Academic Selves

I did not like what Pipher wrote about at all. I disagree that girls are less intelligent than boys, the girls in my classes were alway the outspoken and smarter ones. Maybe Pipher's classroom experience was different than mine, but she seemed to be putting down girls' intelligence as a whole. She's generalizing that all girls aren' as confident and intelligent as boys are and I don't think that's true. Reading this essay insulted me, never in my life I put becoming popular in front of my studies. That is so stupid to put something like that in front of your education. Pipher seemed old fashioned, she is stuck thinking that women are only housewives who are dainty. But today's girls aren't; Pipher left out that there are some women who do make it as doctors. Statistics show that more and more women today are going to college. They are getting their degrees and they are having very successful careers. On a personal level, more of my female friends pursued in the more complex classes and moved on to going to college. Pipher only focused on the girls with low self esteem and claimed her findings as the whole population of girls. These girls shes focused on seemed like the type of girl who is not involved in any extracurricular activity that builds confidence. Why do you think our society has something called Girl Scouts? Their motto clearly states that Girl Scouts is there to create strong girls. Girl Scouts has definitely helped create stronger and more confident women today.

English 99 - Frank Gannon

Once again I would like to thank you for assigning a very short reading. And surprisingly I enjoyed this one! I think it's because I relate.

What I liked about this essay was when Gannon was listing the different types of groups in his English 99 class. I found that factor so true, even in our own English 100 class I notice we all have our own groups we associate with. And it was interesting reading the different styles of their writing, like the bored girls wrote about boys and clothes. The jocks wrote about partying and hot girls, and the Refugees wrote about their home town and the hardships. Even the writing topics between me and my best friend vary drastically. Last year in AP English 4 we had to write a practice essay for the UC's application free response essay. I wrote closely to the bored girls' and jocks' topics. On the other hand my best friend wrote about moving to the U.S.from Vietnam. And I realize that we have this barrier of different lifestyles, I was born here on U.S. soil and my best friend immigrated to the U.S. when she was seven. My life is nothing like hers, mine even might seem boring and I think Gannon thought the same about the bored girls' and jocks' essays.
I felt that Gannon was trying too hard to put up the image of a Professor. He had the look of a professor down but he didn't have the motive to teach this class. Gannon was expecting to teach the smarter bunch, he wanted to read amazing quality papers not papers written in "see spot run" form. English 99 as Gannon described it "was there so that the college could get some money from these kids before they flunked out or quit." -page 215
The college already has a bad image of this class and Gannon didn't do anything to turn it around. On page 217 Gannon stated how you learn how to write well, "You don't learn it, you learn how to do it." I do agree with it, but I thought that Gannon was being hypocritical in that he failed to help correct his students grammatical errors. Is Gannon teaching his students like Mori's Japanese teachers? Tough love? At the end of this essay I was very disappointed in Gannon, he just gave up and he was biased to the Refugees. The Refugees' papers really struck Gannon hard and he passed most of them. But he failed to teach them the basic grammatical skills they need to succeed in English 101. The basic concept of English 99 was to get the students ready for English 101. -Page 217
That part really upset me and I was glad in the end that he was fired. A teacher is there to help students to succeed in anyway possible.

Learning in the Key of Life - Jon Spayde

One thing I know for sure is that in today's society the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. It's hard for the poor to make it if they do not get a formal education. Spayde introduces this problem in the beginning of his essay. He infers that education closely resembles class which I agree with. Usually when we hear about someone dropping out of high school in today's society it is frowned down upon, just like the rich man frowning upon a homeless man. Another example would be comparing Masters Degrees to Lamborghini's. Spayde introduces other author's personal views on education. I found it hard to understand Shorris' point of view particularly because I grew up in a well to do neighborhood and attended a decent high school. The humanities I felt have always been present in my educational career and it's hard to think of life without them. But I do agree with Shorris' point on the humanities make you rich in terms of life, last year I took AP Art History. Yes, it's not a class that will help me find the cure for AIDS but it made me feel much more cultured. I feel more refined that I know of the great art works of the masters. A journalist named Miles Harvey stated that we do not have enough time in our lives to learn about all forms of great literature. He made a point which I think is true, Americans would rather have an extra day off, than to learn about another great writer. Schools today add to the curriculum for example the choice of only one great author. I disagree with that, I think in education we, the students should be getting the whole deal. If two authors are as important but we only are taught one, then we are getting the short end of the stick. Teens will never know how great that author is. Personally I would have not known about them unless we read them in class. Spayde questions Harvey's statement with the fact that people truly learn if they have a natural interest in the subject. Students can find Shakespeare hard to follow because they have a lack of interest. As a student, I partially agree with Spayde's rebuttal, it is much harder to read and understand literature like Shakespeare. Shakespeare and Morrison is nothing like Harry Potter. With Harry Potter I finish a book in a day and I don't have to reread any sections to understand fully. Shakespeare it's the opposite, I struggle with the language and it's more intellectual composition. What I disagree with Spayde is that some novels that I have utterly despised have helped me with my writing and opened my mind to new horizons. Last year I was forced to read The Heart of Darkness which I HATED. It was too complicated and dull for me, but I am glad I read it. I feel more cultured in that I can alliterate to that novel in my writing and I understand in the media when it is mentioned. The Heart of Darkness also made me realized how corrupt society can be, it was like a warning on what the consequences are and how we can better ourselves.

School -Kyoko Mori

Mori starts off her essay with something I am very familiar with. If you don't get the highest grades, get into the good classes, pass all the exams, or go to college you are a failure. I'm sure most Asian teens get that at home. But she moved on to something that surprised me, Japanese students don't get a second chance. I knew the Japanese school system was strict but not that strict! Mori, made me realize that we take our education system for granted. Mori explains to the us that yes, in Japan they have a type of junior college but if the student is unable to get accepted into a college they give up all hope. Here in the US you can stay as long as you like in junior college and we have councilors to help us step by step to transfer to a better University. Many of my high school teachers told my class that they screwed up their life in college but were able to rebound later in life. That type of story for the most part gave our class the message that anything is possible. That we can take a bad experience and turn it around. Some of the most influential teachers I've had in my life went through something like that. She also writes that middle aged adults in the US have the ability to go back to school if they are unhappy with their previous occupation. Japanese middle aged adults do not have this opportunity; they are expected to suck it up and deal with it. The one thing Mori stresses on is that Japanese teachers never taught how to write. All they did was criticize the student that their punctuation was off or overall they're essay was horrible. Here in the US, teachers take the time out to point out why that sentence was awkward or at least put at the bottom of our essays "Talk to me about this after class." This is one thing I know that I've taken for granted. I had no idea that there was a way to write. It has all been fed to me subconsiously, after I've read this essay it's had for me to think that in Japan creativity is something they value less. She also describes that her Japaneses teachers in high school made her write about black and white topics. Prose, plot, themes, characters, and rhetoric on a book. For those who have survived the AP English classes this might sound familiar. This was the kind of topics I had to write in high school and why? To prepare for the AP test. I was lucky to have an AP teacher last year who acknowledged us to write what we are thinking about. He wanted us to keep the concept that writing was an art form. My AP teacher was very liberal and he would complain that our educational system was transitioning to numbers and grades. That art will soon be lost. Most of the art that the Japanese do learn are the real traditional things like ikebana. I'm Japanese and I know that the traditional arts are really hard and they follow a strict code. If you do something wrong it's thrown away and you're screamed at. Who wants to learn in those conditions? The Japanese educational system that Mori describes seems to be already in the direction that our educational system may head in the future. The thought that the American education system may move in that direction is one of my biggest fears. The impression that Mori gave me about the Japanese educational system was that students were like robots. They are taught a specific task and it's their job to repeat it until it's perfect. Robots don't ask questions, humans ask questions. Mori writes that the students are suppose to respect the "sensei" and that the sensei is God. Nobody defies God. I was always taught that asking questions was a good thing, that there was no bad question. Teachers here don't scream and shout at a student who questions their lesson unlike their Japanese counterparts. I was quite shocked that Mori's friends did not like it when their teacher wrote that their paper was awkward but they had a good voice. Personally, I have always enjoyed a response for that it made me feel less like a failure. That I had the potential in me to write an amazing paper. Americans truly take our educational system for granted. We are lucky to have teachers who are willing to take time out of their busy days to explain what we did wrong and teach us how we can improve ourselves. Why do you think our professors have office hours? I'm glad we don't have such strict guide lines in writing and in our lifestyles. But I am still fearful that the American educational system will shift to what the Japanese already have. Who wants to live in a world where you are just a number and not seen as a person. After all, technologically the Japanese are a few years ahead of us.

Football Is a Sucker's Game

Universities and getting so much money from football games because the attendance is so high. Season tickets for football at UCLA are ridiculous, my friend has to pay extra for it because it's not included in the tuition! And now that I think about it, they get a ton of money off of merchandise too, everywhere I turn you can buy UCLA or USC merchandise. I heard in Japan UCLA has its own store to sell shirts and sweatshirts bearing its name. My own high school sells this crap at the grocery store. And yet, does tuition decline? No, the university is putting more and more of that money back into the sport to improve its stadium! And once they have a fancy new stadium but a bad team. What do they do? They bribe an even worse team to lose! I've always seen college football and professional sports full of corruption. Why should a professional football player get paid so much for getting beat up on the field? Verses a life saving doctor or the common teacher who spreads knowledge to all. Have you ever watched MTV Cribs? I find it appalling when a sports figure is featured on the show; they have so much money that they invest in some of the most ridiculous things. Sokolove mentions that some coaches make about 2 million a year for doing almost nothing. On page 127 Sokolove writes that a university president resigned after mentioning that he raised a basketball player's GPA. If the school suspends the team's star player, fans will get mad. People will stop coming to games and thus the school will lose money. The world of college sports is full of corruption, schools just want the money and the recognition that their school is the best. I believe that the universities have lost the notion that sports is about enjoying the moment. They see it as one huge marketing scam. And then you look at the die hard fans, they go because they love the sport and are suckered into dishing out the cash. Marketing doesn't just stop at selling items but has expanded to young children dreaming of going to that particular university just for the team. I asked my younger brother what school he dreams of going to and he answered, "USC." I asked him why he wants to go there, why not UCLA? And he replied, "Because USC has a better football team." I didn't agree with that answer. There are many different schools that aren't publicized at all and still are great schools! I think it's wrong that schools like U.S.F. to add a football team to get more publicity. This will just lead to more corruption in our society.
"Football is the S.U.V. of the college campus: aggressively big, resource-guzzling, lots and lots of fun and potentially destructive of everything around it." -page 145
This is so true from my personal experience in high school. Basically our football team sucked ass. We lost almost every single game and our team was filled with a bunch of morons. And yet they got all the luxuries from huge pep-rallies, new equipment every year, crowds at games, and now selling merchandise at local grocery stores. I find this ridiculous! I used to run on a number 1 ranked cross country team and we never got the royal treatment football had. I saw this as unfair, why should a team that sucks and is full of corruption get brand new equipment? And a team that actually wins gets the hand-me downs? I always saw the cross country team as the underdogs of the sporting world at my high school. We were a bunch of super hard working, decent people but we never got nice stuff like football did. It was always a dream of my friends and I to get an all-weather track. It took 4 years, but now my high school is getting one, after i graduated.

Politics in the Schoolroom

When this essay first started out I was appalled that a fourth grade teacher would tell her students that Columbus was a greedy and a murderer. I don't believe that children should hear about these true and dirty facts, but I feel that as they reach high school they are more mature and can handle what Columbus actually did. What child wants to hear that their hero has been a lie? Personally, i would feel crushed and perhaps speak out against this teacher. Who wants their child to learn words like "genocide, holocaust, or annihilate?" Yes, in a way it will give children the idea that, nobody is perfect and perhaps give them the insight of keeping an open mind. But in our strong Christian society what parent would allow this? This situation can also lead to a bad impact, a naiive child will learn about the dark side of Columbus and perhaps may think, "Columbus was able to gain all this power by killing innocent people but still is regarded as a hero, I want to be just like him!" We have enough corruption in the media to influence young minds, now history is going to strike the young. Why do Americans criticize the Western culture? I think that we, Americans only do this to describe our own past. Well more of the White European side, have we forgotten that America consists of multiple cultures? In U.S. History books America was known as the "Giant Melting Pot" when all the immigrants came to America and ditched their own culture to blend in. There are hardly any long chapters in U.S. History about the Japanese Americans, I always felt so disappointed when we got to that chapter. I felt that a part of my heritage was missing. Truly, America doesn't stand for a "tossed salad" but a giant melting pot where the European heritage masks out everything. Learning one after another, of a corrupt White European man gets to be really boring. But when I read about an African or Aztec corrupt man, my attention increases by tenfold. Cheney writes that the standards for teaching about the Aztecs includes, architecture, labor systems, and agriculture. But ignores the fact that the Aztecs practiced human sacrifices. Why are American authors doing this? Are we trying to be more politically correct? Why can't we accept that other cultures have their own faults too? If we were to include the faults of other cultures it would bring us to the fact that yes, other people like us make mistakes.

On page 270, Cheney makes a great point; she writes that a fifth and sixth grade standard is to read a book about a Japanese girl who died of radiation due to the atomic bombs which the U.S. created. But, the standard fails to include the events that lead up to this sad story. Just like Columbus, what are we teaching our youth? What are they thinking about this? Cheney, believes that they will come to realize that their own country is horrible for harming the innocent. Where is the American pride? Nowhere to be found. Surprisingly Cheney supports a more grim and true version of history than a more happier one. But why should we allow the dark and dirty version of history when most high schools will not allow rated R films? I see no difference in either, most rated R films present the facts better than a textbook would.

Cheney congratulates the accomplishments that women have achieved in this era. More women today have ditched the housewife status and evolved into educated powerful women. Recent studies from the AAUW show that girls are more prone to think about colleges than boys. And that more girls enroll into college. There is a larger female population even here on campus! At one time most textbooks failed to include some important women of our time, the AAUW found this discrimitory. Now the AAUW reports that textbooks are starting to integrate female history into textbooks. HIStory no more, now is the time for HERstory!

But once again, Cheney cites that authors fail to include the whole story. Researchers at Smith College discovered that recent textbooks did include women but were more in favor of them. The textbooks failed to acknowledge some of the faults that historical women dealt with.