In the essay “Don’t send your Kids to Ivy Leagues,” writer William Deresiwchiz illustrates why our prestigious
In the essay “Don’t send your Kids to Ivy Leagues,” writer William Deresiwchiz illustrates why our prestigious
In Marty Nemko’s article, “We Send Too Many Students to College,” he analyzes and questions whether college is truly worth the money. Marty “holds a Ph.D. specializing in the evaluation of education from the University of California, Berkeley, and subsequently taught there” (martynemko.com) as well as published five successful books. In addition to his novels, he previously was a columnist at San Francisco Chronical and The Atlantic Monthly, also a contributing editor at several other well-known companies. Nemko’s purpose is to convey the idea that, even though there may be reasons one would attend college, the complications overshadow the benefits. He adopts an impassionate tone in order to convince his adult audience to take a hard look at whether it is worthwhile for their children to attend college.…
In “Don’t Send Your Kids to the Ivy League” William Deresiewicz argues the weakness of admission system is that the system is unfair, rich students easily enter elite schools. By declining average kids that aren't as rich, but are smartly capable of being doing great in elite schools the system is making students insecure. Our system of elite education making articles young people who are smart, talented, and driven but also anxious, timid, and lost, with little intellectual curiosity and a stunted sense of purpose: trapped in a bubble of prestige, heading meekly in the same direction, great at what they are doing but with no idea why they are doing it.…
The application process of college was rather easygoing for the Baby Boom generation, born after World War II. The baby boomers who sought to attend a four-year college usually planned to go to a school within their state; many considered a college across the country to be far away. Few students felt the need to apply to more than two or three colleges, and many applied to just one. College choices were most often based on locality, programs, cost, and difficulty of admission, with a parental alma mater sometimes thrown in for good measure. For the most part, the whole process was fairly simple. The result was usually predictable if a student researched college information before deciding where to apply. There were shocks, some pleasant and some upsetting, but the topic of college admissions did not reach a fix of national mania. However, media reports a different story for American senior high school students. Recently many colleges have been breaking records for the number of rejections of applications; this helps competition for admission skyrocket. The best solutions to avoid this competition are to teach high school students creative writing for the application essay, reconsider the importance of the SAT/ACT scores, and avoid applying to ivy-league schools as an incoming freshman.…
The students at Ivy League universities are told that they fit into this criterion in order to coerce them into wanting to work at Wall Street. Ho regards the “smartness” of the students being swayed by the successfulness of Wall Street as mostly negative. She does not think that the Ivy Leaguers and Wall Street financiers are as smart as they are believed to be. The fact that “the best,” “the greatest,” and “the brightest” minds in the world can be manipulated and are influencing other students with material swag, massive inundation of recruiting propaganda, recruiting seminars and dinners, peer and alumni pressure, insecurity about status, and big pay is astounding to her. To manipulate someone at such a critical and developmental stage in their life is against what most stand for. College is supposed to be a time were students get a chance to explore the different subjects and careers available to them and decide how they want to make a difference in the world. For students to work hard and reach such high institutions of education, such as Harvard and Princeton, and then to have their ability to choose what they want to be stripped from them is saddening. Gladwell argues that when it comes to individual behavior “the convictions of your heart and the actual contents of your thoughts are less important, in the end, in guiding your actions than the immediate…
Martha Nussbaum’s article “Education for Profit, Education for Democracy” and Paulo Freire’s article “The Banking Concept of Human Education” discuss their differing philosophies on how to best educate people. They have similar, yet some different viewpoints regarding the subject of education.…
My mother never went to college. Despite—or perhaps [because] of—her lack of collegiate experience, she was a powerful influence on my ever-present desire for academic distinction. For her children, anything besides “extraordinary” was simply not an option. The constant pressure meshed painfully well with America’s flawed education system, which—not unlike my well-intentioned mother—continually creates an unhealthy environment of apathy in the face of competition. For the duration of my traditional education, I made intense efforts for a false, unfulfilling concept of academic success. I sacrificed my emotional well-being again and again for fleeting validation from any surrounding adults, in a desperate lifelong attempt to prove my worth…
The theory of practice of teaching and interpreting knowledge, also known as education, is generally percepted in society to be the surest path to achieving success in one's lifetime. Over the centuries, the system of learning has changed jurastically and has presented itself in a number of different ways to a variety of cultures and civilizations. The earliest forms of education date back to pre-history, which is what we refer to as the time before the written word. In that spectrum, teaching and learning was carried out only through sounds and body language; a lot like the interactions we see amongst animals today. We all know that education is of great value, and that's why in recent generations the major problems that have arised have all dealt with who gets to be educated and at what price. Those problems have been resolved and for quite some time now, a free public education has been available in the United States. The new problems are the questions like, "Is it losing quality? , Does the criteria need to be updated?" and "Is it worth the price?" The quality of a public education and the price of post secondary schooling are two issues that our country faces in today's world. If we can solve or so much as improve these conflicts then more people will take their free education for what it's worth and hopefully not have to pay as much for their college degree. Other factors that come into play when measuring how successful you will be in life are, believe it or not, demorgraphics. Your sex, race, and where your from can play a role in how much money you will make in life. These are topics that regularly appear in the modern day debate of education and they are also some of the issues that I will be covering in my paper. I will be thoroughly analyzing education and assessing my own opinions about it.…
The dominant theme in this essay appears to be this: post war social changes such as offering increased university admission promote the view of egalitarianism in education. The author's main issue with "secondary" education is the sheer numbers of our population that the United States as a whole educates.…
Education empowers and educates generation after generations. What is the result of educational standards not being met? In his essay, “America Skips School,” Benjamin R. Barber explains his views on America’s education crisis. In his essay, he talks about the absence of actions the government and society take regarding education. He expresses his views on the rise of illiteracy in America. The rising complacency in formal education leads(contributes) to an education crisis.…
One reform movement that has had lasting consequences on American culture was the education reform. Before the Market Revolution, education in America was weak, informal, and obstructive. Students did not learn nearly enough of what they needed to succeed in life. It wasn't until the Workingmen's movement and their push for free, tax-supported schooling that American education began to emerge as a powerful instrument for learning. Horace Mann, the head of the first state board of education, was the man who cemented the role of formal schooling into American society. His leadership and expertise led the way towards implementing a tool that young Americans could use to adapt to their society and learn useful skill sets to help prepare themselves for the workforce. Once new schools were up and running, a drastic decrease in poverty and illiteracy rates occurred.…
The United States has an extensive educational system that has been charged with accommodating the needs of an extensively diverse student population. U.S. educational institutions exist at all learning levels, from preschools for early childhood education to secondary education for youths, and post secondary education for both young and older adults. Education in the United States can be commended for the many goals it aspires to accomplish—promoting democracy, assimilation, nationalism, equality of opportunity, and personal development. However, because Americans have historically insisted that schools work toward these frequently conflicting goals, education has often found itself at the center of social conflict and the hot topic of political campaigns, mostly to no avail (Goldin and Katz, 2001). While schools are expected to achieve many social objectives, education in America is neither centrally administered nor supported directly by the federal government, unlike education in other industrialized countries. This system of decentralization has created a system of inequality in education that persists. The current system has created inequalities that have culminated into a generation of students that are not adequately prepared to meet the demands of a global workforce. Moreover, students in the current U.S. educational system are unmotivated and resistant to change due to irrelevant legislation and an overwhelmed system. The inequalities and inconsistencies have spawned many debates in the U.S. as the nation joins the global community (Goldin et.…
Formal education in today’s world is often the breeding ground for democratic ideals such as compromise and self-liberation. Compromise is a necessity within all levels of a democratic society, a necessity often forged within the classroom. It is learned not only by putting a variety of different students in the same class, but also through assignments which force students to look at a common belief in an uncommon way and therefore open themselves up to new ideas. Just as democracy is a pathway to freedom, so too can education be a pathway to freedom. For example, in the LA Times, Sherman Alexie wrote about his liberation from the bondage of Indian poverty through his dedication and love towards books. Alexie’s rise…
Democratic education intertwines with social justice in the respect that democratic education ensures that everyone is intellectually educated. As suggested by, Ploeg (2016) while quoting Dewey, the democratic purpose of education is further elaborated in two goals: education ought to help students develop ability to think and prepare learners for future vocations. Within these two goals, academic…
According to them, these educational goals are vital and they “have not changed the move from the Industrial Age to Knowledge Age” (p.9). However, our response and “cultural context” to each of these goals have changed tremendously, creating “brand new sets of demands (p.9).” One of these “societal demands”…
The United States has been making a deliberate movement from teaching basic academics. A national campaign to “fix” the schools has been taking place for over a decade. The shift has been from academic education (1880 – 1960) to values-based education today. In 1947, National Education Association (NEA) leader William Carr clearly stated this new agenda when he wrote in the NEA Journal: “The teaching profession prepares the leaders of the future…. The statesman, the industrialist, the lawyers, the newspapermen…all the leaders of tomorrow are in schools today.” Carr also wrote: “The psychological foundations for wider loyalties must be laid. Teach those attitudes which will result ultimately in the creation of a world citizenship and world government… we can and should teach those skills and attitudes which will help to create a society in which world citizenship is possible,…