Education is Politics

1. "Education can be described in many ways. One way, suggested above, is to say that education is a contested terrain where people are socialized and the future of society is at stake."

This quote from the reading is very powerful in my eyes for a couple of reasons. The first being that in today's society I feel that the necessity of education is lacked by people. High school kids don't mind dropping out and other students at younger ages feel like taking random days off. Now I'm not saying that a break from school isn't necessary, but people these days are taking it to a new level. Like this excerpt says school is suppose to challenge the individual in order to prepare them for the future. Not only is the future important for them to have an education, but for our country and even the world itself as well. A lot of people just don't understand that concept. It's unfortunate that our society doesn't grasp that either because the future on the world as we know it depends on people having an education. The more we learn the better prepared we are for whatever comes at us. We need to accept the challenge of the educational society, raise up to it and accomplish the goals that are set for us. We need to be prepared, let's hope more people understand that.

2. "In classrooms where participation is meager, the low performance of students is routinely misjudged as low achievement."

Okay I chose this section from the reading because I see this occurring a lot in classrooms. In previous readings like the down syndrome one, people misjudge a lot of what actually occurs in a classroom. Just because a student participate doesn't mean that they can't achieve what the educator is asking of them. Is it frustrating as a teacher to receive no participation? Of course because you love the interaction amongst your students because they can learn from one another. However this doesn't change the fact that students don't have to participate or have low performance in a classroom doesn't mean that they aren't achieve anything. Trust me they are learning when they go to school no matter the circumstances. Maybe in a way we should be grateful that the students attended class that day because it shows that they care. A lot of people don't even go to class. It came up in the last reading and it comes up again, we need to stop nit-picking the littlest things in people. It's frustrating to see it coming up in reading after reading because it's so true.

3. " Students in empowering classes should be expected to develop skills and knowledge as well as high expectations for themselves, their education, and their futures."

Part of going to school is discovering who you are as a person. On top of this in any classroom the guidelines set above in this quote should be applied to every student. The higher the bar is set the more people will grow and learn. If we maximize expectations for individuals then the success rate will lead to a brighter future. Everyday a student should step into a classroom wanting to improve their knowledge on some topic whether it's math, history, reading, etc. We need to force the development of individuals and even if the fail now they will learn to get back up and try again. This will help immensely in the future because the real world isn't so kind and the better prepared we are as a society the better off we will be. On a final thought, the lower the bar is set in any setting the less people will get out of something, but the higher the bar is set the more people will get out of it.

Overall, this reading was very informative and provided a nice insight on certain aspects of the classroom. It also exploited the politics in education and that can be an unfortunate situation for a lot of people. I just wish we would all stop being so byist in society and just see people for what they are. We should set high standards in order to better prepare ourselves and the more people succeed the more others are going to want to join in. Again another great reading.