Assembl line education 1st draft for essay 1

Thousands of Americans believe that high schools across the nation teach and prepare young adults for the real world. The truth of the matter is, high school has become a boring place that students are required to attend, but aren’t pushed academically. Theodore Sizer made an excellent example of this in his book, Horace’s Chapters. In a chapter called What High School Is, Sizer breaks down a student’s entire day. The purpose of Sizer including every minute of the day was to reveal to the reader how extremely boring a day of high school has become. The high school education of today has been reduced down to a series of tests and busy work. The high school level curriculum has been crippled by the state and national budget cuts. As a result, the class instructors are paid next to nothing for their work, and frankly, we the tax payers aren’t getting what we pay for. You can look around your house and see changes everywhere, but the way high school is taught has not changed in decades. Public high schools have rapidly transformed into day cares for teenagers.
All adult American’s believe a high school education is something that will help prepare adolescents for the real world. On the other hand, they do not realize that this idea is mainly false. Pupils do not learn in high school they are more or less kept busy for four years. High school is more like a full time job, than a secondary educational society. “School is conceived as the children’s workplace, and it takes young people off of parents’ hands and out of the labor market during prime time labor hours” (Sizer 136). The truth is it’s cheaper for a lower income family to send their children to school, than feed them at home.
Secondly, the pupils are taught at an extremely speedy pace. The teachers are required to touch on a long list of different materials. They make sure the students comprehend the minimal amount of substance and fast forward to the next topic. The teachers have little say over the subject matter. Their pay depends on whether or not they accomplish the state course curriculum for that subject. The most important material of a curriculum usually comes at the end of each semester and is left out due to review for state and national post semester test. The students and teachers both are graded on the scores of these tests. Learning has been abolished, and in its place stands a totalitarian society that revolves around “Gateway” and “Terra Nova” tests scores.
High school graduation was once a prestigious accomplishment, but now anyone can graduate. There is no longer an academic push for students to learn. Any able bodied mind can graduate from high school with a 3.0 average. Teachers don’t care if students slack their way through a semester. Throughout a high school career pupils are forced to take several random subjects. These subjects are mere titles, because students are taught such a small amount of material. “A great deal of material is supposed to be “covered”; most of these courses are surveys, great sweeps of the stuff of their parent disciplines” (Sizer 137). Furthermore, rarely can a high school graduate recall all the things they skimmed over in one semester. Tax payers are getting shafted every year by paying theses schools to teach and prepare their offspring for the “real world”. Essentially adolescents have control of their education and can take bull shit classes for the entire duration of their high school career. “The adolescents are supervised, safely and constructively most of the time, during the morning and afternoon hours, and they are off the labor market. That is what high school is all about” (Sizer 138).
The education earned by high school teenagers is not worth the time or money that is put into it. There just isn’t enough time for a teenager to thoroughly learn the concepts of Algebra or English in a fifty minute class session. High school is more about social interaction and “cliques” than about learning. It has become a large scale daycare for young adults.

Open Mic Night At the Back Door play House

I recently went to an open mic night here at tech. The event like always took place in the backdoor playhouse. This particular night I had gone to listen to a friend play her piano and sing a few songs that she had written after she had transferred back home from here at TTU. This night was filled with a variety of different performers. One of the first was a guy playing the guitar and singing few songs he had written for his wife. The songs seemed to be pretty good but were far from perfect.
As the night carried on I listened to singers and poets and even a few standup comics. Very rarely do I go out or view any kind of cultural event. However, this night seemed to be a great night for me to go get some culture. The radio host was probably one of the funniest acts of the night. He sung comical songs and told funny jokes. The second comic also told some funny jokes about the way we Tennesseans talk. Truthfully both were much better than I ever expected them to be.
Finally my former class mate got up on stage and sang her heart out. Her music made such a smooth rhythmic flow kind of like a blues mixed with a little rock. She caught me way of guard with some of her vocals also. During this small showcase of songs I had an epiphany, and I realize that everybody has to have a little culture in their life. Without a little culture life would be boring as hell. Variety is what makes life a great experience not some dull ass routine. They tell you life is short all the time but we never grasp that idea. Live life to the fullest and always try new things.

Fishing on Center Hill

This past weekend I traveled down I-40 to Center Hill Lake for a little fishing trip. I had googled the place and tried to find out what bait the trout were biting this time of year. The fishing reports said that the trout were biting in the swift current right below the dam. They also said a 3/8 oz. spoon was the best bait to use to catch rainbow and brown trout.
Then I loaded up all my gear and left Cookeville for the short ride down to the lake. I had never taken the curvy ass road that lead me to center hill before, but it seemed that with one wrong correction I could be launched into a never ending canyon on either side of the road. As the road continued it the cures became sharper and sharper. Finally after forty five minutes of driving I had reached the center hill dam. It looked enormous as it rose hundreds of feet up from the river bottom. I could only imagine how many millions of gallons of water it held back. I have seen a few dams in my day but nothing ever this big. After a few quick pictures I found me a spot to park my old truck.
There were only a few places to fish right there below the damn and one of them was a little park. The park was surrounding an army engineer base, and it had a few little peers that people could cast off of. I was so excited I had always wanted to catch some trout. So I rigged up my old Bill Dance Quantum rod and reel and casted out a few pieces of corn on a small hook. I just knew I was going to catch a mess of those trout. It was a beautiful day, the sun was out everything was perfect. I fished for three hours that day and never even got a bite, but that is why they call it fishing and not catching. Well if you caught something every time you went then eventually it would be no fun. The next time I go to center hill I’m going to go with an expert.

Atlanta

I recently read an essay by Murphy Davis about the city of Atlanta allowing corporate powers to take control of the public parks and housing. In Davis's paper he lists a number of buildings and parks that were either demolished or redesigned so that homeless people would have no shelter. Davis reveals to his audience the truth about the upper class of Atlanta and its disgust for homeless men and women. He mainly talks about a 1.7 acre area called Woodruff park. Woodruff Park was closed one year after he and his disciples spoke out against a city ordinance that prohibited people from lying on a park bench or against a tree by disobeying. The altercation resulted in 12 of his followers going to jail and exactly one year later the park was closed for renovation. The renovation contractors were instructed by the city to create a park that was inhospitable to the homeless. The benches in the park were made with arm rest placed so that lying down on them was impossible. The park now has no bathroom, drinking fountain or play equipment for children. The park is nothing but a grassy spot in the middle of downtown Atlanta with a waterfall. The city also took down several public housing buildings before the 96 Olympics to build a civic center, pave parking lots and make dormitories. The city has taken down all these areas and hasn't built one new building for the homeless to seek shelter in. This is a sad representation of American urban society. What are the leaders of the city trying to say about the homeless. The city is building a lot of nice places to look at, but nowhere to go enjoy a day outside. The city is becoming a dark depressing place that not even the homeless can live in; how much longer will this continue. The city of Atlanta should have places were all races and social classes can go and be on common ground.

Racism

After reading the two articles about racism I realized that something’s that I had not considered racist actually were. I am not racist in any shape or form, but some of my thoughts and actions actually fit under the racist category. Like most Caucasian children I also thought that all Native Americans wore head dresses and ran around like chickens with their heads cut off. Only now I realize how unrealistic my early assumption really was. Truthfully, the media was to blame, for how they depicted Native American culture and attitude. My conclusion was based on the only examples that I had. Now the media should be regulated on how they depict different races and culture.
The McIntosh Article also brought to my attention the advantages that white people are born with. Personally I feel as though I have never experienced any of these advantages. If I have I definitely did not realize it. I guess it is something that we all just take for granted. Caucasians in general do not have to worry about how they dress or act in public as being a representation of their stereotype. This literature reveals a lot of hidden truths that most white people take for granted. We as a race do not realize the advantages we possess; therefore, we cannot comprehend the hardships that people of color go through.
After reading these two articles I have come to realize the truth about my unknown passive racism. I am not a racist by any standard in my own eyes, but by not being an anti active racist I am labeled as a passive racist which is completely false. I believe that some followers of anti racism are overly aggressive in their definitions of racism. I realize there is a problem in today’s society, but aggressive methods and labeling are not the way to solve it.

The Tennesee Board of Regent needs to raise the hourly cap to 15 hours. Today's college student can not graduate in four years by taking 12 hours a semester. The idea of charging pupils for taking extra hours is down right robbery. If the money is going to the professors and projects that benefit the universities, then that would seem reasonable. The fact is that with this rise in tuition professor are not seeing any raises. Where is all this new moneygoing? Students should notbe charged extra for trying to graduate on time.