Personal Literacy and the Education Model

Response to Mike Rose's "I Just Wanna be Average"

Select and respond to 5 of the following questions:
1. In par. 2, Rose tells about being placed in the vocational track at his

school. How did this happen? Why werent his parents more involved in
making sure that he was placed in the right level?
Rose got on to the vocational track because of a mistake that the school made;
mixing him up with another student whose last name was Rose. Even Mike Rose
wasnt aware of what the vocational track meant. There was no way his parents
would have been able to get involved when their child didnt seems to indicate
anything was wrong and they were not aware of what the vocational track
meant as well.
2. What does Rose mean when he says that the vocational track is a
euphemism for the bottom level (par. 2)?
To say that a student was on the vocational track meant that the student had
no future. That student would have to go into a trade and not an actual career.
Vocational is simply a nicer way to say that someone is dumb and cannot make
it in life.
3. Rose explains in paragraph 16 that high school can be a tremendously
disorienting place. What, if anything do you find disorienting about
college? What steps can students take to lessen the feelings or
disorientation?
Nothing much really changes in college. Starting middle school, students go on a
journey to search for an identity and that journey continues throughout high
school and into college. In high school, there is so much pressure to get into
college. In college, the pressure is very much the same. Do well in college and
get a good job or get into a good graduate school. On top of that, its
disorienting because college is a new environment with a new way of living as
well. Ways to negate this would simply be to keep busy by getting involved.
Making friends would also help as well, and taking super good care of your own
body would lead to a happier day. In addition to that, staying organized and on
top of things helps reduce that disorientation.
4. Why is high school so disorienting to students like Ken Harvey? How
does he cope with it? What other strategies do students use to cope
with the pressures and judgments they encounter in school?
School is just not appealing to some people. Everyone, even some of the brighter
students, just wants to be average. School sets this standard that does not fit to
the students and the way that most students cope with this is through a defense
mechanism that proves to be counterproductive. They become exactly what they
are labeled and the school doesnt give them a chance or encourage them to rise

up to challenges. I did something like that where I too just shut down the
thought to rising to the occasion simply because I just wanted to be average;
there were just too many other people who were like me or better. The other
way to cope is to just not care about what others thought and to set a goal to
work towards. The goal acts like blinders on a horse.
5. Rose states, Students will float to the mark you set (par. 11). What
does he mean by this?
If teachers just pushed students, then they will chow intelligence. The problem a
lot of the time is that teachers, whether they know it or not, pick and choose
which students will be brilliant and focus more on the brighter set of students. If
the teacher not only set a mark, but also pushed his/her students to be the best
that they can be, then the students will most definitely reach whatever the
teacher set for them.
6. How does your experience of education compare to Mike Roses? How
does it contrast?
For one, I wasnt put on the wrong track, however, there was a time when I was
singled out and that was the transition from private school to public school. In
private school, everyone is on the same page, and they dont push the kids that
could be truly bright. I was reprimanded a lot because I was slow at what I did
but because I was in private school, I thought I was pretty advanced and well
off. All that changed with the switch into the public school system where I was
total rubbish at math and was placed in the lowest math there. That however
was too easy and it wasnt until middle school where my math teacher noticed
that I simply breezed through everything that I should have been placed higher.
Skipping a level was no easy task however, and I struggled with flying colors. A
repeat happened again in my high school career where a class was too easy for
me and I should have been placed in a higher class. Long story short, I wasnt
the best student, but I wasnt the worst. I was just average and my grades
showed that, but I believe that theres something to me that is special. I just
dont know what it is yet. Teachers also played a huge role in my life.
How it contrasted was that I had a better time than Mike Rose seemed to have.
I would sometimes challenge the position that I was in and sometimes that
worked out; most of the time it didnt.
Response to Changing Education Paradigms:
1. The education system was derived from the intellectual of the enlightenment, and the
economic circumstances of the industrial revolution. Using the tax money to open up places of
public education was a relatively recent event that happened about two-hundred years ago. I
find that to be a very small amount of time and looking back at my US history class, the way the
events lined up, the present-day educational system suddenly makes a lot of sense. I believe
this was the mold that was created and is still used now.

2. About 98% of kindergarten children were considered to be geniuses according to the

divergent thinking test. Divergent thinking is the capacity to think creatively. As the children got
older the number of people who were considered to be geniuses decreased. It is not to say that
the teachers are at fault, but the educational system that they are teaching in. The
enlightenment period only considered the people who were able to think logically and read all
the classical works as the ones who were smart and (using class example) literate. This made
the top 1% literate and everyone else dumb when in reality, most everyone has the capacity to
be geniuses.
3. The arts are suffering. The example that wasnt used in the video was the lack of funding that
the arts receive in public schools. So much more is being poured into the academics and
cramming facts into students that there is little room for creativity. A relatively recent TED talk
even talked about how American education was trying to conform to that of Chinas in structure
and rigidity while Chinese school systems were trying to be more creative like the American
system was in allowing for individuality. The reason why there were such advancements in
technologies and information is because of the creative people who were able to break out of
the mold that other people have been put in.
How does the video relate to Mike Roses story I Just Wanna Be Average.?
A majority of people dont believe that they have the capacity to become great when in reality,
they do. Creative people sometimes arent considered to be intelligent just because they dont
meet academic standards; except that they can think of ways to solve a problem that other
people cant.