RSA Animation Vs. The Oppressor Vs. Capitalism
Alex Etienne
At first, I thought that collaborating three separate articles into one would be extremely difficult. But, I was fooled. Turns out all of these articles about our current public education in the United States seem to correlate well when involving one specific issue: our education system in the United States seems to be flawed and we are not taking the right steps to improve it at this time. The question once again becomes what do we need to do as a nation to change this and how can we better our educational system for years to come, right now?
First, the simple fact of the matter is that there are too many minor problems in the public schools that eventually build into much bigger problems. These are things such as a poor student-to-teacher ratio, lack of funding, staff cut-backs, and in some cases even lack of teacher effort. But, according to RSA animation, ADHD is also a problem. If a student has been diagnosed with ADHD, should he be taking his medication on a daily basis, or should he be learning at a young age how to function without it? Also, why is ADHD and medicated children so much more prevalent on the eastern side of the United States as opposed to the western side? Are the numbers truly that different or are the doctors in the East quicker to give a child ADHD prescriptions that one in the West? These are all questions brought upon us by RSA animation and the next step is making a positive change for the future.
Next is the issue of discrimination in public schooling. Yes, it is that bad, worse than you could ever have imagined. But, at the same time, the public is aware and has been doing their best to keep it out of our school systems for good. According to the article Toward a Pedagogy of the Oppressor, “To be white, or straight, or male, or middle class is to be simultaneously ubiquitous and invisible? You're everywhere you look, you're the standard against which everyone else is measured. You're like water, like air. People will tell you they went to see a "woman doctor," or they will say they went to see "the doctor." This quotation really strikes me hard considering today in America, the white male is getting closer and closer to becoming the minority but yet everyone still uses him as the standard? Fascinating.
Finally, according to Education and The Structural Crisis of Capital, “Today’s conservative movement for the reform of public education in the United States, and in much of the world, is based on the prevailing view that public education is in a state of emergency and in need of restructuring due to its own internal failures. In contrast, I shall argue that the decay of public education is mainly a product of externally imposed contradictions that are inherent to schooling in capitalist society, heightened in our time by conditions of economic stagnation in the mature capitalist economies, and by the effects of the conservative reform movement itself.” In a nut-shell, what are some economic steps we can take to improve our education systems? Better yet, instead of these “internally imposed contradictions”, can we eventually all be on the same page and remember that it is our countries future at stake with these children and maybe we should all make that our main focal point?
