Education and Empowerment

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The myth of “education and empowerment” has affected public schools tremendously in a sense that everyone is being divided, mostly by class, which lowers the confidence of our students today. Yes, there are teachers who cater to students, stay after class, and provide them with one on one tutoring and even take time from their lunch to offer extra assistance in any subject. However, there are other public schools in which teachers do not take the initiative to listen and understand when their student says “I don’t get it”. No one ever takes the responsibility as to why students are failing; they only take credit for those who are succeeding, bringing in positive results, and on a path of attaining a promising future. Jean Anyon, John Taylor Gatto, and Michael Moore have all questioned the system of public education in there articles. As a result, American public schools are hurting their students’ chances of being competitive in a global economy because they are not aiming high enough, stripping students of “responsibility and independence” (pg 158), and cutting off important resources. Jean Anyon discussed the evaluation of five elementary schools and how their social class differed and affected their students. “Several weeks later, after a test, a group of her children ’still didn’t get it,’ and she made no attempts to explain the concept of dividing things into groups or to give them manipulables for their own investigation. Rather, she went over the steps with them again and told them that they ’needed more practice”’ (pg 177). Besides learning how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide, math gives students the ability to rethink a situation, and look for other options. If teachers in these working-class schools are not taking the time to break down a simple division problem and give alternatives, how will their students be challenged or even advance to another grade level? Competition in this economy is widely based on how much money you have, what school...
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