Aspects of Education -final draft

Angelina Reyes
ENG1A
10:30
Aug. 6th

Aspects of Education

What job you’re able to get, what status you can attain with said job, what kind of life you’re able to live all are a factor of the value of your education you achieve. There are many factors that go into being able to get an education; privileges, financial stability, passion and determination. Especially when everyone ultimately wants to end up with a career that lives up to their passion or involves not waking up every day to go to a mediocre job. Some of factors when on your educational journey are out of your power, but when you succeed at your goal of finishing your education the success feels that much better. Not only do you as a student have to do your job of putting one hundred percent of your mental effort into the material, but the value of the teachers job of giving material for your mind to grow from and material to expand your mind is also one of the factors of the case. Some teachers don’t instill enough passion into their students and that is one of the reasons they fail. There’s no one pushing them to do want they love or to strive past the obstacles that are obligated with the education needed to do with what they love. 

Into the Wild, by John Krakauer involves Chris McCandless, a privileged average kid stripping himself of his privileges to follow his passion. Throwing away his education to travel by foot, canoe, train, or hitchhiking into the wilderness. He ultimately sets his heart on ending up in Alaska his idea of true wilderness which ends up killing him. He had everything imaginable at his fingertips right out of college, with parents willing to buy him a new car or anything else for that matter, he threw it all away and even burned his money. But he saw past what materialistic things could bring. He knew that wasn’t true happiness. Chris knew that the sort of thing that he’d been looking for, looking to feel couldn’t be simply bought in one transaction. He knew he’d have to work for it but once he got there he’d be invincible. Which is kind of what our education system is today, it can’t just be bought although there is a great deal of money involved. Once you’re past the aspect of finances, the end result is all on you. Are you willing to work and dedicate yourself to this?, are you personally invested in what you’re working towards?, and at what cost is the final straw if there were to be one that would ever consider you to give up?, if there was one, was what you were working towards really what you had a passion for?

The value of education for me has always been pushed upon me as one of the most highly regarded things you can do with your life. It might just be me, but I have a feeling most parents that were immigrants to this country push their children to grow up to be doctors, or lawyers, all careers that come with obtaining a high level of education. Once you have a certain degree or college name behind your history it opens up a plethora of options for your life. Education has always had a connotation of value. To say you had a college education in previous centuries meant everything. In today’s society there’s still the same amount of value given to education to the professions that need it, if not more especially in today’s economy and daily struggles as a college student.There are many elements when it comes to being successful in general and not just in college but also in achieving your educational goals. Whether it be the lack of privileges that push you to gain a higher status or the privileges keeping you from following your passion. Being a college student in this economy can create obstacles worth celebrating at the end of a successful semester. Not only is our education as students our job to instill upon ourselves, but is the teachers to not only teach the material given but broaden our minds to concepts we gave little thought to. As a working college student, and as I’m sure with other working college students, it always seems as if I’m always dealing with some sort of hurdle either thrown by school or work and I have to effortlessly ease through it while dealing with both in my life at the same time. As discussed in the passion project where other students give their opinions and outlooks about how going about these trials, while also still seeing your passion at the end of the tunnel. A student that could have easily fit in with any of the students among the passion project could have been Jeff Bliss. A student who demanded his teacher to get up and become a hands on teacher so he and his fellow students could become involved with the course instead of just all sitting in silence to book work. When in reality, the teachers that do do that sort of teacher such as Professor Duncan Andrade, are some of the most successful in the country. Taking the time to learn where his students are coming from and applying it to his course so that it gets his students learning on yet another level. Which is what education should be made of. Teachers applying and dedicating themselves to their craft and students coming prepared to be open minded and ready to wrap their minds around every concept enough to question it. 

Being able to accomplish one of your personal goals can be one of the most accomplishing things in life. To be able to see the reality of something you've never thought possible by yourself is what is pure happiness. Setting materialistic desires aside, it's what people strive for in life. Self fulfillment is what makes them truly happy with themselves and who they are as a person. Successful people have the characteristics other people are too lazy to work for. To be successful in life you need to be determined, have a passion for what you're doing, and need to have a hunger for knowledge. In all three novels we've read in this class each had a successful main character. They may not seem all seem like a success story, but they are in their own way. In Bread Givers, Sara may have just accomplished the simple act of graduating college, but it was the way she got there was her success. In The Laramie Project, Matthew Sheppard may have had a terrible thing have done to him, but he was a success story because of what happened to him. He died not pretending to be something he was not. Just by him being himself, and the acts done to him, others saw and recognized the prejudice that shouldn't be done to anyone else. In Into the Wild, Chris McCandless was also a success by dying the way he truly wanted to live. He broke away from society to follow his passion and what he really wanted to do with his life.

Not letting anyone's opinions about following your passion and what you're doing with your life is a big part of success. If every time someone who was close to you voiced their opinion that they didn't approve of your passion in life or how you planned on accomplishing it, you would never be able to accomplish your goals or be who you truly wanted. If every time an obstacle was in your way from whatever your goal may be, the undetermined person would let it stop them and never be happy, but the determined person would find a way around it and overcome what's in their way. In the novel, Bread Givers, the main character Sara, never lets her oppressive father get in her way of making a better future for herself. Even if it meant leaving her home and family and relying solely on herself, she pushed herself to college and through all the obstacles that come with putting yourself through college. “I didn’t care where I was going or what would become of me. Only to break away from my black life. Only not to hear Father’s preaching voice again.” Determination is what made Sara never stop continuing her journey until she saw her goal become her reality. Just as Chris McCandless, never let his parent's opinion even enter his mind and have an effect on his actions towards completing his plan. He never let caring what they thought be an option and went forth with his journey as if they didn't exist.

What is the element that pushes a person to keep going? Not the actual act of determination, but something more. The hunger inside of a person to chase the pursuit just purely for the joy it brings them. What keeps you going and brings you happiness when everything else in the world fails. In the novel, Into the Wild, Chris McCandless leaves everything from his former life behind and decides to live off solely the earth and himself. Most people wouldn't dare to think about giving away their life savings or abandoning their car, but to Chris it meant something else. To Chris, stripping himself away from all of these materialistic possessions meant he was one step closer to following his passion. Every time he let go of one more thing that crutched his life of living this self reliant life on the road, it made him a tiny bit happier knowing he was on his way. As he writes in his journal, "Malnutrition and the road have taken their toll on his body. Over 25 pounds lost. But the spirit is soaring." Chris knows that he's losing weight in an unhealthy manner, but the journey he's gone through to get to that point in his life is the desire and passion driving him to keep taking his journey a step further.

 Most unsuccessful people lack the ability to be optimistic and open minded. They can't go far in the world thinking everything only has one side of it. If they're close minded then most likely it's also common that they aren't keen to learning new things or have an ever going hunger for knowledge. Successful people are always open minded when it came to new subjects, asking questions to learn everything possible is a key sign of a successful person. They apply and take advantage of what they've learned to their life. McCandless was this way exactly. It's said he was always reading and constantly keeping his brain active, with nature or hunting books learning more and more about his surroundings or what would possibly come across his path. "He was smart. He'd figured out how to paddle a canoe down to Mexico, how to hop freight trains, how to score a bed at inner-city missions. He figured all of that out on his own, and I felt sure he'd figure out Alaska too." What made McCandless successful was his eagerness to learning and attaining more knowledge about everything. Every situation he got himself into, he was able to pull himself out of just by his wits. When he was in jail for border crossing by immigration authoritites, even without an ID he was able to concoct a story to get out of. McCandless knew that knowledge was everything and the key that made him successful was his constant hunger for knowledge and never settle for just one answer.

While going to community college can be very beneficial in the long run for any student, saving money and giving yourself to explore different fields of study to be sure of what you really want to do in the long run. However, there are a few obstacles for the average community college student. The main reason students chose to go to a junior college first is due to their own lifestyles that interfere from them going to a University right off the bat. One of those obstacles being money. Many students come from families that aren't financially stable enough to support a nonworking college student, so they have to find work while also attending school. "However, because you have 15 credit hours on your college schedule, for instance, doesn’t mean that you can forget the extra study time or down time that you need to be academically successful." Finding the balance between squeezing in enough hours to comfortably be able to buy your books while also being able to buy yourself necessities is one of the hardships I personally undergo while attending college myself. Not all jobs are flexible with their work hours so trying to find classes that fit in with my work schedule is always an issue. 

From the moment we wake up, a working college student's day is already planned for them on a timed schedule. They have classes at a certain time, and have to be at work for a duration of the day at another time. All within the same twelve hours, and on top of that after their classes are over and their workday is done, exhausted and tired they drag themselves home only to have more work piled on from school. Another issue I have with college that I'm sure many other working students have is having the time to actually sit down and do the work assigned. At the end of the day, you're so worn out from going every which way to complete what you need to do for that day, by the time you get home your brain has no more extra energy to expel and that's what gets (some) students behind in their classes. "Most college classes require 2 - 3 hours of homework for every hour of class time." Many teachers, assign chapters upon chapters and review questions after class to be done the next day or next class session and not every student has time that particular day to do it. They may be stuck with a fixed schedule that restricts them to only be able to work on days they go to school which puts more stress on not only not having time for homework but not having time to study and actually grasp the concepts.

Once you have the grades for college, there’s also the major factor of whether you have the funds for college. Not only do you have to pay for the class itself, but the supplies. Books, lab materials and work materials all add up at the end of the day. College students are walking burning wallets. The amount of paper and pen ink each student uses at school is unimaginable to count. Not to mention the other expenses that come with the actual act of getting to college such as parking permits, or the gas it takes to get to your school. Even if you don’t have your own vehicle to take, I’m sure the price of commuting eventually creates some kind of dent in anyones budget. Luckily for the average struggling student there are things like scholarships or financial aid. "While there are some scholarship programs that may allow students to maintain a minimum of a 2.5, this is somewhat rare, and 3.0 or higher is the general rule." As long as you show it through your grades that you are serious about your education and are willing to put in the work, finding a scholarship shouldn't be that hard. Financial troubles could very well be the most common problem for college students today. With so many jobs demanding you to be there for a full eight hours at a time, it's hard to make the money that you need to take the classes you don't have time for. One solution for being able to finance your college education would be to look for a scholarship. There are scholarships for any kind of reason imaginable as long as you have the determination to find it. 

Not everyone in life get the chance to continue with their education. Whether it be their choice to go straight into the job field or their obligation to find work to pay bills and support their family, the ability to continue and further your education definitely is an aspect of privilege. It's the factors of whether your family is financially stable enough, supporting enough, or whether or not you can put yourself through school as an independent. Not everyone has this privilege of being able to go to school whether they want to further their education or not, its the matter of who has these privileges of being able to go or not. Chris's family was financially stable enough to put him through a University out of state as most higher class families do. With this privilege of being able to gain knowledge before following his real passion in life instead of blindly following his parent's wishes for him to go to school. And as it usually goes, with privilege comes passion. He had the privilege of going to school and getting formally educated for the sake of getting his parents off of his back, but soon after he was able to leave that lifestyle for one he actually had a desire for, and follow his passion. If he wasn't able to go to college with such ease from his parents financial stability, he would have had to work and put himself through college to fill his parent's wishes. Which is actually the life of most working students in today's age and economic status. Most students spend their whole life going to school living out their parents dreams through them. They go to college because their parents want them to not because they have anything their passionate about in particular to study. In this generation, it's common for parent's to want their children to go to school so they can ultimately find a job that provides them with financial throughout their life. “You are wrong if you think Joy emanates only or principally from human relationships. God has placed it all around us. It is in everything and anything we might experience. We just have to have the courage to turn against our habitual lifestyle and engage in unconventional living.” Not encouraging their passions but simply pushing them through the education system to find a cookie cutter job that will satisfy their materialistic needs. Due to the privilege Chris McCandless had with parents who were financially stable, he was able to complete their wants for him while still being to pick up a passion and be able to go forth and follow it though without wasting as much time as if he would have if he had to actually earn the money himself for college. 

The video, The Passion Project, spoke to me because it opened my eyes on the perspective of what the classroom should also be for the teacher. Not only is it their job to teach and make sure we understand the concept, but for themselves to also be learning at the same time. Their job is to also learn new ways of teaching but also new ways to make sure the student is involved in what they’re learning. Not only to grasp the concepts they’re learning, but to teach that having a passion about something is also important. A teacher should teach their students the basics, and more. They should teach them everything about everything, and then expect them to go outside the box and actually want to know more and ask questions about the subject or even better, to question the concept itself. "The teacher's job is instilling passion and I've had several teacher's who've done that, it's constant communication with students and constant reassurance." It doesn’t necessarily have to be something that turns into a career, as long as there’s something in your life that sparks a fire within yourself and keeps you going and keep striving yourself to learn more and never settling for just one answer. Once the teacher has done their job educating, they should also do their job of molding. Letting their students mind’s grow and giving them the material to expand their thoughts. 

Another perspective that opened up to me while watching The Passion Project was the fact that not only does the teacher have a job of teaching us written material, they have the job of creating this sort of environment where we feel comfortable enough to broadcast our thoughts to others and gain insight from our peers. Teacher's have to be able to make the classroom a place where student's minds can grow with new ideas always coming in with multiple different solutions or additions to those ideas. "In a classroom it's like a home that people can be their self and let their thoughts and things out to other people without being judged." Students would never be able to strive if they didn't feel comfortable in their classroom enough to speak their mind and voice their opinions. If they were afraid to say what they were feeling that would result in an environment for the classroom where the feel is just tense and wouldn't encourage any student to continue coming to class. Teachers also encourage this type of atmosphere in the classroom with group discussions and "fishbowl" type of teaching techniques. "Allowing students to teach each other, grow solidarity, trust and comfort between each other allows for now to rid themselves of their time consuming ego and rather spend time paying attention to the different worlds around them. We find that when you're surrounded by others exploring and expressing you can't help but explore and express your own self, triggering the mirror neurons." In a classroom where others are expressing their own ideas and opinions, students naturally want to voice theirs. Their opinion might be almost similar but completely different when it comes to one aspect of the subject but with new opinions always being thrown out in the discussion, the learning never stops.

Consequently, the ability that come with following the passions some teachers might ignite within yourself does involve a certain amount of privilege. The relationship that comes with passion and privilege isn’t necessarily so easy to see at times, but makes complete sense when acknowledged. Middle class Americans are so concerned now a days with making sure they’re children are set financially for life, they forget that they have their own interest for their life. Those interests they first show signs of passion should be harvested and cultivated as children to create happier people as adults. Too bad in society today, the only people that can truly devote as much time as they want to into their personal passionate hobbies are those who are born into already well off families. When children are born into families that don’t have to  worry about their child struggling as an adult solely on the money they’d be earning, parent’s are more likely to sign them up for sports or music programs to find something their child shows interest in. Which explains why private schools have more enriched extracurricular programs than public schools. Public schools aim to send their students out into the world with all the knowledge in the world to get them the best job and earn them the most that they possibly can. While private schools do focus on academics, but also are extremely more well rounded when it comes to subjects that aren’t textbook smart. The privilege that comes with being born within a well off wealthy family is that there’s no fear their child will struggle for money as an adult if they follow their passion. They can also fall back on their family’s wealth and do as they please. Unlike average middle class Americans who have to stress getting an education that will ensure their children will get a job that is guaranteed to bring them in some sort of money to survive, and just survive, not a job that will fill their creative urges and finances at the same time. 

Not everyone in society grows up with the same privileges as others have. Most people might see it as a disadvantage, not having the resources that would make you go after your passion in life a bit easier. But others see it the other way around. The lack of privileges you grow up with could also aid you in the long run and help you strive harder than ever before to chase your passions. The young man known as "the guy in red shoes",  Jeff Bliss, a high school student, was extremely set on getting every single advantage out of his education as possible. Having dropped out of high school for a year and then deciding to return he was eager to put every step forward towards getting an education and making something with his future. "What i soon realized was without that education i'm not gonna make any step forward toward my future",  says Bliss in an interview. His lack of privileges made him want to work harder for what those with privileges don't have to work for.  Knowing what he needs to succeed with as an adult, Bliss was extremely unsatisfied with the lack of effort the teacher was putting into by not just doing her job, but not truly caring what kinds of ideas and concepts are in her students minds about the subject taught. With a teacher with no passion for her job, Bliss was disappointed in the lack of effort his teacher was putting into interacting and getting involved with her students which was no help to students like Jeff who don't want to get cheated out of their education with teachers who don't probe their students' minds. "When i had dropped out and decided to come back i was determined to do better for myself, and build that future because before i had dropped out i didn't have a dream, i didn't have a vision from 5-10 years from now, and when i think of that i think of how many other students out there in this country are faced with the same thing. And that's one of the key points is it's not just my education it's OUR education, and if we embrace this we can make a positive change. But if we just wanna push this to the side, i expect to put the same problems again and again." Bliss knows exactly what the outcome is to teachers like this, and the stand he created was not just for his own purposes, but for the bigger picture. Bliss knows that not every student comes from a household that can provide the privileges that allow people to go after their passions, and that's exactly what he's standing for.

If every teacher put the same amount of effort that Jeff Duncan-Andrade did into their profession, there wouldn’t be students like Jeff Bliss begging for their teacher to put some food for thought in their heads. The andrade video was very moving because it gave the perspective of the teacher's point of view. Something us students, never really get into the mindset of. Not only was the Jeff Duncan-Andrade's point of view an aspect, the fact that this particular teacher taught in such an area so concentrated with gang violence and was still able to adapt as a teacher and deliver his students the education they deserved."His research interests and publications span the areas of urban schooling and curriculum change, urban teacher development and retention, critical pedagogy, and cultural and ethnic studies."Not only did he go above and beyond to learn the requirements of becoming an average high school teacher, he studied a span of subjects that very well have to do with the students he planned on teaching. Studying subjects like cultural and ethnic studies, and urban teacher development and retention would help any teacher understand their students on a deeper level, and thus developing their own skills as a teacher by learning techniques for every kind of unique individual learner who crosses their path. If every teacher acknowledged their surroundings, and environment they'd realize what kind of students they're teaching and different ways to approach learning techniques just as the andrade video displayed.

Studying those kinds of subjects not only broadens the teacher's perspective, it also let's the student become more comfortable with the fact that they know that this person trying to tell them what they need to do in order to succeed knows where they're coming from and what they're going through the rest of the time that they're not at school. "Students have to feel like they're at home so if they wanna be comfortablethey gotta get comfortable with the teacher. We kinda have to know about the teacher and we gotta feel like the teacher is real, like he or she really truly wants to help us." If other teachers took classes or studied about different subjects that applied to their students such as social media, or classes on the ever growing technology our younger generation grows so easily to adapt, they'd be able to relate to us students continuously on growing levels. Helping them as a teacher and also producing a better outcome overall by producing more successful students. If we had teachers like Andrade in every community that was overpopulated by violence and crime, the world would soon see what an impact our teachers have on the students of our community. 

The value of education is irreplaceable. With the challenges that come with the journey of getting a certain degree, it makes your success at the end that much more of a celebratory moment. Not only is the path of a better education a journey among yourself and your thoughts, along the way it instills a passion in yourself you never knew was possible. Most of your life at this point in time as a college student has been devoted to education, and being able to achieve your educational goals has the most value in itself.