Different Authors Different Perspectives of School System: Comparing School, Best in Class, and Superman and Me

School, in most cases, should be a place of learning, fun, and shaping students for the future ahead of them with as few distractions as possible. The importance of a good education for young, and even older people, is a major part of that person’s life now, and later. A good education, however, should not be difficult to obtain. It should not matter where you live, what your roots are, or what kind of person you are yourself. In “School,” “Best in Class,” and “Superman and Me,” the authors take on very different, and specific views on their ideas in each essay. Through Kyoko Moris’ use of personal experiences, Margaret Talbot’s use of pathos, and Sherman Alexie’s use of parallel structure and personal experience, all of these essays get their information out to the readers in a great way. Mori’s personal experiences she reveals to her readers creates a credibility and trust to her readers to support her thoughts on the school system. She writes about the similarities and differences about the school systems in both Japan, her homeland, and The United States, where she got most of her education. In the very first paragraph, she says, “School seemed as “real” to me as “the outside world--only more interesting.” Here she is talking about her friend’s thoughts and her’s about school. To her friends in high school, school was nothing, and that you wouldn’t use it in the “real” world. According to Mori, they were sadly mistaken. “My stepmother used the traditional method of harsh judgement even though she was not a teacher.” This quote from the text tells more about Mori’s childhood and how she was taught during grade schools. She was never taught “the right way” to fix her mistakes. She would just know when she was wrong. Where as, she continues to talk about how in the U.S., that is not the case. The use of personal experience in her essay was very influential to the reader, maybe even making them think a little about the education they’re getting right now.