Education Is Politics

Since middle school I have learned to dread my classes throughout the day. No longer were my school days fun and interesting. Instead I was forced to live a life of bulleting and highlighting. Instead of being able to show creativity and imagination in school I was now limited to the studying of certain materials and then being tested on said materials. I feel as though this played into the Shore reading "Education is Politics". As I mentioned earlier since middle school I have been forced to just sit there and listen to my teachers and then when it came time to be tested, spit out the information like a puppet. And the only thing that changed through the years is the length of the class. Sadly while working at the Mary Fogarty school I have witnessed the same exact same thing happening.

As I sit there with my small group I watch on as the teacher stands in front of the class teaching her students the basics of math. But all why this is happening the students are either fidgeting with their fingers or the pencils in their desk. And personally I feel it’s because they are learning the same exact thing every day for weeks on end and as stated in the reading,  "If the students' task is to memorize rules and existing knowledge, without questioning the subject matter or the learning process, their potential for critical thought and action will be restricted."

     This reading reminded me a lot of the movie "The Freedom Writer's". I think it reminds me of this movie because a lot of this reading had to do with the participation of the students in the class lecture and the stimulus of their brains. And when Ms. Gruwell introduced games and field trips and other things into her lectures she really got a large amount of participation.