Monday Matters #20

    Michelle Obama, or the First Lady, gave a speech to the students in a girls' school in London. Michelle Obama states that she lived on the South Side of Chicago and had no wealth or resources. She came from a hard working middle class family where her parents did as much as they could to provide their family with whatever they needed even without going to a college or University. Her parents emphasized the importance of education to her and her brother Craig Robinson. Michelle made it into Princeton and eventually made it into Harvard Law School. She returned to Chicago and started working at a law firm where she met her soon to be husband, Barack Obama.

     In her talk to the girl's, she declares that she IS an example of what is possible when girls are raised with love from close people. She speaks about how her role models had the biggest impact on her. These role models taught her how men and women should treat each other, how to nurture children, and how to show care. She describes a date with Barack Obama when they went to a community center meeting and one of the things Barack greatly encouraged was that the people of that community should dedicate themselves "to work together to work together to try to make the world as it is and the world as it should be, one and the same." She states that the missing pieces are the girls in that school who are the important part to making the world as it should be. In order to do this though, a good education is needed. Of course, because this is given to an all girl school, the gender she is specifically addressing is women. The world is as strong as the health of women. The "health," though, needs a strong education. By getting a prominent education the future of your own life is in your hands. In order to be successful, no matter the economic problems, education is the key to door of a great future. 

Monday Matters #19

        Talents distinguish us from others and make us special. The talents we have define who we are as people. However, do schools ignore and hide our talents? Sir Ken Robinson believes so. In his interview  he states that schools ignore peoples different talents. Schools have are narrow and don't let students display all of their talents as they should. The second point that he states is that we need a revolution in education and this is going to happen with a generalization shift that will happen. "Put your imagination to work." We need to collaborate and think to be innovated. The third point he states is how the schedule of school demoralizes us because we sit in a  room for a certain amount of time until bell rings, then we move to a different room and its a continuous pattern. The students of today don't believe the idea of working hard and going to college to get a job for effort like the previous generation did. The last point he went over was test's. sir Ken Robinson isn't against test but says the problem comes when testing becomes the purpose of it all. Almost as if we revolve around them and obsess over them. Schools hold students back from showing who they really are. We need to reform education so that this problem discontinues.

Monday Matters #18

   Diane Ravitch is a historian of education and a Research professor of education at New York University. It is easy to see that Diane is very interested in reformation of education. In one of her previous articles Diane states that when it comes to education the equality and opportunity is never the same. Solutions to the inequality problems are never easy to solve as well. However, to begin fixing these problems, she proclaims that education of the teachers needs to be number one! Diane also lists what needs to change to transform education. She declares that entrance requirements into teacher training programs need to be more competitive to be able to pick the best students. Money is a big problem many people face, so she declares financial aid should be given because its easier to perform at the peak of your knowledge without having to worry about money. Teachers need to be more alive and excited to teach students. She claims that schools should NOT be competitive but help one another to strive towards one goal. Also, all schools have to be EQUAL and all have the same access to resources, better teachers, and even tools no matter where they live. Throughout this article, Diane emphasis teachers. So she maintains her idea of only the best qualified teachers to teach anyone. Every student deserves the same amount of equality when it comes to education.

Monday Matters #17

     In my previous post from Monday Matters #15, the article described the unfairness and the inequality between the poor and rich schools. This political cartoon displays the true unfairness and inequality. The cartoon shows a man in a suit holding two books. The man is on either side of a dividing fence that is separating the rich side from the poor side. The two books also have differences. There is a immense hardcover book going over the heads of TWO students where they struggle to hold it in the rich school and on the other, there is a compact paper covered book going over the poor public school where there are FIVE students begging and reaching for the book. This truly displays what the article explained. The rich private schools get better quality educational tools and support than the poor public schools that struggle. This is a problem that needs to be restored right away, if not, unwanted problems will occur.