My Favorite Teacher By Thomas Friedman Summary

“Essentials of a Good Education” is an article by Diane Ravitch regarding the No Child Left Behind legislation and its effect on public schools in America. According to her, since that legislation was put into place, schools have cut funding to subjects that don’t get tested. This has taken some of the most ambitious students in the schools in poorer communities and put them at the same level as the students that don’t care about school and don’t try. That keeps the ambitious and advanced students from reaching their full potential in school. Although Ravitch makes good points about her opinion, she doesn’t consider any opposing opinion and she cites little to no sources for her information.

Why would anybody want to be homeschooled? In Schooled, by Gordon Korman, the main character Capricorn Anderson goes through a lot in the story but on and on in the story it gets better. Capricorn Anderson grew up with his Grandmother Rain on Garland Farms, which is an alternative farm commune. Capricorn Anderson is a 13 year old hippie who has been arrested for the first time because he was driving without a license. He was driving because his grandmother, Rain, fell out of a plum tree and had to go to the hospital. She broke her hip. Now since Rain is in the hospital, Cap has to go into foster care because there is no one to live with him. Capricorn Anderson was homeschooled because in the book on page 5 it says, “no school bus could ever make it up the rutted, snaking dirt road that led to Garland.” Also they wanted to avoid the low standards and cultural poison of a world that had lost its way. Now Capricorn has to go to Claverage Middle School and he doesn’t really know how it works and about the real world.

Hi Thao! You made some really interesting points, ones that I had not even considered prior to my reading of this article. I agree that love should not be something that you are constantly looking for, or that you look so much that you essentially begin to lose sense of what love really is. As for Elliot Katz, we both know that he has found himself in an unfortunate place of divorce. Do you think that his marriage has failed because he may of not found the right one or that he forced himself into loving his wife at the time? You stated that if you are constantly “trying to chase under the shadow of the perfect love. It will only to find you in a more tired, disappointed”. Essentially, Elliot Katz is unhappy within his marriage, and although

While becoming a valedictorian can be an honor to those who receive the title, others are debating whether or not valedictorians should continue to exist, or if it should switch from being exclusive to one person in a high school senior class to multiple high-achieving students with similar scores, GPAs, and effort shown throughout their high school tenure. In “Best in Class” by Margaret Talbot, the author emphasizes the idea that having only one valedictorian motivates students due to the prestige associated with the title, as shown through her use of logos and ethos throughout her essay.

Ever since Rachel McBride was young she was taught that without education you won’t become anything in life, and she strongly believed in that. When Rachel’s kids grew old enough to start school she made sure that education was one of their top priorities. All of her children were A students and if one of them got lower than an A she went down to the school to find out for herself why. The reason why the McBride family relied so much on education is because they didn’t have a lot of money. They all work so hard so that they could have bright future which evidently happened .they all graduated from college, to become doctors, professors, teachers, and

In most affluent schools, parents have the expectation that their kids are being offered a full liberal arts curriculum that will allow them to further their creativity and curiosity. However, many schools have been only focusing on the subjects that are being tested on standardized tests set by the state, because they receive more school funding if they achieve higher test scores. In her article titled “The Essentials of a Good Education”, Diane Ravitch, utilizing direct examples of schools, and policies that limit student’s knowledge of the arts in order to have more time preparing for tests, points out that this shift in focus is causing students to suffer academically and is killing their curiosity and creativity.

The reading I chose to critically analyze was written by Diane Ravitch and is named, “Essentials of a Good Education.” In the article, education activist Diane Ravitch, expresses her opinion about how the public education and schools in the United States are failing society. She indicates that schools are wasting their money and time on preparing students to pass state test instead of teaching them valuable life skills needed to succeed. She provides interesting support for this argument and explains why schools need to stop teaching the importance of test scores and focus on a full liberal arts curriculum, where students have a better chance to obtain an education they can take into the real world. Ms. Ravitch’s argument that the

In the short essay, Lies My Children’s Books Taught Me, it primarily focuses on The Pleasant Company and the ways they advertise, market, and sell their American girl merchandise. Lies My Children 's Books Taught Me, is written by Daniel Hade, who is a professor of language and literacy at Penn State College. In Eric Schlosser’s essay, Kid Kustomers, he explains the injustice of marketing, and the idea of “cradle to grave” advertizing. This idea of advertizing is basically to get a kid so attached or devoted to a brand/toy that they don 't just buy it for themselves but for their kids in the future. Kid Kustomers helps us to better understand the book Lies My Children’s Books

In recent discussion of the essay “A Talk to Teachers” James Baldwin believes he would be able to help out the Negro children more if he was a teacher in a Negro school. James Baldwin then expresses, “if I were a teacher in this school, or any Negro school, and I was dealing with the Negro children, who were in my care only a few hours of every day and would then return to their homes and to the streets, children who have an apprehension of their future which with every hour grows grimmer and darker, I would try to teach them - I would try to make them know - that those streets, those houses, those dangers, those agonies by which they are surrounded, are criminal” (Baldwin). I used to believe that the only way these Negro children

The teachers profiled in “Unforgettable Miss Bessie”, “My Favorite Teacher”, and “And the Orchestra Played On” are remembered and admired by the narrators. Miss Bessie, Miss Hattie, and Mr. K. possessed significant qualities that made them remarkable educators. They inspired and encouraged students. They only wanted the best for their students and prepared them for their futures, enabling them to overcome difficulties in school. Besides the content of their subject matter these educators their taught students to believe that their lives and future all depends from themselves: whether they would choose the clean asphalt road or dirty, bumpy one.

The Professor tells the story of William Crimsworth, in his point of view, and what it takes as he moves up in the world through his own self motivation and desire to be a somebody. He was a young english orphan whose educational matters were under the stewardship his two uncles. These uncles present young William two plans that will determine his future. Seeing no future in either options he seeks a job from his elder brother, Edward. William soon learns the responsibilities as a junior clerk and the boundaries of the relationship with Edward. As he barely scrapes by on the salary he is receiving William seeks out a new job in Brussels. He finds a job teaching at M. Pelets school for boys, and in order to secure additional employment he negotiates

In the article “Who’s Your Professor”, Bradley Wright identifies four characteristics of most sociology professors. The four characteristics Wright discusses are that professors are much older, professor’s types tends to be liberal, they are less religious than the general population of students they teach, and lastly they are not always intelligent. The first characteristic stated was that the professors are old. Meaning that because they were from an earlier generation they tend to have different values and ways of looking at things. In other words, the students and the professors share different ways of communicating and different cultural references and professors tend to point out things students don’t know and aren’t so in to.

Recently I read the book How Children Succeed, by Paul Tough. This book had five main sections. These sections included How To Fail (And How Not To Fail), How To Build Character, How To Think, How To Succeed, and A Better Path. In each of the five sections the book talked about many different points. Each point had a number. These numbers would go through about one to seventeen per each section of the book. Along with giving a summary of the book I will analyze it. We will start with section one, How To Fail (And How Not To).

“The Lesson” by Toni Cade Bambara is not just about a sassy, defiant, ungrateful poor girl that is out of place in an overpriced expensive toy store. “The Lesson” is a short story about a young black girl who is struggling with her increasing awareness of class inequality. When Sylvia’s new neighbor, Miss. Moore, a smart college educated woman introduces the reality of social inequality to Sylvia and her group of friends, they become cynical. Sylvia has always known in the back of her mind that she was poor, but never really let it bother her until she sees her disadvantages in glaring contrast with the luxuries of the wealthy.

Choosing a favorite teacher is fairly difficult when one puts into account all the types of teachers they have known, all of them are important. Teachers are the second most important people in our lives, right after our parents. Teachers are persuasive and have the power to build a child up from an immature student to become a responsible adult; or they can completely and utterly crush a students hopes and dreams.