Self Assessment #2

1.My peer review was helpful in that it showed me where I needed to tie my claims together for what he referred to as a "late game" claim. I think this was vital to bring my essay together and connecting Kohl's essay and Pratt's essay. The two ideas are important to each other because they bring together the groups who are unwilling to learn and the groups trying to teach them and putting then in the context of a contact zone. It almost made me see the Contact zone as a kind of problem solver. Also thanks for the punctuation tips =)

2. I will be writing an entire new essay and I think i have found a direction that is more focused. I will be discussing the group, Anonymous and their effect on the internet legislation and foundation of certain bills moving their way through congress. I will be discussing how and why Anonymous is creating a viral contact zone between internet users and the government. I have not yet decided what the third essay i will be using is but i hope to figure that out over the weekend. I would also like to make note that i will be using a few outside news article in  relation to my topic and the essay ideas as a whole.

Plan of Action for Portfolio

1.     1.How has the development of internet sub cultures and the creation of groups like anonymous effects the internet? What have been the major implications of their actions?

2.   2.  Throughout history minority groups have developed some good and some bad, some of these groups even go as far as causing others trouble. In todays information age a subculture of Internet users have created a collective effort to cause mayhem and even some times become Internet freedom activists.

3.     3.In this new essay I want to use Pratt’s idea of contact zones and how the literal arts of the contact zone create a working environment where people can communicate and develop working relationships with one another. The idea of the contact zones is that the subculture of Internet users, anonymous has created a social and political contact zone because of their actions on the Internet. I am also planning on using Kohl’s idea in against school to show how the both sides of this Internet debate are refusing to learn. I think I will also use ideas from Gatto’s against school. To discuss the differences between a working system and system that does not function they way it was intended to function.

4.    4. I think my question is a strong one that has many areas of exploration. I will look at the behaviors and patterns of the group Anonymous and analyze their behavior. What I really want to figure out is are they doing the opposite of what they set out to do? I want to know whether their actions on the Internet have a negative effect on the Internet freedom acts and I want to analyze whether or not they are handling their problems effectively in today’s day and age. Some might even say that this group of people is putting themselves at risk of capital punishment but is what they are doing really bad?

5.   5.  I am interested in this topic because I have seen first hand the damage and good that Anonymous can do as a group. I think the hardest part for me is being un biased as I myself have partaken in some of the Anonymous online raids. I think that this is an important issue right now especially with bills like SOPA and PIPA, yes they were shelved but HR 1998 should be the revised bill that will be the center of debate between the government and the online community. I think this topic also strikes me as important because I want to know what motivates the Anonymous group members to be so malicious in their attacks. Is it right that they destroy people’s lives yet also seemingly protecting the Internet. Something that has also always made me curious that I might mention in my essay is how anonymous is Anonymous?

6.   6.  This paper will essentially be a new paper, yes the central focus and ideas are similar however it is on a completely different yet related topic. I think that this will extend analytically to the group Anonymous’ psyche and why they are motivated to damage intellectual property or why they are willing to protect other internet freedoms. I think that this will also provide deep insight into the SOPA and PIPA debates, deeper than anything just written about SOPA and PIPA simply because we can trace much of the negative conflict back to this group. I think I will end up asking myself, is anonymous hurting or helping these online feuds.

Essay Project 3

Please post comments about essay project 3 here!

Reading Journal 6

1. Shorris' project is simply to provide any "student" with a background education that makes them successful in their other pursuits. A sort of school that teaches higher thinking and logic and reasoning over preciseness and correctness. The new liberal school was embracing the ambiguity of its new education style. Shorris does a good job at picking out what he thinks are the most important things to teach. He discovers a sort of foundation for a sturdily taught education. However I believe his argument is limited to a certain domain because i believe this education would not work for someone out side of the lower class. Precisely because the background education is different, the life style choices are different, It was best said in the beginning to the essay people needed to be taught "a moral alternative to the street".  He did just that with the types of literature and knowledge he introduced those students too, however what if an alternative to the street isn't needed or you have had other outlets in your life because of your economic status. Well, I don't believe those people are looking for that same sort of liberal education. Yet i do believe that the curriculum of his school is sound for teaching basics to people and offering them "a moral alternative to the street".

2. Much like Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" the alternative education presented by Shorris is by all means the light to witch people find their way out of the cave, Identifying for themselves the world in front of them.

3. Would this sort of education work on people not impoverished or depressed. Or would this sort of education be just another history class about the grey men of the days way back when? Would the effect of the alternative education be the same for students from different economic classes?

Given the chance, would you participate in an alternate style of learning or would you question your peers' questioning?

Readin Journal 5

Mcintosh's "White Privilege and Male Privilege" discusses the racsim and disenfranchisement of people other than white males. She begins by letting us know that the world works a certain way. No matter what there is a world of people who are segregated into groups and despite our best efforts to remain unbiased in our judgment of others that is just how society pushes us to be. Examples are given and the best example I read was that going to a bookstore you can find authors of your particular race grouped into what a supermarket would look like. I think of the example of aferican american literature. There is always a section for aferican american literature or there is always a section for women's literature. isn't it all just literature. Society has pushed us into certain societal "norms" and this has created a sense of privilege in many groups and in reverse has also made many people feel as though they are not properly represented.

Discussion questions

Do people stick to their" Water Cooler Group'? and why do they tend to be this way.

How often do we find our selves associating with people that are only like us and when we are with people like us how do we see the other groups?

Are people misrepresented in situations where there groups/culture/race/sex should be the one leading the conversation. And is there one group making all of the decisions for every other group?

Reading Journal #4

1. In Kohl's "I Won't Learn From You" he raises many points about how fear of failure and willed not learning go hand in hand, "Conscious, willed refusal of schooling for political or cultural reasons is a response to oppressive education." Kohl is saying that willed learning is someones response to the way they were raised and that just because people are choosing to not learn doesn't mean that they can't. Take the story of Barry for example. Barry was a student that refused to learn because he had been given free reign in the classroom. He chose not to read with the rest of the class, yet we knew he was capable of something because he was a natural leader and someone whom all of the kids knew. What was his problem? He was afraid of failure, however when he was given to tools to succeed, he passed with flying colors, eventually even developing reading skills. Kohl also states "Until we learn to distinguish not-learning from failure and respect the truth behind this massive rejection of schooling by students from poor oppressed communities, it will not be possible to solve the major problems of the education system of the United States today." This is a great claim! its juicy and to the point and what i think Kohl is getting at is similar to my essay, he believes there is an alternative out there that can help students learn in different ways. Not learning and failure have their differences and when we fail to recognize this we let students past that may have willfully not learned the material, not because they are dumb but because they didn't want to. The question then arises, how do we make ALL people want to learn?

2. Kohl argues that we cannot solve the problems with America's Education System until we have distinguished not-learning form failure. An all to common problem in harder areas of the united states. for whatever reason the students and teachers seem to be reaching what Pratt would refer to as a contact zone. In this contact zone students meet teachers, students are armed to the teeth, with "NO", "I DON'T WANT TO" and "SHUTUP". What weapons does that leave the teacher with? The primary issue is that these kids are not being taught they way they should be. The children in classes choosing to not learn are not being catered to instead they are being treated as failures which in some cases, like Barry's, is exactly what they need in order to learn. This brings to question in my mind, what are the alternatives? Yes, we have seem remedial classes and other sorts of alternative schooling, but these classes i feel do more harm than good when it comes to helping students learn in different ways. These classes are used for students who teachers sometimes have given up on. How is the education system in America supposed to change if the students are not learning. Is it not the teachers job to find ways around these barriers and adjust to the students that they are teaching. There are many questions as to why we have the problems within the education system that we do and it is a curious thing that students would choose to willfully not learn instead of participate. Yet to each his own and if thats what it takes is a teacher going the extra mile to teach a student I think thats when the teacher is doing their job correctly. Now I'm not saying give one teacher a whole group of these kids but what i am saying is that the teachers need to be more accommodating to these students because in the end they are just the students of a compulsory education system. They are not the ones making the lesson plans. I think more of the weight of this problem lies with the teachers and less with the students.

Essay #2

Brendan Young

English 101: Feller

Essay #2 2/1/12

Education: Selective or Elective

            Children are often afraid to raise there hand in class and in many cases the chirping of crickets ensues as a teacher stares back at the students, which are supposed to be learning. This is an all to common sight in today’s day and age. Students afraid to learn from the wrong because they are taught at such a young age to always be correct. When did being correct become the only way to succeed? In John Gatto’s “Against School” he argues that, “Children learn things not because they are doing something wrong but because they are doing something correct” (Gatto 2). Does our current compulsory school system teach students that you cannot learn if you are wrong? From a young age every child has heard that you learn from your mistakes, is it true? We are putting out children through a school system that does not allow children to learn from their mistakes but instead punishes them. Gatto also argues that there are many people who have been successful that have not participated in what we would consider a “traditional” schooling (Gatto 2). In fact some of the greatest minds in history have been people who don’t seem to fit into the traditional system of school. This raises the question, are there other ways to learn that would be more effective than the compulsory education we have in place today? The tools to educate in other ways is out there, it is possible for people to learn through, homeschooling, private school, alternative and vocational schools, even a self-paced learning environment where the tools and materials are provided and you teach yourself.  A stretch? Maybe but we will see that people have been successful with independent study many times before. There is no way around it, the current education system is compromised, inadvertently we have stunted the growth of knowledge in our students by teaching them dependency and uncertainty and to curb this there should be alternatives in place for people who wish to learn effectively in different ways.

            Many people have seen there way through America’s education system and pushed on to receive their degrees from universities across the country but are they educated? John Gatto gives an example of people who have been wildly successful without a complete education, Ben Franklin, Thomas Edison, Abraham Lincoln, John Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie (Gatto 2). These men by all standards have been successful but they did not receive the education that we are forced to put ourselves through. Had any of us opted out of school at a young age to pursue other ventures, we would be faced with constant opposition. Family and friends would only be disappointed and employers would say that we are undereducated and unable to perform daily tasks. There was no strict education system in America until the early 1900’s, how were people successful before then? It would be ignorant to say that the people of America’s history, who did not have a chance to receive the education of today, are uneducated. The argument that if you don’t go to school for 12 years you will never amount to anything doesn’t hold any water. It has no validity because we have seen “non-traditional” styles of learning work in the past. Is there any reason we should not consider accepting a different style of learning like some of histories greats? Benjamin Franklin, was not only a founding father of our country but he was also a skilled printer, author, political theorist, postmaster, scientist and inventor. Today he would be considered a dropout.  However the self-paced study that Benjamin Franklin put himself through would challenge most students with a heavier than average load at Yale. Yet self-paced instruction is not an option. It is not wrong to take education into your own hands and learn things on your own.

Clearly the only way to learn cannot be the rote style of learning we receive in our classrooms today. Is the Traditional system of learning working? In the sense that it is turning out individuals to the next level of education, yes it is working. But are the individuals that make it through the schooling system educated? Plain and simple, students in school systems are not actively learning. In Gatto’s Essay, “Against School” he states that, “Boredom is a common condition among school teachers” (Gatto 1). Not only is it a plague that affects the teachers but also it easily spreads into the minds of the students. Active learning is apart from boredom; if a student is actively learning and engaged then there should be no mention of boredom. Where our system fails is that it promotes repetition of material and the rote style of learning that seems to bore students to death by battering them over the head with the same material over and over. Tasks in school have become so tedious that students are no longer learning for themselves; instead they are going through the motions to “make the grade”. Ken Macrorie’s “The Poison Fish” gives us insight into the dilemma above:

Most English teachers have been trained to correct students’ writing, not to read it; so they put down those bloody correction marks in the margins. When the students see them, they think they mean the teacher doesn’t care what students write, only how they punctuate and spell. So they give him Engfish (Macrorie 1).

The idea of Engfish, presents the essential problem with the education system today. Students are not learning for themselves instead they are learning for the teacher, learning how to do everything correctly so they receive high marks. Schools, over the years, have become less and less effective at accomplishing their goal of educating children because students have fallen away from learning actively and more independently. Thus creating a dependency on instruction to function later in their careers.

America’s education system is compromised. It is riddled with boredom and disinterest. It is almost as though America’s school system is an environment in which active learning is rare. This isn’t the first time that we have seen a compulsory system of education have its road bumps, Prussia had one and this raises concern for the future of our “educated” people.  The goal of the Old Prussian system was to, “deny students appreciable leadership skills and to ensure docile and incomplete citizens- all in order to render the population manageable” (Gatto 3) By not allowing students to learn independently as well as actively we are inadvertently depriving them of the skills necessary for them to be complete citizens. While our schooling system may not be exactly the same as the Prussian system of the past our school system definitely has similar flaws. This brings to mind the phrase, “The world needs ditch diggers too.” This is no way for us to teach our children, instead we should be teaching our children to achieve, it is the job of the older generation to give the children and students the tools and motivation to be great. The world doesn’t need ditch diggers, the world needs free thinking individuals who can create and dream individually to advance and enhance the lives of all people. Gatto may be against school but not education, he finds a simple solution; we need to teach the future generations to be leaders and adventurers, teach them how to think critically and independently and most importantly it is out job to challenge and always continue questioning.

            If you want authenticity you have to initiate it. This is the true way to learn and we can see that from the successful people in our past. There are many styles of learning and there should be more than one option.  Ken Robinson of “Ted Talks” says we are killing the creativity of students in schools and he could not be more correct. We need to inspire the youth to make the changes to their own education, no longer should we as students be able to say this is boring, if its boring then you aren’t pushing yourself because no one can cure boredom but you and our current schooling system is not pushing us to be involved because there is one right answer. We know that we can learn from wrong, and that independent self-paced study has been successful in the past but are there more options? Could we let students pursue their own course of study and direct themselves into a profession with which they feel naturally inclined to. Would it be a viable option to give students a building full of the educational material and their peers and learn from each other, with just support from “teachers” rather than direction? Would students still be motivated to learn on their own? There are other options to consider as well, such as keeping the current system and changing our children are evaluated and divided.

            Going about changing the current schooling system would not be easy and of course face opposition. No one other than the students themselves should dictate how they educate themselves. The compulsory education system in place now has no doubt turned out many individuals who have gone on to great things but is that a result of the education they received or a result of their personal conviction and work ethic? And If that is the case then what is to say that the individuals would not have been as successful in another learning atmosphere. As students, what we can do is strive to be better, this means go beyond the minimum, don’t be afraid to challenge ideas or question. It is our job to have ideas and our job to continue learning at all times and most of all; we all have to start being wrong. That is when the learning will really occur.