education system teaches students to respond to authority and become submissive to its power. With this response to authority, students are not encouraged to critically think or question systems in power. This lack of critical thinking helps the oppressor in subordinating student populations due to the fact that students are not being given the tools to think critically in general. However, why would a system give students the tools to think critically about itself? It is easier to oppress and keep the student population manageable when the education system indoctrinates them to fear …show more content…
Critics will support this argument with evidence that there are concrete institutions that are running perfectly fine with a steady student enrollment rate. If there was to be some sort of subordination or oppression at work why would these students even attend these institutions? However, what these critics fail to address is the hidden systemic issues present within the institution. There are internalized issues that are not easily seen. For instance, there are student-teacher relationships that perpetuate a subordinate relationship between teachers and students. This hostile relationship has allowed teachers to hinder the success of their student’s growth and development. Ultimately, these students are the victims of an oppressive institution that has not been able to address these types of relationships within
Inequalities have always existed in society. These inequalities are often perpetuated through education. While the United States Supreme Court supported desegregation of schools and struck down the idea of “separate, but equal” in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education cases, there still exists many inequalities within the United States educational system today for minority races and people of the lower economic classes. Ann Ferguson in her article “Bad Boys” discusses punishment practices in schools and the detriment these practices provide as they resemble incarceration. Conley in his article “Education” discusses education acting as a sorting machine and the tracking of students.
His descriptive thesis begins the empowering narrative that describes the many sources of the discrepancies college students are experiencing. Graff describes the effects differing opinions between teachers and politics that affect the direction of education. Additionally, Graff’s use of metaphors provide a comprehensive view of the negative effects the current education system has upon its students. He also appeals towards his audience through rhetoric such as Logos, Pathos, and Ethos. Graff enumerates numerous educational issues that exposes the truth of our education system and musters the support of his
By limiting what students can read, the government is also limiting their ability to develop critical thinking skills and make informed decisions in the
Unsatisfactory schools do not maintain suitable conditions for students to learn and they are not treated as well as students from other schools. An example of this is in Kozol’s Fremont High School when it states that, “Long lines of girls are ‘waiting to use the bathrooms,’ which are generally ‘unclean’ and ‘lack basic supplies,’ including toilet paper” (Kozol 707). Student who have the desire to go to college hit dead ends in the school. One of the most impactful parts of the passage was when Kozol quoted Fortino saying, “You’re ghetto, so we send you to the factory” (Kozol 710). This shows the distrust that students in low-income areas feel toward our education system.
According to Voight’s, Hanson’s, O’Malley’s, and Adekanye’s study, many black children reported of having less favorable relationship between their white instructors compared to white students, while black and hispanic instructors tend to have a steady report of positive relationship and attitude with their students from all races (Voight, Hanson, O’Malley, Adekanye, 2015). Moreover, in a sample from the Texas school districts, districts with more Hispanic and Black teachers have better success in their students’ academic performance for all races, compared to districts that have a larger number of white instructors (Voight, Hanson, O’Malley, Adekanye, 2015). This goes back to the discrepancies in a student-teacher relationship when both parties do not share the same understanding of each other’s background and cultures. The rift in the relationship is mended when a mutual understanding manifests between the two. Hispanic and Black instructors already have a similar background with the current students, which makes their attitude towards these groups more sympathetics and understanding compared to a white teacher who may had the mainstream
The main argument is that perceived throughout the reading is that the schools itself is failing students. They see a student who may not have the greatest test scores or the best grades, and degrade them from the idea of being intellectual. Graff states, “We associate the educated life, the life of the mind, too narrowly and exclusively with subjects and texts that we consider inherently weighty and academic” (Graff 244). Schools need to channel the minds of street smart students and turn their work into something academic.
The essay intends to persuade and provoke the reader. By using non-statistical based evidence Gatto manages to build a solid case for their being problems with the education system, however, his solution to these problems is incredibly lackluster. The solution Gatto presents is simply for the reader to teach their own children, rather than have them schooled. The problem with this is that this solution will only ever apply to people who read Gatto’s essay, it fixes none of the problems with the education system. The lackluster solution is even more sad since Gatto presents good evidence that the issues are systemic, and by ignoring a potential solution the essay reads more like a consumer warning than a serious treatise on the education
These teachers are holding back their students out of doubt that they do not hold the capabilities to endure more rigorous discussions and their ability to apply these concepts to the real world since simple punctuation is all they’ll ever use. To continue, there has been another bias internalized in the education system that is disproportionately affecting students. Researchers at Harvard’s Graduate school of Education are researching how racial bias affects children in schools in their research report “Examining Racial Bias in Education: A New Approach,” by Natasha Warikoo, Stacey Sinclair, Jessica Fei, and Drew Jacoby-Senghor. Researchers revealed in their study that “The study found that high-biased instructors, as rated by objective coders who were unaware of students’ race, were more anxious and gave less clear and engaging lessons to Black students than did low-biased instructors. To confirm that lesson quality contributed to the impaired performance of Black students, non-Black students in a follow-up study watched a video of the lessons originally given to Black students and took the same test.
Ray Bradbury’s novel Fahrenheit 451, illustrates that conforming to society takes away your individuality and makes your identity a false one, which is inspired by the people around you. To start with, if you were the same as everyone else, there would be no new ideas or anything meaningful in your life. In the society of Fahrenheit 451 they were, “...turning out more runners, jumpers, racers, tinkerers, grabbers, snatchers, fliers, and swimmers instead of examiners, critics, knowers, and imaginative creators, the word 'intellectual,' of course, became the swear word it deserved to be” (Bradbury 55). This quote allows us to see how the school system creates students in the same way, by not allowing them to think for themselves. From the beginning,
She sees that students never ask questions and dig deeper into discussions and questions to create their own beliefs and thoughts about the world around them. . Those in authority positions do not want individual thoughts that lead to actions that could threaten their learning, similar to weapons in a rebelling society. She believes that the schools advise the younger generation what to think and lecture them what the truth is, regardless of whether it isn't that. The students are expected to listen,
Martha Peraza SOC 3340 Inequality in Education California State University, Bakersfield Abstract In the United States, there exists a gap in equality for different demographics of students. The factors contributing to educational disadvantages include socioeconomic struggles, gender of students, language or culture, and particularly for the scope of this paper, race.
Paulo Freire argues that the relationship between a teacher and a student is a system of oppression. Where a teacher has absolute and total control over their students’ way of thinking. Freire refers to this as “The Banking Concept of Education,” where teachers teach and students listen and don’t question what they are being told. In the banking concept, teachers are depositing and students are the depositories. To Freire the banking system of education is destroying creativity and individualism in student.
Injustice in schools and education is no secret, many people disagree with the system and the way schools teach. Children get taught mainly about what is going to be on their test and they are not being taught real-world, life lessons that will go on in their daily life. It is unjust to teach children for what is going to be on their test and not useful information that they will use in the real world. Teaching should be based on life lessons such as learning how to apply for a job, which you could learn in english class, and other things like that.
Compulsory Public Education is a Form of Social Control It is common belief that compulsory schooling is good for society and it helps us become a more enlightened group of people. Millions of parents send their children off to school every morning in the United States of America; some believe it is good for their young child’s mind and others just do it because failing to comply is against the law. But we need to ask ourselves why school is mandatory, why do we force our children to attend school? The answer to that question is to maintain social order.
Ever since I can remember, the educational system has decided how I have learned and what is best for me. When really students are more likely to be better decision makers for