HW 51 - School unit paper

Going to school in our culture is a big thing. From all the information and research that I have collected has shown that our culture takes getting a an education very seriously and has high expectations for each student. Throughout the articles read, interviews, movies, and books about the school system I have noticed a lot of things. I noticed that school's try to change kids lives, the school systems try and dominate our lives and try to make you go as deep as we can in our education. Teachers in particular just feed us a bunch of information and expect the student to get it. Our culture trains us to know at least the basics and tries to make school a big part of our lives by any means necessary. Because of our institutional and cultural values , school tends to dominate take over our lives and trains us to live up to the goal of being successful.

One example that shows how school tends to dominate our lives is the expectations that Mr.Fanning has for his students. When we had interviewed him in our class he was talking about many different things he was talking about how when he became principal he wanted to us to be successful. By successful he didn't mean just living a good life or just having money, but simply by getting an education. He Said that he wanted us to finish high school at least and but really wanted us to go to college. He said going to college gives us a lot of options and can make us really successful in life. The reason why he was so hard on us is so we could succeed. Hearing him say that was showing me how he only really based being successful around education. He also states that "education is the best thing you can get". Do you know what that means? Not one thing in this world is better than having a successful education. Not once did he talk about doing something that interests you to be successful or having a job that provides good benefits or money, but just education. Not saying that what Mr. Fanning is wrong but it seems to me like the only way he could see someone being successful is by them going to school. Mr. Fanning interview not only only showed the strive he was for his students to get an education, but it shows how school in our culture is meant to dominate our lives to achieve this goal of being successful.

It's got to the point where it's a crime not to go to school and if you are a parent, not sending your child to school. In this book What Are My rights by Thomas A. Jacobs, he discusses how parents who don't send their children to school have consequences. It says "In most states, parents who fail to send their children to school may be charged with education neglect. Consequences include community services hours, counseling, and or jail. Because you decide to choose a different route for your child you have to get penalized for it. The the law will go as far as taking someone to jail just so a child can go to school. This book also states that "By law, all U.S Children are required to go to school. Public education is free, as is transportation to and from school(in most communities), and breakfast and lunch programs are provided for qualifying students.". Our culture is dominated by succeeding through education. Our country really goes through the full extent of making sure that everybody has an opportunity to get an education and succeed. In this culture Education is key and you can see through this book that laws even require school to be mandatory because they feel that it leads to success also. He states different incomes based on the type of education you end up having. For example, males or females with a ninth grade education have a total income of roughly 15,000 dollars, and males or females with at least a high school diploma or GED have a income of roughly 24,000. This proving that your level of educational depends shows how much your income would be. Throughout this research found, it shows that our education is way more important than anything else that a human being can go through in their life.

As we talked about in class (3/2/10, 3/9/10), this institution that we live in wants to dominate our lives with education because of many different things. An institution is a system that has the power to make rules on a particular aspect of society. They want to dominate our lives with education because of reasons like education is the solution for peoples social problems in peoples minds or because they feel like getting a education can can give your life a purpose. This is why these institutions try and "train" us to be these perfect little students, and by doing this is by making it mandatory to go to school and making sure people pass their requirements in order to go further in their education and "path" to success. The institutions that our culture has based on school is striving to being successful, and their answer to that is making rules that impact students success in school which is packing their schedules in with school 5 out of 7 days for 7 to 8 hours each day.

Paulo discusses and analyzes the relationship that a student and a teacher have within one another. With the teacher being the "subject" and the student being the "listening objects" She talks about how the student is always the one that has to take in all of the information all the time, while on the other hand, the teacher is just throwing information at the student and expecting them to register every thing that they are processing. And that right there is the reason why education is suffering. She talks about how the teacher is never really teaching the student anything but how they are throwing information at the student, expecting them to know exactly what they are talking about. And she explains how this is one of the many reasons of why education is suffering now. She compares the the student and teacher relationship to the banking system that we have. The teacher is the one that is depositing what ever they want while the student is being forced to take in what ever they want to deposit. The teacher has one obligation and one obligation only and that is to fill the students head with their narration. They don't give the full package of teaching them the significance of what they are actually learning or anything. She basically just shows the how the teacher can do what ever they want and teach what they want and no matter what the circumstances is the student has to take in that information and hope that they can learn from it. These schools are training students to be dumb and dull and like sheep. The fact that the student half the time don't really get what they are learning they are still expected to know it. We are sheep due to the fact that we have little power and the fact that we don't really no any better compared to the teacher. While the school system dominates our lives it is argued that schools train us to take without asking why or how, assuming, like dumb sheep, that the teacher is always right.

Not only in real life but in movies they like to have this one super teacher who likes to make a change in students lives by trying to dominate their lives with education. For example in the movie Freedom Writers, it shows how they try to use education to change the students lives. In the movie there is this one white lady, new teacher, who tries and change kids who have been through everything. From fighting, to shootouts, to stealing, you name it they've done it. And this teacher realizes what these kids are going through and try to make them see the life they could have if they was to get there education. one of the students that was in the classroom had said to the teacher "How the FUCK are you going to save me from my life? Huh ?" She thought that because she was the teacher and that these kids were living horribly, that she could save them by giving them knowledge about stuff they can't use to survive in the streets with. She tries to train them like sheep, trying to make them act another way through teaching. When another student in the classroom said "What are we doing in here that makes a got dam difference in my life?" In this case particularly, school isn't the answer to helping these kids in their lives. These school systems try so hard in wanting people to go get their education because they think it will make a change in their life and assume that it will change their life from bad to school.

School is so dominated in our culture that it is compared to human survival. In this one article that I read it said many different of the impact school should have on our lives, it said "Education is as essential for mind as food for health and shelter for body. It enhances knowledge and the knowledge is the key of acquiring power. It is also an interesting fact that joy of life is within the domain of your power. So, for experiencing true joy of life, you need to be educated and hence it becomes the most important aspect of our lives." In shorter words, we can't survive, enjoy life, or have power if we aren't educated. This article makes it seem like school must apart of our lives and that it has a big impact as much as eating and having a roof over your head. Our cultural values are schooling is what makes us successful. Not even successful but be accepted in this society. This society wants school to be our salvation, to e our reasoning for wanting to live life and become something. As the article states "the very education system must move on every moment in the life of a person for the consistent betterment of life.". Our society want something of its people inside, and by showing them what it takes to be something or enjoy life you must have an education, and this shows that schooling is dominating our lives in this culture because it is a moral that the school systems and institutions feel must be met.

In conclusion, School systems try and form students lives around education and making them think that is the automatic key to success. From the interview on Mr. Fanning, articles, books on school, and Paulto and his opinions, it clearly shows how our culture analyzes school as his way of life that every body must go through. That it is the life that everybody must live if they want to be somebody important or have have a purpose for their life. Based on our societies view of education, if you didn't have an education you were nothing, non existent, unimportant. Saying this, this strongly argues that our institutional and cultural values advocates school to make it dominate our lives and train us to be the successful human beings they think it will make us.